I Could Love You (37 page)

She fetches her phone. She can’t let him see her face all blotchy with crying so she pulls off her T-shirt and takes a picture of her tits in the dazzling morning sunshine. Then she sends it.

My little Christmas present, boyo. Just so you don’t forget me.

38

It’s Joe Nola who insists that they go to Anthony Armitage’s show. ‘Of course we’re going,’ he says. ‘He came to mine.’ Joe can’t drive, so now Christina’s being the car service down to Sussex. Which at least gives them some time together on their own.

Suppose you have a friend and you want him to be more than a friend. For example, you’ve been working together for weeks, now you’re sparking off each other, you know what he’s going to say before he says it. And suppose the more you know him the more you see that beneath the jokey mannerisms there’s a grave and thoughtful dreamer, wiser than his years, quietly in search of a more meaningful life. Then what’s not to love? And loving him, you watch his ever-mobile mouth and sometimes you fall into his serene gaze, still as well water, and you ache for his touch. You lie alone in bed at night speaking his name, ‘Joe! Joe!’, while your hands move over your own skin. Well, there comes a time when something has to give.

So it’s ten in the morning and he climbs into your car folding his lean body like a poolside lounger and he’s wearing a stupid beanie hat but on him it looks divine. Do you tell him now? Later? Never?

The girl is not supposed to propose, and what is this but a proposal? If you don’t ask you don’t get. Christina is worn out with anticipation. Two hours in a Fiat Bravo, a definition of intimacy if ever there was one. If not now, when?

Also, Joe has changed. He’s become quieter. Christina knows that she has been the catalyst for this change. It was she who brought Anthony Armitage to Joe’s show. It was the old man’s visit which triggered Joe’s act of artistic auto-destruction, with its ensuing explosion of publicity. The video of Joe smashing his installation has been posted on YouTube. Since then Joe has been in hiding.

‘Do you realize you’ve had over ten thousand hits?’ she says as they head south. ‘You’re up there with the shoe thrower.’

‘Right,’ he says. He’s looking out of the car window. The new muted Joe.

‘So isn’t that great? Or isn’t it?’

She wants to know how he feels about everything that’s happened. She wants to know how he feels about her.

‘Doesn’t mean much,’ he says.

‘Only that now everyone’s heard of you. Only that you’ll be able to double your prices.’

‘Right,’ he says.

You’d think he’d be on top of the world, but he isn’t. It’s like he’s decided to back off from his own life for a while. Christina isn’t stupid. She can guess what’s going on.

‘Okay,’ she says, ‘so it’s all a game. So it’s all a stunt. Who cares? Art has to have visibility, right? All that’s happened is you’ve gained some visibility. The work itself remains.’

‘Tell you the truth,’ he says, ‘I’m tired of it all.’

‘Of the stunt?’

‘No. All of it.’

‘Like, you’re tired of life?’

He doesn’t answer. They’re working their way through stopstart traffic somewhere in south London, Streatham, Norbury. Traffic lights every few hundred yards. Let him pick the topic of conversation. In his own time.

‘You know this film you’re making?’ he says.

‘Yes.’

‘You know what would make it radical?’

‘What?’

‘If it told the truth.’

‘Which truth is that, Joe?’

‘How everything I do is a waste of time. How I’ve wasted my talent, if I ever had any. How it’s all a scam.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘It’s what I know.’

Christina’s first thought is, What does this mean for my film? Does this sink the whole enterprise? Or does it make it a historic turning point in the public debate about contemporary art? Then she thinks, What does this mean for us? For the
us
that doesn’t yet exist.

‘This is because of Armitage, isn’t it?’

‘Not really. It’s been there from the beginning.’

‘Thinking it’s all a scam?’

‘The old bugger would never get a show at the Hayward. Is what I do better than what he does?’

‘That’s the way it goes, Joe.’

‘Today it is. Once it was about the work. But we’ve lost that.’

‘Now you’re turning into Anthony Armitage.’

‘Come on. You know it as well as I do. He’s right. Of course he’s right. The minute I saw him looking at my work, the minute I saw his face, I knew he was seeing what was really there. Did you hear what he said?’

Christina has heard it a hundred times, back and forth in the edit suite.

‘“Loss”. He said, “Loss”.’

Joe laughs, but it’s a laugh like he’s hurting.

‘Loss,’ he says. ‘Right. Loss. So I’m fucked. What do I do now?’

‘Well,’ says Christina, ‘whatever it is, the world will be watching. You smashed up one kind of work. They’ll want to know what’s going to take its place.’

‘Fucked if I know.’

‘Plus I need an ending for my film.’

‘You and your bloody film.’

‘You and your bloody existential crisis.’

That makes him smile. They drive on. Then his thoughts find words again.

‘Don’t you ever feel that everything we do is parasitic? It’s all so fucking referential and ironic. It only makes sense because way back people created real beautiful things. If Leonardo hadn’t painted his
Last Supper
I could never have got away with that breakfast table.’

‘So that makes me a parasite on parasites.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too. We’re all just pissing away whatever talent we might have on fairground rides.’

‘Nothing wrong with fairground rides. They give pleasure to a lot of people.’

‘Don’t talk like that. You’re better than that.’

‘How do you know, Joe?’

‘I’ve listened to you. I’ve watched you. You’re good. You’re worth more. You think your own thoughts. You’re an original.’

Christina keeps her eyes on the road but this is good. This is the first time he’s ever said anything serious about her.

‘You too, Joe.’

‘No. I’ve got nothing to show for it.’

‘Yes, you have. When you took that hammer and started breaking up your own work you became an original work of art in action. You’re living your art, Joe. Even here, talking to me about how it’s all a scam. We use art to reach for kinds of truth, right? Isn’t that what you’re doing?’

‘Truth. Oh, boy. Been a long time coming.’

But she can tell he’s pleased by what she’s saying. His tone isn’t so bitter. So she thinks, what the hell. Now or never. What have I got to lose?

‘Can we talk about something that isn’t art?’

‘Please. Anything.’

‘What do you mean when you say I’m an original?’

He doesn’t answer for a while. Then he says, ‘You bought a hammer. Scary.’

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

‘And you’re funny.’

‘Better.’

‘And beautiful.’

‘Really?’

‘And you can drive.’

‘I sound perfect. What’s the snag?’

‘There isn’t a snag. Why does there have to be a snag?’

‘Because if I’m so wonderful, why don’t you fancy me?’

There. No more games. Jump right in. So much easier to have this sort of conversation when you’re driving. Keep your eyes on the road.

‘How do you know I don’t?’

Not exactly an affirmation.

‘I’ve fancied you from the start.’ Make it sound like a girly crush. ‘Why do you think I put up the idea of doing a film on you?’

‘Okay-ay-ay.’

It’s like he’s testing the idea for strength, as if it might collapse under him.

‘Don’t worry, Joe. You sound so worried. You don’t have to do anything about it.’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s just that I’m not all that sure about myself. I mean, what if I’m gay?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘No, I don’t. Everyone acts like it’s either-or. You’re gay or you’re straight.’

‘You can be bisexual. That’s allowed.’

‘Only in theory. In practice gay men hate bi’s, and straight women think they can convert them. No one says, Fine, go and fuck that boy and then come back to me.’

‘You have a point there.’

But the odd thing is she doesn’t mind. She still wants him. More, if that’s possible.

Maybe I think I can convert him.

No, it’s not that. It’s
liking
him. He’s Joe, and if you go for him, you take what you get.

‘Half a loaf is better than no bread,’ she says.

That makes him laugh.

‘A bi-loaf.’

‘We could have fun together,’ she says.

God bless the motor car. Only sitting side by side, locked in utter privacy but unable to look into each other’s eyes, could she dare to talk to him this way.

‘So,’ she says, ‘you’re a scam artist and you’re half gay and I still fancy you. It must be love.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘You have a vote too, Joe.’

‘I’m just frightened of getting into something I’ll want to get out of later. I’m frightened of having anyone rely on me. I’m unreliable.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

‘Shouldn’t that be some kind of a warning sign?’

‘Yes. Probably. These things aren’t rational, you know? I mean, nothing lasts for ever. Living doesn’t last for ever. What are we supposed to do? Not love anyone because they’re mortal?’

‘Well, you’re right there,’ he says.

‘And anyway, what about those relationships that start out as lovers, then become friends who live together to the day they die? Like Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.’

‘He was gay.’

‘They were lovers. They had a child.’

He thinks about that.

‘That’s quite something,’ he says. ‘A love affair that outlasts the giving up on love.’

‘But you have to start by being lovers.’

‘Is that the rule?’

‘Let’s say it’s the recognized procedure.’

They drive on in silence. Christina does nothing to break the silence. She’s made her pitch. He buys it or he doesn’t. But he has to be the next to speak.

Now they’re turning off the Brighton road and heading for the Lewes bypass.

‘I’m not feeling that great about myself right now,’ he says.

So there it is. Christina feels her body stiffen, the way you do when you walk round the corner of a street into a cold wind. So it’s not going to happen.

Why not, Joe? I’m good for you, I know it. What more do you want?

‘Okay,’ she says. Keep it neutral.

‘I don’t want to mess anyone about,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to let anyone down.’

‘How could you let me down?’

‘You tell me.’

‘You could die,’ she says. ‘That would let me down.’

‘You’re safe there, then. I’m not planning on dying any time soon.’

‘So what are you planning?’

Give me a straight answer, Joe. I’ve offered myself to you on a fucking plate. Tick the box to show you’ve read and agreed the terms and conditions.

He looks at his watch.

‘How much further?’

‘Ten minutes.’

‘Poor old sod. He’ll be wetting himself. I hate to think of all those frauds and phonies chewing up his work. But I don’t expect they’ll bother to come.’

‘Are these the same frauds and phonies who hail Joe Nola as one of the brightest talents on the art scene?’

‘The very same.’

They’re off the A27 now and driving through Edenfield.

‘If ever I get married and have children,’ says Christina, ‘I’ll buy a house here.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I like the look of it.’

Their time of intimacy has come to an end for now. To be resumed on the drive back.

They lurch down the rutted coach road to America Cottage. The ancient Peugeot is pulled up on the stony ground by the garden wall. No other cars.

‘That’s his car,’ says Christina. ‘Looks like no one else has come.’

‘We’ve come,’ says Joe.

There’s a sign by the gate with an arrow pointing to the barn.
To the show
.

Christina feels suddenly protective. In this mood Joe could do anything.

‘If you hate it, you won’t say so, will you?’

‘He hated my show.’

‘Even so.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to smash it up. Look, no hammer.’

They follow the path round the side of the barn to its double doors. One of the doors stands half open. Joe pulls it open, scraping its bottom on the chalky earth.

Inside light falls through the single dusty window onto the board walls. Paintings hang all round, packed closely together, mostly portraits, some groups, some landscapes. In the middle of the earth-floored space stands a bulky armchair with its back to the door. The old man is sitting in the armchair, surrounded by his lifetime’s work. By his side, on the ground, there is a bottle of whisky and a glass.

‘Look at you,’ says Joe affectionately. ‘Pissed already, and the show hasn’t even started.’

He goes round the armchair to confront the old man with his grinning face. Christina follows.

Anthony Armitage sits in his navy-blue overcoat slumped in the armchair with his eyes closed. One hand rests on his lap, holding an empty pill bottle.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ says Joe softly.

He takes the old man’s wrist and feels for a pulse.

‘He’s cold. He must have been here all night.’

Christina is too shocked to speak.

‘You should get your crew out here fast,’ says Joe. ‘This is a better show than anything I could ever put on.’

‘Oh, Joe.’

‘It’s what the old bastard wanted.’

‘Oh, Joe. It’s horrible.’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s magnificent.’

He starts circling the barn, gesturing at the paintings on the walls, moving fast, talking fast.

‘These are good. These are the real thing. He knew that. You see what he’s forced us to do? He’s forced us to look at them. He’s put on a show in the modern style. He’s beaten us at our own game. It’s fucking brilliant!’

His circle brings him back round to face the dead man in the armchair. He talks directly to him.

‘Your work’s good, you old sod! I’ve always known it was good. I was coming to tell you so. Here I am. I’ve come. So why the fuck didn’t you wait for me?’