The Music Lesson (16 page)

“Patricia.” Mickey’s voice was harsh. “Look at me.” I did. There was a coldness in his eyes that I had not seen before this moment. It scared me.

“Now
you
listen. Listen well to what I’m saying to you. Pete Dolan.” He enunciated carefully, as if reading the caption to a picture. His voice was steel, his words thin and cold, turned on a lathe of cruelty. “Pete Dolan, a true Irish patriot and sympathizer over the years. A retired detective in Boston, Massachusetts, in the US of A, a fella who lent a hand here and there without feelin’ the need to ask one single question, because he was a patriot and that was enough.

“You might say that in his years of service to the police force, yer man has probably acquired numerous enemies garnered over many long years of service protecting the citizenry of Boston from crime. Now consider the crowd of small-time killers and thieves and thugs who were sent away for a time because of the diligent efforts of Pete Dolan. There must be dozens of them about. Those men have long memories and empty pockets, Patricia. Fellas like that, blamers and begrudgers, it doesn’t take much to inspire. Let’s not have another word on this subject now, all right?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You
wouldn’t.”

There was a very long silent moment in that kitchen, during which time pieces of my heart tore loose and shattered.

“Look, now. This isn’t goin’ our way, Patricia. Listen to me a minute here.” Mickey’s accent had begun to thicken up like porridge over the last few minutes. “It’s not a doddle after all. They’ve refused our demand. Do you understand what I’m sayin’ to ya?”

“Not exactly. Buckingham Palace won’t give you the money?”

“Buckingham
bloody
Palace
won’t even acknowledge that they’ve got a picture gone
missin’
. They’ve
hung The Music Lesson
back on the
wall.”
He punctuated his words with a heavy closed fist that made the crockery jump.

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not? You’re the great art expert who came up with the plan to use a fake. Do you think you’re the only one about with that sort of imagination? Apparently not.”

“They’re hanging our fake? It wasn’t that good.”

“I thought our fake looked real enough—I couldn’t spot the difference. ’Twas real enough to do the trick. No, according to our man inside—a sleeper who’s worked his way up from kitchen cleaner to footman over the last twelve years—it’s a nineteenth-century copy, quite a reasonable one, apparently. They’re ignoring us and topping
us at our own game. Betty Windsor didn’t seem to twig to it. They’ve hung it in a darkish corner in private quarters. They said it had been cleaned and that’s why it might look a bit brighter.” Mickey was very bitter, spitting out his words.

“So now what?” I was, frankly, disappointed, crazy as that sounds at this juncture. I still believed that what we were doing had made its own kind of sense, and I was also getting concerned about the disposition of
The Music Lesson
itself. It didn’t seem likely that they would just let me keep it, take it home. Up until this moment, I had always envisioned it back on the wall in London where it belonged, having served its purpose, none the worse for wear.

“It’s like the fuckin’ Gardner all over again,” Mickey muttered, tipping back in his chair and cleaning under his fingernails with the point of the bread knife.

Despite everything else I had heard up to that moment, I was really surprised.

“You were involved with the Gardner theft? It was the IRA that took those paintings in 1990? Those men dressed in police uniforms were IRA? Where are the paintings now? What happened?”

“Who here has been sayin’ anything a’tall about the IRA, lassie?” Mickey said in a cruelly bantering tone. “What makes ya think the IRA knows anythin’ about any of these doin’s? The IRA is terribly busy occupyin’
itself just now jumpin’ through some little hoops held up by yer man Mr. Adams.”

“The IRA,” I said stupidly. “The Irish Republican Army. Come on, Mickey. Stop it. Stop talking like Lady Chatterley’s lover. The IRA. Isn’t that what this is all about? Isn’t that what I’m working for, with you?”

“Well, you’ve got some of the letters right.” He laughed. “Try IRLO—Irish Republican Liberation Organization. The lads to call when you want to get the job done. We’re what the newspapers call a splinter group. No muckin’ around just tryin’ to get a wee little chair or two at Stormont.”

“You’re not IRA? You’re IRLO?”

He saluted me with an exaggerated flourish.

“You were involved with the Gardner theft?” I couldn’t get over it, couldn’t make my mind know this.

“Not me personally,” Mickey said. “But me lads were. Yer man Leary knows a thing or two about it, I’d say. Pete himself rounded up some extra uniforms and shields for Leary, though he was never told who needed them or for what purpose. But he must have read the news and added it up. Did yer old man never say a word to you about that?”

I tried to think, though my mind was skidding. Pete, actually involved with the IRA, or the IRLO, or whatever it was? This was really too much to comprehend. I was in free fall.

“No, no—I had no idea.” I had a horrible thought. “Did you and Pete know each other before we went up at Christmas? Was that all a setup, as well?”

“Not really. You could say we knew
of
each other, like. He’s a good man, yer da.”

“So, what did happen with the Gardner?” I was in such confusion, I was trying to hold on to the most easily grasped detail of this horrendous flow of revelations. Betrayal is a body blow to the soul.

“It ended badly. You’re not going to like the story, Patricia. Yer precious pictures are probably at the bottom of the sea.”

“What happened?”

“Ah, you’ve become a connoisseur of big plans to steal art now, have ya? Well, there’s no harm in telling you what I know in this instance, and you deserve a little treat. This is how the cards fell: Declan McGlinchey and his lads organized it from over here. It was the day after Saint Paddy’s. I don’t know all the bits and pieces, but there was a trawler all rigged out, fishing legal out of Gloucester, and a gang of our fellas were crew—some of them used to work the big trawlers out of Union Hall, and they said the fishing in those American waters wasn’t half-bad, though it was perishin’ cold half the year—and they had the job done and they were well out to sea when they ran into some kind of bad trouble and started taking in water, and they didn’t radio for help
until it was too late because they had all those pictures down in the hold and they knew they’d be pinched if they were boarded. They never even had a chance to make the ransom demand. Who knows what kind of trouble they were after havin’. They disappeared—probably went straight down.”

“What do you think happened?” I was considering
The Concert
on the bottom of the sea. Is there any light at all, or is it completely dark under all that ocean? It was odd to chat this way with Mickey, as if we were still us. As if we were discussing a movie one of us had seen a long time ago.

“McGlinchey thought one of the lads might have had a plan of his own, and there was some sort of altercation or sabotage.”

“Then how do you know the renegade didn’t kill the others, sink the boat, and get away in a dinghy with the paintings?”

“Oh, Patricia, you’ve got a fine enterprisin’ criminal mind, you really do,” Mickey said admiringly. “There’s some who think that’s what happened, all right. It’s possible, of course, that the paintings weren’t on the trawler in the first place, or that it went exactly that way, with a plan and a dinghy and someone with a load of patience. I know a lad who swears he knows the fella who knows the fella who has the whole bloody art collection in some warehouse outside Boston. But don’t you think we’d have had a word from him by now?”

“Maybe Declan heard from him and didn’t tell you,” I shot back. “Maybe you’re the one who’s been left out.”

“That would be neat,” Mickey said, tipping his chair back down to hit the floor. “Decky McGlinchey was buried just six months after the Gardner went down. Shot dead, by occupyin’ forces, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” I answered, matching his tone. Being angry helped keep me from my fear, my despair.

“So here’s our plan,” Mickey said, eyeing me carefully.

“ ‘Our’ plan, Mickey?”

“Look, I know this is rough for you,” he said, slightly apologetic now. “But we’re not done here. Listen, now. We want to go public with the theft. Get word out to television stations and newspapers. Expose the lyin’ cunts at Buckingham Palace. If we can’t get our money, we’ll get good value anyway—let the world know we’re a force to be reckoned with. It won’t have been a wasted effort, you see. We’ll make the best of it.”

“You don’t need my advice to help you send out a press release.”

“Christ, no, Patricia, don’t you get it? We’re going to make a home movie. We’re going to videotape the destruction of
The Music Lesson
and send copies of the tape around the world. It’ll be great altogether. Our public-relations machine versus theirs. People don’t like bein’ kept in the dark. Talk about a lesson. They can listen to our music, dance to our piper.”

I really hated him then. I really did. I hated him already for what had happened to Mary, for who and what he seemed to be, for who and what he turned out not to be, but this was a turning point. I knew the Troubles were an evil situation, but now I was looking at evil incarnate.

“So here’s what we need from you,” he went on, unbelievably. He had no idea who I was, none whatsoever. We were a pair, Mickey and I. He had invented me to suit himself. “We were thinking to burn it, but one of the lads thought it wouldn’t go very easily, and might just smolder and smoke, go off a damp squib. Not the best thing for the six o’clock news. What do you think? You know about the paint and all, how it would burn, maybe. Maybe we should douse it with petrol first. You know, for the dramatic effect, like?”

I thought for a few minutes. I thought about a great many things, all of my options. Mickey has always been very good with silences. He waited patiently. I had an answer then.

“Murder it,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

“Kill it. Look, you’ve got an automatic weapon around someplace, probably, right? Or can’t you tell me that?” Mickey nodded a noncommittal yes, slowly, considering.
“So put the painting against a wall, with a newspaper of the day to show the date, and then have someone blast it to bits with a few rounds. Isn’t that your style, anyway? Execution? It’ll look good on camera. Violent. It’ll just turn into nothing, into sawdust, in front of the world.”

Mickey looked at me with an appreciative smile.

“Patricia, you’re fantastic. Once again, grace under pressure. You’ve really come through for me. Don’t think I’m not grateful.”

I knew what I needed to do.
The Music Lesson
had taught me. Vermeer’s is an art that chooses among things, rectifying them. It’s a kind of genius that comes from never judging beforehand. One must ask what is called for, what one’s subject wants. One must let oneself be surprised.

I went to the wake at Mary’s cottage that evening. Nora had told me to come at about eleven. It was cold, but clear, and dark, with only the faintest illumination from a new moon.

I can hardly say what I had done with the rest of that horrible day. Mickey had several conversations on a cell phone. We barely spoke. Mickey was distracted, keyed up. I took a nap, and when I woke at one point, I could hear more than one male voice downstairs, so I didn’t dare go down, and then I went back to sleep for a while,
and then it was evening. When I did go downstairs, it was when Mickey was taking a bath and the cottage was otherwise empty. The settle was open—someone had slept on that old mattress. I put several dirty teacups into the sink. There were cigarette butts in one of them, floating in an inch of milky tea. Mickey—or someone—had heated up some tomato soup from a can. It smelled like vomit to me. I sat down to wait until it was time to leave. I tried unsuccessfully to finish
The Book of Evidence
. I kept thinking about
The Music Lesson
.

There is a consciousness in that painting that amounts to integrity made visible. Ultimately, to regard this magnificent creation of Vermeer’s is to see the world being thought. In her contemplative isolation, the woman looks up from her music and regards us, and she asks us to take a position, she commands us to exist, to see ourselves.

Mickey seemed to be staying in the cottage. He said he figured that I wouldn’t be back until morning, if I was going to be part of Mary’s wake retinue. I was glad that there would be no question about who would sleep where. I felt as though I were moving underwater. As I went to the door, bundled against the dark, cold walk up to Mary’s, Mickey followed me and took me by the arm.

“How’s the hand?” he asked in a low voice.

“Fine,” I said shortly, not looking at him. It hurt like hell, actually.

“Sorry.”

“Uh-huh.” I kept willing Mickey to stay away from me in the small spaces of the cottage. I couldn’t stand his few light, perhaps accidental touches.
Hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer
floated to mind. These were the words D. H. Lawrence used for James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking.