Seventy-Seven Clocks

by Christopher Fowler

  The wall showed a thirty-foot-high psychedelic nuclear explosion, around which strikers marched with banners and clenched fists. ‘It’s the lack of imagination I find depressing, but the council reckons it’ll encourage community spirit.’ Summerfield lost his hand within his bushy paint-flecked beard and gave his chin a good scratch. ‘I suggested a nice abstract, colours reminiscent of lakes and trees, plenty of natural shapes, something to cheer urbanites up a bit. They told me I was being reactionary.’

  ‘Why are the banners blank?’ asked Bryant, studying the mural in puzzlement.

  ‘That’s so local people can write in their own grievances against the Heath government. Interactive art. Some bright spark in the planning department came up with that one, I suppose. We’ve already had a few people write things in. Brian shags dogs, Tracy is a slag, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Hmm. I think I prefer your idea of the abstract,’ agreed Bryant. ‘Can we go somewhere to talk?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Summerfield examined the paint on his hands. ‘Give me five minutes to get the lads cleaned up.’ He threw Bryant a set of keys. ‘I live over the road, number 54, the one with the sunrise gate. Make yourself a cup of tea.’

  Summerfield’s house was cramped and cluttered, and surprisingly devoid of paintings. A great number of reference books were stacked in untidy piles throughout the ground floor. The historian’s knowledge of Victorian art placed him among the country’s top experts, and he was frequently called in to help organize national exhibitions, but Summerfield had eschewed a permanent post in favour of educating young minds at the local primary school. Arthur had always appreciated his directness and lack of pretension when discussing art. He had just located a battered kettle beneath a pile of old newspapers when the historian returned.

  ‘I can’t spare much time today, Arthur,’ he apologized. ‘I’ve a life class at eleven. Their usual Christ is off sick, so I’m standing in. I’ve got the beard for it, you see. I don’t mind, but it gets a bit tiring on the arms after a while.’ He approximated the crucifixion, then searched around for a tea towel. ‘Sorry about the mess. I haven’t been able to sort myself out much since Lilian left.’

  ‘I had no idea you two were separated,’ said Bryant, looking for clean cups. ‘My condolences.’

  ‘Oh, none needed. We always had our differences. She was sick of me mixing paint in her Tupperware. I presume this visit concerns the vandalized Waterhouse painting?’

  ‘That’s right. You helped put the exhibition together, didn’t you?’

  ‘Indeed, and it was a pleasure to do so, just to spite the cynics.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Bryant watched as Summerfield poured mahogany-coloured tea into a pair of mugs and led the way from the kitchen.

  ‘Well, the poor old Pre-Raffs have had a pretty rough ride from the critics over the years. Too medieval, too Gothic, too sentimental, too moralizing; there’s never been a school of painting so slagged off. Much Pre- Raphaelite art is narrative, of course, and that’s a form which has fallen from fashion. A lot of it is symbolic, and decorative, and they’re undesirable qualities, too. Who wants art that looks nice these days? We live in a world of strikes and bombings. It’s taken a long time for people to get past the pre-Raff subject matter to the beauty within. Take a look at these.’ He selected several volumes from a shelf and lovingly laid them open.

  ‘Artists like Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Millais revived the poetic and spiritual qualities of fifteenthcentury Italian art. Romance and colour for a drab old world. At first everyone made fun of them, but the movement was pretty much legitimized by its popularity. Having lots of tits helped, of course. Victorian nipples were always acceptable in a classical setting. Many a dull parlour wall was brightened up with a nice bit of reprocheesecake.’ He tapped a grimy forefinger on a colour plate entitled Hylas and the Nymphs. ‘Look at Waterhouse and his horny ladies of the lake. Landscapes were popular, too, beautifully detailed by artists like Brett and Inchbold. And religious art, like Hunt’s creepy The Light of the World, now hanging in St Paul’s. Popular art’s a dirty word today. You can pick up Pre-Raffs for a song. The critics prefer stuff only members of their little coterie can appreciate.’

  ‘Tell me about the exhibition.’

  ‘It was a bugger to organize, because the low values have helped to scatter the paintings into private collections. Manchester Art Gallery has a lot of the decent stuff. The rest are all over the place. We still don’t know where some of the Waterhouse paintings are. This is a study for the one that was destroyed. The finished work is much more detailed.’

  Summerfield tipped the art volume to the light. The picture was of a young man seated on a throne, feeding pigeons from a salver while his councillors waited for an audience. ‘The Favourites Of The Emperor Honorius, an early piece, 1883. Waterhouse’s first serious historical painting. Flavius Honorius, one of the forgotten Roman rulers. He was a bit of an ass by all accounts, lazy, greedy, seen here too busy feeding his pet birds to grant his advisors any attention. Even in this crappy reproduction you can sense the genius of the artist. A moment of anticipation captured for ever. The title is ironic, of course. It refers to the birds, not to the seven men in the picture.’

  ‘How did it end up in Australia?’

  ‘At the end of the nineteenth century the big Australian galleries bought quite a few Pre-Raffs. There are two oil studies for this picture, both in private collections. One had been mistitled The Emperor and Tortoises for years.’

  ‘Can you think of any reason why someone would want to destroy such a painting?’

  Summerfield pulled at the paint-daubed strands of his beard. ‘Certainly no one could be offended at the subject matter. It’s pretty innocuous stuff. Perhaps your vandal wanted to cause some diplomatic damage. The availability of Commonwealth paintings is a touchy subject at the moment.’

  ‘So I understand. Do we have any other pictures here on loan?’

  ‘Yes, two other Waterhouses, as a matter of fact. Circe Invidiosa from Adelaide, and Diogenes from Sydney.’ He located the prints in his book. ‘You think these are in danger, too?’

  ‘We’ll have to get them removed from display. I want you to keep thinking for me.’

  ‘That’s just it . . .’ Summerfield glanced from one print to the next. ‘There’s something odd which I can’t quite—’

  ‘Something about the paintings?’

  ‘Not really. More the act of vandalism. There’s a resonance here. Something very familiar. I’ll need to think about it.’

  ‘Well, if you have any ideas at all,’ suggested Bryant, ‘call me.’

  A shrill beep startled them both. ‘It’s this stupid new radio-pager gadget May makes me wear,’ Arthur explained, rummaging in the folds of his coat. ‘Can I use your telephone?’

  ‘Arthur, I know you’re tied up today, but I need your help,’ May told him. ‘Oh, and there’s a lead on your vandal.’

  ‘Of course, it wasn’t the snake that puzzled me but the bite,’ said May as they crossed Camden Town’s humpback bridge. A thin layer of mist mooched over the surface of the canal below. Bryant pulled his scarf over his nose. If he’d known what global warming would do decades later, he might have enjoyed the vaporous damp.

  ‘If you got bitten by a snake you’d run about shouting, warning people,’ May continued. ‘You wouldn’t calmly go back to your seat and resume reading your newspaper.’

  ‘You say he sustained a fall?’

  ‘Backwards, according to Finch.’

  ‘Could be your answer.’ Bryant’s watery eyes peered over the scarf like a pair of insufficiently poached eggs. ‘Suppose he was chloroformed? Once he’d fallen to the floor unconscious, his attacker could have induced the snake to bite his neck.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. The only possible reason for using such a ridiculous murder weapon would be to frighten the victim first. Why go to all that trouble if your victim doesn’t even get to see it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.
It’s not my case. What have you got on my vandal?’

  ‘Seems he damaged something in his flight,’ replied May, savouring his partner’s anticipation. ‘We did a sweep of the gallery stairs and found this.’ He removed a clear plastic sachet and shook out a wooden splinter almost two inches long. Green flecks in the paintwork gave it an iridescent sheen. ‘It appears to have come from his cane. The varnish is new.’

  May had given the splinter to a colleague who owed him a favour, knowing that this would be quicker than sending it into the system’s Bermuda Triangle of evidence examination. ‘Stokes remembered seeing a unique cane under your vandal’s arm. I popped this over to a cane maker in Burlington Arcade. He agreed that it’s a piece from a hand-turned malacca walking stick. The green flecks are malachite, basic copper carbonate. He knows only one company that still makes them.’

  ‘James Smith and Sons,’ said Bryant, who had purchased something similar a few Christmases ago.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed May. ‘Care to take a stroll down there?’

  The brass-paneled store on the corner of Gower Street and New Oxford Street had sold canes and umbrellas for ever. Impervious to the changing times, it survived with unmodernized décor and traditional service, a charming oddity from the past, marooned in a fuming sea of oneway traffic.

  The detectives stepped past the freshly polished nameplate and into a room filled with glistening wood. Walking sticks, shooting sticks, canes, and parasols of every size and description hung in racks like forgotten torture instruments. The genial shop assistant required a single glance at the evidence to describe the cane from which it had been broken.

  ‘I think we’ll have a record of this particular item, Sir,’ he said, turning the splinter over in his palm. ‘Canes with graining this rich are expensive, and are only produced as special commissions. The customer usually requires an engraved silver top.’ He pinched the wood between thumb and forefinger, and gently sniffed it. ‘Less than a year old, I’d say. Won’t keep you a moment.’

  He summoned an assistant, and they marched to the rear office. Minutes later, they returned bearing a slip of paper. ‘We’ve made only two of these in the past year, one for a Japanese gentleman—’

  ‘Not the person we’re seeking,’ said May.

  ‘The other we engraved for an elderly gentleman.’

  ‘What was the engraving he required?’

  ‘A small symbol, fire in a goblet, surrounded by a circle of flame. The gentleman was very specific about the design, even drew it out for us. I served him myself.’

  ‘Is there an address on your receipt?’

  The assistant checked the slip of paper. ‘NW3. Looks like somewhere in Hampstead.’

  ‘You don’t recall anything odd about your client, I suppose?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘Most certainly,’ replied the assistant. ‘I remember commenting to the cashier that his clothes were more suited to the previous century. Of course, we could have sold him the same cane back then.’

  6 / Mother & Daughter

  The uncharacteristic clemency of the day had produced a mist from the Thames which thickened with the passing hours. By six-thirty on Thursday evening, it had obscured much of the South Bank promenade, providing London’s few remaining tourists with a Turneresque vision of the city.

  After her session with Dr Wayland, her therapist, Jerry caught a cab to Waterloo Bridge. She descended the stone stairway towards the hanging coloured bulbs that decked the National Film Theatre’s bar.

  At the last minute, her mother had called to change their arrangement. It couldn’t be helped, Gwen Gates had explained, as she was due to address a charity trustees’ meeting at eight, and would only be able to spare an hour.

  Jerry hoped she would be able to survive the full sixty minutes without being backed into another pointless argument. Gwen’s unhappiness with the choice of venue was apparent from her expression. Appearing awkwardly out of place in her fawn Dior suit and gold jewellery (the look that would be redefined as ‘bling’ thirty years later), she was seated at a counter near the window, surrounded by hairy students and film buffs. Although she tried to keep her attention focused on the fog-shrouded river, she could not resist revealing her distaste for her surroundings at every opportunity.

  As Jerry pushed open the door, Gwen beaconed her location with a violent coughing fit, pointedly fanning the smoke from someone’s cigarette. As she herself was a smoker, the gesture was redundant. Jerry threaded her way to the table and pecked her lightly on the cheek.

  ‘All those badges are ruining your jacket,’ Gwen remarked, carefully shifting an empty coffee cup away from some imagined mark on the Formica. ‘I don’t know why we had to meet in such a ghastly place. Surely a few linen tablecloths wouldn’t compromise their socialist ideals. If you want coffee, you have to serve yourself, apparently.”

  Jerry bought beverages and returned to the table. ‘I’m sorry you don’t have time for dinner,’ she told her mother. ‘There’s something I was hoping to discuss with you.’

  Gwen’s eyebrows rose a fraction. Serious discussions rarely took place between them. ‘If it’s about the job, you already know my feelings,’ she said.

  ‘I like it there, Mother. It’s the Savoy, for God’s sake, not some flophouse. And it’s not as if I’m going to make a career out of it.’

  Gwen examined her coffee suspiciously and sighed. ‘I suppose you’re mixing with the right sort of people.’

  ‘I’m serving them. There’s a difference. That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘Then what is it?’ Gwen set down her cup and searched her handbag for a cigarette.

  ‘I want to move out.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, darling, you’re not even eighteen yet.’ She tapped out a gold-tipped Sobranie.

  ‘There’s a flat share going in Maida Vale. I could afford the rent, but there’s a down payment to be made . . .’

  Gwen’s attention crystallized. ‘Share? You mean cohabiting? Have you met someone, Geraldine?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. There’s a guy at work who shares with two others, and one’s moving out.’

  ‘It’s simply out of the question.’ Gwen spouted a column of blue smoke at the window. ‘You must try to understand that I only want what’s best for you. There’s absolutely no need for you to be stuck in some awful little flat when you have the complete run of the house. It’s not as if we hold you back, or stop you from having friends over.’

  ‘I want to be independent for a while, surely you can appreciate that.’

  ‘But why must you be? Why can’t young people accept the help of their parents with good grace? Other girls would be grateful for a helping hand, Geraldine.’

  ‘I’m not a girl any more, Mother.’ She didn’t want to be given a cozy position in the family business. Lately she’d been thinking about taking a course at an art college. It had been a mistake to inform Gwen of her plans. ‘Look, I wouldn’t need to borrow money after the initial loan. It won’t be a large amount.’

  ‘That’s not the point, Jerry. You went behind our backs to get this job, and now you want to sever your home ties with us. You know what the doctor said about learning to deal with authority. Interaction with others is difficult for you. Besides, art is not a career for a woman, it’s a hobby. I’d be hard-pressed to name a single successful female artist.’

  ‘That says more about the system than the artist, and anyway—’

  ‘So now you’re against the system!’ Gwen shook her head sadly. ‘No, I know these rebellious feelings, and believe me, they only last for a couple of years. I blame all these students marching over Vietnam. Americans are trying to halt the spread of Communism, and they’re getting no thanks for it. You’ll see, soon you’ll want the things we wanted at your age . . .’

  ‘I’m not like you and Jack. I don’t have the same values. Don’t you see how much things are changing? I don’t even know what I want yet. I’m just trying to figure out what I do
n’t want.’

  ‘I suppose you think we’re snobs,’ replied her mother, stung. ‘Well, I really have to put my foot down this time, Geraldine. I couldn’t possibly allow you to leave home yet. I hate to bring this up . . .’ Jerry groaned inwardly, knowing what was coming. ‘After your illness, your father and I knew we had to do something to help you. That’s why we set up the trust in your name. We wanted to help you make a start in life. That trust matures when you are twenty-one, and until then we are empowered to influence your decisions about the future.’

  She reached forward and sealed her hands over her daughter’s, pink nails ticking on the tabletop. ‘You know we love you. Darling, it’s for your own good. You’ll see one day that I was right. When you come of age, you’ll be able to choose for yourself. Until then, carry on in this job, if that’s what you want. But think about your father’s offer. Eventually you’ll meet a nice boy. You’ll want to settle down and start thinking about children. It’s only natural. And hopefully by that time you’ll be ready to assume your responsibilities in the business, just a couple of days a week, nothing taxing. You’re lucky that girls are taken seriously in the workforce these days. You can be a mother and still have a nice career.’

  ‘Like you, you mean.’

  At the moment nothing seemed less desirable than following in her parents’ footsteps. She knew there was no point in trying to explain her confusion to Gwen.

  ‘Anyway, how is the Savoy?’ asked her mother, switching subjects to fill the uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Someone dropped dead in the foyer on Monday, and the police think it was murder. Apparently the newspapers are suggesting he was a spy.’

  ‘Why have I not heard about this? Is nowhere safe any more? Did you know there are homeless people sleeping in the Strand? It’s dreadful.’ Gwen checked her watch and rose to leave. ‘I have to go. Stay and finish your coffee, and remember what I said. You can try speaking to your father, but it won’t make any difference. I know he feels the same way I do. Can you believe this weather? I haven’t seen fog like this since the fifties.’