Jim and I had started a non-verbal communication about everything going on: eye-rolling, smiling, head-shaking in disbelief.
‘Scotty?’ Greg gestured to the other paintings against the wall. Scotty, mid-cigarette, gathered three of them up, bounded over and handed them to Greg, taking away the boats.
‘Thanks, mate. Oh, Scotty’s the other supervisor and nobody, and I mean nobody, apart from me of course, can sell more than this fella.’
Scotty took off his baseball hat and lowered it to the group. Anaya encouraged a round of applause which everyone except Jim reluctantly joined in. Greg drank the last of his beer and went on to the next painting.
‘Now this is more your John Constable sort of thing.’ It was a very dull landscape of some watery green hills and a couple of distant trees. ‘It’s naturally very beautiful but there’s more to it. The artist has not been able to capture his subject in its entirety because there’s not enough room on the board, so …’ He bent down and turned round the other two paintings to reveal pretty much the same as the one he’d been talking about, except there was a bigger hill in the background and the start of a distant fence in the second one.
‘He’s created a triptych, which in artistic terms means three, one of three, you see?’ He moved the three paintings together. ‘Hence enabling him to paint all of the countryside before him that he loved so much.’
This was surely the limit, I thought. Who could buy this stuff? I turned to Jim with a look of disbelief but he was already nodding at me, confirming all that Greg was saying to be true.
‘The trick with the trip is to slowly tease the customer with the background to it.’
‘Are you joking? Are we both looking at the same background?’ I couldn’t resist and said it without meaning to. Jim laughed immediately, then Scotty, then the Danish, but the English didn’t really go with it. Anaya and Greg looked at each other again and Anaya took a long slow inhale on her cigarette.
‘Very good,’ she said, as I imagined her in an SS uniform. ‘I think you’re going to do well.’
I tried not to start really laughing and felt told off. Greg went back into relaxed teacher mode.
‘Yeah, like it. Sorry, didn’t get your name?’
‘Kerry.’
‘Kerry. Well, when I say background, I mean, of course, the story I told you that led to the creating of two other paintings to join this one. And the beauty of it is, Kerry’ I wanted him to stop using my name and for Anaya to ease off on the staring ‘the beauty is, that if you get it right, nine times out of ten they buy three and not one, which means you can buy us all a drink afterwards.’
Without instruction this time, Scotty took away the landscapes and brought out another two paintings. Greg clicked his fingers, prompting Anaya to go to the fridge to get him a refill.
‘Got two beauties for you now, folks.’ He held two paintings facing away from us. ‘This one,’ he said, turning the one in his left hand round, ‘is a bit bland for me but a lot of older people like it. Two ladies in the field.’
We stared at a canvas made up of largely two shades of green and two small white figures with what I thought were brown hats on.
‘And this one, which some of you might be familiar with already.’ He proudly revealed the painting in his right hand. ‘Australia’s very own Blue Mountains, everyone.’ He showed us a purple blur that could have been painted with a potato. ‘For those of you who have not been in our fair land very long, the Blue Mountains are a big tourist haunt a couple of hours north from here. They’re a large range of mountains and are remarkably blue in appearance, caused, of course, by the foliage covering them.’ I looked over for Jim’s response, but he was already adopting the fake ‘Oh really, is that so?’ look for my benefit.
‘And a big favourite with the oldies,’ added Greg.
Jesus. I panicked for a moment. I hadn’t thought about conning old people, and thought immediately about my grandfather, the one family member I cared about, and the one reason for returning home once my search here was complete. I wouldn’t rip off old people on any account, no matter how desperate I was. Greg’s comment threw me as I’d imagined all the people in the suburbs to be rich and annoying. Scotty did his bit again, giving Greg a chance to get a few good gulps in. He could feel us all looking at him enviously.
‘Sorry, thirsty work all this talking,’ he said, lighting up in addition to drinking. I was desperate for a beer and couldn’t wait for the lesson to finish. ‘Now, a portfolio wouldn’t be complete without a couple of experimental pieces of art thrown in.’ He seemed half cut by now, not noticing that some ash had fallen on to a blue mountain.
‘This is abstract. The Chinese favour this stuff, they like it ’cos it’s modern and clean, and they like all that minimalist stuff. Last year I hit a Chinese area, and they just bought in bulk, mate, they just can’t get enough of those bloody abstracts. I sold out the whole bloody car, and some others. And if you can get a Chinese family that have just moved in … bloody gold mine, mate, I’m telling you.’
We all stared in silence at the three abstract paintings. One was a red square in the centre of the board with a background in two halves, half of the board coloured orange, the other half brown. The second had a yellow background with three blue circles overlapping, and the third was basically just a board of fawn with what looked like an oatmeal handkerchief painted over it. Jim was staring ahead in a joke trance with his mouth open, and I burst into laughter.
‘Sorry, I just …’ I said apologetically, trying to contol my giggles.
Anaya deliver me a cold, controlled smile. ‘It’s OK. I was the same. But if you get it right, people buy this. It is Art, after all, Carrie.’
‘Kerry.’ I pulled myself together. ‘It’s Kerry.’
‘Ah, you don’t like Carrie?’
‘Hate it.’
‘Sorry, Carrie, let’s get it right, uh?’ That bitch wouldn’t let up, so I composed myself to shake her off, as I could tell she liked to get at people.
‘Don’t take it personally, mate, Anaya is useless with names.’ Greg tried to soften things again while Anaya outstretched her arms in the ‘I’m innocent’ position.
Jim made a small O with his mouth.
Greg took a quick break in order to finish his second beer and light a new cigarette from the one he was just finishing. As there was only one painting left, I had the feeling that Greg was going to pull something special out of the bag. I wasn’t disappointed.
‘This, my little travellers –’ as he slowly turned the painting round, he began to laugh himself at what he had just said; his laugh went into a cough until he gained control of it – ‘this is something very special. I know I’ve said it before but I really mean special.’
He revealed the last picture, which featured a unicorn drinking from a lake, surrounded by mist, in front of an oriental-looking mountain like you see in pictures of Japanese golf courses.
‘Something for the single ladies of the suburbs. And the bikers love it.’
‘Bikers!’ I laugh-shouted.
‘Don’t knock it, mate.’ Scotty jumped to its defence. ‘Loads of bikers in the some of the suburbs round here.’
I looked to Jim for confirmation of this. He was nodding again.
Greg said, ‘The thing to say is, this art is for everybody. You got that?’
The Danish nodded with complete absence of humour. I was still coping with the biker info.
‘The whole idea with this and all these paintings is – and this is the bottom line, and they love to hear it – We. Bring. Art. To. The. People.’
‘Art for everyone!’ shouted the Frau, rallying the troops.
‘Now let’s all grab a beer for five and come back, when I’ll fill you in on technique with my good man Scotty here.’
Scotty rubbed his hands eagerly, and Anaya threw out the beers.
We all shuffled towards the kitchen area. Scotty lit up a joint on the patio. He gestured to offer it out but
nobody was interested. He made gasps of relief as he sucked on it for the benefit of the Danish girls who were predictably impressed. Jim and I drank a beer and got talking.
‘So, you been here long?’ asked Jim.
‘Few weeks. What about you?’
‘Around eight months – seems like nothing, though. Been doing this lark for six months.’
‘What did you do at home?’
‘I was an English teacher.’ He drank from his beer. ‘Far too sensible, was worried I was becoming boring so thought I’d try something completely different.’ He laughed in a self-conscious way. He was an attractive, big, solid man. ‘What about you?’
‘Oh, this and that. But I’ve not really found what I want to do yet.’ I peeled the label off my beer.
‘What part of Scotland you from, then? I went to uni there, you know?’
‘Oh yeah?’ I was envious of people who had studied, and was more often than not the only person in a group who had never gone to college or university.
‘Yep, I’m from Leeds but studied in Glasgow. You’ve an east coast accent though, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah. Edinburgh.’
‘Where are you staying in Sydney, then?’
‘Just crashing at a friend of a friend’s, you know, but I can’t be there for long. It’s kind of a favour on their part to someone else and I don’t want to take the piss.’ I felt awkward about disclosing details of my shambolic life.
‘Not tying yourself to anything, eh?’ Jim seemed to detect my unease.
‘Yeah, something like that.’
‘Well, that’s the idea of travelling, isn’t it?’ He was kind and reassuring, and I felt grateful for his presence in the group.
‘What about you? Where do you stay?’ I asked.
‘Moved in here. They do that, you know, they just knock a bit of money off to cover your rent. It makes it easier.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘Not bad. I’ve got a room to myself, people come and go, it’s easy really. So you staying much longer with these friends in Sydney or what?’
‘I plan to be kind of moving around.’
Jim nodded. ‘I see.’
I nodded back.
He said lightly, ‘If you stick with this for a while, you could move in. There’s room just now.’
Anaya bounded over, tying back her hair at the same time.
‘You telling Kerry about how nice we are to you, Jim?’
‘No, I’m telling her to run away while she still has a chance.’
Anaya was irritating but sexy in her looks; she had light-brown long hair, blue-green eyes, great cheekbones and a heart-shaped face. I had felt her eyes on me the whole time since I’d made a couple of light remarks about the paintings. I decided to try to find out more about her.
‘So how did you come to do this then, Anaya?’ I found it hard to look at her properly.
‘I was travelling when I met Greg. He’s a Kiwi. I met him in Auckland.’
‘Where’s that?’ I hadn’t a clue about anywhere and wasn’t ashamed to admit it.
‘New Zealand. Oh my God, you haven’t been?’
I shook my head like it was no big deal.
‘It’s beautiful, totally boring but beautiful. Anyway we met there. Greg’s half-Maori.’
‘So you see, that’s why he wants to fuck over the Australians.’ Jim laughed at his own remark, but I didn’t get it.
‘Not at all, he loves it here. So, Kerry, you think this is for you? It’s really easy money, you know.’ She looked right at me, I held her gaze.
‘I’ll give it a go. I really need some cash as soon as possible.’
‘Excellent. It’s exciting. And I love it when we have a new team,’ she said, chain-smoking, with no expression, just faraway eyes.
CHAPTER TWO
* * *
SYDNEY WAS HUMID, and got dark quickly. I liked the combination. I hated the five-till-seven slot of the day anywhere, so I was happy to be plunged into darkness early, unlike at home where far too much was made of hours of summer evening light. Dusk had always been a good marker for the onset of drinking, which I was concerned about being compromised by the new job.
Jim parked up a big old Holden Kingswood at the edge of a suburb called Dover Heights, close to North Bondi. It was nearly six o’clock; I had been asleep for most of the journey out of the city, which had taken an hour in commuter traffic. I sat in the back with the two Danish girls. Scotty sat in the passenger seat with his bare feet on the dash, his baseball hat over his face. The Danish girls smelled clean and fresh like the nice girls they were, and a slight, warm breeze blew through the car.
I felt lonely. I didn’t know the others yet. I knew I would know them in time, but I was growing tired of constantly moving around in my life, of things being so short-lived. I could have let myself slip right down, had not Scotty turned on the car radio and passed round some gum.
‘How you feeling, girls? Are you up for making some easy bucks?’
‘What time will we finish the work?’ asked the Danish called Andrea.
Jim turned round and smiled.
‘Depends, but we usually tend to call it a day around nineish. But if someone is selling after that we wait for them. Sometimes you could be in your last house around eight thirty but it could take you an hour to close.’
‘What’s close?’ asked the other.
‘It’s like, finish the transaction, complete the sale,’ Scotty answered, stretching his arms out as much as he could.
I hadn’t asked much, I didn’t feel the need to. I had a feeling I knew exactly how to play things. As always, just as I was slipping down, my arrogance kicked in and saved me, setting tightly in my jaw.
‘Right then, let’s make a move,’ said Jim.
‘Yep, better get on with it,’ added Scotty.
‘Are you selling too, Scotty?’ I asked.
‘No, I’m just helping out, seeing how you guys are doing and helping Jim with the areas.’
‘What about you, Jim?’
‘No, thank you very much. I’ve earned my place of supervisor so you lucky people can earn my money for me.’
‘Oh yeah, how does that work, then?’
Scotty laughed and looked out the window.
‘Well, I’ve sold for lots of time, six months in total, but they need someone to run the teams so I’m the obvious choice for now. But if we do a trip away, I might go back to it a bit.’
‘So you earn commission off us?’
‘Exactly. Tough, eh?’ Jim laughed.
‘It will be when I’m supervisor.’
‘Maybe if you turn out to be so good at selling, you won’t get the chance, eh?’ He turned round and looked at me smugly.
‘We’ll see.’ I was beaten.
‘Come on, you lot, let’s get the stuff out the back.’
The Danish said nothing, unable to understand our mock sparring, with its serious undertones.
Scotty opened the boot and dragged out the portfolios.
‘All right, help yourselves, people.’
Jim reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a bunch of leaflets. ‘Here you go.’ He handed us out some each. ‘Those are your bank-card slips with the credit-card authorisation phone number. Try to encourage cash but some will want to pay by card, especially if they are buying more than one. You just fill in this form and ask politely to use their phone to call.’
The three of us looked blank.
‘It’s OK, it’s straightforward. You just call and ask to authorise a payment. This other number here is our merchant number, that’s the company’s registered number. They’ll ask for that and the amount, and that’s it. OK?’
‘Where will you two be?’ I asked.
‘We’ll be nearby, in the car. When you come out you’ll be able to find us and we’ll pick you up when you’ve finished or when you need more paintings. Any questions, just find us between houses, and don’t worry, guys.’ Scotty handed out the fold
ers as he spoke. Jim looked at his map.
‘Karin, I’m going to start you off here. This is Hunter Street. You stick to this side for the time being, and it’s unlikely you’ll get further than this tonight unless no one’s home.’ He pointed to the houses. ‘Andrea, you just start here on that corner.’ He pointed with the other hand on her shoulder. ‘Then move round to Myunda Road, do you see it round the corner?’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘OK, good luck, guys.’
‘Mind the dogs, yeah?’ Scotty laughed.
Andrea turned back looking concerned. ‘I fucking hate dogs.’ I was glad she swore.
‘Talk in a high voice and they won’t bite you.’
‘I mean it, Scotty,’ she snapped.
Scotty waved her on, laughing more than was necessary.
‘Scotty, don’t wind her up like that,’ said Jim.
Scotty lit up. ‘Proven fact, mate, dogs don’t mind a high female voice.’
‘Shut up and get in the car, you lunatic.’
I was getting a little irritated with the banter and Scotty was starting to grate on me even though I could see through his act.
‘Hey, Kerry, we need to get back in the car. We’re dropping you somewhere else.’
‘Whereabouts?’
We all got in and drove off slowly; Jim had the map in his teeth while looking at the houses.
‘Think we covered this street about six months ago,’ said Scotty.
We’d only moved a minute away to a wider street with bigger houses.
‘Yip, this is it. OK, Raleigh Street, let’s go.’ Jim and I got out while Scotty stayed in the car fiddling with the radio.
‘You’ve got the whole street, OK?’ said Jim. ‘Both sides, yeah?’
‘Yeah sure, thanks. Have a nice evening, boys.’
Jim patted me on the back.
‘Think of the beers afterwards,’ Scotty said, leaning out of the car with ‘Uptown Girl’ playing in the background.
‘Turn that bloody thing down, Scotty. Jesus, nothing like telling them all we’ve arrived.’ It looked to me like Jim had never really left teaching.
‘I was thinking about the beers,’ I said to Scotty.
The Naked Drinking Club Page 2