Whistleblower

by Terry Morgan

CHAPTER 58

  Tom had taken a taxi straight back to Heathrow Airport, this time for Amsterdam. Jim walked into the town, purchased a thick brown sweater, a packet of elastic bands and returned to his room. But he couldn't settle. For a while he sat thinking, but then went to his bag of paintings, transferred some into a plastic laundry bag he found in a drawer, pulled the sweater on, took a taxi to the station, a train to London and another taxi to an address in Kensington.

  It was late afternoon when he arrived at the Ashton Art Gallery.

  He remembered it with green window frames and green door, but everything was now white. He pushed the door and a buzzer sounded as he went inside, up two steps and on to a plush royal blue carpet. The pure white walls were covered, tastefully, with abstract oil paintings, one corner dominated by a large potted fern and another by a table with white, porcelain figures of ballet dancers. As he stood for a moment, the buzzing still in his ears, a woman appeared from a desk behind a screen at the rear. She had long black hair, light brown skin and wore a long, yellow silk skirt with a wide, black belt and black. Malaysian or Thai Jim thought.

  "Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?"

  Jim looked at her and could not help but remember Noy. It was as if it was Noy standing there. Noy wearing expensive clothes.

  "Good afternoon." He looked at her, up and down, and then glanced around the walls. "I used to know Hugh McAllister quite well," he said. "I was wondering if he would see me."

  "Mr McAllister will be back very soon, sir. May I help you in the meantime?"

  Jim's eyes were still roving around the walls. Abstracts. Big and small. Wall decorations. He walked over to examine one more closely as the woman watched him, nervously. Perhaps it was his beard and long hair, Jim thought, although he himself also felt a little apprehensive as if he was a poor and struggling artist desperate for someone to enthuse about his work as though his livelihood and the survival of a young family might depend upon a favourable response.

  "Yes, perhaps," he said. "I have brought along a few pieces of my work for Hugh to see. Perhaps I can show them to you while we await his return."

  "It would probably be best if you show Mr McAllister rather than me."

  Jim couldn't help looking at her big brown eyes, long lashes and thick, black eyebrows, and he recognised the accent. She saw him looking at her and looked away. Her lips were full and pink and then he remembered her. "You are from Malaysia?"

  "Yes," she said and looked back at him, smiling, pleased.

  "But you have lived here for some time now?"

  "Yes, my husband is English. He works in the city."

  "Are you from Penang?"

  "Yes, how did you know?"

  "Did you once work at the Ambassador Hotel?"

  "Yes. How do you know?"

  "I stayed there once."

  "Ah," she said, smiling. "I once worked in the restaurant."

  "I remember," he said.

  "You have a good memory."

  "For some things."

  "May I ask how long did you stay in Malaysia?" she said.

  "In the hotel for just two days but I stayed in the area for longer. I returned on Thursday. I have been away since then."

  Jim could remember her even more clearly now. It had been during the days of a Sunday newspaper interview given by Margaret. He had lain on his hotel bed reading it, over and over again. Then he had gone down to dinner.

  In the restaurant, this woman was the waitress and he had ordered grilled fish. He was amazed at how clearly he could remember all this despite the effects of Tiger beer. He remembered looking at the fish, then at the tablecloth and trying to find his bottle, which was six inches from his plate. He had been fully aware of his condition and had looked at her, up and down, just like now. It was this same girl who had started him thinking about the point of continued faithfulness. He had not made any advances towards her, although he remembered, just, amidst the alcoholic haze, being sorely tempted. But it was she who had set his thoughts in motion. He could also remember something else.

  "Your name is Melissa, am I right?"

  "That is amazing. How did you remember that?"

  Jim looked at her and tried to smile. "I have always been grateful to you, you see. You started me on a long process of readjustment in my life. It is still going on, but I am grateful for the small, perhaps unwitting, part you played."

  "I am afraid I don't remember what I said, but if it was useful then I am very pleased."

  Jim smiled at her, his poor teeth showing through the beard.

  "So, do you have a business card or something, Mister uh?" she asked as if trying to change the subject.

  "No. I am so sorry. My name is Jim Smith. Hugh's wife Anne worked for me once - for a short time. That is how we know each other."

  "Oh, I see. You knew Anne?"

  Jim did not answer this time. Instead he bent down to the plastic laundry bag and carefully withdrew a small bundle of his paintings. "I'm afraid I don't look after them too well."

  He held one out to her. It was his old lady with the basket of eggs and fried bananas, a water colour of the woman's shoulders, the wooden yoke and her face looking directly out, the deep lines on her face drawn in sharp black ink, the wispy, grey hair falling across her dry and sunburned cheeks. But it was her eyes that mesmerized. The deepest brown and shining with an almost wicked, twinkle. And her mouth - open and toothless - it smiled back. He handed it to Melissa. She took it to the window. "It’s so good," she smiled.

  He handed her another. A lizard. Black and red. It's crested head aloft, its eyes looking sideways and its tail curved around towards its front legs, claws and scales drawn and painted in meticulous detail. He pulled out another. A large fruit, yellow, greenish, its surface pitted and rough. It lay on the ground apparently in bright sunlight casting a dark shadow, its thick stalk angled towards the viewer. "Jackfruit," said Melissa.

  The fighting cock. Its head down, its feathers fluffed, its vicious eye glinting. "Amazing. Very good."

  Jim watched her as she looked closely and then held each one out before her or went to the window for a better look. "Your colours are incredible." she said. "Feathers, scales, texture, the skin, wrinkles, the eyes. Especially the eyes."

  Jim waited, quite happy to look at Melissa anyway. Then the door buzzer sounded and Melissa looked up. "It’s Hugh, Mr McAllister," she said.

  Hugh McAllister, now in his early forties, looked much the same as Jim remembered. He was slim, short and casually but smartly dressed in a blue denim shirt, but his hair was now visibly receding at the front. He came in carrying a brown bag and a flat box of pizza.

  "This is Mr Smith, Mr McAllister. He came specially to see you." Hugh McAllister put everything down and came over. He looked at Jim, up and down.

  "Well I'm damned. If I'm not seriously mistaken this is no simple Mr Smith, Melissa. This is James Smith, my favourite politician of all time, short and sweet though it was. Jim, how good to see you. It is you, isn't it?" He held out his hand.

  "How are you, Hugh?"

  "Well, thank you. And you're looking - what shall we say? Bronzed. Yes, bronzed - bronzed and bearded. What brings you here? Long time."

  "Yes, it's been a while, Hugh. How's business?"

  "Fine, fine. You know how it is, Jim. Up and down. We've gone into more abstract work these days. Seems more of a demand. It's the expensive, contemporary, riverside apartments. Not that they ever want to pay very much."

  "How's Anne?" It was an unusual question for Jim. It was private and private questions were normally alien to him. He usually avoided them altogether. But this one had some significance. It was asked early on and it was deliberate.

  "Anne? Divorced, Jim. It's ancient history."

  "I'm sorry. I had no idea." But Jim was not surprised.

  "You've been away. Why should you? Where've you been?"

  "Thailand"

  "Nice. Live there, do you?"

  "Yes."
>
  "Alone, Jim?"

  "Yes. Are you and Anne hitched up again, Hugh?" Again, it was unusually personal and he never normally used the word hitched, but Jim got the answer he was seeking.

  "Anne is. She married one of those high ranking bureaucrats working out of Brussels and living a life of luxury that I could never have afforded. Speaking of luxury - would you care to join us for a slice of pizza around the back? It's a very late lunch or early dinner, I'm not sure which. But when I smelled it along the road I couldn't resist it."

  "Yes, thank you."

  "Bring the box, Melissa, and there's a nice Italian white in the 'fridge. Let's celebrate."

  So Jim joined them in eating pizza and drinking wine. Conversation was amiable enough. Hugh, never one for deep conversation, chatted superficially about London, art, business. Jim steered clear of mentioning Anne again but planned to come back to it. At last Hugh appeared to wonder why Jim was paying him a visit. Melissa jumped in. "Mr Smith has brought some very good paintings. His own work."

  Hugh looked at her and then at Jim. "You've taken up painting, Jim? Then let's have a look."

  Melissa laid them on a table, switched on a desk lamp and stood back. Hugh looked over the top of his spectacles, silent for a while, picking them up, one by one. "Do you have more, Jim?"

  "Just a few more are in there." Jim pointed to the plastic laundry bag. "Do you want to see them?"

  Hugh nodded but continued to look at what was already laid out. He was now holding the one of the old lady. "I like it, Jim. Good. In fact it's very good." He put it down and went to peer inside the bag. "You always keep them in a hotel laundry bag?"

  He pulled them out, one by one, lay them on the table and took one of Jim's morning sky paintings - abstract, lines of orange, pink, purple and grey with a black silhouette of a coconut palm - to the window

  "They’re good, Jim. But this one." Hugh moved to one he had put down separately. "This one is brilliant." Jim stood up to see. It was Noy and Oy. They both looked back at him, Noy's mischievous eyes peering through Oy's black hair.

  "That one would not be for sale, Hugh. It is rather special to me. I included it to show the type of thing I've been doing."

  "So how many have you done, Jim?"

  "There are about three hundred at home. I brought about fifty."

  Hugh looked again at Noy and Oy. "You are good, Jim. I had no idea. More satisfying that bloody politics, eh? So what do you want to do, Jim?"

  "If you think they're good enough, I'd like to organise a quick exhibition - before I return. Can you arrange it?"

  Hugh looked at him over his glasses again."Where? How? Why? How much do you want to spend etcetera, my dear friend? And how quickly is quick?"

  "Within a month? "

  "That's very quick. Why so urgent? When are you going home?"

  "In a month."

  "Not sticking around to test reaction?"

  "Can you do it, Hugh? A hotel? Somewhere central? Organise a few people to come along? Press? Publicity?"

  "Why the urgency, Jim? I've never heard anything quite like it."

  "I want to make some public comments about what happened three years ago. I guarantee some interest if you can get it organised."

  "Are you serious, Jim?"

  "Of course. I'll pay for a venue. But I'm open to suggestions. It’s up to you to have a quick think on venue, promotion, organising it. Can you do it, Hugh?"

  "I suppose it's possible, but you really mean one month?"

  "Or earlier. I would be very grateful. You can take all the proceeds from sales or give it to charity. I'm really not interested in the money."

  Hugh McAllister looked at him. "So what's biting you, Jim? After all this time."

  "I just want to prove something. It's very simple. Do you recall the nonsense that surrounded me before I went away? It was wrong, malicious, deliberate but I need to prove I was right in asking questions and demanding action. Someone tried to silence me - no, more than that, to destroy me."

  "I remember, Jim. After all," he paused, "I had to listen to Anne every night." He looked away but then quickly back at Jim. Jim waited - waited for something he had suspected for four years. Melissa, obviously sensitive to something, walked away.

  "You know something? I can say it now after so long because Anne has gone. Anne was involved somehow, Jim. I don't know how but I think she had something to do with your problems. I could only see the best in her at the time, but I now see things in a different light. I was not good enough for her. I was just a struggling, small gallery owner. She was ten years younger and thought I was something far bigger in the art world than I was. It was probably my fault, but offering a small, showroom for unknown artists in a side street is quite different than dealing in art masterpieces. I didn't exactly come up to her expectations with a life of exotic holidays, skiing, yachts moored off somewhere fancy, of rubbing shoulders with royalty and men of power and influence at dinner parties and such like. I'm a takeaway pizza man who doesn't even own a car let alone a yacht. It just didn't work. I can't say much more and I have no evidence except some comments she made, but I have certain nagging suspicions about her nowadays. She had her mind set on something - something that meant she'd do anything to get it. She was already having an affair with the guy she eventually went off with - all long before I got to know."

  Jim listened. Hugh's preference for a simple life was something Jim understood and Hugh's description of Anne also fitted. The evidence was in a brown envelope - the one he'd picked up from the solicitors on his way to meet Douglas Creighton at the Cumberland Hotel. But he changed the subject.

  "So, can I leave you to organise matters? I have a mobile number you can call me on. I will leave you the paintings in the bag - all except the one that belongs to me, that is - and bring more before the exhibition." He picked the special one up and slipped it back into the empty laundry bag. "And one last thing, Hugh. Only one or two people know I'm back in UK. I don't want every man and his dog finding out just yet."

  As they shook hands, Melissa re-appeared. "I remember you now, Mr Smith. You ate grilled red snapper and drank Tiger beer."

  Jim just smiled and nodded.