The Vernacular Conceit

By Douglas Alder

Is the idyllic vernacular cottage in the woods really what it appears to be? Is anything or anyone? Just who or what is genuine anymore? What’s a fake, who’s a fake and, oh, who is the genuine murderer? Are all the other beautiful properties: the ancient Cornish manor house; the villa in the south of France just facades, acquired by theft and greed, maybe murder too? Which of your beautiful girlfriends is the murderer, or are you going mad: the memories are not dreams, you are the brutal murderer? Perhaps the answers are all concealed in the stolen book: Vernacular conceit, but then, maybe it is just another fiction. Maybe your father has all the answers, but who is your real father? Can you mother ever be trusted to tell you the truth about anything, or is the genuine truth worse than all the falsehoods? Somehow Bruno finds his way through the maze and finds something he never believed could exist: genuine happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Martin
• Release date: Jun 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310781247

Douglas Alder

Douglas Alder resides with his wife and seven children in a treehouse in Belize and lives sumptuously on insects, sunlight, freeflowing cenote water and shrimps. As well as his wife he is assisted by a wise tree spirit and the usual requisite three fools.

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THE VERNACULAR CONCEIT

Douglas Alder

Copyright © Douglas Alder 2013

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover copyright © by Robin Matto

www.robinmatto.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.

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Table of Contents

Garrigue

Coromandel

Oak

Wisteria

Ash

Vernacular Conceit

Introduction

Chapter01

The first gathering

The regathering: iron and terra cotta

Chapter02

The regathering: doors

Chapter03

Chapter04

Chapter05

Chapter06

The regathering: timber and slates

Chapter07

Chapter08

Chapter09

The regathering: elm

Rhododendrons

Honeysuckle

Vernacular Conceit: continued

Chapter10

Chapter11

Chapter12

Chapter13

Chapter14

Bougainvilea

Jasmine

Vernacular Conceit: continued

Chapter15: My vegetable love

Brambles

Garrigue

She ran barefoot down through juniper, sage and stunted holm oaks, twisting and turning along the sinuous path, grazing her bare legs against rough limestone outcrops. Further down the track small locust trees snatched at her long, black hair and tore at her thin floral dress. Sweat poured from her forehead, sharp stone splinters cut her sandaled feet as she ran on and on in the heat, stumbling, gasping but never stopping, never daring to look back.

There was no-one out there under the midday sun in the arid garrigue to see the petite woman’s desperate run; no-one to see that, however troubled she was for the moment, the particularly fine bone structure of her face was arresting. Bedraggled by sweat and flecked with foliage she ran like a magnificent wild animal. Sometimes she behaved like a magnificent wild animal. There was nothing domesticated about her or her artistry, and that was partly why she was in this predicament.

She ran on, scratched and torn, stung by insects and plants, legs aching, struggling to breathe, heart pounding. She desperately wanted to wash her stained hands but there was no hope of that in the sun dried vicinity, so the immediate priority was to find the car she’d hidden, never expecting to need it again.

If she could just get back to her flat; if only she’d stayed on her balcony and given up on all the things she’d left in Francis’s villa. If only the blue sky, the sparkling sun on the Mediterranean and the dazzling white of the beach sand had been enough, but all that mattered now was to get well away. If only this visit could have ended the way she’d envisaged: with Francis away in Paris or Italy.

At first she thought there would be no problem with her simple plan. The villa seemed deserted, the remote control had opened the electric gates, the key still opened the garage side door, inside, the garage was soothingly cool and dark, but the power was off: no light switch worked. She could not find her way swiftly to turn off the alarms. It would be hard to find her way up into the house to regain her possessions. Then she planned to make her escape in one of Francis’s prized cars. The power was never turned off: not with deep freezers, tropical fish tanks, security devices she knew so well. She’d never thought to bring a torch: but didn’t there used to be a flashlight left to charge just inside the door? Her eyes were not yet accustomed to the gloom after the glare of the outside sun but she saw something pale ahead on the floor: a letter, she picked it up and put it in her pocket and then she felt around the walls and found the flashlight. There was a sound from the back of the garage, some movement: a lizard, a snake, a stealthy person? She turned the flashlight on and there, at the very back of the garage where his Mercedes estate should have been was Francis: shock, fear. She threw down the heavy light and ran and ran.

All paths looked the same in the dust. Where had she hidden the stolen car?

Coromandel

Her professional eye was drawn to each gallery window as she climbed the steep street, but each window was a depressing disappointment. All the while seagulls wheeled overhead and cried. A smell of fish and seaweed hung on the cool moist air.

She came to another gallery. The pictures in the window were the usual seaside gallery oils of the sea, waves, beaches, boats, but what she sought lay in front of them: two small and very distinctive carvings, carved in laburnum wood. She read the caption, Bruno Sarcazian, and laughed out loud triumphantly. She’d found the right place; he was still around, still playing his games. He hadn’t changed his name or graduated to anything better. But then, she thought, perhaps he had and this was just a profitable sideline run by acolytes.

There was something rather terrible, but also beautiful, in the writhing, twisted torment of the vaguely female sculpted figures. Were they enduring ecstasies of pleasure or pain? Perhaps a measure of both: Bruno had always been so expert in blurring that combination in his carvings and his love: carvings, cravings.

One carving was priced at £750 the other at £1450. The range of pricing between the two seemed arbitrary: they were of similar size, probably both from the same piece of wood, roughly the same amount of work had been put into both of them, but how typical of Bruno to make one significantly more expensive than the other. Two potential buyers: one might instinctively buy the more expensive of the two thinking its price made it intrinsically superior; the other might consider they had a bargain with the cheaper of the two. Or maybe a buyer would want both and make an offer, using the lower price as a guide. She knew that if Bruno had executed both sculptures himself it would have been done in a manic but deft few hours, holding future buyers in contempt. He would have spent far longer choosing the wood: works he truly valued he gave away.

Over the years he had given her some of his creations and they had not been whittled in a few hours but protracted acts of love, just like their acts of love together always were back then, when he could obliterate her sense of time. Three of those sculptures were among the many things she’d left behind when she fled from Francis’s villa.

She looked at Bruno’s carvings and couldn’t help but laugh again, partly in relief at having found him. How many West Country seaside galleries had he spread his mercenary product across? She knew how prolific he could be when he ran out of money - as he frequently did - or when the lover who supported him, as he made his real creations, finally, reluctantly, tired of his infidelity and threw him out to save what little was left of her pride.

She imagined how he might have arrived at this gallery. She could see the owner or manageress of the gallery inside adjusting a painting on a side wall: a woman rather like her, a petite, attractive brunette, well preserved, probably mid thirties.

She did not want to go back to the old life with Bruno - not that he would necessarily want her back - but who else could she turn to but him? He would not be the answer to all her current problems: he always caused problems, never solved them, but perhaps . . . if only for a diversion . . . and wasn’t it all Bruno’s fault that she went to Francis in the first place?

She had to go in and talk to the woman. The woman looked up eagerly from her desk when the little bell on the gallery door rang.

‘Hello. Those carvings in your window intrigue me: I sculpt myself, sometimes in wood, and I collect. But before I buy I like to meet the sculptor. Is this Bruno Sarcazian a local artist?’

She watched the woman carefully for a reaction: the earlier look of eager hope had faded a little, something else, some memory, some pain, some anger had clouded it. She knew how the woman would feel: another abandoned woman thinking she had been misused, or perhaps wishing she had acted differently. Didn’t Bruno always like to make his lovers feel it was their fault, their unreasonable expectations that were the problem, if there was a perceived problem? Wasn’t that why she chose not to return to Bruno when she’d made the delivery for him to Francis as requested: hadn’t he known how Francis would react when he first saw her, how she would react when she first saw Francis and his evident wealth, his beguiling charm, after Bruno had treated her so badly?

All the same, why had Francis chosen to direct the full effect of his charm on her. Was a sophisticated man like him really so smitten by her at first sight, as he’d claimed? Not impossible but improbable. Either he was expecting her or he was bored and intrigued when she came wide eyed into his web, either way, she stayed, and he did make her happy - most of the time - right up until he made her very unhappy.

But why does anyone cultivate such intense charm and exercise it? Tto conquer and possess. She’d left Bruno and stayed with Francis to punish Bruno but she’d punished herself in the process and left herself vulnerable. How had she ever allowed a man like Francis to possess her for over three years: three years of never questioning, never doubting, never realising for three years that he was a liar on a grand scale, a villain, and worse. That she should discover all this made her regret all the more leaving Bruno. Bruno had never pretended to be anything more than he appeared: a beguiling amoral charmer but a gifted creator.

Close up she could see that the gallery woman was older than she'd first thought: the distance and particular light had favoured her. Close up the fine lines added another ten years but she had good bone structure and skin. Bruno valued bone structure: she had once been accustomed to looking at other women through Bruno’s eyes. Were they a threat: would he consider them a work of art he had to possess, albeit briefly? Was she really so arrestingly beautiful: was that why Bruno had never tired of her, now and then briefly taking leave of her for a diversion but always coming back. Had that really been so bad? She should have settled for what she had.

‘Bruno Sarcazian tells everyone everywhere either that he is local or from far away, whichever he thinks will be most apposite for a sale.’

She was surprised at that cynical response. These were not the words of a woman eager for a sale.

‘Is he local today?’

‘Do you want him to be?’

‘I am here today but not tomorrow. Might it be possible to meet him?’

‘I very much doubt it. He travels frequently. I have not spoken to him for quite some time.’

‘His works are small but they dominate your window.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘He does not sell?’

‘He sells extremely well. He is a polymath: a sculptor, painter, writer.’

‘A writer too?’

‘Oh yes, a novelist, and he has many collectors of his sculptures. These are the last two: I had many.’

‘How many?’

‘Many.’

Yes, she thought, left you stuck with a pile of processed wood from his production line to fund him as he made real art with the latest love of his life and financial necessity makes you drop your anger for just long to become the saleswoman again and puff him up as a polymath: sculptor, painter maybe but writer, novelist - ?

‘But surely you are able to contact him if you make a sale; you know where to send the money?’

‘I have a number to call but no address.’

‘Quite the mystery man.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Could you possibly try the number?’

‘I can try, he seldom answers; he could be anywhere.’

‘If you could try. Please.’

‘And your name is?’

‘Melanie: Melanie Thomas. And you are the owner of the Susan Mayer Gallery?’

‘I am. If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes; I’ll try to call him.’

Her expectations were low but she had nothing to lose, no right to expect anything from Bruno, but nowhere else to go, no plans as to where she could spend the night with her limited funds. The door to the back office was shut but she overheard some of the call. Bruno had answered immediately. He must have a mobile phone, she thought, how amusing, Bruno with technology. He never had objections to technology, as long as someone else bought it and paid for its operation. Bruno the writer too: a novelist? Somebody must have bought him a laptop too.

Susan sounded cold on the phone: a woman scorned but unwilling to quite let go. She heard her say: ‘Melanie Thomas’ and ‘might buy if she can speak to you’. There were lower, muffled words spoken and then she opened the door, smiling.

‘He is very busy, only just flown back last night, just about to fly off abroad again tonight, but he has very kindly offered to meet you in an hour, if you can spare the time. You’re very welcome to wait in my office if you like, have a coffee.’

‘That is very kind of you but I’ve been driving all day; I’ll have a stroll and some fresh air, look at the sea. I’ll be back in an hour.’

When she returned an hour later she could see the gallery was empty. She tried the door and opened it gently to avoid ringing the bell and left it slightly ajar; she could hear Susan in the back office.

' - I know you can’t -. undercover? No, I’m sure she’s not, you’re always so paranoid -. small, slim but rather - striking: she says she sculpts -. maybe she could -. well at least speak to her, she said she collects, could be a dealer, maybe she’ll take the lot -. no, I said I had only two - just tell her whatever she wants to hear, you’re good at that aren’t you - but I need the money even if you don’t.- for God’s sake: just charm her, be persuasive, leave the rest to me.’

The bell on the shop door rang.

‘Wait: I think she’s here.’

She appeared in the gallery.

‘Ms. Thomas: I’m so sorry to disappoint you, I was mistaken, Mr Sarcazian is still abroad at the moment but I have him on the line now if you’d like to speak to him in my office..’

She went through to the office, picked up the receiver and spoke slowly:

‘Is this the great sculptor Bruno Saracazian?’

She smiled as she heard the expected intake of breath as he recognised her voice.

‘Romilly? Susie said Melanie someone or other, is she with you?’

Bruno: that warm, rich voice; that familiar faint accent: she never knew if it was real or affected.

‘Not far away.’

‘She can hear you?’

‘Undoubtedly. How kind of you to speak to me Mr Sarcazian; I do so admire what I’ve seen of your work.’

‘Mind what she hears you say then, talk rubbish, but listen to me. You know this area?’

‘No.’

‘From the gallery turn left then right by the post office: north, a mile outside town there’s a granite Celtic cross at the crossroads. I’ll be there in twenty minutes but not for long, I am only just back and I do have to go away tonight. Don’t tell anything to Susie. Can I trust you?’

‘Deserving?’

‘Of course. And you: are you deserving? How is your friend Francis by the way?’

‘Amazing what can be achieved with deft, minimalist strokes, but it is the finish that is everything. Tell me, what I really need to know is this: does the wood command you or do you command the wood?’

‘Always commanded everything and everyone. Until I found you. In the meantime: are you really buying or what? Keep Susie happy.’

‘Wasn’t that your job?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘I shall give it some thought Mr Sarcazian: but I always have admired the artistry of the Celts.’

She put the phone down and Susan looked up.

‘Did he tell you what you wanted to know?’

‘Not much but food for thought.’

‘Oh -’

‘I’ll ponder a little -. ’

‘Perhaps if it’s matter of the price I could - was there a preference?’

‘Price is certainly one factor - but I’ll ponder. Thank you for your time.’

Romilly found her car in the maze of narrow backstreets and followed Bruno’s directions to the crossroads. She pulled up on a grass verge and waited. As she expected, Bruno was surprised when this Melanie someone or other turned out to be her, but didn’t sound surprised that she was back. He was virtually ready and waiting, and in the vicinity. How things could change in the space of a few hours: to be waiting for Bruno yet again; allowing herself to be spun out and let down once again by Bruno. But this time she had nothing to lose.

Twenty minutes became fifty, but then, Bruno never did wear a watch. Why hadn’t she asked for his number? She told herself she would wait out the hour and go: but go where with dwindling sterling funds?

Five minutes later a battered old black Volvo estate approached. She was amused to see it had tinted windows. It cruised past, stopped and reversed back beside her. The door opened. She saw that Bruno was thinner and more lined but he still made her heart beat faster - much against her will - just the sight of him still made her feel more alive.

‘God, Romilly, you look more beautiful than ever.’

‘Of course.’

‘But you know I can’t stay.’

‘I know nothing about you.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘Huh? Why not? Believe it. I saw your product in the gallery by chance.’

‘Really? No such thing as chance, not with us -. you’ve come looking for me and you’ve found me: well done. What do you want?’

‘Since I do seem to have found you, by chance, I just need somewhere to stay for a while. A little money would help, a loan, or I’ll work for it, I can paint, you know I can carve, I can turn out your product for the shops like a factory, just like I used to do, just give me wood and tools.’

‘No tools of your own? Did Francis domesticate you and make you a good little house frau?’

‘He tried.’

‘And failed? Is that why you’re here?’

I said: here by chance.’

‘So you say.’

‘Then I saw your product in the window.’

‘Product you keep saying: you never used to be so dismissive.’

‘Not when I produced some of it myself but I know the difference between your waste product and your creation: I can copy one but not the other.’

‘Well you only just caught me, I’m away, no money, can’t help, I won’t be making any personal appearances for a while, certainly not stocking shops in person with my so called product.’

‘Who will you be: Bruno Sarcazian: wood carver; Antonio Segall: dodgy dealer in Fine Art?’

‘Not sure yet but I can tell you one thing: never again Ferenza Andriotti.’

‘Never heard of that one.’

‘Now you never will. Shame he has to go. It was a crappy little suspicious auction house in Cornwall that finally did for him. Why do they think anybody ever uses them for more than chattels or Adolf Hitler watercolours? All they have to do is talk broad West Country and act stupid if anyone queries the provenance , they did very out of - Ferenza - anyway - so you want to lie low?’

‘I never said that.’

‘But you do.’

‘Maybe.'

'Spartan if necessary?'

'It’s tonight in my car otherwise.’

‘I have a place near here: I lie very low there myself whenever it suits. But lying low for a week or two is one thing, not months, years: life’s too short. As you know: I need to get right away this time.’

'Why should I know that?'

'Keep up the pretence if you must. Anyway: this place is just a few miles drive from here, then a walk.'

He shut the car door, reversed, turned, and drove off back the way he’d come. She followed. After five miles he turned down a single track lane. Grass sprouted along the middle. A mile along the rough tarmac the ruts got worse until the whole track was pocked with water filled ruts. Just before the track disappeared steeply downhill into woods he veered off the road along an even narrower track, consisting of two deep wheel ruts separated by turf. Her car grated in places. After a few hundred metres they reached a pole barn at the edge of the woods. The rusting corrugated iron roof rested on uprights made of old telegraph poles. Inside straw bales were piled, the top ones sprouted with grass and weeds, watered from holes in the roof. He drove his car into a space cleared in the bales and got out.

‘Leave your car there when I’ve gone. Pile back the bales if you want to hide it.’

‘You stay here then, in your car?’

He laughed. She could smell bay leaves: he still kept crushed leaves in his pockets and rubbed them between his fingers.

‘Got your walking boots Romilly? Time to put them on. You sure you want this?’

‘When have I ever had what I wanted?’

‘What?' He laughed. 'Such a short memory, Romilly: you had what you wanted long enough. Didn’t you? So much of what you wanted you got bored.’

‘It was you who got bored of me, remember?’

‘No. I wasn’t bored, just diverted. I tried to explain . . . my predicament.’

‘I was just a diversion?’

‘Not you. No, not you.’

‘It comes to the same thing.’

‘No.’

‘Well I thought it did when you sent me half way across Europe on a chore. You treated me badly - ’

‘I know. I regretted it the moment you’d gone.’

‘A moment too late.’

‘I was -. beguiled I suppose.’

‘Huh. What a feeble excuse from a grown man who spent all his time enchanting and beguiling - deceiving. You should have known all the tricks. Well I won’t ask who she was. I don’t care. To hell with her.’

‘Yes. Hell. Absolutely: to hell with her.’

‘Huh.’

She looked fiercely at him. He returned the look then smiled a little, but she noticed from the start that he had a worried look about him; something was heavy on his mind, beyond a suspicious auction house. Nothing ever used to worry him. She put on her walking boots and followed him round behind the barn, through a narrow gate of oak slats and down a footpath into the luxuriant green oak woods.

‘All mine, Romilly: fifteen hectares of these marvellous ancient oak woods. Given it by an old - ’

‘No doubt sadly deluded lover.’

‘An old dealer actually.’

‘What was the deal?’

‘Complicated -. shared history - and he had a thing about oak. If ever one of his oaks was struck by lightning I was to transform the trunk into a totem. But he died.’

‘Struck by lightning?’

‘By a hit and run driver in London: lived well, died instantly. They found he was riddled with cancer anyway. Maybe he knew he was on the way out and threw himself in front of the car? But the driver drove off so we’ll never know.’

‘Huh.’

They walked on down the cool damp path. All the time they could hear sounds of a stream below.

‘Who else uses this path?’

‘Only me. I hope.’

‘You hope?’

‘I hope.’

‘Huh.’

They reached the narrow stream; it rushed and roared through mossy boulders.

‘All that noise, I thought it would be bigger.’

‘Summer, winter, never stops. There: see that rivulet, it comes from a spring.’

She followed him up a slippery rock path beside the rivulet. Fifty metres above the stream she saw the spring fed a small pool that overflowed down as the rivulet.

‘There’s your water supply.’

‘You boil it?’

‘Drink it from the source: pure, living water, pure as anything you’ll ever drink, filtered by the land above, every mouthful steeped in the essence of this wild place, become as one with it. Remember what it was to become as one?’

‘Why should I ever want to lose myself again in anything or anybody?’

‘Because unless you do you’re nothing, nobody: hard to lose, easy to find.’

‘I am all I need to be.’

‘Alone, desperate, fleeing . . . what, who: Francis? You haven’t come here by accident. Aren’t you fleeing danger? Well? . . . No answer but I can see it in your eyes. Perhaps you are fleeing Francis: had enough of him, taken his money? No reply? So that’s it: you ripped off Francis - isn’t that his job, ripping people off?’

‘Your job too.’

‘No: just a desperate sideline when necessary.’

‘Or to punish.’

‘A little of that too, sometimes, but why come here?’

‘Jesus, why indeed? Where are we going now: a bender up in the woods, a tree house?’

‘Or maybe you caught Francis out?’

‘Forget about Francis: haven’t seen him for a year. Where are you taking me?’

‘Much as I love to see you lie it’s always better to tell the truth.’

‘Hah, very funny, coming from you.’

‘Not far now.’

‘And the only water is down there?’

‘Good exercise, carry buckets up and if you can’t be bothered don’t be too picky about cleanliness.’

‘You don’t look dirty.’

‘That’s because I’ve only stayed here a few nights.’

‘Up these steps?’

They climbed up forty slippery slate steps and then she saw what he’d been leading her to.

‘But . . . but it’s beautiful, why didn’t you say: the most exquisite little cottage . . . and the clearing, oh those pretty little gothic windows with the cast iron frames and diamond crown glass, and that ancient front door: I love it.’

‘Her.’

‘All right, her, and you were given this? But I suppose it is quite small.’

‘Two up two down.’

‘But it’s lovely: who cares if it has no services?’

‘You might, after a day or two.’

‘I won’t.’

‘But you must keep this place a secret, be at one with the woods: foster peace and calm.’

‘And I can stay here?’

‘If she’ll let you.’

‘She?’

‘Imbued with the female, almost palpable - ’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’ll not be back for a while.’

‘It must be worth - ’

‘I’ll never sell her. She's a gift: she's yours.’

‘The cottage? I don't - ’

‘Look after her. But I warn you: you might have to fight for her.’

‘Fight? Who? Isn't the cottage yours?'

‘She was mine, but sometimes you have to fight to keep what's yours. And now she's yours. But you don't mind a fight do you?''

‘I - ' ’

‘And you always fight to win, whatever it takes.'

'I don't. - ’

‘Even took on this Francis and won in the end.’

‘No - '

‘A somewhat Pyrrhic victory - '

'All this rubbish you talk: the whole Francis episode was a failure, a waste of life.'

'Oh yes, absolutely.’

‘I didn't mean - I meant my life, a waste of my life.'

'Of course: that too. Well, I know you're bright, intuitive, sooner or later you'll look around the cottage and wonder.'

'Wonder what?'

'Exactly.'

'Huh. All this - all your - you never used to talk vague rubbish.'

'I've changed.'

'So have I.'

'Stronger, wiser?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'Good for you. Me? I am weaker and stupider: that’s why I’m off. But if you stay here you’ll need to be stronger and wiser. Remember this: it may not be easy. If in doubt, just get well away.'

‘Like you?’

‘Like me.’

‘I’m always very suspicious of pseudo mystery.’

‘What about the real thing?’ Anyway, I must go.'

‘Good. Enough. Goodbye. Ah, but I don’t have your number.’

‘No.’

‘You don’t trust me?’

‘What you don’t know can’t harm you.’

‘God: there you go again: such mystery, and about what: passing off a few fake daubs in a little auction house? They’ll soon forget.’

‘That is not the problem.’

‘What is thent?’

‘Maybe you'll discover. I hope not. I hope it's over now.’

‘You know what: all this mysterious puff, I don’t care anymore, not about anything, I just want to let go of everything.’

‘Don't let go just yet: this might take a little effort.'

'Maybe you will care if you do work it out. Maybe you’ll have to care. Just don’t leave a trail.’

‘Do you care if I care?’

He looked at her and a smile faintly passed across face.

‘No: you don’t care about anybody, Bruno. So they saw through you: they found you out. Why not stick to your genuine sculptures anyway: art not artifice? Why ever bother with faking things?’

‘You share my contempt for buyers and dealers - art investors - as opposed to genuine connoisseurs who don’t deserve to be duped. But it’s a double triumph if you succeed with investors: financial and moral.’

‘Oh Bruno the moralising faker: but you always let your ego give you away.’

‘That didn’t happen. But I’m off. Susan is testimony that I am abroad: don’t make her doubt it.’

‘I don’t owe her any favours.’

‘Good, keep it simple.’

‘Nothing you ever do is simple.’

‘Everything I do is simple but sometimes you need to employ great complexity to achieve pure simplicity - ’

‘You never used to talk to me as if I was some dupe client.'

'I'm past all that. You, me: we're just dust in the winds. Both blighted at the same time: there's link, we're both being manipulated - ’

‘Oh really, don’t be so - ’

‘Ever wonder what causes these processes?’

‘You do. If you hadn’t sent me to Francis - nothing would have gone wrong.’

‘I sent you on a chore, years back. It only went wrong because you stayed years with Francis.’

‘Were you testing me?’ She could see sadness in his eyes. ‘Oh, I see. You were, and I failed.’

‘No test -’

‘Didn’t you know what I’d think: sent all that way to a man like him just for a trivial recorded delivery.’

‘It wasn't trivial.’

‘Knowing it was just to get me out of the way while you - whoever she was - so I thought - I see now, predictably - to hell with you. I hate to be treated that way.'

'I didn't intend - '

'Was it Susan Mayer?’

‘Her? Of course not. And whoever it ever was, I always came back to you.’

‘Not with that mystery woman. You hardly ever came back - ’

‘I was busy, really: my biggest, most ambitious creation ever, something entirely different. I was torn, I wanted to see you but I had to commit or it would never have been done.’

‘Not a word to me of what it was - I didn’t go willingly to this man I’d never met before. At least tell me why: was I a payment?’

‘A payment?’

‘I was totally unprepared, unlike Francis. He treated me as if you’d sent me as a gift he was entitled to unwrap and enjoy. Is that what the letter said?’

‘It wasn’t my letter. Didn’t you read it?’

‘No.’

‘Neither did I. I trusted her, she said it was just old business of hers to settle.’

‘What: she had you send me? She had me palmed off to keep some business associate happy?’

‘Did you keep him happy?’

‘Oh, I was so angry - I knew it was some kind of game so I did the opposite of what I thought you’d expect.’

‘I just expected you back.’

‘Did she send me to him to pay him off or to pay him back?’

‘Did you pay him back?’

She looked away. It was a few seconds before she said:

‘Eventually.’

He looked grave at that response but didn’t pursue it. Instead he said:

‘I thought it was all about money he owed her. A legal demand delivered by hand by you, an uninvolved third party he wouldn’t suspect. You, who could be trusted to find him and make sure the letter was put in his hand, just as I asked you to.’

‘Told me to.’

‘She told me she expected an answer. But you never came back.’

He certainly sounded regretful.

‘My not coming back was obviously the answer she expected. What did you know about him?’

‘Antique dealer, expensive end, once dealt in this country, moved - or fled - abroad.’

‘Huh. Time to explain a few things Bruno.’

‘Me? Don’t you have a few things to clarify? But don’t worry: I cleared up for you. Again. When I’m gone hide your car in the bales.’

He set off briskly back up the path to the barn. Then what he’d said hit her. She called after him:

‘Cleared up for me? Again? Cleared up what? Wait, tell me . . . ’

She caught up with him and seized his arm but he kept on walking, dragging her slight but tenacious body along.

‘Tell me what you know?’

‘Why have you come back to me?’

‘Stop a minute. I haven’t come back to you: I found you by chance.’

‘Chance? Miraculous. How long since you saw Francis? A day? A week?’

He stopped and looked at her until she felt constrained to speak.

‘A while ago . . . I found he had someone else . . . messages on his phone: infatuated with him.’

‘You didn’t trust him so you kept checking his phone?’

‘I had good reason to by then. Not just because of this Marianne.’

‘Marianne? Who?’

‘Sunderland.’

She noted his expression.

‘You know her?’

‘No.’

‘Looked like you did.’

‘Well I don’t.’

‘I saw he’d called her many times, whenever he was away. It’s not the infidelity . . . he was . . . good looking.’

‘Was?’

‘And rich - conspicuously - often away, what could I expect? I’m realistic, or I’d never have stayed so long with you. But no, it’s lies I can’t stand, smarmy charm and lies, and assurances, when I know I’m being lied to.’

‘Yes, I hate being lied to.’

‘He never needed to lie: he was free. So why lie? Showed his contempt. I followed him one time, when he went to Paris, and I saw her with him. She was not young and she was all over him, pathetic, disgusting. She was stunning, but false, expensively well preserved, fake, but rich.’

‘An expert can appreciate a good fake, or maybe she just wanted him to sell antiques to her?’

‘I saw the look in her eyes and the cynical predatory look in his. I thought: let him rip her off or whatever, but he’s treating me with contempt for the first and last time. So from then on I took just enough of his money, in dribs and drabs, until I could buy a tiny flat by the Med, nothing greedy, just 25 square metres of studio with allocated parking and a sea view from the balcony, with enough left over to pay a few years overheads. I spun him along as if I had no idea of what he was up to, and when the sale went through, the minute it was mine, I was off.’

‘Wow: smart moves. You surprise me.’

‘That I’m smart?’

‘I know how smart you are, but your revenge is never usually cold blooded, or mercenary.’

He sat down on a straw bale by his car. She sat beside him.

‘I’d created nothing since you sent me there, not even a sketch, not a jot or whittle: nothing inspired me there. Oh I had a good time: it was fascinating, but all I had to show for it in the end was that studio flat. I’d had to leave a few things for a quick getaway. I knew he always went to Italy the last two weeks of September. I used to go with him. When the time came I went back for my paintings, sculptures, but I scanned the place from the hill with binoculars first, just in case. And he hadn’t gone to Italy, he was by the pool with a girl, not the plastic woman in Paris: this girl was young and so beautiful; I saw how he looked at her. That Marianne woman hadn’t hurt me, I just felt contempt, anger, but this one - ’

‘So what did you do, fight her? ’

‘I drove in quietly; I knew he couldn't hear from the pool. I left my old car in his garage block - so he’d know - and I took his Lamborghini.’

‘That’s what I mean: nothing cold about that: impulsive, to the point. And then he - ? ’

‘Never contacted me: no demand for his car back, no pursuit - but there were still the things I’d left behind, things I valued.’

‘If he hadn’t sold them or dumped them.’

‘Sentimental value.’

‘You? Sentimental?’

‘I had to go back again but I didn’t want confrontation. I planned it. I found a car for the task.’

‘Found? You mean you stole another car.’

‘What can you do when you have no money?’

‘When you shun money - ’

‘What did we always do?’

‘Sell the Lambo for a start.’

‘I rolled it off into a ravine.’

‘What?’

‘I thought he’d be in Paris: first weekend of every month.’

‘A good life you had with him, while it lasted.’

‘I had my plan, I would load his Mercedes Estate and - ’

‘Steal that too?’

‘I knew where he hid his keys. I’d use it to take away my things then maybe dump it in a storm drain when a storm was due, or off a cliff, like the Lamborghini. I drove to the gates and had a