Tomato In A Black Hole

By Christian Wharton

The leader of the pack in the art world is challenged by a determined woman and by a vicious rival. Will there be a love match or disasters?

 

Jane's passion is her art. Mark and his extreme modern art horrify her. When a ruthless rival appears, how will the dice fall?

 

Set in London in the early 2000s, Mark Crocker is a successful gallerist who has made a fortune by promoting avant-garde art. He has everything going for him – fame, a large house, a smart car, women and family sufficient for his needs. He meets Jane, the director of a small and struggling conventional gallery whose livelihood is being diminished by the popularity of Young British Art. He is as attracted to her as much as she is repelled by him.

 

In the course of their developing romantic affair, Mark is beset by a number of incidents, which cause him to rethink his world view. But does a change in aesthetic values mean a change in moral outlook? Can he be trusted? The book asks other questions, like what is the meaning of art and how is it that a burnt oatcake and a cat could foil a lucrative art deal? And how could a plastic tomato change a mindset?

 

82,500 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: CCW Press
• Release date: Oct 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9780995779266

Book preview

Chapter 1

Encounter On A Train

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"It’s not difficult to find your way out of the labyrinth.  The hard bit is to realise that you are in one."

But Chlorinda, what happens if you feel that you are being sucked into a great dark hole and can’t get out?

You mean a Black Hole? Amarillys said.

Mark closed the book with a sigh.  He was losing interest in the fortunes of Chlorinda and Amarillys.  The book which he had bought on the spur of the moment in the station was beginning to bore him, or perhaps to touch on areas which he would rather not have touched.  He turned his eyes to the sodden Hampshire scenery and reflected with a grimace that there was nothing in the book to distract him from the landscape and nothing in the landscape to distract him from the book.

While he was musing on these things, or perhaps for some time before he closed the book, the awareness grew that there was a pair of eyes fixed on him – eyes that were an intense shade of violet blue.  The owner of the eyes was an old lady with a mop of curly grey hair framing her face.

Her expression was kindly and there was just the hint of a smile which suggested both sympathy and humour.

As he raised his eyes to meet hers, she spoke.

‘It is a long journey to Paddington, is it not?  But at least the train is on time today.’

‘Indeed,’ he agreed and then feeling that it would be impolite not to continue the conversation asked, ‘Do you live in London?’

‘Oh no.  I live near Yeovil.  I am going up to London to visit my nephew who mends wirelesses.’

‘Wirelesses?’  He had not heard that word for many years.  Not in relation to radios anyway.

‘Well not exactly.  Not all the time.  He prefers to build them.  And not just wirelesses but gramophones.’

‘Gramophones?  You mean like His Master’s Voice with the big horn coming out?’

‘No, no.  Much more modern than that.  Those contraptions that help to increase the volume of an electric gramophone – I’ve forgotten the exact word, I’m no use at technicalities.’

‘You mean loudspeakers?’

‘No, it’s more basic somehow.’ 

‘Amplifiers?’

She beamed at him.

‘Yes, that’s right.  You see, he has this system that he’s invented for making the sound come out from inside you – not just from anything outside.  Isn’t that amazing?’

It sounded horrendous but he nodded.

‘But no-one wants to buy it, so he mends wirelesses instead.  In his spare time he writes poetry so he is really an artist like me.’

‘Are you a poet too?’

‘No – I am an artist –  painter.’

He could just see it – apples, teapots and roses.  ‘What sort of things do you paint?’

‘Oh, apples, teapots, roses.  That sort of thing.  And more recently, angels.’

‘Angels?’

‘Not very often.  Only when I see them.’

He felt rather stunned by this reply so he was silent.

‘Now you know all about me, tell me what you do.’

‘Oh, I’m a gallerist.’

‘A gallerist?  What on earth is that?’

‘Well...I suppose you could say I’m an art dealer.  I have two galleries and I promote a certain type of art.’

‘What sort of art?’

‘Modern art.  We’re on the cutting edge.’

‘Do you sell pictures?’

‘I do sell artworks but never pictures.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because no-one at the cutting edge produces pictures nowadays.’

Lucy removed a handkerchief from her bag and blew her nose.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘You see it’s like this.  Art today has broken the boundaries of centuries-old constricting picture frames.  It comes out at you.  It relates to you.’

From somewhere at the back of her mind a memory came through.  ‘Oh yes.’  She rubbed her hands together, ‘I know what you mean.  The Tate Gallery bought a pile of bricks and everyone said it was art although if you went to a builder’s merchant you could have seen exactly the same thing.’

‘Yes...it's all part of breaking the boundaries and reaching new territories.’

Lucy sat in stunned silence for a moment, then she said, ‘You know that old fairy tale about the Emperor’s New Clothes?’

He nodded.

She continued, ‘Well isn’t it all a bit like that?  You know, the fraudster persuaded the emperor to walk down the street naked because his new clothes were too fine for anyone to see!’

‘Exactly!’ he cried waving his hands.  ‘Right! Right!  The Emperor’s naked.  He’s the People’s Emperor and the People should see him what he is.  That’s what we are doing with the New Art – Exposing Reality!’

Lucy shuddered. ‘But who buys this stuff?’

‘You’d be surprised by the numbers of our clients: public corporations, businesses, private individuals.  He winced slightly, ‘We even have waiting lists from abroad.’

‘Abroad?  How very interesting.  So you’re really an art dealer then?’

‘You could say so.  But if I say I’m an art dealer all my mother’s friends want me to sell their watercolours for them.’

‘Don’t worry – I’m not looking for an exhibition myself.  I have a friend, Maud who sells as many as I need.  And besides, I have, in addition, what Jane Austen would call a modest competence.’

‘And an equally competent modesty?’

She drew herself up.  ‘My modesty is quite competent enough to cope with the demands I make on it.  What about yours?’

He laughed, ‘Touché!  But I have to confess I’ve so little to be modest about.’

‘Tell me the name of your gallery.’

‘Oh, it’s the Arniston Crocker Gallery.  I’m not sure you’d really like our stuff.’

‘Nevertheless, I should still like to visit it.’

‘I’ll give you my card.’

There didn’t seem anything to add so she dozed off once more.

Just as they were reaching the outskirts of  London, she woke up.  She again fixed her sharp blue eyes on him and asked a question.  ‘But tell me...are you really happy with what you are doing?’

Just for a fraction of a second, he hesitated.  It was as if he was hearing a distant rumble of thunder, barely audible over the noise of the train. ‘Of course!  Of course I am.  It’s been huge fun building this up, pleasing lots of people and getting lots of money for doing something I enjoy.  I’m in charge of a big outfit and I love driving it forward.’

As the train drew into Paddington, he gave her his card, with a mild sense of misgiving.  Then he helped her with her baggage and escorted her to where her nephew was waiting.

And then he forgot all about Lucy Bleddoes.

A few days later, Lucy was in the greengrocers when she met Maud.

‘How was your trip to London?’

‘Oh, it went very well.  I met a most extraordinary man on the train’.

‘Really?  What was he?’

‘Oh some kind of an art dealer – a gallerist, I think he said.’

‘Sounds dreadful – who was he?’

‘His name is Mark Arniston Crocker,’ she replied as she fingered some peaches.

‘Oh, he’s always in the news.  Markets dreadful stuff like giant toothbrushes and headless birds in formaldehyde – installation art, all that kind of thing.  You didn’t actually like him did you?’

‘Well actually, I did.’

‘No, not those peaches – far too hard.  Why did you like him?’

‘He was good looking, witty, charming, pleased with himself and...’

‘The nectarines are all right.  I had some last week.’

‘I just had a feeling that, at some part of himself, deep down inside, he was not entirely deceived by himself.’

But Maud had lost interest.  ‘The tomatoes are very good,’ she said. 

Lucy did not forget about Mark.

★  ★  ★

Chapter 2 

Cold Cassoulet

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Mark, who was not good looking in a conventional way but exuded charm through lively brown eyes, his tall figure and the long hank of hair which swept across his forehead, came into the room expecting to be able to fling himself down on his favourite armchair.  But then he noticed his wife, Millicent, sitting in the chair opposite reading some large typewritten tract.  He crossed over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.  ‘Hi Millicent, surprise, surprise!’ he said as he sat down.  ‘Not often we coincide in the late afternoon.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Gallery had to put off the party because they had a pipe burst.’

‘You mean they had a flood?’

‘Yes.  They were in the most awful mess.  Blood everywhere.’

‘Blood?  You mean the pipe was leaking blood?’

‘Well – yes.  It wasn’t human blood though.  Show was called Life Support Systems and it was just a mesh of transparent plastic piping with ox-blood being pumped all round it.  One of the valves sprung a leak which they didn’t notice until it was too late.’

‘Good heavens!’  Millicent pushed back a scrap of hair that had fallen across her forehead. ‘What a weird world you inhabit.’

‘Yes,’ he said, feeling that he was being reprimanded.  He gave himself a Brownie point for not saying Well it’s more lively than your one.

Instead he said, ‘What are you reading?’

‘Oh, this is just a dissertation from a trainee whom I’m mentoring at the bank.  It’s about new developments in statistical procedures for assessing futures in the copper industry.’

He suppressed a yawn, ‘And I thought it was a cover for the latest Harry Potter.’

Millicent shot him a look of contempt.  They fell silent.

Then she looked up and said, ‘By the way... Mark?’

‘Yes?’ 

‘You know I’m going to that conference in Sweden next month?’

He had forgotten but he said, ‘Yes.’

‘Well it’s been extended to four days and I’ve been asked to give a paper, so I won’t be able to collect the children for half term.  Would you be able to go down to Hastings for them?’

‘Course I can.  No problem.’

‘Good.’  She began to pack away her papers in a large brief case.

‘I’m going now.  I’ve got a meeting.  Library committee again.  There’s plenty of food in the fridge.  You might like some of the cassoulet we had the other day.’

‘Thank you.  Have a nice meeting.’

As she was going out of the room she said, ‘And by the way, Mark, when I come back from Sweden, I don’t want to find any traces of that ghastly Wigwam game.’  She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and left the room.

Wigwam?  He had forgotten all about it but gradually it came back.  Quite a long time ago when she had last inflicted the children on him on a wet Sunday, he had allowed them to play in the drawing room.  They had turned most of the chairs and tables on their sides and draped them with rugs to make houses and tunnels.  One of them at the end of the room was a Wigwam because it was larger than the rest.  The game was that they had to crawl along the tunnels and get across the exposed bits while he counted up to ten with his eyes shut.  If he caught them then he could tickle them, or bomb them with cushions.  The game became wilder and wilder and they ended up all three of them lying on their backs on the floor, convulsed with laughter.

Then the door had opened and Millicent came in.  Thunder, lightening and hailstorm.  A long time later, when the room restored to its original, pristine dullness, three subdued individuals made their sombre way back to their respective quarters.  But Mark made a point of going up and seeing them.  They giggled, ‘It was a fun thing, Daddy!’

He now listened for the front door to close and when he heard it, he fished out his mobile.  ‘Hi Honey!  Got some good news...Got four days off next month.  Got to be back to collect the children from Kent, but we could get away for two of them.’

There was whoop of joy at the other end of the line. 

‘Where would you like?... Malta?... Ibiza?... what’s that?... I can’t hear you very well... Granola?  No that’s a sort of Muesli... Oh, Granada!  That’s a good idea.  Let’s go and see the Alhambra...Yes...See you soon.  Lots a love,’ and he rang off.

And then, not feeling at all like cold cassoulet, he went out for an Indian meal.

★  ★  ★

Chapter 3

The Power Of Positive Thinking

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Jane and Freddie sat facing each other across a table in a small gallery in Little Venice.  Jane looked as though she had been crying; Freddie was comforting her.  Even though her face was a little blotchy and her mouth turned down, she looked beautiful with her fine well-coloured cheek bones, green eyes and a mass of black hair that fell to her shoulders where it ended in curls.  He was good looking in the way gays are, with thick, curly black hair and long eyelashes.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘have you ever thought it might be the other way round?’

‘What do you mean?’ Jane said.

‘I mean, well, you said you’re depressed because the gallery’s not making enough money...’

Jane interrupted.  ‘Well that’s reasonable enough.’

‘Yes, but sometimes reason isn’t enough.’

She ran her hand through her hair.  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Just suppose for a minute the gallery is not making money because you are depressed.’

‘But that’s not true!’

He sighed.  ‘You see – you’re not the only one that gets miserable, I do too.  And recently I found a book on a bookstall about dealing with depression and I did one of the exercises in it and I found it helped and I just wondered if it might help you.’

‘Oh yes?’  Her grin was saturated with disbelief.  ‘What’s the quick fix then?’

‘No quick fix but if you can accept the idea that sometimes being depressed can cause negative events and if you find a way out of it, then things might happen more, er, favourably.’

‘Ye-es.’

He went on, ‘Would you like to do the exercise that helped me?’

She wouldn’t but she didn’t have the heart to tell him.  ‘OK, I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm.’

‘So what you have to do is to write down in your own handwriting on a piece of paper or in in a notebook, three things that happened recently, that you feel pleased about.  They can be things you did, or things that happened – it doesn’t matter.’

Jane found a notebook  and picked up a pencil.  She closed her eyes and wrote in her mental diary:-

Three things I hate about Freddie.

1 He’s a busybody

2 He wants to control me

3 He thinks he’s right

Then she opened her eyes and saw him looking at her with such a look of concern on his face that she became contrite.  After chewing on her pencil for some time she came up with:-

1 I found the tin-opener.

2 I unblocked the sink.

3   - - -

She was stuck.

Freddie said, ‘How are you getting on?’

So she told him and just as she got to the second item, she remembered something else.

‘Yesterday, when I dropped a piece of buttered toast on the floor, it landed butter side up’

‘Wow,’ he said.  ‘That’s really good.  Highly auspicious in fact – the buttered toast trick.  Feeling better?’

Oddly enough, although she didn’t want to admit it, she did.  Just a little.

He rubbed his hands together.

‘You’re looking a bit more cheerful!  You see, it works.’

‘Possibly,’ she admitted grudgingly.

‘And now you’ve to do the next step of the exercise.’

‘Do you mean there’s more to it?’

‘Look, if you want to get out of being depressed, you have to work on it a bit.  You know you’re feeling a bit better.  You want to get up the next step of the ladder.’

She sighed,  ‘Go on then, Mr Guru.’

‘What you have to do now is write down three major things you have to be thankful for.’

Jane sipped her tea, and thought for a moment, screwing her face up.

‘It’s so hard.’

Freddie also sipped his tea, ‘I’ll help you if you like.’

‘Go on then.’

‘Well...what about your home?  Where do you live – Willesden or Neasden?’

‘No. You know perfectly well I live in Primrose Hill.’

‘Isn’t that a bit good?’

She squirmed slightly.  ‘I suppose so.’

‘And do you own your house completely?’

‘Well – I own the bit I live in, the top two floors, to be exact.  Ben’s parents bought it for us when we got married.’

‘So you own a property in Primrose Hill.  I’d have thought that was something to be grateful for.’

‘I suppose so.’  She sniffed.

‘And what about the gallery?  Do you own this shop?’

‘Well – yes.'  She sniffed again.

‘And the bit upstairs?’

‘Yes.  Ben’s parents gave us a bit of a hand when we started the gallery and then when they died they left us enough to pay off the mortgage.’

Freddie drew in a deep breath.  ‘Phew... !  Jane, you own two properties in prime parts of London.  Have you any idea of what they might be worth?  Prices have hiked recently.  If the worst came to the worst, you’d get a fortune.’

‘But where would I live?’

He opened his mouth to reply but he was cut short by a crash as the front door was flung open and an exuberantly dressed woman rushed in.

‘I can’t stay long.  My husband’s due home any minute and he’s out without a key. I just wanted to ask if that painting of the window is still for sale?’

Jane told her it was.

‘Good.  I’d like to buy it.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since the party and I can’t get it out of my head.  I’ve simply got to have it.’

Jane told her the price, £1000, and the lady wrote out a cheque, gave out some contact details and arranged a collection date.  Then she swept out.

Jane and Freddie looked at each other in stunned silence and then they burst out laughing.

Jane said, ‘OK, you win.’

‘Well, it could have been a coincidence – we don’t really have any proof.  I’ve never known something like this to happen so rapidly.’

Freddie stood up, ‘Jane I’ve got to go, I’m meeting a friend.  It’s been nice seeing you.’

‘Just before you go...you said I had to find three things and we’ve only got two so far?  I’ve just thought of the third.’

‘So what’s that?’

‘You,’ she said.  'I’m sorry I was so grumpy earlier.  You’ve really got me out of it.’

Freddie looked embarrassed, ‘Aw Shucks!  It was nothing.  Thank you for the tea.’

He gave her a quick hug and was gone.

★  ★  ★

Chapter 4

A Life On Oiled Wheels

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He was right about having so little use for his modesty, for Mark Arniston Crocker lived a life which ran on oiled wheels.  It was smooth, successful and full of delights.  Parties, travel, people and possessions seemed to come to him with an ease which others could only envy.  Effortlessly he sank into a job he found rewarding, and over the years he easily rose to the top of the management ladder.  His talent for promotion, presentation and public relations found him his niche and it was a comfortable one.  He had everything he could wish for.

More than anything, he congratulated himself upon his menage.  For in his wife, Millicent, he had everything he could possibly want in a woman from the neck upwards, whilst his mistress, Louisa had everything that was desirable from the neck downwards, while the restrained elegance of his Canonbury house contrasted nicely with the riotous colours and cheerful shabbiness of Louisa’s flat in Bayswater.

He liked to think he was similar to an average Muslim husband, a modest Arab Sheik perhaps, and that what worked for them worked for him.  The thought never occurred that this was not Arabia and his two ladies might not be so happy with the arrangement, but he was careful to respect the unwritten code.  Louisa never came to his home and never went away with him unless Millicent was away.  He avoided telling Millicent direct lies.  He was punctilious in observing all birthdays and other anniversaries, wonderful at giving flowers and presents at the right moment and despite a lot of temptation, was remarkably faithful to his two women.

There were, however, aspects of the situation which were not entirely similar to the conditions of Muslim marriages and which represented flaws in his moral construct.  One of these, he was shortly to discover.

Louisa liked to give him surprises and as he approached her flat that evening he had a slight shiver of apprehension.  Her surprises, like her cooking, were unpredictable.  They could be awful, for Louisa, although not what might be termed a ‘seeker’ in life, had many friends on the fringe of the New Age.  On various occasions she had inflicted on him Astral Reprogramming, the Slink System for Inner Integration (he had rather liked that one) and the Cricklewood Spiritual Revivalists.  On the whole, they amused him if they were not too boring, although this was slightly marred by the feeling that Louisa wanted to change him in some way.  On the other hand, her surprises could be delightful.  As he rang the bell, he hoped it would be one of the latter tonight.

He was early – Louisa was never on time and he liked to catch her unprepared.  Sex had always seemed to him to be the best preparation for an evening designated for personal improvement and at least he could lie in the warm post-coital glow watching her put on her clothes and her make-up.

Unfortunately, tonight he was not so lucky.  She opened the door and kissed him.

‘I’ve got a naked man on the floor, like.’

‘So this was the surprise?’

‘Nah...more of a surprise for me.’

She led him through the hall and into the living room.  There on a rug in front of the radiator was a placid baby boy amiably gurgling and dribbling over a small plastic pig.  Mark was torn between relief and horror.

‘He’s Woody,’ Louisa explained.  ‘Elaine’s gone out shopping like and her fella, Aron, is supposed to be picking him up but he’s a bit late, like.’

‘So you’re running a crèche now, in your spare time?’

‘No, of course not.  Hey let me have that Woody!’

Woody had now inserted his fat little paw under the sofa and drawn out a pair of scissors.  She deftly replaced them with a teddy. 

‘But that’s your teddy.’  Her collection of teddy bears was one of the things he liked least about her, but he respected her addiction.  He found it puzzling she would lend one to this little creature.

‘You don’t like babies, do you?’ she asked brightly as she poured out some whisky for him.  ‘Have this; it’ll make you feel better, like.’

‘Well no.  It’s not exactly that I don’t like them...but...I like them better when they’ve stopped dribbling and shitting and peeing and all that.’

She laughed.  ‘Cos you see so much of it in your work?’

‘Possibly.’  He grimaced.

Woody, who had not quite reached the stage of being able to crawl, now rolled over onto his stomach and began to beat the floor with his little hands, gurgling and cooing all the time.

‘Ain’t he sweet?  How could’yer not like the little fella?’

‘Don’t you think he aught to have something on?  Like a nappy, perhaps?’

‘Oh.  He’s just done a big poo and I’m letting him have a bit of a kick.  But I’ll start dressing him now and then he’ll be ready for Aron, like.  Hey I’ve got to get his bottle ready – can you keep an eye on him just a mo?’

Mark watched the baby in abject horror as he now rolled onto his back.  And then a strange thing happened.  The baby fixed his eyes on Mark, stared at him intently for a moment and then exploded into a smile.  His mouth opened wider and wider, the smile spreading through his whole body.  He kicked and beat his arms up and down, all parts of him vibrating with delight.  This was not the smile of ingratiation, mockery or patronage.  Just the simple sign of a single human being recognising another on this strange planet and reacting with joy.

It touched Mark in a hidden region of