Still Me
Page 25

 Jojo Moyes

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I ran a hand through my hair. ‘I know. It’s nuts. If I’d known about it sooner I might have been able to do something. I’m really sorry to have bothered you.’
‘No, no. We’ll fix this. Can I call you back?’
Agnes was out on the balcony, smoking. Turns out I wasn’t the only person who used the space after all. It was cold and she was swaddled in a huge cashmere wrap, her fingers faintly pink where her hand emerged from the soft wool.
‘I’ve put out a number of calls. I’m just waiting for someone to get back to me.’
‘You know what they will say, Louisa? If I bring them stupid doodle?’
I waited.
‘They will say I have no culture. What can you expect from stupid Polish masseuse? Or they will say that nobody wanted to do it for me.’
‘It’s only twelve twenty. We’ve still got time.’
‘I don’t know why I bother,’ she said softly.
Strictly speaking, I wanted to say, it wasn’t her doing the bothering. Her chief concern right now seemed to be Smoking And Looking Moody. But I knew my place. Just then my phone rang.
‘Louisa?’
‘Josh?’
‘I think I have someone who can help. Can you get over to East Williamsburg?’
Twenty minutes later we were in the car headed towards the Midtown Tunnel.
As we sat in traffic, Garry impassive and silent in the front, Agnes called Mr Gopnik, anxious about his health, his pain. ‘Is Nathan coming to the office? Did you have painkillers? … Are you sure you’re okay, darling? You don’t want me to come bring you anything? … No … I’m in the car. I have to sort something for this evening. Yes, I’m still going. It’s all fine.’
I could just make out his voice at the other end. Low, reassuring.
She hung up and gazed out of the window, heaving a long sigh. I waited a moment, then started running through my notes.
‘So, apparently this Steven Lipkott is up and coming in the fine art world. He’s had shows in some very important places. And he’s …’ I scanned my notes ‘… figurative. Not abstract. So you just need to tell him what you want him to draw and he’ll do it. I’m not sure how much it will cost, though.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Agnes. ‘Is going to be disaster.’
I turned back to the iPad and did an online search on the artist’s name. With relief I noted that the drawings were indeed beautiful: sinuous depictions of the body. I handed the iPad to Agnes so that she could see and in a moment her mood lifted. ‘This is good.’ She sounded almost surprised.
‘Yup. If you can think of what you want, we can get him to draw it and be back for … four maybe?’ And then I can leave, I added silently. While she scrolled through the other images, I texted Sam.
How you doing?
Not bad. Went for a nice walk. Bought souvenir beer hat for Jake. Don’t laugh.
Wish I was with you.
A pause.
So what time do you think you’ll get off? I worked out I should leave for the airport by seven.
Hoping for four. Will stay in touch xxxxx
New York traffic meant it took us an hour to get to the address Josh had given me: a scruffy, featureless former office building at the back of an industrial block. Garry pulled up with a sceptical sniff. ‘You sure this is the place?’ he said, turning with effort in his seat.
I checked the address. ‘That’s what it says.’
‘I will stay in car, Louisa. I am going to call Leonard again.’
The upper corridor was lined with doors, a couple of which were open, music blaring. I walked along slowly, checking the numbers. Some had tins of white emulsion paint outside, and I walked past an open door revealing a woman in baggy jeans stretching a canvas over a huge wood frame.
‘Hi! Do you know where Steven is?’
She fired a battery of staples from a huge metal gun into the frame. ‘Fourteen. But I think he just went out for food.’
Fourteen was at the far end. I knocked, then pushed the door tentatively and walked in. The studio was lined with canvases, two huge tables covered with sloppy trays of oil paints and battered pastel crayons. The walls were hung with beautiful oversized pictures of women in various states of undress, some unfinished. The air smelt of paint, turpentine and stale cigarette smoke.
‘Hello.’
I turned to see a man holding a white plastic bag. He was around thirty, his features regular but his gaze intense, his chin unshaven, his clothes crumpled and utilitarian, as if he had barely noticed what he’d put on. He looked like a male model in a particularly esoteric fashion magazine.
‘Hi. Louisa Clark. We spoke on the phone earlier? Well, we didn’t – your friend Josh told me to come.’
‘Oh, yeah. You want to buy a drawing.’
‘Not as such. We need you to do a drawing. Just a small one.’
He sat down on a small stool, opened his carton of noodles and started to eat, hoicking them into his mouth with rapid strokes of his chopsticks.
‘It’s for a charity thing. People do these doo– small drawings,’ I corrected myself. ‘And apparently a lot of the top artists in New York are doing them for other people so –’
‘ “Top artists”,’ he repeated.
‘Well. Yes. Apparently it’s not the done thing to do your own and Agnes – my employer – really needs someone brilliant to do one for her.’ My voice sounded high and anxious. ‘I mean, it shouldn’t take you long. We – we don’t want anything fancy …’
He was staring at me and I heard my voice trail off, thin and uncertain.
‘We – we can pay. Quite well,’ I added. ‘And it’s for charity.’
He took another mouthful, peering intently into his carton. I stood by the window and waited.
‘Yeah,’ he said, when he had finished chewing. ‘I’m not your man.’
‘But Josh said –’
‘You want me to create something to satisfy the ego of some woman who can’t draw and doesn’t want to be shown up in front of her ladies who lunch …’ He shook his head. ‘You want me to draw you a greetings card.’
‘Mr Lipkott. Please. I probably haven’t explained it very well. I –’
‘You explained it just fine.’
‘But Josh said –’
‘Josh said nothing about greetings cards. I hate that charity dinner shit.’
‘Me also.’ Agnes stood in the doorway. She took a step into the room, glancing down to make sure she was not treading onto one of the tubes of paint or bits of paper that littered the floor. She held out a long, pale hand. ‘Agnes Gopnik. I hate this charity shit too.’
Steven Lipkott stood slowly and then, almost as if it were an impulse from a more courtly age that he had little control over, raised his hand to shake hers. He couldn’t take his eyes from her face. I had forgotten that Agnes got you like that at first meeting.
‘Mr Lipkott – is that right? Lipkott? I know this is not a normal thing for you. But I have to go to this thing with room of witches. You know? Actual witches. And I draw like three-year-old in mittens. If I have to go and show them my drawing they bitch about me more than they do already.’ She sat down and pulled a cigarette from her handbag. She reached across and picked up a lighter that sat on one of his painting tables and lit her cigarette. Steven Lipkott was still watching her, his chopsticks loose in his hand.
‘I am not from this place. I am Polish masseuse. There is no shame in this. But I do not want to give these witches chance to look down on me again. Do you know how it is to have people look down on you?’ She exhaled, gazing at him, her head tilted, so that smoke trickled horizontally towards him. I thought he might actually have inhaled.
‘I – uh – yeah.’
‘So it is one small thing I am asking you. To help me. I know this is not your thing and that you are serious artist, but I really need help. And I will pay you very good money.’
The room fell silent. A phone vibrated in my back pocket. I tried to ignore it. For that moment I knew I should not move. We three stood there for an eternity.