Forbidden (22 page)

Many was the time while he slept that she wanted to lay her head upon his chest or place her head in his lap, her lips upon his flaccid penis. She never did, didn’t want to break his sleep, for him to wake and ruin this special secret time she had alone with him. In all the time they lived together he never once awakened before she did.

That first morning after his arrival when he did awaken it was nearly noon. They never left the flat. By dinnertime Jarret had already marked it with his presence: a jumper lying over a chair, a jacket hanging on a door knob, his white shirt draped over a lampshade. Looking away from the library wall where he was checking the titles, he caught her observing the scene and most charmingly told her, ‘My way of making it my own? Because I feel so at home and think it is mine? Take your choice.’ Then he went to her and sat on the arm of her chair and stroked her hair, running his fingers through it.

The intimacy they shared that day made Amy wonder how she had ever lived so happily without it. Never had
she experienced such a sweet sensation. Not even as a child, as an adolescent growing up in the bosom of her family, not even with Peter, only hints that such intimacy might possibly happen. All ambition and striving gone, here were two people totally centred, in utter bliss, living in the moment. It was as exciting and vital as anything Amy or Jarret had ever known. Yet they were not children. They understood that they could not stay locked up in an elegant bedsit a few doors off Fifth Avenue on the upper East Side. Their greatest challenge was to keep what they had alive. Each of them knew that but daren’t speak of it.

At one point during the afternoon, while lying on the floor in front of the fire and taking tea and cakes, he asked, ‘Is it everything you dreamed about, our being together?’

‘More. It’s perfect except for one thing.’

Jarret looked more puzzled than surprised. ‘You’re disappointed about something?’

‘Yes. Your paintings. I was so sure this place was going to be filled with them, I long to see them and you didn’t bring any.’

He looked relieved. A smile crossed his face. ‘Didn’t I?’

Amy sat up on her knees. ‘You beast, you have! Where are they?’

‘I brought enough canvases for a one-man show. I can’t wait for you to see them. I want you to help me choose the ones to be stretched.’

‘But where are they?’

‘I dropped them off at the gallery yesterday afternoon.’

‘Yesterday afternoon?’ Amy felt sick in the pit of her stomach, puzzled, confused. ‘But you were in the air over the Atlantic yesterday afternoon.’

‘No. I took an earlier flight.’

‘I don’t understand this. When exactly did you arrive in New York, Jarret?’

‘Around three o’clock.’

‘Then you didn’t come directly from the airport?’

‘No. Is that a problem for you, Amy?’

She wanted to say, ‘Yes, it is. If you had a change of plans then why didn’t you call and tell me? Why keep me dangling like a foolish schoolgirl in love, counting the minutes, waiting for a phone call, the doorbell to ring?’ But how could she? It was she who’d assumed that he was rushing from the airport directly to her. She who had dangled herself. She was too ashamed of her obsessive love for Jarret to answer in any other way than she did.

‘Why would that be a problem for me?’

The cold look that came into his eyes, the not very nice tone that had flared up in his voice, had come from nowhere. Now they vanished as suddenly as they’d appeared. ‘You will be the first to see them, even before Walter.’

‘Then you are going to have a show at the Walter Cordigon Gallery?’ said Amy with genuine enthusiasm and delight for Jarret since she knew very well how difficult it was to get a one-man show in New York.

‘He hasn’t said yes yet, but he will. He wants to see the paintings first and he had no time or space to do
that, what with people coming in and out of the gallery yesterday. I told him I would be there in the morning and make a selection of the paintings I want stretched. The gallery will pay for the stretchers, an advance against future sales. Fortunately Walter won’t be in tomorrow before one o’clock so you and I can have the back room of the gallery all to ourselves. I can hardly wait to hear what you think of the work.’

‘And I can hardly wait to see it,’ she told him.

Shortly after tea when Jarret dozed off in front of the fire Amy gazed round the place that was no longer her room but theirs. He had invaded her space the way he had invaded her heart and it was paradise. But she was acutely aware that something was wrong in paradise, part of which was that she loved Jarret too much. It was probably at that moment that she realised, living with him, she would have to work twice as hard to keep him in proportion to the rest of her life. He had already taken possession of her and, shockingly, she believed that having done so, he was capable of taking over her life; that he would make her, if he wished to, vanish into a dark corner of his. Fanciful? She wondered. In her erotic life with him she could cope with that, but their erotic life was apart from the love he professed to have for her, and it was this love for her that concerned Amy.

She too dozed off and when she awakened felt strangely secure in herself and her love for Jarret. Incredibly, she had come to understand that they might never be together for all the days of their life, whereas before she had dozed off that had been her fantasy. It
was at that moment that she made the decision that for as long as they were to be together, she would have the best time of her life.

The following morning they were waiting at the gallery door before it had even opened. When Walter Cordigon’s assistant arrived Amy was amused to see how awestruck he was before Jarret. No sooner had Rory unlocked the gallery door and switched the lights on, than he was offering himself as helper. Rory was pleasant enough to Amy but she could see he considered Jarret a star.

The back room was too small for them to spread the work out and the young man suggested, ‘Use the main gallery. We don’t get many people in this early in the morning. Just don’t tell Walter!’ Which was what they did.

The roll of paintings was large and heavy but Jarret managed it by himself. A chair was brought out for Amy. She was quite surprised when Jarret, with infinite charm, asked the star-struck Rory, ‘Would you mind if we did this alone? I would rather you and Walter saw them another time.’ Then took the young man by the arm and ushered him into the office, closing the door.

The Walter Cordigon Gallery was small, one large room, and way down on the list of galleries that Amy found interesting. Walter Cordigon was not an adventurous dealer, but he had been a dealer for many years and did on occasion hold a better than good group show. He knew how to get the paintings he wanted when he wanted them. Amy thought him a rather silly and
pretentious man, kind but gossipy. She had always imagined he might have wanted to be a woman. More than once she had seen him flounce. But to his credit he did know good paintings and could be moved by great paintings that other art dealers had discovered and exhibited. She would not have chosen the Walter Cordigon Gallery for her lover, but knew that a show there could do him no harm and would give him the New York exposure he needed. She was therefore impatient and excited to see the work.

The paintings were good, very good. There was no question that there was a radical and sometimes inspired change in Jarret’s work. It was thrilling to see an artist’s canvases unfurled from the roll and suddenly become works of art. Amy experienced that same high she had had on first seeing Jarret’s work at the
palazzo
. But good, even very good, is one thing. Showing the best of what you’ve got is another. The collection was uneven. Amy was relieved that Walter Cordigon and his assistant were not there. The problem was the canvases were good enough for a show, but not a show that the New York art world would talk about and the hot collectors buy from. Amy walked round them, studied them, thought about them.

‘Well?’ he asked her.

She remained silent, working out what was right and what was wrong with the collection.

‘What do you think?’

Again she remained silent, this time composing in her mind what to say to Jarret.

‘Will they get me a show with Walter?’

Amy turned to look at him. She walked to the chair that had been brought into the gallery for her and stood behind it, her hands clasping the back of it. Jarret went to her, sat sideways on the chair and looked up into her face. ‘Come on, what do you think?’

Amy put her hand on his shoulder. He nervously shrugged it off. She stepped away from the chair and walked to one of the paintings then told him, ‘This is a terrific painting worthy of any show anywhere. And so is this, and this one.’ She pointed to a large, dark but vibrant canvas, a painting full of energy, then walked to the far side of the room to indicate another. ‘These are a thrilling breakthrough in your work. Jarret Sparrows that are new and inventive, inspired even, open and vulnerable. They’ve lost that tight, sometimes derivative thing that slips into your work. But the collection is uneven.’

She waited for him to say something. He seemed stunned with disappointment. But she could do nothing about that so she continued, ‘My recommendation to you is that you stretch five of these paintings.’

At this point she walked over and selected the five and laid them on the floor in close proximity to one another, then moved the remaining paintings well away from them. Jarret never made a move to help her, merely sat there and watched and listened. When she had completed her work she stood back from the collection, arms folded across her bosom, and studied them.

Jarret rose from the chair and walked over to her
and studied the collection. He remained silent, withdrawn. Amy told him, ‘Now here we have the makings of a sensational show. Might I suggest to you, Jarret, that you have stretchers made for these and we roll up the remaining canvases and get them out of here before Walter returns? Bring them home. We can go over them then, talk about them not just as paintings and your work but as an exhibition in New York at a very exciting time in the American art world. Whether you take up my suggestion or not, one thing is for sure: I would only show these paintings to Walter on stretchers, and better still framed, if that’s possible.’

‘Walter has been seeing my canvases unstretched and spread on the floor or draped over an already stretched canvas for years. He is a dealer after all.’

And has never given you a one-man show, was what Amy wanted to say, but that seemed mean and unnecessary. What she did say was, ‘Yes, but he’s never seen these paintings which are such a new departure from your other work, and he may not be expecting this change. Walter might find them thrilling but confusing because the majority of this collection is the work of yesterday. Well, I may not have said it very well but you know what I mean.’

‘This is a nuisance.’

‘Not if you want a show, it isn’t.’

‘You seem very sure about this.’

‘It’s only an opinion, Jarret. And a personal one at that. We’re too intimate with one another for me to step into your life in my professional capacity, but I can’t
leave that behind when we’re talking about your work.’

‘And you think if he sees the new work stretched on frames and maybe one framed, he’ll give me a show?’

‘I’m only saying, I think you have a hundred percent better chance.’

‘But then I won’t have enough work for a one-man exhibition.’

‘We can talk about that later. But if you want to think about this or do as I suggest, one thing is for sure. We should roll these canvases up right now and get them out of here before Walter returns.’

‘What can I say to him? He expects me to lunch with him and look at the work and talk about a show.’

‘We go, we return, and you tell him the truth. You want him to see some of the paintings stretched. And then a little white lie. It was a matter of timing with the framer. You were sure he would not mind a day or two more. And then you take a gamble and say that if he does, you will go and get them from the framer’s immediately. You won’t have a problem, of that I’m certain.’

‘Do you know someone who has stretchers or can immediately make them to the size I need, and do the stretching, and a proper job of it?’

‘No. But I know a man who does and he owes me a favour. It’s one phone call.’

‘We might even get them for this afternoon?’

‘We probably could but I would suggest you put Walter off for a couple of days. That would give you a chance to get into the galleries and see a great deal of new and
exciting painting. The scene is rapidly changing here, Jarret. You’ve been away too long in Europe. Put
palazzos
and
things
and the high life aside and steep yourself in the New York art scene for a couple of days, then you’ll know better what you’re up against. And how to talk with Walter about the sort of show you can get together.’

‘You really think it’s so important?’

‘This is a very exciting time to look at art in America. The dealers and museum people are all on edge. New painters are coming up fast, and the museums and dealers and collectors want to jump – but not over the edge. They’re flailing about, worrying who to back, what to show. Do you think Walter is any different? They all want to discover the new winner. Your timing could be perfect but you have to steep yourself in the art world, and see what you think about what’s happening in it. If for no other reason than to reassess where you’re going with your own work.’

Jarret said no more. Swiftly he went round the room gathering his work together and piling the painted canvases carefully one on top of the other. Amy helped. She was feeling divided about what she had done. She had upset him, which was the last thing she’d wanted to do, but she loved him too much not to put him wise to the art scene that could further his career.

They made a hasty departure with the heavy roll of canvases, assuring Rory that they would be back at one o’clock. Amy made her phone call from a box in the street and came out all smiles and waving a piece of paper.
She hailed a taxi. Jarret stopped her. ‘I can’t afford taxis, we’ll go by bus.’