Paint. The art of scam. (4 page)

Immediately,
Polly began ripping at the brown paper with her perfectly manicured nails,
exposing the paintings one by one. ‘How exciting!’ she squealed. ‘This one's my
favourite.’

Polly lifted the
painting up and hooked it on a nail already embedded in the freshly painted
wall. Seymour watched her: speechless. Her taut tanned forearms held the
painting with an erotic passion, as if it were a lover’s shoulders she was
about to kiss.

‘Isn't it
fantastic! Just as I imagined. Perfect for this house!’ she said, looking at
Seymour for his opinion. His eyes were at the time studying her probably firm
breasts.

‘Glad you like
it,’ mumbled Seymour, wearing the stupid grin of a pubescent teenager
confronted with his first glimpse of a naked female.

‘I love it
Seymour, you really have a talent.’

Seymour shrugged,
content to let the moment last forever.

‘Would you like a
drink?’ asked Polly, gently touching him on the arm.

‘Yeah. Yeah, that
would be good, thanks.’

‘Come on
through, excuse the mess, we're in the middle of decorating,’ said Polly
leading him from the hall. Her eyes looked back proudly at the painting
which Seymour had always thought was OK but lacked something.

They entered a
huge high-ceilinged room strewn with various antique and modern pieces of
furniture. The acrid smell of fresh paint made his empty stomach contort,
sending the butterflies that fluttered inside it into a frenzy. He followed her
through to a large space-age kitchen and Polly yanked open the door of a huge
American stainless steel fridge.

‘Let me see, I've
got some champers open, would you like some?’ said Polly, looking back at
Seymour under her arm.

‘Yes, thank you.
Nice place.’

‘It will be when
it's finished. It's a bloody nightmare getting builders,’ said Polly grabbing
a champagne flute and placing it next to her half empty one, next to a dish of
carefully displayed nuts and crisps on the long pine table.

Seymour watched
her pour the champagne, tilting the glass carefully as she did so. Despite her
slick, efficient manner, Seymour detected a certain nervousness about her, as
if she were eager to please him, and began to feel a warm smugness seeping in.

‘Nibbles? Help
yourself. Have you eaten?’

‘No, no I
haven't.’

‘I've got a
chicken in the oven if you'd like to stay for dinner, or have you got something
else planned this evening?’

‘No. No - that
would be lovely. Thank you,’ said Seymour.

‘Great! You
aren't vegetarian or anything, are you?’

‘Me? No, I eat
vegetarians.’

‘Ha! Thank God.
All my friends seem to be on some sort of eating fad lately. Can't eat this,
can't eat that . . . “Oh, no, not for me thanks, can't eat carbohydrates on a
full moon...Oh, that is gluten free isn't it?” Drives me bloody crazy.’

Seymour grabbed a
handful of peanuts as Polly passed him his flute, held hers up to him, and
winked.

‘Well then.
Cheers to you,’ said Polly.

‘Cheers to me,’ said
Seymour, battling to keep the eye contact Polly made as they drank.

‘Mmmm nice, don't
you just love champagne? Please. Sit down,’ said Polly, turning to check the
oven.

Seymour grabbed
another handful of nuts and sat at the table noting the three places laid
neatly and her perfect bottom as she gazed into the oven.

‘So where's
Gavin?’ asked Seymour.

‘Kevin, his name’s
Kevin. Oh, he's probably on the train back from London. Should be here soon.’

‘Oh good,’ said
Seymour lying. ‘What does he do?’

‘He's a corporate
lawyer.’

‘Sounds
interesting.’

‘Are you kidding?
Those people are about as interesting as a Japanese slide show.’

Once again
Seymour traced animosity in her voice. It fed his unstoppable delight in the
hope that she was desperately unhappy with this bloody Kevin character.

‘Have you been
together long?’ asked Seymour, nonchalantly.

‘It’s all quite
new really; I used to work for him. God, I hated it. You ever worked in an
office, Seymour?’

‘No. Well, once.
As a cleaner, didn't last long, couldn't stand the smell.’

‘The smell? Of
what?’

‘Cheap perfume,
deodorant, sweat, air conditioning, crawling fear, everything really.’

‘My God, yes - I
know what you mean. How long did you last?’

‘Couple of hours.
I couldn't see anything worth cleaning.’

Polly laughed,
sat down opposite him, topped up his glass, then her almost empty one.

‘So Seymour, do
you make a living from your work?’

Seymour
remembered his pledge to stop lying through his teeth.

‘Not really.’

‘So what do you
do then. . . to live?’

‘I'm a night
watchman.’

‘Oh? Where?’

‘Down at the pier
where I have my stall.’

‘Is it your night
off then?’

Seymour hadn't
thought of that. He really should be there but, as yet, nobody had been to
check on him.

‘Yes.’

The phone rang
and Polly grabbed the cordless on the table next to her.

‘Hello... Oh,
hi. Where are you?’ Polly looked across at Seymour, then at her watch and
smiled as she stood up and wandered into the front room.

‘Oh bloody hell,
Kevin, not again. Are you drunk? Well, you sound it. What do you mean? Yes,
Seymour's here. The artist, remember? Oh don't be ridiculous Kevin. So where
are you going to stay? Who . . .? Who's he . . .? Oh, for God’s sake, Kevin.
OK. I'll see you tomorrow. No - of course not. Don't start that again. That's
not fair. No, it's not. Oh fuck you!’

Seymour craned
forward and watched her angrily stab at the cordless phone button, throw it on
the sofa and storm upstairs. Seymour looked around the kitchen and smiled to
himself. This was not a happy household. This kitchen was Polly's domain,
straight out of Marie Claire magazine, everything in its place, expensive
gadgets, dried flowers,
post-it
notes on the fridge: a kind of ordered country casual. The
sort of atmosphere that tries hard to look happy-go-lucky, without actually
having to be happy.

A few minutes
later the toilet flushed upstairs and Polly reappeared, descending the stairs
with forced composure. She came slowly back into the kitchen, attempting to
hide her fury.

‘Sorry about that,
Seymour, that was Kevin. He's got to stay in London.’

‘Oh. What a pity,’
said Seymour, hoping he wasn't showing the delight he felt.

Polly took a huge
slug of champagne, topped up her glass yet again, drained the remainder of the
bottle into Seymour's, clumsily wrestled a cigarette from a pack on the table
and lit it all in one movement.

‘Still, all the
more for us. Cheers.’

They chinked
glasses.

‘Cheers,’ said
Seymour.

‘Sorry, do you
smoke?’ said Polly, offering him the pack.

‘No thanks. Well,
I do sometimes, just roll-ups. Look if you’d rather I left, I …’

‘Certainly not,
Seymour,’ said a suddenly indignant Polly. ‘I've cooked a bloody great meal
here. It’s his loss. He's probably getting drunk with some prat and crawling
up his ass to get another brief to sue some poor idiot out of business.’

‘You paint a
lovely image of Gavin.’

‘Kevin, his name’s
Kevin,’ said Polly as she went to the fridge and pulled out another bottle.

‘Would you like
more champagne?’

‘Sure, that'll be
nice, thanks,’ said Seymour.

‘Unless you want
to go, of course. You look like you’re dressed to go out.’

‘No no, not at
all. I always dress like this. Well, when I'm seeing clients.’

‘Good.’

In a matter of
seconds she had expertly opened and poured the champagne.

‘You've done that
before,’ said Seymour.

‘Couple of times.’

Polly settled
back in her chair and once again held up her glass to him. Seymour chinked his
flute with hers.

‘So tell me about
you. Who is Seymour Capital?’

‘Me? There's not
much to tell, really.’

‘I doubt that,’ said
Polly, looking at him with suspicion.

‘Are you in a
relationship?’

‘No. Haven't got
time.’

Seymour launched
into a brief synopsis of his life, designed to present himself as an
autonomous, sincere man who was dedicated to his work, had been in only two
long-term relationships that had ended amicably, and believed that love was
probably the most highly abused word in the English language, with 'sorry'
coming a close second. A man who respected women and their rights to a fair
share of everything. A man whose ambition was to not look for happiness, as
most folk do, but to realise it is with us all daily and you should appreciate your
responsibility to live a creative life and not give yourself to one person or
thing like a God, but give yourself to the world in order to reap the rewards
it has to offer.

This declaration
was formulated on an empty stomach, except for thoughtful grabs of peanuts and several
gulps of champagne which felt as if they had been injected directly into his
brain; along with several downright lies.

‘Well, Seymour,
you sound like a very nice man, or a liar,’ smiled Polly.

‘I'm a very nice
man,’ said Seymour. ‘How about you?’

Polly presented
herself as a disappointed woman who had forgotten to have a career and children
for good reason. She had married twice, and endured several disastrous
relationships, with Kevin shaping up to be yet another one. She wanted
nothing more than a simple, uncomplicated life of occasional decadence; she
wanted independence, enjoyed meaningful sex, and hoped one day to have her own
business doing, well, something. It also transpired that Kevin was still
married and was going through an acrimonious divorce for adultery, with Polly
being the evil adulteress. The house was paid for by Kevin, but belonged to a
newly-created limited company, of which both she and Kevin were directors.
This was to protect him from his ex-wife's attempt to financially destroy him,
the fine details of which were unclear to her.

By the time
Seymour and Polly had told their stories, both were delightfully drunk, and had
between them somehow managed to serve and eat a delicious meal. They were now
attempting to regain a semblance of consciousness with coffee, cocaine, hashish
and brandy, which served instead to put them on a helter-skelter ride between
sublime wisdom, idiotic burbling and occasional waves of paranoia.

Polly was
gracefully draped across the table, her dress straps sliding down her arms
with every windmill arm-swing she made to accompany her excitable ranting.
Seymour listened, slouched back in his chair, and attempted to stop himself
from sliding under the table.

After hours of
amazing insights into the complex and often chaotic state of their minds, they
concluded that virtually everything on planet Earth was fucking ridiculous. God
doesn't and never has existed, and is only a dangerous idea as powerful as the
number of people who believe in Him - or It, come to that. Superglue doesn't
stick anything together except skin, the world, and relationships, and
virtually everything is completely buggered and there is nothing on this Earth
as satisfying as a glass of champagne and a fag.

‘And you know
what Sleymour?’ said Polly ‘I bloody like you, you must be the most fucking
intereshting bloke I've shpent time with for bloody years.’

Seymour closed
an eye to see if there really were two Pollys there. Yup, there were - not a
bad thing. Her breasts were now fully visible and Polly either didn't care or
had no idea. He had to say something.

‘You know what
Polly?’ said Seymour.

‘What?’ said
Polly.

‘Your titchs are
hanging out.’

She looked down:
he was right. She attempted to shovel them back in but the straps had slipped
through her arms and were tangled up somewhere too complicated to deal with.
She gave up, stared at Seymour and suddenly launched herself across the table
shoving plates, glasses, cutlery and everything in her path crashing onto the
slate floor. Polly landed perfectly onto Seymour's lap, her legs somehow
miraculously ending up astride him. She looked him straight in the eyes and
slapped her full red lips onto his. Seymour, shocked, tried to pull back. Why?
He wasn't sure. This stuff had, thus far in his life, only inhabited either
movies, TV ads or lone fantasies of the night.

His chair slowly
leaned back with the mysterious combined forces of Seymour's retreat and
Polly's enthusiastic advances. His chair reached the point of no return and
fell backward sending both of them in a wrestling grapple onto the lounge
carpet.