The Blade Artist (2 page)

Jim gets to the Grand Cherokee, parked on the gravelly lot behind the beach, fifty yards from the tarmacked road. There is another vehicle positioned there, a beat-up, four-door Silverado pickup truck. For a second he panics as he can’t see Melanie or the girls, but it’s only the rising sun, burning away the cloud cover, reflecting on the windows of the car. They are safely inside and he joins them, to find Grace asking questions. Who were those men? What did they want? Were they bad? He straps her in the back with Eve, and climbs into the front passenger seat. Melanie starts up the Grand Cherokee and drives past the Silverado, knowing that it belongs to the two interlopers.

— We should go to the police . . . Melanie whispers, content that Grace is now distracted with a toy. — I was so scared, Jim. Those guys were trouble . . . She drops her voice. — I was thinking of Paula . . . I dunno what would have happened if you hadn’t come by . . . I couldn’t see you because of the dunes . . .

— Let’s get the girls home, Jim says softly, his hand falling on her knee, feeling a steady tremble in it, — then I’ll see about the police.

Home is only a short drive down Highway 101, and a further mile to their Spanish colonial-style house in Santa Barbara, a few blocks from the ocean. Melanie pulls the
Grand Cherokee into the front yard and Jim lets them all disembark, then heads into the second garage which he has made his workshop, emerging a few moments later and taking the vehicle back onto the road. Melanie says nothing, but as the car turns out of the driveway, she is once again uneasy.

The blood leaked out of the man’s smashed head. Finally all was silent and still. Stepping away from the body, I looked up at those stark, forbidding walls. Above, a full moon shimmering in a bloated, mauve-and-black sky, its reflection dusting the metal rungs cut into the side of the stone. After that terrible ordeal, I was spent, and there was no power in my small, frail legs. I thought: How the fuck am I ever going to get back up there?

Jim returns a couple of hours later, to find Melanie playing with the girls at the rear of the backyard, beyond the wooden decking, under a group of mature fruit trees. She has set up an elaborate game around the huge red-painted doll’s house that he worked on for the best part of a year. The girls love it because, inside the structure, Jim has assembled an intricate series of pulleys, ramps and ball-bearings, which set off various calamities for the doll figurines that live there. On the lawn, an unfeasible number of candy wrappers and toys lie strewn about: Melanie’s attempt to salvage something from the abandoned beach excursion.

She rises and moves over to him. — Did you speak to the police?

Jim stays silent.

— You didn’t, did you?

Jim lets go of some air he’s been holding in. — No. I just couldn’t do it. It’s not in my DNA to talk to them.

— When psychopaths put women and children at risk, normal citizens report that sort of thing to the police, Melanie snaps, shaking her head. — You know what happened to Paula, for fuck’s sake!

Jim raises an eyebrow. The circumstances with Paula – the two guys, students, whom she knew – were different. But he isn’t going to argue that detail.

Realising she’s come over more patronising than intended, and that it’s rankled with Jim, Melanie rubs his arm reassuringly, while mouthing his name in urgent appeal. — Jim . . .

Jim squints in the sunlight filtering through the big overhanging oak tree, sucking in another steady breath. She watches his chest expand. Then he exhales. — I know . . . it was stupid. I just couldn’t do it. I drove around to see if those guys were still about, but there was no sign. They’d gone; the beach was deserted.

— You
what
? Melanie gasps. — Are you kidding me!

— I wasn’t going to confront them. Jim shakes his head, his mouth tight. — I just wanted to make sure that they weren’t harassing somebody else. That’s what they would be getting up to, hanging around the campus, causing bother. Then I would’ve . . .

— What?

— I’d have called campus security.

— That’s exactly what I’m gonna do right now, Melanie announces, and heads indoors for her cell, which is on the kitchen breakfast bar.

Jim follows her inside. — Don’t . . .

— What . . .

— I did do something, he confesses, watching her features slide. — Not to them. To their car. I stuck a lighted rag in the gas tank and blew it up. So it’s probably best that the
cops, or even campus security, don’t know that we were around.

— You . . . you what . . .?

As he repeats his explanation, Melanie Francis thinks of those assholes, with their arrogant, bullying threats, and considers how they would react to seeing their vehicle destroyed. She looks at her husband and starts to laugh, throwing her arms around his neck. Jim smiles, looking over her shoulder, through the window and out to the yard, where Grace is making Eve a daisy chain.

Guns n’ Roses’
Chinese Democracy
blasts out from a large sound system at a volume that almost pushes Martin Crosby right back out of the heavy reinforced door he’d slid open in order to enter the small studio. A traditional stack stereo system and its huge dominant speakers are crammed into a window- and sky-lit space that’s barely big enough to contain a kiln and an easel, with some paints and building materials stacked on the floor. He can’t see Jim Francis at his workbench but the heads of the Hollywood actors and pop stars lined up on shelving are recognisable to Martin, in spite of the implausibly creative mutilations the artist has subjected them to. A blockbuster star has his razored face crudely stitched back together. A cable-series icon has been cursed by a massive tumour growing out the side of his head. A pop princess has cruelly lost an eye.

Then, suddenly, the music stops and Francis is at his shoulder holding a remote, making Martin jump. The artist says nothing to his agent, as is generally his way. Martin Crosby, himself a calm, taciturn man, who prefers to listen as he peers out from over silver-framed spectacles, has plenty of ungrateful clients, some who see his role, at best, as a necessary evil. Yet he’s never had one as –
hostile
wasn’t the
right word, that would almost be an improvement – as
unmoved
as Francis. He’s just driven two and a half hours on the choked interstate to offer support for his artist and his forthcoming exhibition, and all he gets from Jim Francis is, — So what you brings you up here, then?

As Martin explains, rubbing at a beard shaved to the same bristle-length as his hair, Jim Francis merely says, — All going okay. I’d best be getting back to it, and he points to a small fridge. — Help yourself to a bottle of water, as he picks up the handset and what to Martin is charmless, overproduced rock music fills the air and assails his eardrums. He goes to speak but realises the futility of doing so as Francis walks to his sculpture in the corner, hunching over another head, moulding it violently with his big calloused hands, and ripping at it with a selection of knives.

Yet it is
almost
worth coming up, just to see Jim Francis at work. It really is a sight to behold. Most sculptors are heavily orientated towards the physical, but it seems to Martin that Francis’s controlled rage is scored by the music’s chopping, ripping guitar work and raw vocals, to the extent that he actually lets the sound guide him across the clay. It is as if the band is composing this head, and they are using Francis as a conduit. Attached to the wall at his side are magnetic strips, which hold all types of knives. Most are the traditional thin stainless-steel blades he’s seen other artists use for clay sculpting, but there are some larger ones that look like hunting knives, while others appear to be a surgeon’s operating instruments. He recalls Francis once said in an interview that he likes to use utensils not traditionally associated with sculpting.

Jim Francis is a strange one, no doubt about that, Martin considers, though this quality is hardly unique among his client base. Artists are artists. Martin had wanted to talk about next month’s opening, to make sure all the pieces would be ready for exhibition, and how best to set it up. This wasn’t easy. Francis has an email account but never responds to Martin’s overtures, nor does he return his texts. The phone conversations, when he deigns to pick up, are an exercise in gruff minimalism. The last time they’d spoken, Jim Francis had just said, in that gravelly accent of his, — Remember to invite Rod Stewart to the opening, before hanging up.

So Martin has come up from Los Angeles, and so far it is odds-on that it will prove to be a waste of a day. This really isn’t acceptable. In his mounting frustration, Martin shouts at the artist’s back, but the music is too loud and something makes him shy about physically touching Jim Francis, even the minimal contact to indicate that a conversation would be welcome. He sees his chance when the track changes and Axl Rose’s scream briefly fades. — JIM! . . .

The artist swivels round and grabs the handset, switching off the music. He looks calmly at Martin.

— I appreciate that you’re very busy and I greatly admire your work ethic, but we have some major decisions to make about the exhibition. I really need some undivided time with you. I’ve driven up from LA –

— Okay, Francis snaps in agitation, then seems to thaw a little, — give me an hour and we’ll go and grab a late lunch. Go through to the house and Mel will get you a coffee or a beer or something, and he slams the music back on at a
volume that makes Martin Crosby keen to comply. Closing the door behind him, Martin moves into a small anteroom, then the main house itself. The studio was probably an old garage, in some way part of things here, but not in others. A bit like Francis himself, he speculates.

Martin has only met Jim Francis’s wife, Melanie, once before, at the opening of a show. Again, she is as friendly and engaging as his client is brusque and distant. Her blonde hair is held back by a red band, and she wears grey sweatpants and a red tanktop. An exercise mat had been placed on the floor in front of a giant flat-screen TV, and weights and elasticated resistance cords attested, along with a thin layer of sweat on her brow, to her recent exertions.

Melanie gets some cold bottles of water for them both, and sits Martin down on the couch. She lowers herself into a padded armchair opposite, folding her legs into a lotus position. — Jim can be pretty intense when he’s working. I admire his single-mindedness, I get too easily distracted, but it isn’t always fun to be around. She shakes her head in cheerful affection, letting Martin know that this observation isn’t intended as a slight to her husband.

It is closer to an hour and a half when Jim Francis emerges, by which time Martin has grown hungry, although Melanie’s agreeable company has distracted him. Francis nods at his wife. — Won’t be long, he says, then turns to Martin and briefly raises his eyebrows. To end up with a woman so outgoing, vivacous and good-looking, and far younger than her husband, Jim Francis must possess some kind of charm, but Martin Crosby has always struggled to find it.

They get into Francis’s station wagon and journey in silence to downtown Santa Barbara, stopping at a beachside cafe called the Shoreline. They head for a table in a tent-covered
al fresco
area looking out onto the Pacific, and Martin notes that Jim Francis seems more relaxed. He spies a couple with a big, wrinkled oriental dog, greeting them by shaking the man’s hand, kissing the woman’s cheek, then aggressively petting the enthusiastic animal. — Neighbours, he explains to Martin, as they take their seats. Francis smiles easily at the approaching young waitress. — How’s things, Candy?

— I’m good, Jim, she sings, dispensing a flashbulb smile.

Martin joins his client in ordering an egg-white omelette with spinach and feta cheese, and a side of fresh fruit. He fires up his Mac, displaying representations of layouts, and different floor-plan options where paintings could be hung and sculptures mounted. Martin starts to explain the natural and placed lighting and the different effects they would have on the various pieces. — I thought if you could spare an afternoon or morning to drive down and see the space, he begins, before Francis silences him with a firm tap on the first set of configurations on the screen. — This one’s fine, he says.

— Well, it does have certain advantages, Martin agrees, pointing at the image, — but the problem is that there’s the brick wall here and no window –

— It’s fine, Francis reiterates, looking over to a nearby table where a group of Independence Day revellers are drinking off hangovers with bottles of Corona beer turned upside down, tipped into outsized glasses of margarita.

— Well, uh . . . okay, Jim, I guess it’s your call. Martin Crosby smiles tightly. — I like the understated classical pillars to mount the head sculptures, giving it a kind of last days of ancient Rome effect –

— Aye, sound. Did you ever hear back from Rod Stewart’s people? Francis interjects, as the server arrives with the omelettes.

— Nothing yet. I’ll get Vanessa to chase it up, Martin says in increased despondency, watching Francis throw some hash browns towards the scavenging gulls that loiter on the sands outside the patio area. To his eyes, his client seems to derive an inordinate amount of pleasure from the act of feeding those aggressive birds. He is particularly taken by one that hangs in the air on the thermals, careful to chuck food its way, enjoying its excited screeches, oblivious to the patent disquiet of the cafe’s other patrons.

Later, when Martin Crosby is driving back to LA, his assistant puts a call through to him on his car speakerphone. It isn’t Rod Stewart, or any of his representatives. It is a woman with the same sort of accent as Jim Francis’s, and she claims to be his sister.