Part 14 (2/2)

'Gwen's twice the painter her brother is, but he's got flash, and people get blinded by it. Ah, Gwen, me darlin', here you are.'

A frowning, rather small young woman in multi-coloured scarves and kerchiefs was standing by the table. 'I don't like to be shouted at,' she said in a husky voice.

'Of course you don't. The Cafe Royal's rather out of your milieu, isn't it, Gwen?'

She looked as if she might not answer him, then reluctantly said, 'One of my friends wanted to come here for his birthday.'

'Must have got a cheque from home. Gwen, this is Mr Denton, famous writer, trying to get a line on this face.' He spun the drawing so that she could see it. 'Ring any bells?'

Without bending, she looked down at the drawing. She seemed to have smelled something bad.

'Slade girl, he says,' Harris prompted.

'Well, it isn't Slade work, is it? Hard to find drawing that bad these days. You're asking the wrong person.'

Before she could turn away, Denton said, 'Why isn't it Slade work?'

'It's stumped stumped. Try Burlington House.' She swirled away.

Harris looked after her and said in a musing sort of way, 'You know, under all those rags, there's quite a fine body? Not that that's any more a sign of accessibility than the face. Mind, I've known skinny little things with no more t.i.ts than a tinker who wanted to be pounded like a piece of tripe. I once walked into a bookshop on a rainy day, n.o.body there but this animated broom-handle of a female about thirty; it took me about ten minutes to be f.u.c.king her on a collected works of Richardson. She had a bush like-'

'Harris, has it ever occurred to you that there's more to life than s.e.x?'

'Good Christ, I certainly hope not! Where did you hear a thing like that?'

'Made it up myself.'

'What an idea!'

'I wanted to know if you recognized the drawing, not to hear your s.e.xual autobiography.'

'Well, I don't know her.' He tapped the drawing. He sounded grumpy.

'What's ”stumped”?' Denton said.

'Hmm? Oh, drawing technique - use a screw of paper to push the charcoal around, rub it out, get lights and shadows. Slade teaches the use of the line - stumping not allowed.'

'And Burlington House?'

'The RA - the Royal Academy. Really, Denton, you've lived here long enough to know that.'

'I don't understand art.'

'n.o.body does - except me, of course. Gwen and her crowd believe the RA's the work of the devil. No telling them that thirty years ago the people who now hang their c.r.a.p in Burlington House were sitting here and saying the same things about their their betters. Today a rebel, tomorrow an academician. The awful truth is, none of them is awfully good - not good as the really good are good. Britain hasn't produced a first-rate draughtsman since Rowlandson. You see, the trouble is-' betters. Today a rebel, tomorrow an academician. The awful truth is, none of them is awfully good - not good as the really good are good. Britain hasn't produced a first-rate draughtsman since Rowlandson. You see, the trouble is-'

Denton concentrated on the chicken and let the words drown in the general hubbub. He glanced towards the table where Gwen John was sitting with several other young women and a couple of young men - late-adolescent boys, really - all the women swathed like her in gypsy-like bits and pieces of colourful cloth. The young men expressed themselves in long hair and collarless s.h.i.+rts with scarves; one wore the blue cotton jacket of a French working-man, possibly the badge of a summer in Paris. They certainly looked unconventional, he thought, probably the reason for the costume, at least among the women - the gypsy look just then was the Bohemian uniform, to judge from the young women he had seen near the Slade - but there was also the possibility that they dressed like this because it was cheap. Like Janet Striker, perhaps they didn't have money for clothes: the problem was the same, the solution different. Theirs, he had to admit, was more attractive.

'Ever hear of the Russian ballet?' Harris was saying. Denton had no idea how he'd got there from Rowlandson.

'Can't say I have.'

'You're impossible. Like talking to a cow. Did you know I was a cowboy once? In Kansas?'

'I've heard you say so.'

'Don't you believe me? I was in Chicago, and these four cowboys came into a hotel where I was-'

Denton looked at the young artists again. Gwen John was looking at him, her right hand making quick movements over a small sketch pad. When she saw him looking, she gave an automatic, close-mouthed smile and went on.

'So I left the hotel business and went into cattle-driving. Many adventures. I was younger then. You aren't listening, are you?'

'I'm tired.'

Harris got up. He was perfectly amiable. 'I need an audience. If you have some extra money, let me know - I'll put you on to a good thing.' He strode away, heading back towards his end of the room.

Denton finished the last of the chicken pie, then the wine, and ordered coffee. A couple of minutes later, to his surprise, Gwen John came and stood by the table. 'I want to apologize for being so abrupt,' she said.

'Oh - you weren't. It was nothing.'

'I can't stand Harris. He's wetter than a water meadow. Is he a friend of yours? I'm sorry if he is. I say what I think.'

She might have been all of twenty-two or -three, he thought, yet she had the settled sombreness of a middle-aged woman. She was not pretty, didn't seem to care. He said, 'Won't you sit down?'

'I'm with people.' She looked back at them.

'Would they recognize the girl in the drawing?'

'Not if she's at the Slade now. We've all been out for a while.' She sat down. She didn't want anything to drink. She looked at the drawing again and shook her head. 'I was quite serious, actually, just didn't say it very nicely - this was done by somebody with academic training. It's good of its kind - quite good of its kind - but I don't like the kind.' She became suddenly almost accusing. 'What's your interest in her?'

'She wrote me a letter, said somebody might hurt her. People write to me like that - they have an idea I'm some sort of-The newspapers have given people the wrong idea.'

'Is it the wrong idea? You seem to be trying to help her.'

'It's a kind of obligation. I was away when she wrote - her letter was waiting for me-' He wanted to change the subject. 'I saw you drawing me. Was it the nose?'

'You have a strong face.'

'A strong nose.'

She shrugged. 'I don't care about pretty or handsome or that blather. It's character I like.' Then her friends came over and surrounded the table and said they were moving on. To his surprise, Gwen John said to him, 'Why don't you come? Some current Slade people will be there. Maybe they'll recognize your drawing.'

He glanced at the others; they weren't paying any particular attention to him. I'm too old, too different. I'm too old, too different. 'I'd be intruding.' 'I'd be intruding.'

'No, you wouldn't. Mark says you're a serious writer.' Mark was apparently one of the young men, 'serious writer' apparently a ticket to their world. She stood. 'Coming?'

Well, he thought, maybe it would be an adventure, although he didn't need an adventure. He'd just got back from an adventure. Thinking of Janet Striker, that a love affair is also an adventure, venturing into the landscape of her, her unmapped territory.

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