Dome of Death - 2. Chapter 2 Frances Twists My Arm

Having seen little point in giving Max’s parents a sleepless night, I telephoned them immediately after breakfast. Hank and Celia were my best, just about my only friends, although I’d seen little of them over the preceding four years. At the sound of Hank’s voice my throat dried and the awful news had to be flushed out with tears. And then it was Hank consoling me.

By eight o’clock a covey of policemen were swarming over the roof, peering at the dome, admiring its construction, shouting to have it opened and closed, bustling around with knowing mouths. I went up to watch. A bucket of metal fastenings, off-cuts, screws and similar objects had been piled beside a carton of cigarette butts, lunch-wrappers, plastic drink bottles, pieces of string, sticky tape and other residue left behind by the builders. On a blue cloth were two screwdrivers, a drill bit and a broom handle.

‘Recognise any of this stuff?’ asked the bloke in charge.

I didn’t.

Someone dusted things for fingerprints, and a vacuum cleaner sucked the area clean. The paper-bags were carefully labelled and packed in a separate carton. Eventually, everyone clomped down the narrow stairs lugging their booty and drove off to wherever one looks for truth in a pile of rubbish.

An hour later at the police station, Frances and I dictated and signed statements, were asked to remain available for further interviews, and gained the impression that superior forces were at work to protect us. When I innocently remarked that it was surely an accident, the duty constable stared at me with such suspicion I was glad a hundred people could testify to my whereabouts at the time of the fall.

On leaving the building we met guests from the previous night, summoned to endure the same rigmarole. Some smiled, others glared as though it was our fault they had to waste a morning; all offered condolences to the wealthy young widow. Back at the gallery, an army of reporters and photographers. I started to twitch. Frances pushed me inside.

‘Nothing will change the past, Peter. Go up and take a long shower and three hundred deep breaths. I’ll handle the free publicity.’ And she did. The spreads in the following days’ newspapers as well as television and radio coverage, ensured an endless stream of visitors to the gallery. Most came for a gawk at the spot from which the rich architect fell, no doubt hoping for residual bloodstains, but many stayed to look at the exhibition. By the end of the fourth day there were red dots on most of my paintings

The inquest was conducted on a cold Friday morning in a cavernous, unheated courtroom where a mousy little man, after a seemingly interminable amount of paper shuffling, interruptions and whispered asides, listened to statements from various arms of the police and selected eyewitnesses. I was glad Frances had insisted on my taking over Max’s wardrobe; I owned nothing as luxurious as his fleecy lined leather car coat, or the quality trousers and jackets. Feeling warm, comfortable and somehow closer to him, I’d never been so well dressed.

The Magistrate eventually announced that Maxwell Fierney had died by overbalancing from the unprotected edge of an opening in the roof, while speaking to the patrons of the Art Gallery below. There was actually quite a bit more to it than that, and the words were different, but it had been an accident. Death by misadventure. He recommended that access to the roof be securely locked at all times, whether the dome was opened or not. By eleven-thirty it was over and I left the place in a daze, still not believing that all the talking had been about Max. A light touch on the shoulder and a familiar voice startled me back to reality.

‘Peter, we hoped to see you. Thanks for coming.’ Max’s parents appeared to be holding each other up. They looked ill, tired and at least twenty years older than the last time I’d seen them.

‘Celia, Hank – I didn’t see you inside, sorry. Too busy with my own misery, as usual.’ We shook hands and wordlessly shared our sorrow.

‘We have missed your visits,’ Celia said without reproach. ‘I do hope you will come and see us again soon?’

‘Celia’s right. It’s a wretched shame it took this to bring us together again, so let’s not leave it so long next time.’

I could only nod and grunt something I hoped sounded like assent.

‘It would be lovely if you could stay with us after the – ah - dispersal,’ Celia murmured hesitantly, fiddling with the clasp of her purse. ‘You will be coming?’

I couldn’t reply. There were no words in my head. Only a vision of the Fierney’s back verandah, eucalypt-covered hills and sun on golden grass. The happiest moments of my life had been spent there. I was deeply embarrassed. How do you respond to two people you love when you’ve avoided contact with them for nearly four years?

Hank was still looking at me. ‘It will be a very quiet affair, just the family and one or two close friends,’ he persuaded gently. ‘But you mustn’t feel any obligation.’

I’ve always suffered from teary eyes at the slightest hint of sentiment. It’s a bit embarrassing in front of most people, but never with Celia and Hank.

‘There is nothing I’d rather do and no place I’d rather be, than visiting you two,’ I replied huskily, brushing at streaming cheeks. The lump in my throat was painful as Hank shook my hand and Celia gave me the first loving hug I’d had for years. I had to turn away and blow my nose.

‘Right then, that’s settled. We’ll expect you for dinner tomorrow evening, and you can stay as long as you like.’

I could only nod, smile and wave as they got in the car and drove off. It took me two hours of throwing rocks as hard as I could into a sea as frustrated and angry as myself, before I could face the gallery and a fuming Frances, who had seen no point in attending the inquest, preferring to keep the gallery open.

‘You knew I had an appointment for half an hour ago! What the hell kept you?’

‘Sorry,’ was all I had the energy to mutter.

She flounced out.

Nearly a week had passed since the Opening, and empty spaces on the walls were becoming conspicuous as my paintings were bought, paid for and taken home. A search of all possible storage areas revealed no replacement stock. I’d wasted time feeling sorry for myself and things were getting urgent. I either had to find work worthy of Max’s gallery within the next few days, or admit defeat as curator and close the gallery. In the absence of files, account books or memoranda, I tried the computer where I discovered a list of artists labelled Suitable. I telephoned them all. Only two had enough works ready, so I arranged for them to bring in samples that same afternoon. The others promised to bring in their work as it became available for a back-up collection. What the hell had the flabby Maurice been doing?

Lunchtime was spent nosing through files, keeping an eye on the half-dozen patrons, answering questions and snatching bites of bread and cheese. The finance folder covered everything from first discussions with the bank, to wages paid to the man who cleaned the windows on the morning of the opening. The gallery had an enormous mortgage. There was yet to be an entry on the credit side.

The works in the current exhibition had their own file, so I entered the money already received, as well as prospective receipts, hoping none of the promised sales would fall through. It was going to be the proverbial drop in a bucket. I was very glad the mortgage wasn’t my responsibility. But then the whole enterprise had probably been designed as a tax loss. Certainly, the gallery’s cut of sales appeared pitifully small when one considered rates, repairs, maintenance, insurance, my salary, someone to replace me on my day off, and wages for a cleaner.

I figured that if I pulled out all the stops we could probably run a permanent exhibition and hold ten solo shows a year. Even so, it was going to be a long time before the place was freehold, and I certainly wasn’t going to get much painting done. To my surprise I discovered that didn’t worry me. I guess I was in a morbid warp, determined to make a memorial worthy of Max, or some such drivel. I think I was desperate for anything to stop me thinking about opportunities lost and years wasted.

A message appeared on the screen - fax arriving. I had no idea what to do, so waited. A machine on the other side of the office buzzed and tossed out a paper.

ARTWORKS Inc. 1. August.

To: Maximillian’s Art Gallery.

Our representative, Mr Ian Scumble, will deliver the first consignment of original, hand-painted works on Thursday morning, 8th August.

Please arrange reception and display as previously discussed.

Motherswell.

I’d never heard of ArtWorks, and surely no one called I Scumble would dare to deal in art! Frances had never mentioned them, and it certainly didn’t seem like anything that would have interested Max. A consignment of original, hand-painted works! By whom? What sort of gallery did they think we were? It had to be a mistake so I put it aside to discuss with Frances later.

Gambling that the two artists from the list who were ready to exhibit would give us a show worth looking at, I brought up the mailing list used for my own exhibition, substituted their names, typed new dates, and set the printer to churn out a stack of invitations to another grand opening the following Wednesday. At the end of another hour they were in envelopes. I had six days. A rush, but I was sure I could manage it and Frances would be impressed.

There was just time to telephone newspaper advertisements to the local and weekly papers before Madrilene Alcona shuffled into the gallery in her slippers, dragging a leather suitcase on a small trolley. A woolly knitted hat pulled down against the south-westerly wind concealed most of her face, and an enormous quilted coat, that looked as though she had made it from a doona, did the same for her figure. I led her into the workroom, turned on the heater and offered coffee.

‘Coffee is poison for the mind. It stimulates all except the creative and gentle portals of the spirit,’ she remarked casually while unstrapping the battered case and laying it on the floor. ‘Unless it’s laced with Irish whisky and topped with cream.’ The smile was cheeky.

The workroom was equipped with everything to soothe both artist and patron, so it was only a matter of minutes before the microwave disgorged a substantial toddy that Madrilene sampled and pronounced perfectly adequate.

‘I wouldn’t waste money on it myself,’ she grinned, removing doona and hat. ‘I rely on you fat cats for the occasional tipple.’

Minus the wrappings she was slim, lithe, and spread her work over the floor with the vacant concentration of a greyhound. I guessed her age to be about forty; status single, financial situation lean.

‘Where’s Max?’

The news was received in stunned quietude. She turned pale and sank back on her heels. ‘I don’t go out much and almost never bother with The News. I’m very sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘Very, very sorry.’ She stared into her drink.

There was nothing I could add to that.

As she sipped and laid out her offerings we became chummy and I was asked to call her Mad. She obviously wasn’t, but the abbreviation suited her.

I gazed in growing envy at the pieces of paper laid out over every level surface. Mad was an artist who had stuck to drawing. Each work was a masterpiece of abstraction. Not what one usually thinks of as abstraction, when the viewer has to rely on the title to work out both subject and content, but a work from which everything inessential has been removed. Her drawings embodied the Neo-Platonist concept of the original perfect tree, or chair, or whatever, which is located in paradise and manifests the essence of every tree, chair or whatever.

I was reminded of the apocryphal tale of a Chinese art student who was sent by his master to a pigsty to draw pigs. At the end of each day he presented his drawings. Each day the master shook his head and told him he had not yet understood. After fifteen years, when the benighted student was nearly insane from frustration, his master told him to remain in the studio and draw - not from any living beast, but from the well of information and careful observation stored in his head. The result was a drawing containing the essence of ‘pigness’. Not one specific pig, but every pig that has ever lived. Both master and pupil were satisfied.

Mad’s subjects were taken from around her home. Everyday things like a zippered, soft-leather travelling bag spilling its contents onto the floor; a table with a lamp; an open window; light falling across a stairwell. Each drawing was complete and said everything necessary about the object. My eyes flicked from one to the other in increasing excitement.

‘How many preparatory sketches do you make?’

She shrugged. ‘Usually about a hundred. Only rough scratchings; sorting out ideas, proportions. On scraps of newspaper, old cartons, the backs of envelopes. I don’t waste paper!’ she added defensively. ‘But it takes me that long, sometimes longer to understand what it is I’m drawing. I guess I’m pretty useless really.’ She wasn’t being coy. ‘And I suppose you think they’re too small and I use too many different media?’ she sighed with resignation. ‘Other galleries don’t want them, they say they’re too simple and I should stick to one medium. But I can’t.’

‘They are wonderful drawings,’ I told her firmly. ‘I want them all. The only problem is they have to be framed by next Wednesday’s opening.’

After a quick stare of undisguised shock, she hastily gathered them together. ‘Well, I don’t really know whether I want to sell them. I thought I did, or at least I wanted someone to tell me they’re good, but now… don’t think I can bear to part with them. Sorry. There’s too much of me in them.’

I sat back, understanding exactly what she was feeling.

When I made no protest, she looked up through narrowed eyes and demanded as though to test my judgement, ‘Which one do you like best?’

‘The bag,’ I replied without hesitation. It called forth all the times I had moved; the partings, anticipation, sadness and small death that is every farewell, the potential re-birth that is every journey, every arrival. With coloured pencils, ball-point pen, black ink applied with pieces of stick, and several other techniques I had no way of working out without watching her in action, she had transformed a portion of a sheet of drawing paper into every traveller’s bag. Light flickered over clasps and zips, shadows suggested contents not visible. It was the paradigm of all well-used, well-loved holdalls.

‘Mmm. Perhaps you do know what you’re talking about. What price do you think they’ll fetch?’ Her eyes narrowed when I told her. ‘In other words, I’ve been working for about five cents an hour. And then there’s your cut. How much is that?’

‘Thirty percent.’

She thought for a while, re-arranged some of the drawings, selected three, one of which was the holdall, and replaced them in her folder before raising her eyes.

‘OK, you can have the rest. There are only three sizes and I have mounts and frames for them all at home. I didn’t bring them in because I wanted you to see the drawings unadorned. You can pick up the frames and mounts and bring me any paper work tomorrow. Come at eleven.’

She lived in the coastal hills so I could call in on the way to Celia and Hank’s. I made out a receipt for the drawings, which she scanned absentmindedly and thrust into her bag.

‘I’m being picked up in five minutes. Tell me exactly how Max died.’

I kept it brief, then showed her the dome. She gazed up and around for a minute.

‘What a beautiful space,’ she whispered. ‘When Max described it I knew it would be like this. He was a remarkable man. My drawings will be very happy here.’ She looked around again as though irritated. ‘But Max wouldn’t stumble and fall,’ she said sharply. ‘He was too sure-footed. He would never trip himself up. I’ve made a drawing of him. Do you want to see it?’

I nodded, shocked at the truth of what she’d said. Max would never trip. But he had! I’d seen him wobble on the edge and fall. I thrust the thought away. She handed me the drawing and my heart lurched. The sketch, for it was little more than that, showed Max standing in an open French window, the light from outside so strong that his left side dissolved into the glare. Only the right half of his body had been worked up. He was naked, balanced, confident, laughing and secure in himself; not looking directly at the viewer, but including us in his energetic embrace of life. I sagged to a chair.

Mad’s gaze was unreadable. ‘Did I capture him?’

I think I whimpered.

She placed cool fingers on my neck and whispered, ‘It’s yours - if you want it.’

I couldn’t speak. The silence was broken by a car horn.

‘That’ll be Brian and the kids. Must rush. See you tomorrow.’ Wrapping herself in the doona, she headed for the door.

I raced after her, pulled her into a rough hug and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Thank you, Mad. I will treasure it.’

‘I know.’ She ran to the late-model station wagon in which husband and two teenagers were waiting, waved breezily, and was gone.

I barely had time to store the drawings before an elderly, portly gentleman arrived, armed with a photograph album and one large parcel.

‘Bill Smith,’ he declaimed, a well-manicured hand held out on a stiff arm. I shook it and introduced myself.

‘Bad about Max. Hope the gallery stays true to his vision,’ he rapped.

‘So do I. Maybe your work will assist that to happen?’

He stared at me suspiciously as though seeking sarcasm, then opened his parcel. It contained a large oil painting. He placed it on one side of the gallery and led me to the opposite wall where I was obviously expected to pass judgement. The painting was beautiful, full of tantalising textural effects and a subtlety of colour I thought no longer existed, but I had no idea what I was looking at. No matter how I turned my head it remained an exquisite object without meaning. When the silence began to crystallise on the air, embarrassment loosened an honest tongue. ‘I love it, what is it?’

‘Someone scratching their armpit. Look, there’s a bit of one finger, the nail of another, a fold of skin, the tones of flesh – it’s all there,’ he ended irritably, as though pointing out the obvious to an imbecile.

I looked again and it was - a delightful, intelligent and perfectly executed puzzle. I browsed through the photographs of his other works and eventually deciphered three more - a segment of an eye nestling into the fold of a lid, the back of an ear, and bits of toenail and toes. There were also several that looked altogether more risqué. Bill wasn’t talkative, had no desire to pass the time of day and appeared impatient to go. Within a few minutes I’d signed him up and arranged that the following Tuesday morning he would deliver his paintings, ready to hang, with a list of titles and prices for the catalogue.

At five o’clock I ushered out the last visitor, a surly woman, annoyed there was nothing to buy and clearly unimpressed by an invitation to the opening of the next show and my promise that it would be even more exciting than the one she’d missed. I closed and locked the doors, cleaned up and went up to my room. The envelope containing Mad’s drawing lay on my pillow but I didn’t dare look.

Later, perhaps. I put it carefully away, donned one of Max’s track-suits, jogged to the Post Office, mailed the invitations, then sweated it out for an hour along the beach.

Cold and hungry I staggered home drenched by a squall. Frances was still out.