There was also a de Chirico, II grande metafisico, 1917, 4i34" x 2jV%", ex-Albert Barnes, a deaccessioned work. Did anyone think, for a bloody nanosecond, why it might be being deaccessioned? Authentic pre-1918 de Chiricos are rare as hen's teeth. Italian art dealers used to say the Maestro's bed was six feet off the ground, to hold all the "early work" he kept "discovering". But suddenly this pile of crap was real? It was worth three million? It made me ill. Not so much the dirty money, but the complete lack of discrimination, the fashion frenzy. De Chirico is in. Renoir is out. Van Gogh is hot. Van Gogh has peaked. I wished I could kill the fucks, I really did.

It was just after this that Olivier finally signed the certificate. I did not enquire as to what had taken all the time, did not ask what acts of kindness were offered, what deal was struck, but my suspicion was that the poor neurasthenic darling had wrinkled his nose and then taken a dirty big slice of pie. Of course he could do whatever he wished, it was not my business. He could be the nursemaid to my brother and be the author of Hugh's hostile eyes. He could steal old Slow Bones from me, if that is what he wished.

Marlene and I stayed on at Mercer Street. At first I understood this as an economy—why not? It was free—so it took a while to understand that we were hiding. We did have a kind of social life whereby I, by agreement, kept away from dealers, but we made good friends with restorers, authenticators, and one wonderful man, Sol Greene, a tiny little fellow, who ran a family paint business on 15th Street. How much nicer it was to discuss the curious history of, say, madder red, than listen to the drama of the latest Sotheby's circus.

Marlene was scratching around trying to free up some Leibovitzes—there was a collector waiting—but our best days were really just spent walking. Then, in the early days of autumn, we began to rent cars, and trawl through junk shops and deceased estates along the Hudson. I won't say it was not interesting to look at America this way, and it was on one of these trips, in a musty barn in Rhinecliff, that I found a mediocre canvas with the perfectly legible inscription— Dominique Broussard, 1944. It was a coarse synthetic cubist work, the type of object you might easily find on a weekend drive from Melbourne—heavy black lines, slabs of sloppy colour—an order of misunderstanding you probably see in Russia too, but hardly at 157 rue de Rennes.

The barn had an earth floor and the canvas was leaning against the wall. It was not art, was less than art. It had been there so long you could feel all the damp of Rhinecliff in its frame, but there was a way in which this neglect was unwarranted for it was as precious as the droppings of a termite until now thought to be extinct.

I spat and rubbed away a little dirt and what I saw then made me laugh because one could so clearly see her character. She was a thief—she had stolen her boss's paint and canvas. She had no sense of colour—in her hands the Leibovitz palette was gaudy.

She was complacent.

One could imagine her head held to one side as she admired her own brush moving like a poisonous snake through summer grass. She had no wrist, no attack, no taste, no talent.

She was, in short, disgusting.

If this revulsion seems cruel or excessive, it was absolutely nothing compared to Marlene's.

"No," she said. "No way are you going to buy this."

I laughed. I did not understand her, had no real sense of the degree to which she was still defending Olivier against his mother. Of course she knew the enemy's brushstrokes, but never had she seen an original work and here was laid bare the complete and awful lack, not only of talent, but of anything at all. Finally grasping the great nothing, Marlene, so she told me later, was physically ill.

In perfect ignorance, I took the canvas into the little office which was set up like a shed within the barn. A pleasant greyhaired woman was watching football on television, her swollen legs exposed to an electric heater.

"How much?"

She looked over the top of her glasses. "You're an artist?"

"Yes, I am."

"Three hundred."

"It's shit," said Marlene.

"It's our history, babe."

"I'll burn the fucking thing," said Marlene, "if you even try to bring it home."

The woman looked at Marlene with interest. "Two hundred," she said evenly. "It's an oil original."

I had, as it happened, exactly two hundred. So I ended up getting it for a hundred and eighty-five dollars, plus tax.

"You folks married?"

"No."

"Sure sounds like you're married."

She wrote her receipt slowly, and by the time she had wrapped my purchase in newspaper Marlene had walked out to the car.

"Now you go buy her something pretty," the woman said.

I promised that I would, and then drove my lover back to New York City—the Taconic, then the Saw Mill—sixty minutes in icy silence.

44

Olivier signed the bogus document he was so weak he told me he could not even die. He was crawling back to life, old chum, returning to his previous employment at McCain.

They do not like me, Hughie, but I am the perfect bum boy for their client. Bum boy, he called to the Irish barman who said, That's right sir.

Olivier drank a SIDECAR and swallowed a blue capsule.

Here's to honest labour, he said.

Jeavons was standing by his shoulder and now he DISCREETLY passed his big soft hand across mouth. He had medicine to swallow too.

He said, Thank your mother for the rabbits, sir. This was an AUSTRALIAN JOKE I taught him many days before.

Then I had my capsule. What would happen to me now?

Sitting by the low round table Olivier asked me, Did you ever meet her father, Hughie? He meant Marlene's father.

I said I had never been to Benalla.

He was a bloody truck driver can you imagine that?

Jeavons approved of truck drivers. He drifted away like a man at a ball, his arms out from his sides.

I imagined truck drivers. I saw them all lined up at the Madingley mine.

And that's the thing, you see, that's what I'm up against.

What did that mean? He was sad and silent as he unfolded a map of New York across the little table. With a cheese knife he began to slice it up.

I asked what about the trucks.

She likes big beefy chaps who smell of beer. That's it, really. At the end of it. If you get a redneck who also smells of linseed oil, she's like a cat on heat. Do you follow me?

All I understood was the cheese knife was not the right tool to cut a map and it hurt to watch him botch it. Soon he tore half the map away. The big blue words WEST VILLAGE floated to the floor.

I held my head. I may have made a noise. Who wouldn't?

What's up old chap?

I told him he was making me giddy with Marlene's daddy. I wished he would put the map away.

The map, old chap, will cure the giddiness. So stop lowing.

Lowing, he said, that's exactly what you do.

What about Marlene's father?

Dead of lung cancer, he said, but causing trouble to this day.

He removed a lump of map. I caught it floating down but he snatched it back and crumpled it and threw it across the bar.

THIS DID NOT CALM ME DOWN.

We have no use for Central Park he said.

But what about her father?

All I'm saying is your lumpen brother is a lucky man.

He tapped the map with a swizzle stick. Now! Remember!

Everything is straight up and down except Broadway. Keep an eye on that one, chum. He marked Broadway with his pen. A snake in the grass.

Her father?

Broadway. Also West Broadway. Not to be confused.

To complete my map he ripped across the top at 55th Street.

World ends here, he said. My office. Top right corner of the map.