Chapter 38 - Ed #2
Lutek's metal sculpture of a kestrel is the first piece of the night to go under the electronic hammer.
The software Bess is using tells me there is over five thousand people logged into the auction site. Most of them won't be bidding, but still, it's a pretty impressive number and one that I hope doesn't cause it to crash.
The auction closes at twenty-one thousand, four hundred and ninety pounds and the next one immediately starts.
Lutek stands beside his installation, beaming and being jostled by all the slaps on the back and hugs he's receiving.
The next pieces sell without any technical issues and then Jeanette's naked woman is under the digital hammer. When it sells for an incredible forty-nine thousand pounds, Jeanette's delighted squeal threatens to break frequency records and every champagne flute within a five-metre radius.
There is just one piece to go before A Lettered Man's auction moves towards closing. It's already sitting at just under one point eight million pounds and the pace of the bids does not appear to be slowing.
As Elly's glitter bathroom suite comes online, the first bid of the evening comes in at nine hundred and ninety-nine trillion pounds.
I blink at the screen, wondering if I've hallucinated several or all of the zeros.
Nine zeroes sit stubbornly after the nine hundred and ninety nine, no matter how many times I slap my lashes together.
"Ah, Ed?" Elly's voice drills through the decibels of conversation. "Carlos has a bit of a problem."
I look up to see her towing a three-piece-suited and cravat-ed Carlos.
"Yes?"
"He doesn't actually have the nine hundred and ninety-nine trillion pounds he just bid on my suite."
Carlos. Of course. "No, I imagine he doesn't. Why did you bid that amount, Carlos?"
"I wanted to see if there was a maximum amount for bidding. Just out of curiosity. Turns out there isn't. One pound more and I don't even know what you call that number."
Elly clucks her tongue. "Can you remove his bid so people who actually want a glitter bathroom can bid on a glitter bathroom?"
I click around the settings and eventually find the function to reject a bid.
"Thank you," says Elly in a way that doesn't actually engender any gratitude and plucks Carlos' phone from his hand. She hands it to me. "Best you look after this." Then she disappears off in the direction of her auction pieces.
"Quadrillion."
"Hmm?" Carlos leans towards me. "I can't hear anything above all the babbling rabble, dear boy.
They removed my sensory enhancers when I mistook Ron R.
chasing Nancy in his stilettos for machine gun fire while they were on a state visit.
Stormed the building through a one-of-a-kind Victorian glass dome to find her in a Janet costume and him dressed as Dr Frank.
N. Furter. Role playing they call it. Expensive mistake as it turns out and not just because of the dome.
Sheryl Jones had to work some diplomatic magic to smooth things over due to the level of distress of Mrs Reagan. "
"Did she now?"
"She signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement Reagan was pushing for the very next day." Carlos straightens, smacks his lips and looks out at the attendees. "And that's how I brought an end to the Troubles in Ireland."
I laugh. I can't help it. The nervous energy I've had simmering all day jumps at the chance of a small release. "You are a credit to our country, Carlos."
"Thank you, dear boy. You know, I've still got the scar from where they removed the microchip from my brain." He leans towards me and pulls his hair away from his temple. "Right there." Carlos taps at his forehead. "See?"
There is a small scar. The chances of it being from microchip removal are about as likely as Elly actually securing nearly a quadrillion dollars for her bathroom suite.
"I do see."
Carlos gives a single nod and reenters the throng.
I return to watching the figures tick healthily upwards on Elly's auction.
As soon as it closes on a, frankly, ridiculous amount of money for any kind of bathroom suite, let alone a glitter one, a young woman steps up to the gallery counter and holds her hand out for me to shake, which immediately raises my suspicions, but the fact she's clutching a notebook in the other is a pretty big clue she’s a journalist.
"Elodie Titchmarsh from The Reporter." She holds up her notebook and says with a laugh, "I've had to go analogue. It's too noisy in here for digital devices."
I do my best to smile back, but all my energy's been commandeered into filling the fabric under my armpits with sweat.
"You are?"
"The tech guy. Well. Online auction caretaker really."
"No, I mean, can I have your name?"
Hell no, she can't. I tell her as such but without the underworld allusion. If things go pear shaped, I don't want my name in print until such time as I'm arrested.
She raises her eyebrows. "Okay tech guy. Can you tell me what the extraordinary success of a locally-run gallery in small-town Devon is having on the artists?"
"Ah, no? Ask one of the artists."
With a brief, closed-lipped smile, she says, "Alright. What about the decision to leverage the success of a string of social media videos and create a massively profitable piece of art? What was the reason behind that?"
I check the auction software. There's only a few minutes to go on A Lettered Man's auction and bids are still streaming in. "You're really talking to the wrong person."
"I've asked several of the artists and all of them have evaded the answer. What's the reason for the secrecy?"
The fabric under my arms has reached capacity and sweat is now wicking down the material across my ribs.
I point at the computer screen. "I really need to be paying attention to this, I'm sorry."
It doesn't discourage her. "It could reach two million pounds.
It's an extraordinary amount and an extraordinary success story.
Has the original owner of the letters come forward to claim their share of the money yet and have you considered the legal repercussions should they dispute current ownership? "
The clock on the auction site ticks down to five minutes to go and God am I not equipped to deal with this kind of pressure.
I look up to find someone, hopefully Carlos, to rescue me by talking a whole lot of well-articulated nonsense to the journalist, and a very tall, elderly white woman pushes her way through the people circulating around the gallery's entrance.
She doesn't look dressed for the occasion and has a look of concern on her face like she has lost her child amongst the throng.
She cranes her head left and right, then focuses on A Lettered Man.
It is not in any way the reprieve I was seeking. All the hairs on the back of my neck ripple to standing.
With an "Excuse me" to the journalist, I gather up the laptop from the gallery counter and move to intercept her, desperately hoping Elodie Titchmarsh doesn't follow.
"Can I help you?"
"That," she says, pointing across the room at the soldier. "I need to talk to the artist."
My ribcage cinches tight and I can't breathe. My awareness is reduced to the marginally asynchronous beating of my heart and pulsing of blood in my ears.
I will my lungs to inflate and suck at the summer-and-body-humidified air. My brain kicks in two, lifetime-filled seconds later. There's still time. There's still time to negotiate a fair share before the auction closes.
"There she is." She heads off towards Bess before I can redirect her to a quieter spot where there's nobody to overhear what she has to say.
My "wait" is swallowed up by the surrounding noise and all I can do is follow her.
I look around for Jeanette, for Mistral – Elly even – to help me deflect any forthcoming disaster.
But I can't see them.
I offer my apologies as I push past people and take out my phone to call Mistral. By the time it goes through to voice mail, the woman has already reached Bess.
She steps in front of whoever Bess is chatting to and says, "I need to talk to you urgently."
Like Tetris pieces falling into place, Bess' face shifts through a series of expressions as she realises what this woman's words most likely mean.
She looks up at me, her eyes wide.
"In the garden," I say, because nobody else and especially nobody representing a news outlet, can hear whatever's about to pass. "Let's talk in the garden."
Before I can lead her away, the woman continues, "I've only just been made aware of what you've been doing with…" she points at the sculpture. "I don't know if you're authentic or have been misled, but whichever it is, you have to know the truth of the original letter."
Everything inside me stops. My breath, my pulse. My cautious optimism plummets into a dark pit of despair with a very jagged, organ-spearing bottom.
The woman's voice is thin, shaky. Bess has to lean towards her to hear her above the hubbub.
I look around. Nobody appears to be listening, but there are people very close by, looking at the sculpture or at Bess in the hope of conversation.
My armpits prickle with sweat and I lead the woman by the elbow so she and Bess are by the wall and I can stand in front of them, creating a barrier.
"We can make a deal," I say at the same time Bess says, "What do you mean, 'truth of the original letter'?"
I stand on my tiptoes and try to find any of the group to help, but can't see anyone. Pulling my phone out, I ring Jeanette.
"The first one was found in a rubbish bin at the library, right?"
Bess gives a barely perceptible nod.
"I put it there."
Bess' eyes flick to mine then back again. "Yes. That's why you're here. Why did you do that?"
Jeanette's phone rings out.
"I don't know why all this –" she gestures at the soldier. "– has happened since, but I threw that one away because it was written by the man who fathered me."
"Do you want us to withdraw the item from auction?" I ask the woman.
She swivels her eyes to me. "This sculpture, I understand, is meant to be about love. That letter didn't – doesn't represent love. You are selling a false promise."
With a frown, Bess asks. "What do you mean?"
"I threw the letter away because I never knew my father. He had a love affair with my mother before the war and wrote letters to her throughout, promising a life together. Then when the war was over and he returned, the marriage never came. And when a pregnancy did, he vanished."
Bess' face slackens with shock.
"After my mother died, all I had of the man who was my biological father was that one letter. I came here to find out about him. I didn't like what I found, so I threw the letter away."
Bess straightens, a look of trepidation on her face that has nothing to do with the threat of being exposed as a fraudulent artist. "Who...who was your father?"
As the woman says, "Basil Everett," the air erupts in blasts of colourful glitter.