Masterpiece Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One - ‘It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength,

  and whosoever loves much performs much,

  and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.’

  Vincent van Gogh

  Chapter Two - ‘A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because

  all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.’

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Chapter Three - ‘Everything you can imagine is real.’

  Pablo Picasso

  Chapter Four - ‘Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.’

  John Singer Sargent

  Chapter Five - ‘Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.’

  Edgar Degas

  Chapter Six - ‘Art is what you can get away with.’

  Andy Warhol

  Chapter Seven - ‘Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.’

  Salvador Dali

  Chapter Eight - ‘I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.’

  Frida Kahlo

  Chapter Nine - ‘If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.’

  Michelangelo

  Chapter Ten - ‘I shut my eyes in order to see.’

  Paul Gauguin

  Chapter Eleven - ‘On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.’

  Jackson Pollock

  Chapter Twelve - ‘No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.’

  Edvard Munch

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In the early hours of March 18th 1990, two men dressed as Boston police officers duped security guards into letting them inside the Isabella Stewart Museum. The guards were tied up and the thieves stole thirteen pieces of artwork at an estimated total value of $500 million.

  These original pieces of art have never been recovered and the case remains open and unsolved. The Concert was one of the stolen pieces.

  I would like to thank Ariel Bruce a Registered Independent Social Worker who specialises in tracing people affected by adoption and, with her associates, has undertaken all of the research to trace and make contact with missing family members for every series of ITV’s Long Lost Family. Jo Rzymowksa for sharing her extraordinary story that has no bearing on this novel but gave me an insight into ‘relative’ documents. Laurence Everitt and Kirsty Logan for their musical advice, which has helped bring Mikky’s quirky character to life. The team at Cornerstones UK; Ayisha Malik, Alex Hammond and author Alison Taft for her invaluable feedback. Many thanks to author Joe McCoubrey for his advice and support. Finally, a massive thank you to my family and friends.

  For more information visit:

  www.janetpywell.com

  blog: janetpywellauthor.wordpress.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength,

  and whosoever loves much performs much,

  and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.’

  Vincent van Gogh

  I begin work early and I am finished by mid-afternoon. I leave the museum and take the bus home, marvelling at the London scene around me; queues of traffic, road works, diversion signs, scaffolding and people – lots of them. A suited businessman talks animatedly into his phone, a young girl with a nose stud like mine stands laughing at a bus stop and a builder with a half–eaten sandwich dodges between motorcycles. It’s that special time of the year and one of my favourites. It’s nearly the end of November – and a perfect autumn afternoon. The day has been sunny with clear blue skies but a terse wind blows now as it begins to get dark and, as I leave the bus at Kew Bridge and walk along the towpath, headlights are switched on and there is a yellow glow across the river.

  The air is cool on my face and I kick leaves watching them rise and fall revelling in their crunchy crispy sound. It reminds me of the north of Spain. I was young – probably seven or eight years old when we spent a winter in Pamplona. I remember walking through the romantic, French-styled, Parque de la Taconera filled with tropical trees, monuments, fountains and exotic flowers. I had watched amber and rusty red leaves falling from rows of solid chestnut trees. Most afternoons Mama left me in the Saint Nicholas church while she went to buy food in the supermarket or stopped at a café or bar and I wandered between dark timber pews, staring up at replicated biblical scenes carved in wood or stained on glass or painted in oils. The pungent smell of incense still lingered after Mass and it tickled my nose and made me sneeze. It’s a smell that still comforts me. The church was my refuge. It was my sanctuary from a chaotic life; constantly moving home, moving on, accompanied by incessant rock music, discarded bottles of beer and the smell of black tobacco that clung to Papa’s clothes and scraggy beard.

  On the river two ducks chase, skim and glide across the water before braking, their wings outstretched, to land on their ski-like feet.

  I shake my head as unwanted memories tumble together, confusing time and place, trying deliberately to block out my past. I decide to drop my camera bags at home and head out to start my Christmas shopping. Better get it over with. I might even buy a present for Papa – maybe a heavy metal CD or a book on motorbikes. Then there’re the small gifts I will buy for Javier’s family in Madrid, his parents and younger twin brothers.

  I approach my flat and pause at the garden gate, my hand on the catch. Mrs Green’s carton of milk and newspaper are still on her doorstep. I frown and walk up her path to the front door and ring her bell.

  There is no answer so I slide my camera bags to the floor and bend over to peer through the letterbox. I take out my mobile and dial her home number. I hear it ringing inside. It continues to ring while I peer through the front window cupping my hand against the glass.

  ‘Mrs Green?’ I shout through the letterbox. I press my ear to the flap. I hear nothing. ‘Mrs Green?’

  There is no answer.

  I open my front door, throw my bags onto the sofa and walk across the open plan lounge-diner to the kitchen.

  My mobile rings and I fish it out of my pocket. Javier’s normally soft voice is raised with excitement.

  ‘Mikky – you’re not going to believe it! I’m shortlisted.’

  ‘Mrs Green hasn’t taken her milk or newspaper inside.’ I slide open the glass door that leads to a small paved patio area. ‘And there’s no answer from her landline.’

  I pull a dining chair across the kitchen and drag it outside. A spider has nested, spinning the fence with an intricate patterned web that hangs with bulging, ripe drops of silver water. I place the spider to one side and push the chair up against the fence.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m standing on a chair looking over the fence into her house. I’m worried, Javier.’

  ‘Maybe she’s still in bed,’ he says.

  ‘You know she’s always up by seven. It’s the middle of the afternoon and it’s almost dark. There’s no movement in there,’ I shout, ‘Mrs Green?’

  ‘Maybe she’s gone out?’ he says.

  ‘Javier,’ I say as if I am speaking to a wayward five-year-old instead of a thirty-two-year-old artist. ‘Mrs Green is ninety. She never goes out. Besides she would have brought her milk and newspaper in first. It’s still on the doorstep. There’s something wrong.’

  I lean forward on tiptoe for a better view of Mrs Green’s house. The chair rocks, I slip and grab the fence. ‘Ooops–’

  �
��Mikky? What are you doing?

  ‘Climbing over the fence.

  ‘You mustn’t. Call the police.’

  ‘There’s no time…’

  ‘Mikky, my portfolio is shortlisted for the Italian commission…’

  I pause with my arm resting on the fence and scan the layout before me.

  ‘Mikky?’

  When I don’t reply he says, ‘There are three finalists and I’m one of them.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘But you haven’t even asked me who I am going to paint. Ask me.’

  ‘Javier, I don’t have time–’

  ‘Josephine La–’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘The opera singer.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘You don’t sound very excited for me.’

  ‘I’m worried–’

  ‘I may have to go and meet her. Imagine, Mikky, I might meet Josephine Lavelle – and guess what – if I do – you’re coming with me.’

  I pause mid-stride. My leg is in the air and I am about to straddle the fence but it begins wobbling.

  ‘It says in the letter I can take a partner and so I’m taking you.’

  ‘I’m not going to Italy. I haven’t time. I’ve got to go, Javier – I think there’s something seriously wrong…’ I have my hand on top of the fence, testing its solidness, not doubting my courage only my technique. ‘Got to go.’

  ‘Mikky? What are you doing? Don’t–’

  I place the mobile in my pocket and pull my long skirt between my legs and lean forward to ease my right leg up onto the fence. My biker boots kick the wood and a rogue nail tears my leggings and cuts my thigh. I balance horizontally but when the fence begins to quiver I slide off my knees buckle and I tumble onto the patio, scraping skin from my palms, into my neighbour’s garden.

  Winded, I cough and bite on my lip to absorb the pain. ‘Not very good spy material,’ I mutter, brushing myself down. ‘Not the next female James Bond that’s for sure.’ I spit on my hands, wipe my fingers onto my black skirt and hobble toward the nearest window.

  ‘Mrs Green?’ I rap on the pane. ‘Are you in there?’ I press my nose to the glass scanning the interior of the kitchen. I have never been inside her house. I don’t know the layout. Her house hasn’t been divided into two apartments like mine, one up and one down, so I guess she could be upstairs in one of the bedrooms. I go to the next window and cup my hand against the glass pane.

  ‘Mrs Green?’ I knock hard. Net curtains won’t allow me to see in properly and the windows are all locked and secure. Downstairs all the rooms appear empty. I move away but then through the middle window I think I see a shadow on the floor illuminated by a yellow streetlight from the front window. It looks like is she lying in the hallway between the lounge and the kitchen. I hammer on the window but the figure doesn’t move so I take off my duffle coat, wrap it around my fist and smash it against the glass. Nothing happens so I unzip my boot and smack it against the window. On the third attempt it fractures and I use my elbow to splinter it, smashing, pushing and pulling jagged shards of glass until there’s a hole wide enough for me to scramble through. I ease myself inside but catch my calf and a slash rips open my skin and blood pours down my leg but I don’t pause instead I heave myself harder through the gap and roll forward landing face down on the carpet.

  ‘Oh my g–’ I whisper, crawling over to her.

  She’s curled on her side, unmoving like a sleeping child, only a few meters from me.

  ‘Mrs Green? Mrs Green, are you okay?’ Her pulse is weak but she doesn’t move. ‘Mrs Green, can you hear me?’ Instinct makes me pull out my mobile and with bloody fingers I dial 999.

  The operator’s voice is calm and I answer her questions but it’s as though I am merely acting a role, watching myself from above – from somewhere in the corner – up near the ceiling and while I wait I smooth the old lady’s thin white hair from her mask–like face. She murmurs as if in a deep and troubled sleep but she’s alive. Very gently, I rub her arm and hold her fingers.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Green. You’ll be fine. The ambulance is on the way. You’ll be okay.’ It becomes my mantra that I repeat as I go into the kitchen. I wet a tea towel under the cold tap and press it against her forehead dabbing her temples and wiping her cheeks. I test her pulse then sit beside her on the floor and cradle her head in my lap willing the ambulance to hurry. It seems to take ages until I hear a siren then I lower her head onto my duffle coat so I can open the front door.

  I stand aside for the ambulance crew.

  The girl is dark and chubby. She has a colourful eagle tattoo on the back of her hand and when she sees me looking at it, she says. ‘It fascinates everyone. It takes their mind off what’s happening.’

  I nod.

  The boy is younger – early twenties. There’s a gap between his teeth and he wears an earring with a diamond stud. He raises his voice to the old lady. ‘We’ll take you to A&E, Mrs Green. They’ll probably keep you in for a while.’

  They ask me questions as they place her on a stretcher. Once she is secure and an oxygen mask covers her face the boy turns to me.

  ‘Let’s have a look at your cuts while we’re here. That one on your leg looks quite deep.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. It’s only a scratch. Will Mrs Green, be okay?’

  ‘It could be just a blackout. She seems to be coming round but they’ll check her out at the hospital and make sure it’s not a stroke or anything more serious,’ he replies.

  ‘Has she got any family?’ asks the girl.

  ‘I believe she has a son.’

  ‘Right, we’d better get his contact details then. Where’s her address book?’ she asks.

  ‘She probably keeps it beside the phone,’ I reply.

  I wait in the street.

  ‘They are estranged,’ I say, when the girl returns clutching a tattered address book in her eagle-hand.

  ‘What’s that?’ The boy frowns.

  ‘They don’t speak to each other – haven’t done for years. She told me they don’t get on,’ I reply.

  ‘Well, if he’s next of kin they’ll have to speak now, won’t they?’ He grins. ‘No point in falling out with an old woman like that is there?’

  ‘None at all,’ I reply.

  My mind is racing.

  The ambulance doors slam shut like Mrs Green’s eyes and I wait until it disappears around the corner then I call a glazier from her landline. As I wait in the hallway for the voice on the other end of the phone to confirm the time of his visit, I listen to the gentle tick of an old grandfather clock measuring seconds and counting minutes. It whirls and chimes the half hour and I drum the mahogany table with my nails to the rhythm of Go With the Flow my favourite track by Queens of the Stone Age that is carousing through my head.

  My gaze travels over Mrs Green’s unfamiliar home and I compare the layout to my flat next door. Her kitchen is at the back of the house where my bedroom is, it’s modern and tidy with navy blue units and the walls are the colour of a dying daffodil. A comfortable rocking chair stuffed with knitted cushions has been placed at the window beside the back door where she sits and looks out at a bird table decked with multiple hanging feeders.

  ‘This afternoon at six thirty,’ the glazier confirms.

  ‘Thank you.’ I hang up the phone.

  I walk to the front door thinking of my plan, weighing up my options and I slide the bolt shut. The lounge is cramped and dark, so different to my open plan and modern design, and I wonder how she navigates around the room. There’s a chintz three-piece suite in the middle of the room and four mahogany glass cabinets along the right wall are filled with porcelain vases, snuffboxes and silver cigar cases.

  When I flick on the table lamp a pair of blue reading glasses and a stack of folded, cryptic Daily Telegraph crosswords tumble to the floor. I pile them back up and walk to a waist-high shelf to admire a cut-glass fruit bowl, a decanter and matching glasses. I run my finger over a silver goblet, dust c
ollects under my nail and I blow it away. I pick up a two-foot tall porcelain statue of a young naked woman reclining on a chaise longue with only a silk scarf covering her thighs and breasts. I examine its base deliberately delaying the moment. I know it’s there waiting. It’s calling me. Then very slowly, unable to delay the moment any longer, I look up. It hangs, where I thought it would, in a gilt ornate frame above the white marble mantelpiece. Although my heart is pumping rapidly I move very, very slowly and take a step closer.

  It is striking. It is stunning. It’s Vermeer’s, The Concert.

  With my hands on my hips I stare at the work of art. The rest of the world is moving but in this room time has stopped. I’m rooted to the spot caught in a breathless moment of excited anticipation and I want to savour it. I look at it from all angles, inspecting it from a distance then up close and from one side to the other. Then, when I am satisfied, I unhook the oil painting and for the first time hold the masterpiece in my hands.

  The painting shows three musicians; a young woman seated at a harpsichord, a man with his back to the viewer playing a lute and a second woman to the right who is singing.

  Unlike other artists, Vermeer allows the viewer the latitude to interpret the painting, to appreciate the girl’s absorbed yet relaxed pose as she fingers the keys of the harpsichord. Little can be seen of the man playing the lute. Only a sash and a sword indicate his military status but the second woman is elegantly dressed and her gaze is focused on the sheet of music in her hands.

  I tilt the painting toward the light. It appears that her bluish green jacket has faded with age and her once ultramarine blue gown has degraded with time.

  I take a step back and hold the picture at arm’s length. At the forefront of the painting, on the left, is an oriental carpet. Vermeer regularly depicted carpets from Iran and Turkey and the black and white patterned marble floor on the right was typically found in wealthy houses during the 17th century, and true to form, Vermeer has excluded any reflection that would normally have been evident.