The scalpel was shaking in Athol’s hands, far too much to make the cut. He stared at his hands for a moment and sighed. He was unmoving for a moment, then mumbled, “Why not, Honey? A shot to steady this hand. But only one.” Athol left his darkened studio, where each pane in the window was individually blocked by an aluminium sheet, the silver side facing the outside world, with long, wide ribbons of dramatically applied duct tape holding the foil in place. Some had then had black paint applied in bituminous-thick layers. The effect was not unappealing. There was an air conditioner in the corner that pumped the unbearable heat of August into the pipe work designed for smoke extraction in case of fire.
This was where Athol spent his days.
Athol staggered as he went from cool to hot, from dark to light. The smell from the rest of his apartment should have provided the knockout blow but did not; he staggered only from the heat and the light, and even then, only for a second.
Athol scanned the tables and corners of the room for bottles he hadn’t finished yet. He stepped daintily through the debris, picking them one up after another, shaking his head from side to side with each disappointment. He frowned at others as he tipped his head as far back as it would go, waiting for the last dregs to empty into his mouth. Every dribblet he found was something, not nothing, and not nothing was everything and good.
He came across a bottle of American bourbon, half-full, under a dresser crowded with stuff and more bottles. Bourbon was his least favourite drink, which is why some remained. With a shrug, he took it as if he didn’t have a choice.
Back at his desk, he took a hearty swig, sat down and picked up the scalpel. Elenor had slipped in as the door was closing. He heard her sit in his study chair and sigh her characteristic sigh. Feeling her eyes burning into his back, he took another slug. “I need to get these done.” He didn’t turn around. “So don’t start.”
This time his hand was steady as he cut a perfect circle from the blue acetate film in front of him and set it aside. Pleased, he re-arranged the acetate sheets before him. It would do. Took another slug and bent forward to continue, unconsciously mimicking something from the limitless darkness of his past.
Noise.
Persistent Noise.
“No, thank you.” Athol took another slug. The bottle was empty.
Well, maybe then.
“Athol!” he hadn’t noticed the voice amongst the knocking, “Athol!” but his name had been called for some time, he realised, as long as the Insistent hammering at his apartment door. Athol ignored it for a few minutes more as he picked his way around his lounge, lifting and then dropping bottles, occasionally tipping his head back, bottle to mouth, until it was clear whoever it was wasn’t leaving.
Maybe he could get whoever it was to pop to the shop for him. Save him the journey. Save him from outside.
He felt himself sweating—not from the heat—yes, from the heat, but not just heat. His body was hotter than it should have been, fighting his blood, trying to scrub it of toxins. It didn’t like moving except to find more alcohol or to sit at his desk or on the balcony. When he reached the door, he was panting. He leant, forehead on the door, before looking out of the peephole.
There was a man outside, just a shade over 6′ tall, overweight, with long curled hair drenched with sweat clinging to his long head and rounded shoulders. The man carried what looked like a large bottle of rum and a huge portfolio. Athol opened the door. The man reeled as the reek smacked him about the face.
“Jay.”
“Athol! You took your sweet time answering. You forget I was coming?”
“Not really”, Athol shook his head, “I forgot what day it was.”
“I brought you this. I thought we’d make a day of it.” Jay offered the bottle.
“One bottle isn’t going to cut it, Jay. Come on in.”
“Well,” Jay passed through the hallway into the living room, glancing at the entry phone that hung in its usual semi-disassembled form in its cradle and the land telephone line junction box on the skirting board with red, yellow and blue wires sticking out. “We can drink this, then I can get more while you clean up this shit. We need to talk, seriously.”
Athol followed him, “You’ll be too drunk to walk at that stage. Go get more now; I’ll tidy up a bit while you’re gone.”
Jay regarded Athol with serious eyes for a few moments, “Sure, why not? OK. What do you want?”
“Use your imagination. Then double it and double that,” Athol pushed past towards the living room. Jay headed to the kitchen, ignoring the ten black bin bags filled with Athol’s empty bottles piled up there. He checked the fridge and cupboards with a downturned mouth.
“I’ll bring food.” Jay called.
Athol didn’t answer.
“Fine, I’ll go, but I’m taking this with me.” Jay slid the rum into his coat pocket while he dumped the portfolio in the only space he could find, on the sofa.
“I’ll let you back in, don’t worry.”
“No doubt if I’m carrying supplies. But I’ll take it with me, anyway.”
Athol shot Jay a dismissive look as he rummaged around on a dining room table shoved against the living room wall until he found his house keys. “Take these. Let yourself in,” Athol said, tossing the keys across, “and leave the bottle.”
Jay harrumphed as he caught the keys and left. Athol always acted disgusted when reminded he was not entirely reliable. Jay left the bottle by the apartment door. It wouldn’t matter if Athol helped himself, Athol could drink for three. The whole bottle would still have Athol functional enough.
Athol moved slowly to clear the coffee table of bottles, though he did then pick up speed as he tackled the dining room table. These would be where his new work would be laid out, rummaged through, held up to get better light and ultimately selected or discarded. Even with just two surfaces to clear, it wasn’t fast. There were a lot of bottles, ashtrays, and crockery filled with half-rotted food, not to mention blocks of rodent poison to keep the mouse population down. Athol thought the poison worked, as mice hadn’t seen for weeks.
He was drying the coffee table when he heard Jay let himself back in. Athol stood up eagerly. He was thirsty.
—
“The problem,” Jay spoke as they stood looking down at the portfolio, now open on the dining room table, the pictures somewhat spread out, “isn’t the composition or quality. It’s, It’s, they’re boring. A Study of the Moon is just the moon at different but repeated phases through the year. It’s very samey.”
“That’s rubbish”, Athol reached for the first picture in the set, “I used the most colour-sensitive of films, long, long exposure and tracked the moon as long as it was visible. You can see the grey is made up of silvers, blues, charcoals, reds and oranges. The detail on the craters is superb.”
“Boring. Just photographs, just straight photos, none of your usual tricks. You need to add something, some more Athol Alisdair MacMairtin. That is what people pay for. As it is, I can’t sell these. These are fillers. And…”
“And the others?”
“More of the same, I’m afraid. Look, A Study In Light, It’s just two blocks of flats.”
“You’re a philistine.” Athol snorted in disgust, “Notice how the flats in the one building fill up and empty.” Athol flipped through the pictures, “and the cycles of lights, and how you can guess the kind of people by their light usage. You know, whether the place is blazing with light, whether one light is on at a time or not. With a couple, you can see their arguments, their romance, their sex sessions,” Athol had selected a picture and held it up so Jay could see, “just from the lights. Kids and twentysomethings have a very specific type of pattern. You can see people trying to save money. There are flats that never have lights. I think people have died in them, with no relatives nearby. Maybe parents are abandoned by their kids. Sex abusers, drunks, druggies who injected bad stuff or just very old, the last of their family, all dried up and shrivelled, their pensions paying into their accounts and standing order taking out the bills so no one notices they’re dead because they had no friends left alive to notice. Or divorced, unable to settle things, leaving the flats empty as they bicker and mewl in courts over the leavings of their failed relationships.”
“Bundle of joy you are! Look, people will buy that, but that isn’t in these pictures. These pictures have no narrative, no hook.”
“You’re wrong.” Athol pointed to the two towers, “There’s a lot more. The two tower blocks, Nalfeshnee and Maralith Towers were built at the same time. People moved in at the same time, but now they’re quite distinct even though they were identical in design. The one on the left is well-kept. Neat. Ordered. The one on the right is bedraggled, damaged, wild. On the left, the ‘garden furniture’ is all bistro tables and chairs; on the right, there is no style, just stuff piled up against walls. On the left, curtains are open, and blinds are up; on the right, they are closed. Windows are broken, badly broken. You see that, don’t you?”
“There may be a soap opera in those apartment blocks, but I really can’t see it. Your die-hard fans will buy maybe eight of these if you sign them. And these,” Jay held up a perfectly black square, “Studies in Darkness, what am I supposed to be looking at? It’s just black!”
Athol left for the kitchen, returning with two very large glasses. One of vodka and coke, the other of rum and lemonade. By the time he handed the rum to Jay, his own glass was half empty, so he went, refilled it, and returned it. “That’s a couple of guys fucking in the bushes, this,” he picked up another completely black photograph, “Is a fox eating a cat it caught,” again, “This is a drunk man on all fours between the buildings. He does lots of crawling during the dark of the moon”
Jay sucked on his teeth, “Is it you?”
Athol cast him a semi-smile, “No. My crawling is drunken but restricted to this flat.” He took a gulp of his drink, “He seems physically impaired to me. I don’t think he can stand up.”
Jay took another look at the last of the photos and shook his head. “They’re just black squares, Athol. Now, where’s the real work? Show me something good—something for ROPAC XII, something I can sell. Show me you haven’t just sat here for a year drinking and staring at everything except what can make money.”
Jay drank down his drink in one fell swoop. It wasn’t strong; the vodka was heavily diluted. Athol finished his own drink. Jay took their glasses and headed for the kitchen. “Half and half”, Athol called after him.
On returning, Jay handed over the glass. “And I know you’re running out of money,” Athol raised an eyebrow, “because I can count and I can add up. You need money too.”
Athol shrugged, “Give the crowd what they want, eh? This way.”
Athol led them into the cool darkness of his studio, the only sound the humming of the air conditioner and the only light coming from a dim lamp on an adjustable stem. Jay sighed with relief as his sweat turned chill even as it dribbled down his back, brow and neck. The dampness of his clothes soothed him, so he almost closed his eyes, though he didn’t. He needed evidence that Athol had something.
In the dark were frames, some large, some small, and pedestals, the type you sat vases and pot plants on. Great screens hid the walls, huge sections of wall at that. Everything was covered in lace, or silk or cheesecloth; everything was hidden from view except for the hundreds of tiny coloured plastic and glass pieces on the workbench and fibrous masses of flax of different qualities.
Athol reappeared at his side, a darkened strip torch in hand, attached to the wall by a long coiling rubber-sheathed cable. “Here. Is this what you’re begging for?” Athol switched the torch on and tore away one cheesecloth. “Accretion in the name of Judas. A work of cut-coloured acetate limned in live wood exfoliates projected on a non-euclidian, hyperbolic to the masses, curved silver wireframe.” Athol gestured dismissively, “It’s named after Judas because I betrayed my talent out for money.”
The light from the strip torch fell through the coloured acetates and spread on the wall behind, arching up and down, left and right as Athol moved the torch in circles, studying Jay all the time until, apparently, bored.
“Next,” one of Athol’s hands, the one with the light, pulled at his face, one finger slid into the corner of his mouth, and the lip was pulled down, while the free hand pulled away a lace sheet. The shadow of Athol’s profile filled the opposite wall, floor and ceiling, the shadow of his lips opened, and the shadow of his tongue licked them “I’m parched.” Jay handed over his drink. Athol drank first, then spoke, “When David was Lost. Cut coloured acetates bonded to a sinusoidal curved acrylic pane studded with crystals. It’s as much a sculpture as a picture. This,” Athol’s hand found another cloth to pull, “Ceremonies of Endor, micro-kiln-fused glass beads, a fish-eye, overhead projection,” and Athol almost laughed, “with real necromancy. It’s a bit dangerous. The ceremony is as exact as it can be given the medium, pun intended. Here, look! Dilution and Revenance of the Covetous, also called An Antidote To Greed, in yet more cut-coloured acetate with various precious metal leaves and gemstones. All are real, recovered from abandoned engagement rings purchased through small ads and house clearances, worked in this very room into that very thing!”
Jay didn’t hear. His eyes transfixed as the colours cast their shades over the walls and a spell over him. Athol moved behind him and grasped both arms. Jay stiffened, then relaxed.
“I can hear you salivating, Jay.”
“This is the shit people will pay for!” Jay finally found words.
“This is shit. Tired old artifice. A verisimilitude of talent without actual talent. Formulaic and visionless. ‘Art’ to slit one’s wrists by.” Athol took his hands off Jay.
“You’re going to let me have these? Let me sell them?”
“As you say, Jay. We both need the money. And this batch should earn enough to finish the job.”
“What job?” Jay asked faster than he could stop himself.
“This one.” and Athol finished Jay’s drink, “It’ll be the last thing I do. And, hopefully, soon.”
“You’ll leave me something to sell, won’t you?”
Athol nodded, took the empty glasses to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of vodka and a bottle of rum, offering the vodka to Jay. Jay took it, and he and Athol exchanged impenetrable glances. They chinked and took a slug from their respective bottles, discarding the glasses they had been drinking from.
“Would I leave you without one last chunk of me to sell? How much did you bring?” Athol stared at Jay, “Sobriety threatens a visit, and I don’t want to be at home. How much booze did you bring?”
“Not enough for you.”
Athol’s eyes narrowed with calculation, “Next time, then.”
They went out into the reek and the heat, through the living room, to the balcony, each silently drinking.
——–
Jay had left. Athol sat on the balcony and watched the evening draw in. Watched the towers opposite, the ones he constantly photographed. They had changed over the last two years. Jay was wrong. There were stories in there. Jay was too blind to see it. How to capture the tales the lights weaved was the question. How to engage the viewer? How to show them what he saw. He poured whiskey, the rum was long gone, into a tumbler of ice, and sipped. He fetched the folios of the photographs he had shown Jay and shuffled through them, giving each piece a moment of assessment before he moved on. Maybe if he just focussed on the one tower that had become so damaged. He had taken a couple of hundred photos over the years. He stood and went to his studio, rifled through a filing cabinet until he found the complete set, returned to the living room and sat at his dining table.
The photos were out of order, but on the back of each one he had recorded the date they were taken, and the order he had taken them if there had been several.
Athol spread them out and got to work putting them in the correct order. Elenor placed a comforting hand on his shoulder for a moment and whispered a name into his ear before leaving. Poor Elenor, Athol hoped to join her soon.
The name reminded Athol of a gift. The gift reminded him of a form. The form inspired him.
——–
The device looked a little like an oversized yet typical carriage clock, but with a square base and a transparent top through which the horizontal clockworkery could be viewed. Where the clock face should have been was a window. Through the window, you could see many pictures of one of the towers attached to a central spindle. An off-centre brass bar disturbed the even flow of the pictures, causing each to pause like a flip animation book.
“That is better. That is closer to a time-lapse study of destruction.” Jay was speaking while his staff were collecting the pieces for ROPAC XII from Athol’s studio. “I can sell this. We might get some purchases with an e-version as well. Would you mind if I made an electronic version?”
Athol raised his eyes from the pictures. “Yes, I would. This is the installation it belongs in. Apart from my excellent subject matter, the unique selling point here is the device. It’s handmade but can be reproduced to any size. Just reprint the photos to the right scale to match.”
Jay licked his lips, “Lovely machine! Who made it?”
“This prototype is from Gavin Trey.”
Jay’s mouth widened in something similar to awe, “How did you manage to get him to do that? That’s amazing!”
“We used to be drinking buddies. He made it for me years ago. Never got around to using it. Talking of which.” Athol lifted his glass and took a sip. “Anyway, try it out. The key’s on the back.”
“It’s wind up? You think people won’t notice you taking the piss out of them?” Jay paused for a moment, “I still think I can see eight sales, only eight, but clockwork plus the pictures plus your name plus a Gavin Trey mechanism. Whoa! That makes them good, very good, sales.”
“Try it out!” Athol called over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen for another drink. Jay had bought enough for two weeks, or more likely, one week. Athol felt a thing coming on.
In the kitchen, Elenor slid up behind Athol, put her arms around him and rested her head on his back. Athol ignored her.
The key was indeed in the back, in the back and at the bottom. Jay’s first attempt to turn it led to his fingers slipping off. It needed a firm and solid grip and determined tugging and twisting. As Jay struggled, Athol watched from the kitchen door. A tinge of hope played in his otherwise tired eyes. Jay kept twisting the damn key until finally he became sure there was no more give in it.
Jay set the device in the sun on the coffee table and sat on the floor. He wanted his eyes to be level with the pictures. With a tap of his finger on the top, the central spindle span, then off-centre stalled each picture as it flicked passed, and the life of the decrepit tower played out from well-ordered, fresh, clean, to broken, decayed and abandoned. The central spindle completed a revolution and the story started again. Jay didn’t move, Jay watched and watched as Athol fetched himself another drink and a second spindle adorned photographs from his Study In Darkness. The studio was nearly bare; all the Ropac commissions were gone, packed up and carefully carried to the waiting van.
“Well?” Athol spoke when the device wound down, and Jay leant back and let out a long, slow, ‘wow’, “What do you think?”
“I think,” Jay was nodding slowly, “That this tells that story. It’s got the hook. The new focus on a single building works. I really think this is sellable. A couple of thoughts, though. I think you can remove the pictures with the full moon, it makes the light composition uneven and pulsing, and anyway, the damage only happens when there is no moon; I’m not one hundred per cent sure about that. I also wonder if you really did mean the return to the start to be so sudden. Maybe fade to black and fade from black has a more genteel feel to tell the viewer their journey is over and beginning. Just suggestions. It’s saleable as it is. It’s not just good, It’s brilliant.”
Though pleased, Athol, it didn’t show it, “I also have my Studies In Darkness. It slides right in. Want. To see?”
“No. I have to get going. I have a lot of work to do now.” He waved at the waiting staff, “I have Customs paperwork, shipping and insurance to organise. I’ll be back in two weeks.”
Athol nodded and fetched the packing box the device had been stored in for years. “Here, put this away.” Athol went back to his studio filing cabinet, returning with the device designs, a business card and a letter. “Take these, give them to Gavin. It’ll help break the ice.”
“Alright! Thanks! See you in two weeks.” Jay said.
“Sure. Good luck at Ropac. Sell lots!” Athol sipped his drink. He fancied a dirty martini, like the ones he had in Manhattan. When Jay left, he triple-locked the door and made several. Many, many, many.
—–
Jay let himself into the flat, forcing the door fully open and crushing bin bags against the hallway wall. He paused to let himself adjust to the smell though it was less intense than it used to be. Less filled with the sickly sweet reek of an unwashed alcoholic. Less full of the rancidness of rotting food and mice, though there was an undertone Jay decided to ignore. He went to the balcony and opened the door to let fresh air in. A line of six people followed, and most stopped in the middle of the living room, awaiting instructions. They all wore blue overalls and thick, paper face masks held in place with elastic bands. One of the crew followed Jay and handed over an additional mask. “You should wear this.” Jay shook his head.
“Take out all the rubbish bags. Fill more with everything that looks like it should be thrown out,” Jay pointed at Athol’s studio, “But not in there.” and at what had been Athol’s bedroom, “or there. Bottles, food, anything that’s not a nicknack, tool, photo, certificate or award.” There was a trolly in the hallway that could carry a couple of dozen bags and take them out through the service elevator. Even so, the cleaners would have to make 20 trips at least. Jay leaned on the balcony wall, slipped a half-bottle of vodka out of his pocket and took a slug. The cleaners’ leader leant next to him, “Friend of yours?” then looked over his shoulder, “Dirty job.” Jay offered the vodka, and the lead cleaner removed their mask and took a sip, “Don’t blame you.”
There was a yell from inside, something like “The filthy bastard!” turning around, Jay found one of the team pointing at a turd, all curled up and desiccated, “Who could fucking live like this?”
“Ignore them,” the leader said, “coping mechanism. Low-status job, dealing with other people’s mess. Brings out the rough and ready. They don’t mean no disrespect to your friend.”
“Get it done.” was all Jay could say.
The leader nodded, “Just as you wish.” and went inside, shouting at the team, chivvying on operations. Jay turned his attention to the view, noting that it was quite different to stand here alone without Athol.
The tower on the right now seemed completely abandoned, while the tower on the left looked the same as in the photos—well, mostly. In a couple of places, the cladding had come off, broken windows could be seen here and there, and a few of the usually orderly balconies had become a mess.
“Mr Lexis, you might want to give an opinion on these?” The team leader was back, carrying a cardboard box that chinked in a familiar way. Inside were twenty or thirty bottles, each labelled with a name and a date; Elenor, Kirby, Daphne, Elsbeth, Gavin, many Jay didn’t recognise, and, of course, Jay. The mix of names from a decade ago was strong; five years ago, sparser, and in the last three years, the only name on any bottle was that of Jay’s. “I thought there might be sentimental value to them. A sort of diary, given they were packed up separately and dated. What do you want me to do with them?”
Though Jay couldn’t speak to the bottles with other people’s names, he at least recognised the brands of vodka he habitually drank and then another feature. The older bottles were worn smooth at the neck as if handled many, many times over centuries. Athol had ground at the glass and sanded it to give this aged effect, a piece of art-in-formation with no end state determined as yet.
Or a record of all the human contact Athol had enjoyed in the last decade. Something to hold in the nights filled with self-loathing that must have experienced before he died.
“’Chuck ’em”, Jay turned away, “No. Wait. Keep them.”
“Just as you wish”, the leader moved to leave the balcony, then paused, “This is a bigger job than estimated. I reckon we’ll finish Wednesday. You might want to clear that with the office and agree on a new price. Sorry.” He retreated into the apartment, shouting renewed instructions.
Jay took a long drink from the bottle he carried, then went into the flat. Wednesday was too far away. He wanted to see what Athol had left him in the studio. No one had been in the studio where Athol’s last works had remained undisturbed. Jay needed to see those last works and testament.
————-
Jay flicked on the light.
The studio was not as Jay remembered it. It had been tidied, with almost everything stacked against the wall opposite the window. Two large canvases in frames, much larger than a person, were opposite the door, a photograph pinned next to one and a sheet of paper next to the other. The desk held something, but it was covered with a lace shawl.
In one frame was a drawing of the moon and one of Athol’s photographs of the moon. Jay examined the pair. The drawing captured every detail in the photograph, but writ it large. Every crater, every shadow and every colour; the silvers, oranges, blues and charcoals were much more obvious at this scale pencil, every detail and colour preserved. Athol had made it so everyone could see what he could see.
The other picture was much stranger, though also in pencil. It had a grainy look, as if it was the maximum enlargement of a photograph. It possessed excessive contrast giving the thing an ugly look. The subject seemed to be a man crawling about on all fours, but with his head twisted up, glaring directly at the viewer. The skin was rendered as desiccated and wrinkled in the extreme, and the subject’s hands and feet were twisted to impossible angles. The subject’s eyes held the only colour beyond the blacks and greys. Yellow.
It was monstrous.
The note beside the picture was written in Athol’s flowing cursive script
There was a crooked man and he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all liv’d together in a little crooked house.
Shaking his head, Jay stood back; these pictures must have taken the whole year that Jay and Athol had only communicated through the locked apartment door. Even then, Athol must have been working at a frantic pace. These would be very saleable. Enough to set Jay up for life.
At the desk, Jay pulled the lace cloth off what stood there, revealing more bottles of alcoholic drinks, but these were dressed in tiny clothes and stoppered with corks carved to look like people, with hair made from cotton or wool or similar, and shiny eyes probably made from fused glass beads.
One looked exactly like Jay.
When he checked, each bottle had the label tied to it with parcel string. Each was addressed to a person and each bottle was full.
”Have one on me.” read the labels, and “Bye.”
Jay pulled the head off the bottle that looked like him, lifted the bottle to his lips, took a sniff, and took a slug.