Life, Death and Art

By David Lawrence

Seven short stories connected by life, death and art as I suppose we all are. Forgery, plagiarism, theft, personal and political betrayal and even murder force the protagonists of these seven tales to negotiate their way between competing truths. The world it seems is filled with deception, betrayal and a fear of the dark both real and metaphorical.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716172489

David Lawrence

David is the teaching pastor at Thornbury Baptist Church, near Bristol.

Book preview

Life, Death and Art

by

D.E.Lawrence

Copyright 2021 David Lawrence

Lulu Edition

ISBN 978-1-716-17248-9

CONTENTS

Story 1: Art and Artifice

Story 2: Intolerance

Story 3: Killing Time At The Bodleian

Story 4: Chequers Endgame

Story 5: The Denouement

Story 6: Cotswold Line of Enquiry

Story 7: Mary Celeste

INTRODUCTION

Most of these stories have appeared in print somewhere or other over the last five years or so. They will have seen the light in the local village paper or a series of collections published by a group of local authors. They were not written in the order they are presented here. My philosophy is that the short story should be fun as well as tell a succinct tale with a proper ending. The challenge is to develop as much back story and characterisation in as few words as possible and to stay on point. No digressions or sub plots.

Art and Artifice: is set in modern day Oxford. An art lover is drawn into a world of forgery and plagiarism.

Intolerance: an armed man waits alone ready to face unreconstructed attitudes in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

Killing Time at the Bodleian: if he really is alone at night in the famous old library, who's that in the dark and what does he want?

Chequers Endgame: when the PMs life is threatened he can always retreat to his country estate where he can trust everyone...right?

The Denouement: a letter promises closure, thirty years after the truth was left buried in the ruins of war torn Germany? One man waits to execute the denouement.

Cotswold Line of Enquiry: one woman must identify the thief of the Magna Carta before the train reaches Oxford. A heist for the Covid era.

Mary Celeste: who knows what really happened to the crew. First Mate Albert Richardson does...he survived!

Life, death and art. What else is there?

I hope there is something here for everyone…if not then why not put pen to paper and have a go…

David

ART AND ARTIFICE

Jennifer Brice was alone in her two bedroom flat on the edge of Oxford. By the window she let her mind wander over the bucolic landscape and the huddle of low roofed houses between her and the gentle rise of the fields and trees beyond. The air was thickening as the night drew in and her thoughts drifted like smoke over the remains of the day. Now in her early forties she had never really left the academic ferment of this old Saxon city. The promise of another life, held little allure, compromising as it would her love of freedom over her love of love. Educated and then employed here she was in every sense, at home. She would always be alone; she was that kind of woman.

But the news had snapped the thin thread connecting her tenuously to the world outside her flat. The call had come through on her landline. It had excited her. When you are waiting for the Literary Agent’s verdict you are on tenterhooks. And when the female voice announced herself as Connie Carroll of Carroll Associates, specialists in popular art books her heart had skipped a beat. But the message could not have been more disappointing and damning!

Miss Brice?

Yes.

I’m calling about your submission Modern Art: Its Always Been Here.

Okay.

Miss Brice, the trade takes a very dim view of any sort of plagiarism. You have lifted word for word an entire book already on its way to the publishers. Even the title. Now I know it’s a world of instant gratification and entitlement at any cost, but this is audacious….

Jennifer had been unable to find the words to interrupt. Connie Carroll went on.

…audacious and illegal Miss Brice. Take this as a friendly warning that we have you on our radar. We will let this slide but I advise you Miss Brice be very careful in future…..

But who….who has published my…this….

I think you know as well as I do Miss Brice…you work with him!

The line had gone dead and she had somehow placed the receiver in the cradle. Her entire year’s work, her opus magnus as Harry had put it, shot down in flames. Plagiarism? She had written every word herself in this very room. As she had tried to make sense of the severe Miss Carroll’s words, the hurtful truth had begun to burn along a short fuse, a series of events that led in only one direction. Very slowly the sense of betrayal had grown like something rising from the depths of a deep, dark ocean. It was always the same! Every time she let her guard down, ventured beyond the protective gates of her compartmentalised mind, she would catch herself trapped by the barbed wire of the real world. And this time the cuts were so deep she could not stem the bleeding. She had sleep walked into her bedroom and had perched on the end of her bed all afternoon, letting the awful truth consume her.

Horatio P Bloom. She ran the name through her head a few times as if it might make him materialise in front of her. How long had she known him, worked with him, crossed the country, stood by his side to view some of the greatest art in the country? He had been nothing short of a mentor. As assistant to his Head Curator at the Ashmolean Museum they had done some great work together. World class exhibitions had been researched, negotiated and organised. National and international renown had kept them in the eye of the storm. Horatio had cultivated a unique role for a man with his unique personality and by proxy she had attracted her share of reflected glory.

Jennifer adjusted her spectacles and set her thin face to the wall. Twisting her long greying black hair between her fingers, she cut a slight figure at the best of times but now she was fading away like a light being dimmed. She could feel the wolves of anxiety and fury competing for dominance in her fevered brain, blocking anything approaching rational thought.

How to react? What do other people do in the face of betrayal? She needed Harry.

…they confront their betrayer… texted Harry after she poured out her plight in a stream of consciousness. Harry Lewis an old Uni friend and latterly a manager and rising star at the Tate.

…this is me Harry… I don’t do confrontation… I don’t even make eye contact. What would you do…?

…break his legs… although I’m not suggesting…

She fired back.

…it was even his idea Harry, remember? He said I should spread my wings, make a name for myself.

She had been at Bloom’s side and in his shadow for twenty years. She had grown as an art curator and as a person but latterly she was increasingly a wallflower straining for the sun and wilting for lack of light. She had gone to Horatio for advice. He had suggested she ‘put that impressive mind to work on a book.’ It would elevate her self-esteem and put her in the public eye…not that she wanted that…she had made that quite clear…but the intellectual challenge really did inspire her. He would even put in a good word for her, check and edit her proofs if she wished.

Horatio P Bloom, doyen of the art world, as elitist as Brian Sewell and as expansive as Brian Blessed. A larger than life presence, feted on TV and radio and writer of a flotilla of books and blogs. An opinionated presence on social media, he would always bring his considerable intellect and caustic wit to bear on any breaking new story. Marinated on some of the best European wines his rosy complexion, large startled eyes and thick lips suggested a latter day, well-padded Oscar Wilde. Morbidly obese perhaps but habitually dressed in three piece wine dark suits and matching fedora and sporting a Van Dyck, Bloom was both lampooned and revered in equal measure. His celebrity status reflected well upon his profession and the Ashmolean Museum.

And so she had decided to write an illustrated guide to contemporary art extolling its joys and its pitfalls, its false prophets and its dawn stars. She had put her idea to Harry.

Tremendous…but what about your first and may I say only love…Cezanne…?

That was so like Harry, teasing her about her obsessive relationship with the great man. He was the only one who could pull her leg without leaving her feeling confused and inadequate. She had faith in Harry. Call it need, call it dependency…whatever, but he was the nearest thing she had to a friend. He was not and never could be her boyfriend. He said she was in love with her art, especially Paul Cezanne and needed nothing more. He was right to a point, but her fragile self-esteem needed his reassurances. She said that she found most social ticks unreadable and therefore untrustworthy. But Jennifer was not a recluse. She held down a prestigious position with alacrity, even blossoming in the hermetically sealed landscape of cultural excess. But outside she closed back down eschewing the company of anything that made demands upon her time and her mind. Closeness was just another form of intrusion. The crowd just voices on the wind, mocking, speaking in tongues, elusive and foreign. Was she selfish? Frightened? …perhaps a little of both, but she had her passion and it sustained her like oxygen.

I could not possibly exploit Paul, not yet…maybe next time… she had said.

But now she just wanted to cry, but she didn’t know how. She finally called Harry and left a message.

Horatio had been proof checking and editing and advising me and all the time he was stealing my work and putting his own name to it. I put my trust in him, and you know how hard it is for me to do that…oh Harry what should I do?

Her increasingly misspelt and half sent texts had become an unstable medium to express her disintegrating state of mind. She would have emailed but the Mac was co-conspirator and collaborator in the grand deceit. And when Harry stopped answering her texts she feared she had scared him off, her only lifeline, taking him for granted. A man too elevated to over-indulge the ranting of a nobody from Uni, a woman who should be married now and settled down.