A Shoddy Business by David Rudd

Kenneth Waldron was a painter – quite a successful one – with a number of famous people seeking him out for portraits. It was mostly thanks to Cynthia Grossman, who had begun as his financial advisor before becoming his personal manager and, finally, his partner.

She had steered him towards “high-end” work: portraits of celebrities from the worlds of sport, politics and the media. Kenneth had no idea who many of them were, but he bowed to Cynthia’s business acumen. Prior to this, he’d concentrated on pet portraits, his mum and her neighbours providing an endless stream of “sitters”. Kenneth didn’t really mind what he painted, as long as he was wielding a paintbrush.

Cynthia had also persuaded him to move out of his mother’s house and invest in a property in Bethnal Green. This was a terraced residence on three stories in “a desirable neighbourhood”. It was not only a good investment, Cynthia said, but had an attic that – again, thanks to her – was perfect for converting into an airy studio (or “atelier”, as Cynthia liked to call it) to which clients could be invited.

She’d moved in with him a short while ago, when the property was finally renovated. He could not deny that it was a wonderful house but, if he were honest, Kenneth preferred how it looked on their first viewing, before Cynthia’s makeovers. With its modern fittings and furnishings, it now seemed to lack any sense of provenance. It was a bit like a furniture showroom. Kenneth found it hard to relax there, which was why he still popped back to his mum’s for home comforts.

The only area which he’d managed to make his own was the studio, for even Cynthia had to concede that this was his domain, though she warned him that clients would be put off if it became too shabby. What she saw as shabby, though, were the very things he thought gave his studio character: stacked canvases, brushes in pots, an old paint-spattered easel, and a pervasive smell of turps. There were also various props for sitters, especially an old couch, which he’d brought from his mother’s. Kenneth liked to rest on it when he was tired. It was now draped with old clothes, his own, which he also kept up there out of Cynthia’s reach. She had binned many of his things already, encouraging him to wear suits. Suits for painting!

To Cynthia’s chagrin, Kenneth had persisted with his animal portraiture, his mother regularly coming up with new takers. This said, Kenneth noted that Cynthia never objected to him painting the pets of celebrities, who did, of course, pay silly money.

Cynthia was currently away in Europe, catching up with her other clients. Alone, he was dedicating some quality time to his Aunt Reenie’s cockatoo, Henry. It had once been a good conversationalist, but was now mute, having been stuffed several years ago. Kenneth had spent ages mixing a palette that did justice to Henry’s iridescent colouring. He hoped his aunt would be impressed.

Just as he was getting into his stride, though, his phone buzzed with one of Cynthia’s texts, reminding him to contact Sir Wilfred Flayberg-Smythe about his second sitting. The chap was some bigwig at the Bank of England, whom Cynthia had lined up.

Sir Wilfred’s initial sitting had not been a success. A heavyset man, he had struggled with Kenneth’s stairs – no doubt accustomed to lifts. He also seemed to picture himself as far trimmer than he was, so was not happy with Kenneth’s representation. Through Cynthia, it had been agreed that the next sitting would be conducted at the banker’s own residence. “Mohammed must come to the mountain,” as Kenneth had said to Cynthia. He should really call the man now, but couldn’t face it. What he would do, he decided, was try and get something on canvas from one of the photos he’d taken of Sir Wilful Fleebag-Smith – or whatever he called himself.

From this point on, things became hazy. Kenneth knew he’d begun a fresh canvas, having put Henry aside, but couldn’t remember much more. He did recall painting with a newfound freedom, his brush seeming to have a will of its own. But where had his head been? When he “came to” – for that’s what it felt like – it certainly wasn’t Sir Flabby-Guts on the canvas. It was, rather, an undernourished, shoddily dressed urchin. Where had he come from? Kenneth only ever painted from life, always bemoaning the fact that he lacked any visual imagination. Somehow, though, he’d conjured up this character, which had such poignancy, such humility. He couldn’t have formed a starker contrast to old Sir Flabby-Face!

Kenneth called it a day and ordered a pizza, which he ate on his couch with a glass or two of red. As he chewed, he eyeballed the uninvited visitor propped opposite.

He must then have dozed again, for it was dark when he next surfaced, lying on his couch in the cold, an empty bottle at his feet. But it wasn’t the cold that had woken him. It was another strange experience. One minute he’d been staring into the sunken eyes of his urchin, and the next, the figure was alive, with other figures emerging behind it, out of the gloom. As Kenneth’s eyes adjusted, he could see that sacking littered his floor, which also seemed to be moving. Then he saw why. There were bodies beneath it, huddled together. That was when Kenneth resurfaced, cold and perplexed.

His watch read 4.00 am. He visited the toilet Cynthia had had installed in the attic, mainly for his sitters’ benefit. Feeling restless, he decided to do more painting. After all, he was his own man at present. He ought to have another go at Flabby-Chops, of course, but he wasn’t in the mood. As for his urchin figure, Kenneth was nervous about going eye to eye with him again. He needed some distance. Finally, having rediscovered a palette that was primed with the hues of Henry’s plumage, he returned to his cockatoo portrait.

It took longer than he thought but, by about 11 in the morning, it was finished, and Kenneth himself was famished. He decided to take it straight round to his aunt’s, visiting his mum on the way, who might just run to lunch. He also knew it would be wise to move Henry on before Cynthia saw the portrait and asked how much he was charging.

He had a fun afternoon with the ladies, then travelled back to Bethnal Green on the tube. As he spotted Shoreditch on the tube-station map, he suddenly remembered Frances, a local historian, for whom he’d once tinted a set of black-and-white prints. He texted her to see if she knew anything about his own property’s history. She knew only about the neighbourhood in general, though, which she described as a “rookery”: an area where sweatshops thrived, where workers, mainly poor immigrants (the Jews and Irish especially), worked in dire conditions to produce poor quality clothing made out of “shoddy” for the rag trade. “Things were so bad,” Frances texted, “that many young women found prostitution an upwardly-mobile move!”

Kenneth entered his house with a mixture of insight and horror. Had his urchin worked here, he wondered.

For the rest of the day, Kenneth forced himself to return to Flabby-Cheeks’ commission, but everything he tried to do was unsatisfactory. Basically, he resented having to paint such an entitled fat cat. In his final attempt, the man somehow morphed into a bloated Hulk. Kenneth couldn’t resist running with it, coating him in a bilious green. It was then that he made a decision. The man could whistle. Kenneth had had enough of him.

He walked away from his easel, turned up the heating and tucked into the cache of junk food that he kept in his studio, feasting all the while on videos of his favourite bands on YouTube. He was aware that he was putting off going to bed, despite being dog-tired.

Eventually he collapsed on his couch and dreamt again. The room shifted and changed. This time it wasn’t just images he discerned. His other senses were invoked. Rank smells assailed his nostrils: stale urine, fetid chamber pots, unwashed bodies, fusty garments, rancid food, plus other, unnameable stenches. Sounds assailed him too: youngsters crying and snivelling; adults wheezing and hacking. Most disturbing was the persistent scuttling of vermin around the somnolent bodies.

Kenneth woke, hardly able to breathe. His throat was clogged. Was it those fibres that floated like bluebottles in the dank attic? He was swaddled like a mummy, his blanket over his face. He fought his way to his skylight, throwing it open to suck in some clean air. As his claustrophobia receded, he realised that the shape of his attic exactly matched that of the one in his dream – though, he then reasoned, why wouldn’t it? His imagination would obviously draw on the everyday … wouldn’t it?

He went out for breakfast then spent the morning in the park, savouring the fresh air and the children playing – well-fed children, at that. He had lunch out too, and found himself tipping the staff more generously than usual. Returning home in the afternoon, he kept away from his attic, preparing himself a meal in the kitchen. It had been a long while since he’d cooked – Cynthia liked to eat out. When it came to plating up, though, he had no appetite. It seemed obscene that one person should indulge so.

It was well past midnight when he went to bed, avoiding sleep till he could hold his eyes open no longer. He crawled under the duvet of the king-size bed Cynthia had bought and slept like a baby until nature called. Then, barely conscious, for some reason he made his way up to his attic toilet rather than use the en suite.

Inside his studio, he’d unsuccessfully tried to find the light switch. It was only when his eyes adjusted that he realised his studio had once again metamorphosed. This time, there were no sleeping bodies. Instead, about a dozen men were kneeling or sitting cross-legged on the floor, stitching sleeves onto some rough jackets. The youngest figure he recognised as the one from his portrait. Kenneth observed him carefully, noting how he moved his arms, needle in one hand, garment sleeve in the other. How could the lad even see what he was doing in this light? The only illumination came from a single oil lamp, whose fumes were like tar. Having finished a garment, Kenneth watched them peg it on the rafters.

He woke gasping for air, his mouth coated with the residue from their lamp, his skin itchy. He also had a raging thirst and urgently needed the toilet. In fact, he couldn’t move far from his attic convenience all the rest of the day. Yet, even though he felt rough, he had a strong desire to complete his urchin painting, now that he had a keener appreciation of what was needed.

He prepared a darker palette of browns and greys, then mixed a lighter one for the urchin’s pallid skin. He was continually interrupted, though, by the need to scratch. He inspected his arms. Were those bites?

Eventually, he went down to the en suite, returning with some antihistamine cream which he applied to his arms and neck. On a whim, he then added a dollop to his palette, mixing it into the flesh-toned paint.

Getting the colours right took forever, especially in his condition. His urchin looked either too bleak or too jaunty, like an Artful Dodger figure. Kenneth must have scraped off more paint than he applied, but the end result was worth it. 

All it now needed was a background, and Kenneth knew exactly what that would be. He was standing within it: that skylight with the canted roof swooping down. All he had to do was expose the rafters and hang some garments from them. In his representation, the clothes looked more like bodies on gibbets, but he thought that was quite effective. Finally, Kenneth hinted at a few other figures distributed across the floor, sheltering beneath the sacking.

When he’d finished, Kenneth was drained, and not just as a result of his labours. His diarrhoea was worse, and he felt delirious. He barely had the energy to sign his work.

#

When he finally resurfaced, he was in a very different space. It was clinical, bright with artificial light and disinfectant. It was a hospital, and he was in bed, tubes snaking from his arm. Beside him sat Cynthia, a frown on her face.

She’d returned from her trip, frustrated that Kenneth hadn’t answered her texts for days. She’d found him unconscious in his atelier, the place an absolute tip: take-away packaging, bottles, and dirty clothes everywhere, aside from the most obnoxious smells. Cynthia gave an involuntary shiver. “You’d have had rats next!”

“And this?” he asked, indicating his arm.

“Well!” Cynthia summoned her resources. “Apparently, you’re a medical mystery. You have all the symptoms of cholera, a disease unknown in England for more than a hundred years. The doctors can’t believe you’ve only been in Bethnal Green, not … Bangladesh! And, as for those flea bites … !” She gave another shiver. “Where have you been? I’ve had the Health Inspector round, our water tank has been emptied and inspected, and the house has had to be thoroughly fumigated … I mean, what have you been up to?”

“It’s nice to have you back, Cynthia,” he replied. “Good trip?”

But she was already leaving, thrusting some grapes in his direction. “Here,” she said, “I’ve got business to attend to.” She sidled away from his bedside. “I’d give you a kiss, but … I’m not sure it’s wise.”

Kenneth found the medical staff more informative. He’d been brought in, seriously dehydrated, his trousers soaked in watery diarrhoea. Had his partner not returned, they said, he’d likely have been a goner. However, despite several intense conversations with officials – wanting to know his exact movements, quizzing him about anyone giving him presents from abroad, or being intimate with someone who’d recently travelled – he remained a medical mystery.

Eventually Kenneth was discharged. Cynthia had texted him to say she thought it wise to let him recuperate on his own. She’d left her key with a neighbour. That, thought Kenneth, was a fairly explicit “Dear John” text! Another one followed, to say that Sir Wilfred had taken his commission elsewhere. “Good riddance!” Kenneth texted back, meaning – as he later realised – to both of you.

Back home, the smell of disinfectant was overpowering. Cynthia’s reluctance to stay did make a certain sense. The pong was most potent in the attic. He threw open his skylight and hunted for his urchin painting – though it did cross his mind that perhaps he shouldn’t handle it.

However, the work was nowhere to be seen, neither here nor downstairs. Had Cynthia removed it, finding it too unsavoury?  Fortunately, a text then arrived, this one from Frank Riddler, who owned a gallery nearby. Cynthia, Riddler said, had recently brought in a painting of a guttersnipe, wondering if it might sell. Riddler wondered if Kenneth had a title for it, “Ragamuffin Joe or something?” Kenneth hadn’t thought about this at all, but he knew what he didn’t want, recalling those sentimental Victorian paintings with titles like “Mudlarks at play”.

He texted back that he’d be round later. He was incensed that Cynthia had gone behind his back, thinking – no doubt – only of her commission. Making money out of this portrait seemed totally wrong to him, especially after what he’d gone through. He tried to do some more work in his studio, but the smell was too distracting. He was also very weak still. He ended up putting himself to bed in their old bedroom.

Lying there, he became aware of something twitching the bedclothes. Was it Cynthia, back to apologise? No, it was a young urchin girl, barely visible over the fluffy duvet. She was looking up at him, wide-eyed. “Please mister. Can you help me, too,” she asked, “like you helped me bruvver, Sammy?”

Kenneth sat bolt upright, such that he lost sight of the waif behind the duvet. He lowered it immediately, but she was nowhere to be seen. He even checked under the bed. Had he been dreaming or hallucinating again? He felt annoyed with himself for not answering her. How rude! He was also embarrassed to have been seen lying there, in such luxury. Yet, he reflected, at least he now had a name for his urchin. He’d get himself out into the fresh air and visit Riddler, ask him if he’d be interested in a whole exhibition, one that juxtaposed the darker past of the East End with its opulent present.

Making his way to the gallery, Kenneth was surprised at the things that now caught his eye: figures huddled in doorways and on benches with their bagged belongings alongside, vaguely holding out their hands for change; underdressed youngsters and mothers out in the chilly air. Of course, as it now dawned on him, it wasn’t just a historical contrast he needed to capture. It was very contemporary, and the urchin girl had given him an idea about how he might really help Sammy’s successors. He needed sponsors, he realized, like Barnardo’s and Shelter, organisations that could really do something useful with the proceeds of such an exhibition – unlike the Cynthias of this world. It was indeed, he thought, chuckling to himself, a shoddy business.

#

That night, Kenneth had one final dream, a very different one. He was painting Henry again, and the brushed bird was so impressed with the dazzling plumage Kenneth had given it that it took wing, flying clean off the canvas and out of the skylight into a sunny sky, while the stuffed original looked enviously on.

David Rudd

Image: Oil paints and artist’s materials in a heap with spilled paint and smears from Pixabay.com