The Artist (7/7) By The Silver Fox

(1/7), (2/7), (3/7), (4/7), (5/7), (6/7), (7/7).

Kelp breathed in sharply, and the artist - who was well aware that he was rather over sensitive in some areas - chose to think that the inhalation had not masked a sotto voce "I bet you fucking do." Sensing that scant sympathy could be expected from that quarter, the stricken artist turned his desperate gaze upon Tasker. "Didn't you read the synopsis I sent you?" "Well," Tasker spread his huge hands in a gesture of apology and self-deprecation that was unwise in such a cluttered room, "I'm afraid that I've rather been neglecting my reading of late generally. Do you know, I've been working my way through The Third Policeman for about four weeks? It's terrible; it really is. I used to be quite an avid reader, but - "

"It's a post-modern reworking of an old supernatural fable," the artist said, his nervousness temporarily subsumed by the urge to explain endemic to the unpublished and unappreciated, "in which a father who has recently lost a child turns to necromancy to bring them back to life. I wanted to get a real, visceral sensation of death into the artwork, so that's why I turned to you: because I really wanted the resurrected son to look really convincing." The eyes of the two grave-robbers met. "Ah." "Son." "Well ..." "Fuck." "Yes," the artist nodded slowly, "his son. And you've brought me a girl." "In our defence - she is the right age." "Eight to ten, we were told, and she's - she was - nine. So we were cock-on in that respect." "Nevertheless, we have committed a most deplorable error; would it help if we were to knock fifty pounds off of our fee?"

"I can't see how it could," snorted Kelp. Tasker held up a hand, and the artist seemed to see a couple of lengthy (and presumably acrimonious) dialogues flashing behind Kelp's baleful eyes before they lowered in grudging acquiescence. "I'm not entirely sure it would either," the artist countered. "She still looks like Shirley Temple - I don't see how I can turn her into a nine-year-old boy without losing something of the essential - " "Change the story; make the son a daughter." Tasker's suggestion came overlaid with a brightness that fairly glittered with desperation.

"I don't know," the artist frowned, "the whole thrust of the story is the father/son dynamic - it's a psychological study, as much as anything else." "Fuck it, then," Kelp chipped in. "If you want psychology, you're much better off with a daughter - you can get a load of ambiguous sexual malarkey into it." To his credit, the minute resurrectionist took only a couple of seconds longer than the others to express shock and discomfort at what he'd just said. "Just a thought," he mumbled. "It'll need a lot of work, script-wise," the artist mused. Sensing that he was relenting, Tasker flashed a beaming smile at him. "I'm sure you're up to it. Besides; the challenge will probably bring out something really extraordinary..." Proof against neither flattery nor his immense guest's charm, the artist shrugged and held out his hand. "Fifty, you said?" Kelp nodded to his associate. "It's this cunt's cock-up - get it out of his share."

The lustre of Tasker's grin faded momentarily as he passed some crumpled (and already dirtied) notes over to the artist, but it was with no lessening of his heartiness that he said: "Well then, if that's everything? Splendid! Homeward bound then, eh?" "Do you live together, then?" The question escaped from the artist's startled lips before he could prevent it. Tasker's forced smile was now definitely curdling as he replied:

"Yes." Kelp's grimace was decidedly omnicidal as he added: "We ain't, though - right?" "Of course not," the artist assured them, his spirits momentarily lifted by having - albeit belatedly - some kind of advantage. He ushered the two men into the hallway and thence into the night. As he closed the door behind them, he heard the thin, insistent voice of the smaller man beginning a heartfelt tirade against clueless fucks who couldn't even be arsed to read a simple script outline properly. "I bet they are, you know," he thought wryly as he returned to his living room and his waiting model.

Comments System Prototype Version 1.0 by Mo

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