Jacquie paid no attention to the plastic bags dangling from the fishing line which criss-crossed the room, more or less at garrotting height. It was hard to say if anything could surprise her any more. They had been there for several weeks now and she was getting used to them.
As she walked in, she noticed Justin was lying prone and motionless on the floor of the studio. She stepped over him and made for the fridge, poured a long glass of mineral water, deposited her shoulder bag and slumped into the sofa. She forced her heavy, dark hair back over her ears and stared pointedly at the accumulation of coffee mugs in the sink. It was, in fact their entire collection, and Justin had finally been driven to the extreme of swilling a sloosh of cold water into one of the mugs in which the dregs still moved about, before he made the next drink.
"What do you think?" He spoke in a slurred, sleepy way as though rising up from the depths of infinitely deep concentration, but Jacquie knew that unless her reply was sufficiently carefully phrased he would snap into crisp, inquisitional mode. "It looks ... different?" she tried.
"Good, good". Silence. Well, what passed for silence in a small first floor flat off the Edgware Road, that is, not counting traffic, pigeons and police sirens. She listened intently to the pigeons, hoping she would still hear the pained little chirrups from the single chick they were raising against the forces of common sense and gravity on the outer reaches of a ledge. Justin frequently made objections to the birds on some spurious grounds of health which he couldn't manage to defend to Jacquie's satisfaction. She would never put it past him to poke the mess of scrap paper and discarded plastic, which the pigeons called a nest, off the ledge with a broom handle.
She was just going to the window to check when Justin, thinking she was taking a closer look at the work, offered some more clues for her. "You notice that the last few breaths span larger and larger gaps. Last gasps, perhaps."
Justin was in his "Air" phase at present. He had done "Earth", but "Fire" and "Water" were as yet simply concepts. "Earth" had been pretty difficult to deal with, and for a while the flat had resembled a country hillside full of molehills. In fact, it was full of molehills, carefully gathered from the nearby cricket pitch and placed on their newly revealed floorboards. Fortunately, the carpet which had been summarily ripped up one afternoon had never been a favourite. When the molehills had been meticulously slid onto thick slabs of card and ferried in pairs in the back of their Metro, to spend three weeks sitting on the floor of the Krusiform Gallery, she had at first been relieved. During the following weeks, though, she found that continually encountering worms, beetles and the like with the Hoover nozzle was very unsettling.
Jacquie and Justin had been together for over three years since art school, and in that time with all his inventiveness, Justin had found no one except Neil at the Krusiform to take more than even a passing interest in his work. Jacquie had tried to be supportive, although she often wished that he might follow a more orthodox path towards artistic fulfilment. Take this latest effort, for instance. Plastic bags into which Justin had breathed, various numbers of times, pegged with photographic clips onto lengths of transparent line. "Exhalations. My Breath, My Suspiration", ran the accompanying blurb printed in white on a transparent plastic card, "The trapped essence of the transpiration of man, the invisible waste products of carbon dioxide intermingled with the oxygen of life and delineated within the very air itself. Expiration surrounded by inspiration. The sigh of the artist."
"So, you're taking the exhalation through to the expiration..." Jacquie suggested, instantly regretting the irony she heard in her voice and biting back a smile.
"That's it! That's just it! I knew you would feel it too," and he jumped up from the floor and came over and kissed her.
"You know," she ventured, seeing that he was in a good mood, "sometimes I think I might come home and find you farting into some of these bags while eating plates of baked beans."
For a moment or two he actually appeared to be giving this idea some consideration before a grin spread over his face, transforming it into the one she had fallen in love with some years earlier. "I think I'll save that for the next project. Effluent. Promising subject I reckon."
She wished she knew when she should take him seriously. But for now he was just plain randy, and that suited both of them fine.
A couple of hours later, sitting up in bed over the debris of a spaghetti bolognese and sharing an ice cream spoon, Jacquie was surprised to hear: "You know, that's really not at all a bad painting - of it's kind." Justin was propped on his pillow facing one of the few of Jacquie's paintings which had found wall space in their flat. It had to be in the bedroom, of course, she realised that. His street cred could fall many notches if it were revealed that his wife painted these keen, sharply defined and brilliantly coloured studies of recognisable things like flowers, vegetables and people. She didn't mind, since, supplemented by her part-time job in the local library, it was her quiet, continuous level of small sales which made possible the flat, the phone and the petrol for the car. Admittedly, it had not recently stretched to a tax disk for the car. "Well, thank you, Justin. I'm pleased you like it."
"Oh no," he got in hastily, "I didn't say I liked it - just that it's quite good - technically speaking that is." Jacquie bit her lip and looked away. He touched her shoulder, then pulled her face round to see that he wore a cheeky grin, which instantly changed to concern. "I'm sorry, love, it was supposed to be a joke. I didn't want to hurt you - it's a great picture and you know I could never paint like that." She forgave him. She always did. But she pushed him onto the damp patch.
For a little while the only sound was of Justin scraping the spoon round and round the glossy brown sides of the ice cream container, hoping for a last little taste of the small dark crunchy bits which seemed to be spread all too thinly through the chocolate goo. Through the rather grimy window Jacquie could see the tiny balcony beyond, with its two long-dead geraniums and a hopeful tub of seedlings. Some more bits of the balcony above had fallen down again, and a spider had begun an ambitious corner-wise web spanning the balustrade and the window frame. It was not a comfortable flat, nor a convenient place for two people to share, but they had developed a quirky liking for its idiosyncrasies. The huge windows provided enough light for them both to be able to call the largest room "a studio", although it had only given in to this role with a very bad grace.
"Will the Gallery take the whole sequence?" she asked, as something to say. "Oh yes," said Justin, waving his hand as if batting off a fly, "bound to. But I might be setting my sights a bit higher. This whole thing could be the beginning of everything for me. I got a phonecall today."
Jacquie looked at him with frank amazement. "Who from?" she asked, trying to keep the astonishment out of her voice.
"Well, you know I told you about that gay guy who came into Neil's place during the "Earth Works" exhibition? Well, it turns out he's a friend of Hayden Curtis! He gave him Neil's number, and he rang Neil and that's how he got hold of my number. He said he'd like to see more or my stuff"
"Who rang you - Hayden Curtis?"
"No, it was his friend. But he just said he was phoning to check I was interested before he gave Curtis my number." Justin was really excited, and it was contagious. Jacquie was smiling along with him. "Well, I said I might be interested, of course."
"Yeah, might be. Like I might be interested in joining the Royal Academy!"
"Oh yes, doesn't do to be too keen." Justin almost seemed serious.
"What's he going to do?" she asked, putting a restraining hand on the spoon which was now forcing large holes in the sides of the ice cream carton. "Oh, he's going to call me again next week after he's spoken to Curtis, and maybe one or two other people. He seemed really interested, though." She tried to ignore the rather long line of people who knew people in this narrative and just contented herself with "Oh Justin, I'm so pleased for you," since it was true.
Justin arrived late as usual at the Krusiform Gallery. Neil had long since estimated to a nice precision the degree of lateness he could expect, so he had himself turned up only a few minutes before to unlock and get some beers out of the fridge. As always, he had spared himself a few congratulatory moments alone in the high-ceilinged room. He had kept this place going for nearly two years now. It was an unpromising neighbourhood: the garbage bags piled against each lamppost every morning which were torn apart by dogs and rats through the night; the market which took over the next street twice weekly. But the garbage bags came from an assortment of speciality restaurants which were at the lower end of chic, and their clientele were often tempted into Neil's bizarre surroundings 'for a laugh', and word had spread at the edges of the avant garde.
When Neil took over the gallery, it specialised in aggressive and sometimes violent pieces in metal, rust and rubber. It served a tiny market consisting of one regular customer and some bemused visitors who sometimes bought a studded ashtray or a pockmarked mirror in the desperate hope that a renegade son or nephew might find it acceptable. For a long time Neil couldn't understand how the place had ever kept going, until he intercepted a few phone calls which suggested that the gallery had been a front for an altogether nastier trade. Many of the callers became very abusive when they found that their source had dried up. Neil thought he detected hints of extreme racism in the calls, and briefly experimented by answering in his best West Indian accent until he got a response which shocked him so much that he started to fear for his safety. That was when he changed both the phone number and the name of the gallery.
The small building was curiously constructed. Two of the rooms were originally part of the adjoining buildings on either side, which in turn had been extended into the rear of his premises, so that the main room and the two side rooms seemed to form a sort of cross shape. The word (and the spelling) Krusiform had suggested itself to him in a nightmare one night, when the KKK was coming to get him again. Somehow, as if in expiation, after that he never looked back. It had a light, airy feel and lots of blank wall space, and the application of quantities of whitewash and some naked light bulbs gave exactly the ambience he was looking for.
Although motorbikes were strictly speaking Neil's first love, he had a fascination for contemporary art and was one of the few gallery owners who would give space to installations. He did so because he enjoyed them and didn't see why his customers shouldn't do so too. He took care to stock a few buyable items, strategically placed close to the windows, but he loved to sit half-hidden in his office-cum-stockroom and eavesdrop on the exclamations of surprise, shock, disbelief or even plain antipathy which were the usual responses to his "special exhibits". Once he even sold a piece.
Justin's slight figure looked almost bulky next to Neil's skeletal frame, which was emphasised by black jeans worn as a second skin. If they had not been fashionably slashed, even walking would surely have been impossible. You could see the outline of each coin in the pocket against his left buttock.
Justin and Neil worked hard all morning and now the small white space at the back of the Krusiform Gallery was hung about with the fishing line and bags which had been lovingly transported from the Edgware Road flat. The transparent plastic labels fluttered against the white walls, the white writing creating hieroglyphic shadows.
"It's no good, mate" said Neil, "no one will be able to read these statements. Can't you have the printing in black?"
"I can't change anything, Neil. You're asking me to compromise on my artistic integrity." Although Justin softened the statement with a mock-pompous voice and a wink, Neil knew he was partly serious.
"Well, at least let me reprint them in the brochure."
"I've told you before - no brochure! The whole essence of the Air phase is ephemeral. If Joe Public can take away a bit of paper about it, the whole point's lost."
"Exactly" said a new voice. "You shouldn't change a thing."
Justin and Neil hadn't heard the man enter the gallery, but Justin caught his breath when he saw who it was.
"You don't mind my dropping by, I hope. I was so excited by your 'Earthworks', I wanted to get in as soon as I could to see this." He paused and looked hard at the bags and the fishing line. "I like it. A very fitting follow-up."
Hayden Curtis was an odd figure. Short and of medium build with a rakish eye patch, his aggressively butch clothes looked as though they belonged to someone else.
"Hayden Curtis" he said, unnecessarily, holding out his hand to Justin. "We spoke on the phone a while ago."
"Of course." Justin almost called him 'sir'. Please come in and have a good look. It's the second phase of my Elemental Works, as you know. I'm feeling pretty good about it."
"So you should. So you should."
There was a silence as Neil and Justin watched Curtis surveying the installation. He walked over and made a brave attempt at reading the card. "Excellent. Very fine." He walked jauntily, hands clasped behind his back and his head held slightly to one side while the single gleaming eye picked out details. A lightweight coat was slung across his shoulders and his elbows stuck out through the fabric like folded wings. He looked, thought Justin, like nothing so much as a blackbird hunting for worms.
"Look here, Peters. I think we can do better than this." Neil glowered until Curtis recollected himself. "No, no. Not the space. This space is ideal. Very atmospheric. But you can only get, um, a select few punters through here, surely. This deserves a wider audience. When will the next two phases be ready?"
Justin gulped. They were as yet only vague ideas. "Just need the finishing touches." He tried to sound non-committal and casual.
"Well, here's my card. Call me when you have the concepts. No more than two weeks, mind. I'm putting together something at my gallery, and your Elements should be there."
Pausing briefly to examine half a motorbike which was, in truth, Neil's transport home and not a work of art at all, Hayden Curtis left. Justin felt as though he had just stepped out of a tumble-drier.