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over three thousand dollars in all.’
    â€˜Carried them away under his arm?’
    â€˜Of course not. I tagged them and they stayed for the rest of the exhibition period. It was only ten days.’
    â€˜Then what?’
    â€˜Someone came to collect them, showing the receipt.’
    â€˜Is all that legal? What about GST, commissions, certificates?’
    â€˜It wasn’t a lot of money and I knew Henry would be thrilled. Any artist would.’
    â€˜But he didn’t get to see the red stickers.’
    â€˜No. I have to get back.’
    â€˜In a minute. I assume you took your commission. What is it—twenty per cent?’
    â€˜Forty.’
    â€˜Jesus. I’m in the wrong game. Describe the man and tell me about the drawings.’
    I’d heard that people in the art business were tough and Marion Montifiore bore that out now. She moved off the desk and towards a cupboard. ‘I haven’t the least recollectionof what he looked like. He was unremarkable. As for the drawings I don’t have to describe them. I have the damaged one here. They were all much the same.’
    She took something wrapped in brown paper from the cupboard.
    â€˜You can take it. You can tell Henry’s daughter I have several hundred dollars held here which I suppose she can claim if …’
    â€˜Several hundred?’
    â€˜The total sale amount minus my commission and the rental fee the artists pay.’ She thrust the package at me. ‘Please go!’
    The crowd had thinned out a little while we’d been talking. Fatty and his possessive partner had gone and there was almost no one taking an interest in the paintings. I was drawn back to the sculptures—particularly to the largest of the skeleton boats. The artist’s name was Robert Hawkins and what he’d done to this beautiful piece of timber made you feel that something new and fine had come into the world under his hands. With Lily’s money, I could have afforded to buy it, but I had nowhere to put it worthy of its quality.
    I saw Marion Montifiore glaring at me from across the room, so I deliberately took my time examining the boat and other pieces. She could hardly order me to leave. I took out my cheque book, but all I did was scribble the artist’s name down on the back of it. Petty, but she’d got under my skin. I didn’t usually rub people up the wrong way as badly as I had her. Had to wonder if I was losing my touch.

4
    I restrained my curiosity about the drawing until I got home. I’d left half of my red on Marion’s desk, so I poured myself a glass and took a swig before tackling the wrapping. Her wine was better than mine, but she could afford it. Judging by what she said about her business, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the artists had to pay for the opening.
    I slid the drawing, on stiff, high-quality paper, out of its cardboard cylinder, unrolled it and spread it on the table, holding down the corners with books. I stared at the bold strokes, the white spaces and inked-in areas with total incomprehension at first. The more I looked the more certain associations formed. But they were very vague. I had
the impression of something spacious, possibly circular and very much part of the physical world. An interpretation, perhaps an imaginative representation of something real. Or was I kidding myself?
    Henry McKinley’s signature appeared in small but clear letters near the bottom right hand corner, and the word ‘North’ appeared in slightly larger letters above it.
North? What did that mean?
I drank some more wine, usually anaid to thinking, but nothing else came to me. Marion Montifiore had said that the drawings were all similar, a set. So were the others South, East and West? And what else? North-east, North-west etc?
    A crease ran from a few inches down on the left hand side to a few inches in at the top. It barely touched the drawing and was slight. I’d have