Guns in the Gallery Read Online Free PDF Page A

depressed a foot pedal and a slight thump was heard. Then he picked up the two pieces of frame, now conjoined into a right angle.
    â€˜Sorry, but what is that machine?’ asked Carole.
    â€˜Underpinner,’ came the minimal reply.
    â€˜And what does it do?’
    â€˜Underpins,’ replied Spider with, for the first time, a slight edge to his voice. Carole continued to look expectantly at him, so he provided a reluctant explanation. ‘Fixes the joint, like, with vee-nails.’
    â€˜Vee-nails?’
    â€˜Shaped like a vee.’ Spider turned round the L-shaped section of the frame and showed the metallic heads of the rivets embedded deeply into the joint.
    â€˜Oh, I see.’ Carole moved her hand across to the metal plate of the underpinner. ‘So the vee-nails pop up through—’
    â€˜No.’ Spider immobilized her hand in a tight but surprisingly gentle grip. ‘Don’t go near that. Could do you a nasty injury.’ Then, suddenly embarrassed by the contact, he released his hold.
    â€˜What do all the other machines do?’ asked Carole, emboldened by the moment of intimacy.
    To her surprise, Spider readily answered her question. She decided that he was just deeply shy, but talking on the subject of his work he relaxed considerably. He was almost gleeful as he demonstrated to her the Morso mitre-cutting machine, which produced exact forty-five-degree angles at the touch of a foot pedal. He showed her the glazing gun, which used compressed air to shoot metal ‘points’ into the back of a frame to fix glass and mounts in place. He then moved on to the mount-cutter and the vacuum press for mounting and heat-sealing prints and photographs. And he was starting to describe the ancient and laborious process of mixing gesso and rabbit-skin glue to make mouldings for picture frames, when the demonstration was interrupted by the appearance of Bonita Green.
    Immediately Spider clammed up. Again Carole did not think his silence arose from any animus against his employer. He was just embarrassed to be seen in communicative mode, and moved silently back to his work.
    The gallery-owner quickly sorted out the credit card transaction to pay for Spider’s work. She was delighted, she said, that Carole was so pleased with the job done and if any more framing was needed . . . well, she knew where to come.
    But her customer couldn’t help noticing that Bonita seemed distracted. The Juliette Greco black was a little smudged and the eyes it circled were red. The woman appeared to have been crying.

FOUR
    â€˜ T here’s a long tradition of mankind seeking out the simple life,’ said Ned Whittaker. ‘One only has to think of Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics . Then of course there are English pastoral poets like James Thomson with The Seasons , and later the back-to-nature writings of Henry David Thoreau. I feel that what we’re doing here at Butterwyke House is a part of that continuing process.’
    Carole tried to avoid Jude’s eye. The twitch of a grin from her neighbour might have a destructive effect on her own straight face. Neither of them had expected to hear ‘glamping’ described in such ambitiously literary terms.
    As Ned Whittaker pontificated, he stood in the Georgian bay window of his home’s magnificent sitting room. Manicured lawns stretched away to an invisible ha-ha, beyond which sheep safely grazed. From the window, nothing could be seen that did not belong to the Whittakers. And here was the owner extolling the simple life.
    Only in his late forties, Ned had a slim, well-toned body. His short grey hair, rimless spectacles, checked shirt and lazy cords gave him the look of a minor academic. His voice retained the South London twang of his modest upbringing. There was about Ned Whittaker a boyishness, which he cultivated.
    His wife Sheena was a plump, comfortable blonde who had spread sideways a bit. The couple had