58 292
Adam Thorpe
58
on its bum, still weirdly
white. Gran smoking in
bed again! And the jury
for her final degree show
didn’t even know, and
nor did Malcolm Harmer,
because
she
hadn’t
wanted to add anything
personal,
emotional,
sentimental, and fail. It
gave something off. Real
art gives something off.
Chill the fuck out.
That also gave something
off, but it wasn’t art, it was
mingie, period. She lifts
her phone in front of her
face and snaps Jasper’s
reflection in the window,
without a flash. He shrugs,
doesn’t move. Jasper is
perfect except for one
thing: incapable of making
tea of the correct colour,
or even in the right mug. A
massive failing, right?
Vanishing
. That will be
its title. The image really
obscure and dark and
repeated
ninety-nine
timesontheBerlingallery’s
walls, blown up big, and
even her mum going
along, all the way from the
fens to far-off Europe, visa
in her handbag cos you’ll
need a visa by then, and
proud as punch for once
between the real crystal
flutes of champagne. Suzie
lays her head back on the
soft, uncomfortable, way-
too-red head-rest and
sees, clear as a film, her
mother passing between
the cool international
art crowd as if swimming
through a school of exotic
fish. ‘Whatever happened
to that Jasper, in the end?’
she can hear her saying.
‘Isn’t he the one with all
the smelly pens, who did
my face to a tittle?’
Probably, Mum. I’ve no
idea what happened to
him. Went back to dealing