Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

Adam Thorpe

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

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