“I? Why?”
Alice said nothing for a bit. She gave her attention to the Formica topping the table where they were sitting. Finally she seemed to make up her mind, for she straightened her shoulders and looked at Monifa squarely. “I’ll say this direct,” she said. “You don’t appear to be a fool, Monifa.”
“I hope not to be,” Monifa replied.
“Yeah, I bet you do hope that. But let me tell you something you likely need to hear just now. You’d be a real fool to go back to a man who’s beat you. Now, from what I can tell, Jewel’s given you a decision today. Am I right?” And when Monifa nodded, “Way I see it, then, you’re at a crossroads. It’s down to you what happens next.”
PECKHAM
SOUTH LONDON
Cynthia Swann and Clete Jensen （Clete? she had thought. Really?） were arguing as Barbara made her way to Peckham. Her choice had been to drive from Chalk Farm or to use public transport, but since public transport was going to involve tube, rail, bus, and her feet—not to mention most of her morning—she opted for driving and she’d brought along the audio version of Cynthia and Clete’s star-crossed love story to keep her blood pressure steady as she navigated the morning traffic. This had proved to be just the ticket. In the tale of found love/lost love/regained love, things were heating up. Clete had just flung himself from the ranch house that Cynthia had inherited from an uncle long estranged from the family and Clete was the cowboy who’d maintained it, skilfully keeping the ranch above water, both figuratively and literally. Cynthia had come to the ranch to acquaint herself with her inheritance in . . . Barbara could never remember the state although the description of it made her think the author had spent too much time in Australia’s outback. At any rate, here had arrived Cynthia and here had locked eyes Cynthia and Clete and here had Cynthia and Clete been thrown together by fate and by the fact that there was no other person within fifty miles save a very old former convict who preferred a solitary life. Here had both that fate and that fact decided they were meant to be as one. Within twenty-five pages they had done the deed twice with “unmatchable fulfillment,” but the third time had been their undoing—temporary though it was considering the nature of the novel—and now Clete was riding off on his stallion （there was no way he would be riding a gelding, for obvious reasons） while Cynthia sobbed at the window and watched him go. He turned back once as if having second thoughts, allowing their eyes to meet, to hold, to yearn, to soften, to cling to a promise that could not, could never go unrealised . . .
Blah, blah, blah, Barbara thought. She switched the sound off. Clete would be back. One night of unrivalled passion—or two or three nights—would never be enough for either of them. Love regained was just round the corner.
So was Padma Gallery, she discovered, although by that time she was on foot. She was lucky to find it, as it was tucked in an alley that broke off Rye Lane, and it was nearly overpowered by ZA Afro Foods and Ali Baba’s Barber. Indeed, she’d walked by it three times before she finally asked at an Asian furniture shop for a clue as to its location.
She should have seen it, she reckoned, but she’d been distracted by the brick wall into which the gallery’s door was built. The wall was heavily tagged although the imperative Feel It had been rendered with some attention to form and colour. Not that Barbara knew the first thing about art or form or colour, but she could tell Feel It was something special, whereas JOBZ RES! was clearly the work of a rank beginner.
When Barbara entered Padma Gallery, she was struck by its contrast to everything else in the alley. Inside were all creamy walls that held paintings, white pivoting stands that held sculptures, pristine glass cases that displayed jewellery, and shelves that offered various types of folk art.
A woman wearing African garb and a complicated head wrap looked up from a desk in a corner of the room. She stood and approached Barbara, her hand extended. She was Neda, she said, an associate of the gallery’s owner.
Would that be Padma? Barbara enquired.
No. Padma was the mother of the owner, Neda explained.
Barbara took the photocopy of Standing Warrior from her bag and handed it over, asking if it had come from Padma Gallery.
“Oh yes,” Neda said. “It’s called Standing Warrior,” and she confirmed that Padma Gallery had sold the piece. In London, they were the sole representative of the artist. She was from Zimbabwe. “Would you like to see it?” she asked.
“It’s here?” Barbara said, with jackpot and bingo doing the cha-cha in her skull. “Is it a consignment piece? Did someone bring it in for you to sell?”