The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [157]
Sally wanted to ask what she was talking about, but the nurse was already taking the pulse of the person in the next bed.
“Come back,” Sally wanted to say, but a second nurse had appeared by her bedside with a mug of orange juice, which she thrust into her hand.
“Let’s get you started on this,” she said. Sally obeyed, and tried to suck the liquid through a bent plastic straw.
“You’ve got a visitor,” the nurse told her once she’d emptied the contents of the mug. “He’s been waiting for some time. Do you think you’re up to seeing him?”
“Sure,” said Sally, not particularly wanting to face Tony, but desperate to find out what had happened.
She looked toward the swing doors at the end of the ward, but had to wait for some time before Simon came bouncing through them. He walked straight up to her bed, clutching what might just about have been described as a bunch of flowers. He gave her plaster cast a big kiss.
“I’m so sorry, Simon,” Sally said, before he had even said hello. “I know just how much trouble and expense you’ve been to on my behalf. And now I’ve let you down so badly.”
“You certainly have,” said Simon. “It’s always a letdown when you sell everything off the walls on the first night. Then you haven’t got anything left for your old customers, and they start grumbling.”
Sally’s mouth opened wide.
“Mind you, it was a rather good photo of Natasha, even if it was an awful one of you.”
“What are you talking about, Simon?”
“Mike Sallis got his exclusive, and you got your break,” he said, patting her suspended leg. “When Natasha bent over your body in the street, Mike began clicking away for dear life. And I couldn’t have scripted her quotes better myself: ‘The most outstanding young artist of our generation. If the world were to lose such a talent …’”
Sally laughed at Simon’s wicked imitation of Natasha’s Russian accent.
“You hit most of the next morning’s front pages,” he continued. BRUSH WITH DEATH in the Mail; STILL LIFE IN ST. JAMES’S in the Express. And you even managed SPLAT! in The Sun. The punters flocked into the gallery that evening. Natasha was wearing a black see-through dress and proceeded to give the press sound bite after sound bite about your genius. Not that it made any difference. We’d already sold every canvas long before their second editions hit the street. But, more important, the serious critics in the broadsheets are already acknowledging that you might actually have some talent.”
Sally smiled. “I may have failed to have an affair with Prince Charles, but at least it seems I got something right.”
“Well, not exactly,” said Simon.
“What do you mean?” asked Sally, suddenly anxious. “You said all the pictures have been sold.”
“True, but if you’d arranged to have the accident a few days earlier, I could have jacked up the prices by at least fifty percent. Still, there’s always next time.”
“Did Tony buy The Sleeping Cat That Never Moved?” Sally asked quietly.
“No, he was late as usual, I’m afraid. It was snapped up in the first half hour, by a serious collector. Which reminds me,” Simon added, as Sally’s parents came through the swing doors into the ward, “I’ll need another forty canvases if we’re going to hold your second show in the spring. So you’d better get back to work right away.”
“But look at me, you silly ’n,” Sally said, laughing. “How do you expect me to—”
“Don’t be so feeble,” said Simon, tapping her plaster cast. “It’s your leg that’s out of action, not your arm.”
Sally grinned and looked up to see her parents standing at the end of the bed.
“Is this Tony?” her mother asked.
“Good heavens no, Mother,” laughed Sally. “This is Simon. He’s far more important. Mind you,” she confessed, “I made