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By Root 324 0

for a total of four hundred thousand pounds. Two of those painters died in poverty. You know how it works? When an artist is alive, he dedicates himself to art, pouring his life′s blood out on the canvas.″ Peter nodded wryly. ″Melodramatic, isn′t it? But it′s true. You see, all he really cares about is painting. But the fat guys, the rich guys, the society women, the dealers, and the collectors looking for investments and tax losses—they don′t like his work. They want something safe and familiar, and besides, they know nothing—sweet FA—about art. So they don′t buy, and the painter dies young. Then, in a few years′ time, one or two perceptive people begin to see what he was getting at, and they buy his pictures—from friends he gave them to, from junk shops, from fly-blown art galleries in Bournemouth and Watford. The price rises, and dealers start buying the pictures. Suddenly the artist becomes (a) fashionable and (b) a good investment. His paintings fetch astronomical prices—fifty thousand, two hundred thousand, you name it. Who makes the money? The dealers, the shrewd investors, the people who had enough taste to buy the pictures before they became trendy. And the auctioneers, and their staff, and the salesroom, and their secretaries. Everybody but the artist—because he′s dead. Meanwhile, today′s young artists are struggling to keep body and soul together. In the future, their pictures will sell for astronomical sums—but that′s no good to them now.

″You might think the Government would take a cut on these big art deals, and use it to build low-rent studios. But no. The artist is the loser, always.

″Let me tell you about me. I was somewhat exceptional—my work started to sell well during my lifetime. I took out a mortgage and fathered a child on the strength of it. I was England′s up-and-coming painter. But things went wrong. I was ′overpriced,′ they say. I went out of fashion. My manners don′t quite fit in with polite society. Suddenly, I′m desperately poor. I′m on the scrap heap. Oh, I′ve still got enormous talent, they say. In ten years′ time I′ll be at the top. But meanwhile, I can starve, or dig ditches, or rob banks. They don′t care—you see—″ He paused, and realized for the first time how long he had been speaking, and how engrossed he had been in his own words. The classroom was completely silent in the presence of such fury, such passion, and such a naked confession.

″You see,″ he said finally, ″the last thing they care about is the man who actually uses his God-given gift to produce the miracle of a painting—the artist.″

He sat down on the stool then, and looked at the desk in front of him. It was an old school desk with initials carved in the woodwork, and ancient ink stains soaked into its wood. He looked at the grain, noticing how it flowed like an op-art painting.

The pupils seemed to realize that the class was over. One by one they got up, put their things together, and left. In five minutes the room was empty but for Peter, who laid his head on the desk and closed his eyes.

It was dark when he got home to the small terraced house in Clapham. It had been difficult to get a mortgage on the place, cheap as it was, because of its age. But they had managed it.

Peter had turned handyman and created a studio out of the upper floor, knocking down internal walls and making a skylight. The three of them slept in the bedroom downstairs, leaving one living room and the kitchen, bathroom and toilet in an extension at the back.

He went into the kitchen and kissed Anne. ″I relieved my feelings by shouting at the kids, I′m afraid,″ he said.

″Never mind,″ she smiled. ″Mad Mitch has come to cheer you up. He′s in the studio. I′m just making some sandwiches for us.″

Peter went up the stairs. Mad Mitch was Arthur Mitchell, who had studied with Peter at the Slade. He had become a teacher, refusing to go into the risky, commercial business of being a full-time artist. He shared Peter′s utter contempt for the art world and its pretensions.

He was looking at a recently finished canvas when Peter walked in.

″What do