Dearest Timothy,
It makes for a catchy headline, doesn’t it? I am sincerely hoping that our readers at Art Today think the same. If I am perfectly honest – a quality for which I am known industry-wide – I had rather high hopes for your latest exhibition, hopes that were realised as I was welcomed by your wonderful receptionists and the glory of Tuesday’s Slumber.
However, as the evening unfolded, my reverence for the collection was somewhat clouded by the slur of defamatory comments and the smell of bitter champagne emanating from your so-called co-curator. Disinterested and distracted for the duration of our time together, it wasn’t until your co-curator’s bold and misplaced assurances that my sister is incompetent and deceitful – qualities unseen by the rest of the industry in which you no doubt are aware she plays a central role – that I suddenly saw the significant error of your ways in the employment of this latest exhibition under your surveillance.
Needless to say, it didn’t take me long to realise that said co-curator is a previous personal assistant of my dear sister and one that it was decided she should let go. Clearly, her defamatory slur was motivated by a personal vendetta, bitter resentment and an entirely unprofessional persona. I feel quite strongly that in an industry where many young people would kill for the chances your co-curator has been afforded, we cannot allow such an individual to rise. It is therefore with regret that I advise you to terminate your co-curator’s employment forthwith or you will leave me no choice but to publish a deeply negative review of her latest work, your exhibition, therefore preventing this individual from being afforded any more standing in this regard. I think you will agree it is the best thing for CreateSpace. I have long admired your work and would hate to see it undermined by the personal agenda of one misled individual.
Yours faithfully,
Hannah A. Sommers
Editor-in-Chief, Art Today Australia
I looked up at Tim, hands still shaking, this time with anger added into the mix of mounting emotions that were becoming impossible to control.
They were sisters? But I knew the art world. Surely I would have picked up on that? Plus, I had spent years overhearing Devon slagging her off, seething about her success, stealing her ideas. How was I supposed to know they were sisters? How was I supposed to know their relationship was a lie?
‘I… I… didn’t know…’ I stuttered, unable to string my sentence together. ‘They’re sisters?’
‘In law,’ Tim said, stony-faced. How didn’t I know this? ‘Sommers only got the job through family connections and so they keep it out of the media. Plus, it means they can set an international trend or showcase new talent just by picking up the phone to each other. It’s the best kept secret in the industry; people on the inside are in the know.’ Tim said this last bit in a way that reminded me I was not one of them. I knew Devon was always after Hannah’s ideas but she had never given the impression that Hannah may be willing to share them.
‘But that’s collusion,’ I argued. ‘And this.’ I waved the piece of paper in the air. ‘This is blackmail. It’s immoral. They can’t get away with it.’ Raw tears of rage fell down my cheeks. ‘They’re profiting off, well… a lie.’
‘Says the woman who lied about her employment history.’ Tim looked at me straight on, all warmth there ever was between us evaporating. We locked eyes, his willing mine to deny the truth. Technically it wasn’t my history that was in doubt, it was my future. I’d had three bloody years of doubting my future.
‘Tim, I’m…’ I said, stunned at how rock bottom had turned out to be a trap door. There was no coming back from this.
‘I rang her up,’ Tim said. ‘After the email, to see whether she’d be open to reason, to work out whether she had her facts right. I was so confused that she didn’t seem to know you, I figured there must have been a mix-up.’
It took all my strength not to look away.
‘Turns out I was the one who didn’t have my facts right, wasn’t it, Jessica?’ His sentence was intended to patronise me, to treat me like the child I was proving myself to be. I was a twenty-seven-year-old woman, and I’d been fibbing like a child this whole time. Lying to Tim, to Sam. Lying to myself.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered, barely audible. It was all too little too late. ‘I can explain. Give me five minutes and I can tell you everything, explain it all.’ My rage at Devon and Sommers tasted bitter and ironic. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I held Tim’s stony gaze; we both knew my house had come crashing down.
‘Jessica, I don’t have time for this.’ Tim looked away from my tear-stained face to the clock on the wall. I thought back to my first day when he had asked me to read it for him, nostalgic for being needed, even in the most miniscule of ways.
‘But it’s blackmail,’ I cried, pleading with Tim to listen. ‘If I can just show this to the media…’
‘And say what?’ Tim shrugged, his face deadpan. ‘Hannah has a recording of your whole conversation. Let’s just say you didn’t sound sober.’ He shook his head. ‘And let’s face it,’ he went on, ‘who are the media going to believe?’ He looked at me; a drunk bitter girl who had lied her way across Sydney, or an editor-in-chief known industry-wide for her so-called honesty. ‘The volunteers are arriving in five. Jessica, honestly, I have to let you go.’ He gestured towards the door, characteristically dramatic but lacking some of the gusto of days past. He was tired of being let down; I knew the feeling.
I turned away, walking through yet another door, desperately trying not to question why everything I wanted, wanted to push me away instead. Why everything I had built was founded on a lie.
18 January 2017 – London, England
‘How’s work been?’ I asked, trying to bridge the distance between us, physically and metaphorically. I resented the question, so normal and yet it was the kind of ‘catching up’ statement I thought we’d never need to say. Lives that were in sync shouldn’t need to catch up or slow down. I walked into Tesco, begrudging my meal for one, begrudging Sam for not being here yet, for having another year in Nottingham.
‘Would you like a bag?’ the cashier asked as I shook my head and gathered the meal deal with my free hand. ‘Could I grab a ticket for the Euromillions?’ I added as an afterthought. Couple of mill wouldn’t go amiss right now.
‘Did you just buy a lottery ticket, J?’ Sam’s voice said down the line as I walked out onto the pavement of Vauxhall Bridge Road.
‘Yeah, why?’
‘I just,’ he continued, voice strained, ‘didn’t know you played it.’
‘From time to time.’ I shrugged as much as my juggling hands would allow. ‘Problem?’
‘No, it’s just… it doesn’t matter.’ I could imagine how Sam was shaking his head down the line. I didn’t need a visual to know when something was on his mind.
‘No, tell me,’ I demanded, all of a sudden on the back foot.
‘It’s not like… a problem,’ he said, ‘it’s just…’ He sighed as I walked past couples and friends drinking outside the pubs lining the way to Victoria.