Free The Doctor Is Sick by Anthony Burgess Page B

passing through, resting his sandwich-boards, and the Anchor isn’t his local at all. You are a fool, Edwin. You’re too trusting, that’s your trouble. We’ll have to get you another, won’t we? A good thing that one didn’t cost any money.’
    â€˜Didn’t cost——?’
    â€˜I got it off Jeff Fairlove. You remember. I bullied him into giving it to me. For a present for you.’
    â€˜And why,’ asked the bearded Nigel, ‘were you able tobully him? That is to say, what hold did you have over him?’ Edwin grinned to himself at this sly glint of jealousy. Nigel was a young man untidily trying to make himself look not older but ageless – the ageless maned bearded painter.
    â€˜My beauty,’ said Sheila, with Cockney vowels, ‘my infinite attractiveness. No man can resist me when I bully him.’ The painter nodded seriously. ‘This afternoon,’ said Sheila, ‘Nigel proposes to draw me. Not paint, draw. I’m so glad, darling, that everything’s fixed up at last. It’ll be such a relief to get things over. You must be pleased yourself.’
    â€˜So they’ve told you, have they?’
    â€˜That man Railton was down in the hall. He said they’re going to operate and that everything’s going to be all right. It’s such a relief.’
    â€˜A relief not to have to nurse that secret any more?’
    â€˜That too.’ She smiled. ‘We can be back in Moulmein for the winter. I hate the cold, you know,’ she said to Nigel. ‘I hope this flat of yours is warm.’
    â€˜If I were a painter,’ said Edwin, ‘one of the things I’d like to paint is the view you get from the air as you’re dropping down to Moulmein. Beauty and utility. All those paddy-fields of different shapes and sizes, not a square inch of waste, a big collective artifact, yet not anything else that’s human or even natural in sight. But I suppose it would be too easy to paint.’
    â€˜Nothing’s easy to paint,’ said the painter. He had a gobbly kind of voice. ‘Take my word for it, painting is absolute hell. That’s why I keep on with it.’
    â€˜And what modern painters do you most admire?’ asked Edwin.
    â€˜Very few. Very, very few indeed. Chagall, perhaps. Dong Kingman, possibly. One or two others.’ He looked gloomy.
    â€˜Never mind,’ said Sheila. ‘Don’t worry so much about things. Everything will be all right.’ She smiled reassuringly at him, patting his arm. He wore very tight trousers. ‘Nigel,’ she said, ‘is really a very good painter. When you’re well you must see some of his things. Some of them are most effective.’
    â€˜Don’t,’ snarled Nigel, ‘use that word. They’re not effective. That’s the most damning word you could possibly hope to find.’ He raised his voice. ‘Noise again,’ sighed Edwin to himself. R. Dickie’s squad of visitors looked over interestedly, assured that there would always be entertainment of some sort or another on Edwin’s bed. ‘To say they’re effective is to lower them to the level of, to the level of, to the level of a cinema poster. It’s bloody insulting.’ R. Dickie’s visitors nodded to each other, pleased at this fulfilment of the expected.
    â€˜All right,’ said Edwin. ‘Shall we say that they’re not effective, then?’
    Nigel glared at Edwin. ‘You haven’t seen any of them,’ he said. ‘You’re not in a position to make any judgment whatsoever?’
    â€˜You must remember, Nigel,’ said Sheila sharply, ‘that you are speaking to my husband and that my husband is very ill. I won’t have this petulance about your art.’ Nigel sulked. ‘That’s better,’ said Sheila. ‘And, Nigel, remember your promise.’
    â€˜What promise?’
    â€˜Just like