Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

We saw the film Born Free.

Oh dear God in heaven, how I hated that film and that song. For weeks and weeks Monica hummed it over and over. Even now I can hear Matt Monroe sing “as free as the grass grows.” When the lioness Elsa gets released into the wild, Monica wept. “What elsa were they going to do with her?” I said. Apparently that wasn’t in the slightest bit funny.

Partly owing to the lack of contraception in Ireland then, partly to my own failure of nerve, Monica never stayed over. Usually a cause of regret, this night I was glad to be alone. I had been improving my forgery skills so rapidly that my copy now seemed to me to be a pathetic failure. My attempt at the artist’s signature was not too bad. I had been practicing, and I had discovered for myself a trick. To forge someone’s signature, all you need to do is turn it upside down and copy it that way.

My other elementary mistake had been to make a fresh drawing on a clean sheet of paper, and then try to age it. After my experiment with tea as an ageing agent, I arrived at the solution I was to use for the next few years (until I stopped using anything but original period paper), which was to smoke the sheets over burning green wood. Plane wood can also be used, if you can ever get the plane wood to burn, that is. To put some fox-marks on them to give the impression of the beginning of mold and decay, I had dampened both. On one, I sprinkled a little of the Maxwell House that Monica had bought, on the other I had scraped pieces of rust from one of the old nails sticking out from the walls of my mews. As I took them out now, I could see that the one treated with rust was developing naturally by itself and looked far more natural (though I later discovered that the process can be far too destructive and eat holes in the paper). I took this sheet, and treated it on the back with some glue, which would harden within a few days, giving another sign of authenticity should anyone choose to examine it later.

That night I sat up and copied out the pen and ink wash again, working quickly, getting a far better and far more natural flow to it. When I had finished, it was first light. I put down my pens, flexed my aching hand, sat back, and took off my socks, which smelled a bit. I then dabbed one over the drawing I had just done, very gently, making sure I only rubbed where the ink was dry. The effect was to cause almost invisible smudging and splits in some of the ink lines, as when a stripe of iron filings held in place by a magnet is very slightly pricked by one or two misaligned shavings. The result was almost perfection. My next task was to put Mrs. Heath’s original back without Monica ever knowing. Better to run the risk of being caught than to steal from a woman who had treated me with nothing but kindness. Better to be a forger than a robber.

As it turned out, I had an opportunity to get back into the drawing room that morning when Mrs. Heath, in a fluttering panic, came across to tell me that there was some animal trapped in the chimney of her drawing room. I put a penknife, some glue, and a small screwdriver in my pocket and went up to the big house. When I got there, a filthy pigeon with no tail was lying in the hearth, flapping uselessly. Cleaned up, some of its wing feathers would be serviceable as quills.

I smashed the pigeon’s head with the poker, then pulled the original Jack Yeats from under my shirt, and with great care replaced it in its frame, where I hope it has remained to this day.

On the way down the garden, I crumpled up my first effort in my fist, threw it into the bin without looking at it. A few hours later, Monica was there, peering at my two fakes, her eye roving up to the ugly ink spot she had made.

“They are identical, Henry! Tell me which the original is.”

“Guess.”

She pointed artlessly to the one she had altered. This was supposed to be my big test. Her face was an agony of indecision. One part of her wanted me to nod, saying yes, that was the original, and thus confirm her suspicion that the whole world was as faithless as her. Another part of her wanted to believe in truth and people’s better instincts. I felt embarrassed for her.

“No, no. That’s my copy, Monica. This one here is the original.”

She beamed at me, tears of trust filling her eyes, and said

The doorbell went. Blume put the notebook on top of the refrigerator and went to answer.

Kristin was wearing a turquoise silk top with three buttons undone and a dark skirt that stopped just above her knees. Her hair was loose and seemed far longer and slightly redder than Blume remembered.

She came in, brushed his two cheeks with her own, then, touching his shoulder and very lightly propelling him forward, brought Blume face-to-face with a young man in his early thirties wearing strong fawn pants and a twill cotton shirt with a closed pocket on each breast. “This is Greg,” said Kristin. “Greg, this is Alec.”

“Really good to meet you, Alec,” said Greg, taking Blume’s hand. He shook it, squeezed it as he let go, and touched Blume on the elbow as he stepped into the living room. “Kristin has told me all about you. Wow. That’s some story.” His cheeks folded symmetrically when he smiled.

“What story?”

Kristin said, “The story of your life, Alec. Or bits of it.”

“You told him that?”

“Just the relevant bits. How an American citizen ends up becoming an Italian police commissioner.”

“Why?” said Blume. “Are you planning a how-to book? Step one, go to Italy; step two, get someone to shoot your parents…”

“Hey, Alec. Can I use your bathroom?” said Greg.

While Blume was considering this, Kristin gave Greg directions. Then she and Blume went to the kitchen, which still reeked of smoke.

“Who the fuh-” began Blume, but Greg was already back, his eyebrows wrinkled, a cute-quizzical look all over his face.

“Sorry,” said Greg. “I got lost. I think I went into your bedroom, Alec.”

“You didn’t get lost,” Kristin assured him. “The bedroom leads on to the bathroom. It’s what you might call en suite.”

“I don’t like walking into other people’s bedrooms,” said Greg. “There isn’t, like, another bathroom I could use?”

“No, there isn’t,” said Blume.

“Only one bathroom?”

“Does that bother you?” asked Blume.

“No, no, it’s cool,” said Greg and disappeared again.

The kitchen table was still set for two. Kristin added a placemat, then went to the silverware drawer.

“We only need spoons and bowls. It’s chili con carne. The tacos burned.”

“I was wondering about the smell,” she said. “Can I close the window now?”

Blume shrugged. He blew out a red candle on the table. “That was supposed to get rid of the smell, but it didn’t,” he said. He filled a pitcher with tap water and put it in the middle of the table, and removed the silver candlestick.

Kristin sat down and Blume returned to the stove, turned off the flame under the chili, which was beginning to stick, and stirred it.

Greg returned, looked around the kitchen appreciatively, and took the chair opposite Kristin. “Alec, this is a really great little place you got yourself here. Hey, where are you going to sit? You want me to get you a chair? Just tell me where to go.”

Blume opened his mouth to do so, but Kristin stood up. “I’ll get Alec a chair from the living room.”

“Thanks,” said Blume. “I don’t usually have this many visitors.”

“I wonder why that might be,” said Kristin as she passed him.

“Kristin was telling me you don’t drink,” said Greg. “I admire that.”

Blume slapped the heavy serving spoon into the palm of his hand, enjoying its weight and potential. “It’s not all that admirable.”