Read Online Stealing Picasso by Anson Cameron - Free Book Online

before a canvas that Marcel assumes is the painting for which he has been posing during these last weeks. He quickly takes up the inflatable moon he has beenposing with, drapes himself across the green velvet armchair and kicks his legs up over one armrest, leaning his head back over the other, holding the inflatable moon above himself, his arms fully extended, gazing at it dreamily. In this position he freezes. Michael Jackson: the Man in the Moon. He becomes completely still, save for the nervous flight of his eyes.
    â€˜Marcel …’
    â€˜What?’ He side-mouths the question like a ventriloquist, not moving his lips, the perfect model.
    â€˜Put the moon down.’
    â€˜Why?’ Again without moving his lips.
    â€˜The commission has been withdrawn. The Royal Children’s rang. They don’t want a portrait of Michael any more. Put the moon down.’
    But Marcel doesn’t put the inflatable moon down. He holds it tighter. His gloved fingers sinking into its crust as it shakes in his hands, the Sea of Tranquillity rippling and tossing as his grip hardens. ‘No.’
    Still no lip movement, still posing faithfully, as if he were the elfin wonder of yesterday. ‘Paint me,’ he whispers from the corner of his mouth.
    â€˜Marcel …’
    â€˜Please paint me.’
    If Turton were to take up the brushes today he would paint Marcel’s flit-eyed desperation, his steely attempt to be a worthy subject, a legitimate object of fascination, someone loved, worshipped. He would paint his determined stillness. As if, were he to remain there unmoving, unrenewed, the old truths could live on unshattered by the new. After this, Turton would paint Marcel’s tears, then the fingers girdling and ploughing the moon, the lunar continents warping and becoming flaccid as it pops and deflates.
    But he doesn’t paint today. Instead he gets Marcel a glass of pastis and iced water. Marcel slowly releases his grip on the deflated husk of the moon and sits upright and takes the glass and sips from it, before holding it out in front of his face and furrowing his brow – even this magical concoction is soured now.
    â€˜It’s absolute baloney, Turton. I’m so angry.’
    Turton nods. ‘He’ll be acquitted then.’
    â€˜Hundred per cent.’
    â€˜In a year maybe.’
    â€˜My God.’ Marcel covers his eyes with his gloved hand, panting with despair.
    â€˜It was a dangerous bandwagon to be on. Elvis would have been safe. Springsteen’s a no-nonsense, dependable guy. But Michael – we were all waiting for the other shoe to drop, weren’t we?’
    Marcel groans at the mention of these other artists, at the thought of sharing either their music or their faces. ‘Michael hasn’t done anything wrong.’
    â€˜Michael’s hiding behind big iron gates. Two hundred acres of zebras and Ferris wheels.’ Turton goes to Marcel and bends before him and lays a hand on his knee. ‘You haven’t got a fantasy ranch to hide in. We’ve got to change your look.’

    Turton lends Marcel a baseball cap as an ad hoc disguise and takes him to sensible menswear store Fletcher Jones. As they walk through the city Marcel is called names from passing cars. Popcorn pimp. Chutney ferret. And if it never bothered him that he has done nothing to deserve Michael Jackson’s accolades, certainly a sharp sense of injustice stings him nowthat he, an innocent double of an innocent man, is hounded and heckled.
    Together they choose a checked shirt and some casual bone slacks with a crease. A pair of Sperry Topsider boat shoes. In the changing room Marcel looks himself up and down and sees a suburban man and begins to cry. He untucks the shirt and lets it hang.
    â€˜Would you like me to wrap them?’ the shop guy asks through the curtain.
    â€˜No, I’ll wear them.’ A new outfit for an impossibly boring life of blending in.