Page 5 of The Muse
I ignore it and pick up my coffee again, swerving my way out of my office and back into the noise to go and pay him a visit. Christ knows what he wants this time. It’s not like he’s even slightly interested in my ideas on this building or The Herald. He’s made that perfectly clear. It is as it will be, apparently. I’m just here to make sure the art world gets the proper critique it needs.
“Father,” I mutter, heading into the room.
He looks up at me from behind his pile of sheets and stacks of folders, wrinkled skin reminding me of what’s coming for me soon. “Ah, there you are. I need your opinion on something.” He does?
I take a seat and wait, attempting interest. “Landon Broderick is …” I’m half standing before he carries on, legs turning me to leave. “Sit down, Scott,” he snaps.
My eyes roll, body dropping into the seat again. “Why?”
“What?”
“Why even bother asking me? You know my thoughts on that load of wankers taking over here. You might be able to make this work if you’d just–”
“No, we can’t, Scott. There isn’t any money—none.”
“And whose fault is that?”
His head drops, a sigh coming out of him. “Do you have to be so antagonistic?”
“I’m an artist. It’s what we do.”
“A failed one. This is business. Real life.” The scowl that drops on my face does nothing to appease his stare, nor does it go anywhere near showing the apathy I have for his opinion of me or my work. I'm not failed. I'm stalled. There's a distinct difference. “Stop dreaming, Scott. You had your chance. This is the sort of life that’s going to keep your money coming in.”
Silence fills the room. It’s all I’ve got to give. Temper isn’t going to solve anything here, no matter how much I want to push an argument. My own brooding sullenness won’t either. He’s right, and I know it, much to my hatred. I did have my chance, and for whatever reason, after several years of success, after acclaim and adulation for the newest sensation to hit Paris, my art went to shit. Nothing flowed anymore. Nothing sparked or made me even want to sketch, let alone paint. And the fact that little miss tight and taut seemed to stimulate something in me the other night, enough even to have me looking at the sky differently today, isn’t relevant.
“Look,” he eventually says, “it’s happening. Almost finalised. Landon will be here soon to discuss the last of the legal details and sign it off, and when Anthony Broderick finally hands him the keys to their fortune, he’s going to be your boss. You need to acclimatise to their oncoming controlling share.”
I stand again and turn to leave. I’m done here. No bloody way am I having that uptight dick tell me what to do. “I’d rather sleep in gutters than—”
“Well, you will be if you don’t get a fucking handle on yourself.”
The sound of swearing coming out of his mouth makes me spin back, brows raised at the feel of it on me. He’s hovered over his desk, both hands perched on it as he glowers over his own glasses.
“Pride, while useful, is not going to keep a roof over your head, Scott. Nor is it going to change anything. This business needs them."
“I’ll paint again. Go back to Paris and—”
“You will not. You will stay here and keep at least one Foxton name alongside this paper after the years I’ve given both it and you. I'm not going to be here after a while. You know the deal. Two years and I'm done. The least you can do is use your name to keep this partly in the family.”
My temper flares inside me at memories of what this fucking paper has done to our family over the years. Maybe if I’d have seen some of him through that time, my father’s thoughts on this hotbed of shit might mean something more than it does, but I didn’t. Nothing. Barely a fucking Christmas card, in fact, for the twelve years I was in France. And now he wants me here to make sure Foxton stays current under Broderick rule?
I huff and start walking for the door again, not prepared to go over the same tired ground any longer. The place can implode for all I care or become another Broderick arm of power. Who knows, maybe they’ll somehow make it work again. Either way, I’m not going to be here for whatever is coming.
“Next Friday morning,” he shouts behind me. “Be here!”
Unlikely.
Landon Broderick and me, in a room together amiably? Not going to happen. There's been nothing but animosity between our two families for years, generations before that too. I don't even really know why,but it's been drilled in so deeply that I couldn't even begin to trust any of them now. Too many years before I left, looking for ammunition against them and too many times finding it. They're not right. They're underhanded, power-mad, and lacking in anything creative or interesting. And, from what I know, Landon himself hasn't even been here for most of that. It's all been his father. Fuck knows what carnage is about to happen when a cutthroat defence lawyer takes the helm.
The moment I’m back in front of my laptop, every inch of pent-up annoyance carries through my hands into the review I’ve not finished. Fucking children playing in the world of adults. If she hadn’t seemed so bloody pompous, I might have cared enough to give her some credit for the talent that’s clearly there, but she was. She looked at me like I was a piece of shit at the back of the room, someone to be ignored and dismissed because of The Herald attached to me. And then she ran off in another show of juvenile churlishness because she didn’t have the balls to front out questions.
I press send the moment it’s done, making sure that both the editor and print know to get it on page two rather than hidden at the back of the sheets like art normally is. Full spread. With the picture I’ve picked of her that Arnie got earlier in the year, the same one that shows her looking pissed off for some reason while she was getting in a cab. Entitled little madam.
With that done, I close the laptop and grab my jacket. I’m not staying here a minute longer. I’ll go look at the Stanston paintings at the new gallery in Harlow. See if that might make this mood improve. Probably won’t, but being here certainly won’t if my father decides to come back here for another chat.
Less than no goodbyes and I’m out onto the pavement and hovering in the light breeze drifting from all the traffic. My head turns in the direction I need to go, feet refusing to move. I can’t even find the impetus to get on the tube, let alone pretend I give a shit about new artists who mean nothing to me. I’m angry, wound up and just pissed off with everything in general.
I turn left instead, choosing to go home and get into my running gear. A solid fifteen miles and I should be fucked enough to sleep my way through till tomorrow. Or drink my way through to it. Maybe that’s the best way—usually is.
