‘Sorry to bother you at tea-time,’ I said, ‘but my name’s Marcia Bradshaw and I’m a final year art student at university. I’m going door-to-door to see if I can sell some of my work.’
      I unzipped the bag and took out a painting.
      ‘I need to raise some money so I can finish my degree. My parents have no money and my scholarship only lasted two years.’
      Life was ruthless and its bestowal of fortune arbitrary and capricious. I’d been born to morons and mine was a shabby life. As I stood on this woman’s doorstep I told the lie about the paintings as easily as I did because, although it was a lie, it was also true. I believed my own lies and told them well. I wanted money and, like my criminal father and brother, I wanted it the easy way.

The woman invited me in and I sat on the new settee.
      I went on lying about the paintings. I said I’d been around Australia, hitchhiking, and painted by the side of the road. It had taken me nearly a year.
      About a half-hour later, the woman’s husband came in from work, his suit jacket over his arm, his tie undone. I told him the same story from the beginning.
      He asked questions.
      ‘How long have you been studying?’
      ‘Who are your favourite artists?’
      ‘How much do the materials cost?’
      I thought I’d been caught, but crossed my legs, went on lying. When the woman asked me how much the painting of the windmill cost, I told her I had no fixed price in mind. It was a matter of how much they were prepared to spend.
      The husband said, ‘How about fifty. Would fifty dollars be enough?’
      ‘That’d be fine,’ I said.
      The woman went to her handbag, which was on the table at the end of the settee.
      ‘How about eighty dollars,’ she said, ‘That’s all I have in my purse.’
      ‘That’s fine,’ I said.

I went in to two more houses and sold two more paintings. In just over three hours I’d made enough to cover the first month’s rent.
      At about half past nine, while I waited for Mark to come back in the white mini-van, I wanted to lie down, to sleep on the hot grass, on the street, under a bush, under a car, on the nature strip. I craved sleep so profoundly it was something like wanting to die.
      Mark pulled up in the mini-van and I climbed in back. The others were already there and we talked while Mark drove on the freeway, back into town.
      The Scot had sold one painting, the short English boy had sold two and David, who had sold none, kept his head down, looked at my folio-bag, and said nothing.
      When we were stopped at traffic lights near the office, Mark turned in his seat. ‘When we get back, you can hang around for a while. We can have a few drinks and chew the fat.’

3

  

Copyright 2008 Disclaimer