"The Picture" by Rosalie Parker
Summer 2009
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"The Picture" by Rosalie Parker is told deftly and finishes too soon.
It is a haunted picture story. Or perhaps a possessed picture (pencil sketch) story?
....In it, a dark-haired, curiously androgynous figure, half-draped in a voluminous white garment, gazed adoringly, imploringly, in profile at some unseen entity above. His slender, long-fingered hands (Sadie decided it was a he, despite the shoulder length hair) were clasped together over his chest. She thought it was mid-Victorian, probably Continental, possibly French, and of a very high standard of draughtsmanship.
Protagonist Sadie spends her life scouring junk shops and flea markets for items of at best marginal value, pieces that might be mistaken for treasures by internet auction bettors.
Not all online responses are constructive, however.
....She found that she had three messages asking questions about items; two of them concerned the picture. The first was more of an essay than a question.
From carazon
You say that he is in adoration of an unseen loved one but are you quite sure this is a romantic picture? I'd say we have here a religious subject, one of the saints, or Judas, perhaps, repenting. Anyway a very fine picture but not for me. I'd rather keep religious emotionalism out of my home! And anyway, he's a bit creepy. No restraint at all!
The second was downright peculiar.
From fallen angel
This is a warning. You are meddling with something you do not understand. The picture must be returned from whence it came, otherwise you will be held responsible. It should not be displayed. HEED THIS WARNING OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.
Sadie let out a little laugh. She had learnt that there were many strange people populating the internet. There were no bids on the picture yet but some of her other items were doing very well, in particular a silver gilt, enamelled matchbox cover by David Anderson of Norway that she had found at a car boot sale and which was currently yielding £110.
Once purchased by Sadie, the picture seems to power a turnaround in
business. Several valuable pieces are discovered, and then a Fabergé egg. However, once the picture is sold and shipped, the good fortune slips away.
At Christie's:
The valuer took his lens away from his eye and looked curiously at Sadie.
'You do know what this is?' he asked.
'Yes, I think so,' said Sadie. 'My grandmother left it to me, but I need some cash so I thought I would sell it.'
'Well, it's Fabergé, obviously, but perhaps you don't know that its one of a group of three ornaments called, colloquially, The Holy Trinity. There are two more, one in the Hermitage in St Petersburg and the other in a private collection in Russia. This one has been missing for about eighty-five years – it was brought out of Russia by a White Russian family who emigrated to London after the Revolution of 1917. It disappeared from their house in mysterious circumstances in 1923. This is the main piece, the central ornament, designed to be flanked by the other two. If this was an ordinary piece of Faberge then I'd say it was worth around £4,000, but as its from The Holy Trinity, it is literally priceless.'
Sadie could hardly keep a lid on her excitement. He looked at her over his spectacles and continued.
'However, I think we'd have to ask some serious questions about its provenance. Where did your grandmother, for instance, get it from? It was probably stolen from the Pretovskis, so can we really say that it belongs to you? We'd have to weigh up these matters very carefully before proceeding with any sale.'
Sadie grabbed the ornament and bolted.
The man who purchased the picture from her has his own complaint to make.
David Swinton returned the picture.
He emailed to ask for his money back and wrote that, although he loved it, and had hung it in his bedroom, some odd things had been happening to him since he bought it. He had had two days of good luck – he had been given a longed for promotion, a premium bond had come up, some medical test results turned out to be negative - but then, things had begun to go wrong.
His wife had taken against the picture, claiming that it was mawkish and unsettling, and had made him take it down. The promotion turned out to be a poisoned chalice, he was expected to work unreasonably long hours and his new boss was a Gorgon.
The doctor had called him in for some more tests, and the premium bond money was soon eaten up in paying off a couple of loans his wife had taken out without telling him. What's more, every time he looked at the picture he seemed to see something different, and he had become tormented by not knowing what it was the subject was contemplating with such ecstasy.
He was sorry, and could only apologise, but he really couldn't live with it any more.
All of which builds to a swift and poignant climax.
Sadie is not presented as any more immoral than other side-gig parasites hunting for their niche; she is not lying to her bidders, just facilitating their own habits of self-deception. Ultimately the picture and the story it tells brings this home to her, sharp like teeth closing on meat.
Jay
2 April 2021
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