‘Ah, well, I’m glad to learn that I have been a fan since the very beginning. Your latest exhibition is a tour de force.’ Picking up my phone, I show him the Instagram selfie in the shell, my shelfie, making sure that he notes my following, which is now up to 90K. Then I put the mobile face down on the table in front of us and continue sorrowfully: ‘Of course, you are here to witness my profound and heartfelt apology for the damage I caused, and I can offer that to you now, wholeheartedly, along with a confession.’

He takes a sip of champagne, looking intrigued, as is Susie, whose eyes are on stalks.

‘Alas, I suffer from a very unusual and strange complaint which causes me to behave in an inappropriate way around artworks that I find particularly moving. I realize this sounds bizarre, and admit I am at a loss—’

‘Stendhal syndrome,’ he butts in, his face transfigured. He’s delighted. It’s like taking candy from a giant posseting baby.

‘I beg your pardon?’

He leans forward eagerly. ‘It’s a recognized psychosomatic condition. Also called Florence syndrome, after the city.’ Obviously, you puffed-up twat. ‘It causes the sufferer to react hysterically when in the presence of great beauty or antiquity.’

I raise my hands to my cheeks and take a shuddering breath. ‘I am also this way in the Roman Baths . . . Is it possible that you have diagnosed my affliction?’

Art Andra sits back, taking a triumphant gulp of his champagne.

‘Suzanne, this makes sense of so much. Remember when we were at the Rijksmuseum?’ Susie nods, very slowly, saying nothing. I point at the Gainsborough. ‘It took me six months to look at this without feeling nauseous. Mr Andra, I cannot thank you enough. Please, come with me.’

He puts down his glass and follows me out, towards the ballroom, Susie trailing behind us like a harassed PR girl.

‘I would love for you to see a few of my little pieces. There are more, of course, in my house in Berlin, but this is what I call my cosy collection.’ Throwing open the doors with a flourish, I beckon him inside. He stops short in the entrance.

‘This is . . . This is quite something.’ He’s fiddling with the neck of his T-shirt like he’s overwhelmed.

I put my hand on my heart. ‘You do me too great an honour. An art lover’s trinkets, merely.’

‘But this is a Jeff Koons!’ He hurries to the balloon animal. ‘C-can I?’ He runs his hand wonderingly over its shiny surface, then heads towards the bronze man. ‘And is this a Gormley?’

I figure it’s safe to nod. He then proceeds to take me through all my own artworks, telling me about them. Apparently, it’s quite a collection. When he’s finally finished, I think his throat might be sore, so suggest another glass of champagne, which he’s very happy to accept.

‘The blob is not an Anish Kapoor!’ hisses Susie in my ear as we repair to the drawing room. ‘It’s an up-and-coming Portishead artist called Elba Delaney.’

But it doesn’t matter that Art Andra doesn’t know his Anish from his Elba. He’s right where I want him, standing by the balcony overlooking the green. As we enjoy our second glass, I ask for his business card.

‘There must be nominative determinism in play here,’ I say, fingering the corners.

He looks at me, puzzled. ‘You’re called Art,’ I explain, showing him his own name.

He shrugs, like he doesn’t get it. ‘Short for Arturo,’ he says. ‘My family is Italian American. Where are you from?’

Slightly dangerous territory. ‘Serbia,’ I hazard, thinking that’s obscure enough to be safe. ‘Clover is short for Clovjana.’ Behind me, Susie snorts.

He knocks back the last of his drink and raises the glass. ‘Ktoh ni riskuyet, tot ni pyot shampanskava!’

Fuck. I can hear Susie’s intake of breath, but hold my nerve, shaking my head and pursing my lips.

‘Russian,’ he says. What’s Russia got to do with Serbia? They don’t even share a border. This man’s a total crayon.

‘Your accent is very strange to me,’ I reply. ‘As they say in my country, Ususivač je pun I potrebno ga je isprazniti!’ Which roughly means ‘The vacuum is full and needs emptying.’ We had a Serbian cleaner for a while, and I used to have to say it to her every week without fail, feeling that the request might seem less passive aggressive if it came in her native language.

‘May I ask why you brought your delightful son to the gallery this morning?’ I’m still intrigued as to why none of the staff seemed to recognize the boy.

‘I like to visit my work incognito, to get the authentic experience. Lucas was with me as a cover,’ says Art Andra, like a true visionary.

I slap my forehead in wonder. ‘Inspiring. I was right about you, Mr Andra. Aside from my intense and fervent apologies, which I offer again, I also wanted to say that one of my many companies dabbles in a little television here and there.’ I press my own business card on him. Thanks to Vince’s odd whims, it says ‘Clover Hendry, Creative Director, Red Eye Productions’. Vince hands out nonsensical titles willy-nilly, and Red Eye has about five creative directors, all doing completely different things, but Arturo Andra doesn’t need to know that.

‘You would make a wonderful presenter in the mould of Grayson Perry, but more heavyweight. Perhaps a thoughtful, recherché series on BBC Four, meeting your own heroes of the art world, visiting a few iconic pieces?’ Like anyone would watch that.

Art Andra is transfixed. His day has gone from disastrous destroyed artwork to a dazzling, daring world of showbiz opportunity and adventure. He’s probably picturing a major international travelogue where he gets to hang out at the Uffizi, which is in Florence, the city, and look meaningfully at the camera occasionally before swanning off to his hotel on the piazza. I won’t bring him back down to earth by telling him a BBC Four budget wouldn’t get him into the Filton Premier Inn. Oz is always meeting people and promising them presenting careers in order to make himself look like a mover and shaker. I’ve lost count of the number of beautiful blonde physicists/gardeners/archaeologists/ballerinas who’ve left parties clutching his card, which reads ‘Oswald Phillips, Vice-President, International Development, Red Eye Productions’. Is it our fault if they fall for this baloney? These people delude themselves, believing they’re worth it, that this is their destiny, that they deserve it. We might show them the sun, but they made their own wings and it’s up to them where they fly. Anyway, Art Andra can’t prosecute me now – I’m practically his patron.

Rather than leave it to my assistant Suzanne, I show Art Andra out myself, waving him off as he heads into the summer heat with a spring in his step, all thoughts of lawsuits forgotten. Best of all, I had some champagne in a gorgeous house, and my support animal got to have a little hop about. Job done, mess cleared. On a console in the hallway, there’s a golden statue of a hand giving the finger that I’m very much drawn to. It’s heavy in my own hand, and conveys a powerful artistic message. I put it in my bag, which I left by the front door. It’s stealing, but it feels justified, because I really want it.

Back in the drawing room, Susie is collecting glasses, wearing her previous thunderous expression.

‘What’s wrong? I thought that went rather well.’

She huffs, tucking the mostly empty bottle under her arm.

‘Well, apart from the fact that I still have no idea what the hell that was about, it was really mean, what you did.’

‘What do you mean? He was so happy.’ I start searching the room for Bigwig, last seen nibbling on the cord of a floor lamp.

‘He was bamboozled. You promised him the moon on a stick. The poor man thinks he’s going to be on TV.’

‘It’s not my fault if he believes it’s actually a possibility.’ I check behind the chaise for a tell-tale tail.

‘Well, it is, since you told him it was a possibility.’

‘You’re taking it all very literally. I was just throwing creative ideas around.’

‘Didn’t sound like that to me. Sounded like you were conning him.’

‘Don’t be dramatic.’

‘You’re a grifter. What was that ridiculous accent?’

I look under an antique table with clawed feet for more clawed feet, but can’t see him. ‘I thought it was pretty good. It lent me an air of sophistication.’

‘Lent you an air of insanity, more like. When are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

On my hands and knees, I look up at her, wondering if now is the time, here in the drawing room of an arms dealer’s house, which I’ve appropriated and pillaged. But we’ve got to wash up, and I’ve lost my rabbit. So I duck again to check behind the curtains, and she goes downstairs to rinse the glasses and hide the bottle in the recycling. After ten increasingly frantic minutes, we find Bigwig up in the palatial top-floor bedroom suite, nibbling on a valance. For such a lazy lapin, he doesn’t half move fast.

That goes for me too. It may look like lolloping, but I know exactly where I’m headed, and I’m picking up speed, ready for the crash.

28

Everything happens for a reason, one of Maz’s therapists used to say. I don’t think that’s entirely true – some things happen for no reason at all, like spontaneous human combustion, which always terrified me as a child. But in general, I guess that’s the way it is – things happen because other things happened to make them happen, like dominoes. And in the same way I’ve always looked fearfully forward – ‘What if . . .?’ – anticipating the repercussions, I’ve always glanced behind me too, unpicking the series of events that led to my current situation, going right back to the tiny horseshoe nail. There’s that short story where the guy travels back in time, kills a butterfly, and when he returns to his present, everything’s changed, and not for the better. It was just a butterfly, and yet . . .

The problem with worrying about this stuff, is you have to tread so carefully, as there are butterflies everywhere. You’re treading on your dreams, your anxieties, your hopes, your mistakes, every step a potential disaster. Sometimes I think it would be better not to go out at all, just to impose a voluntary isolation and keep yourself in stasis to ensure you don’t do any damage, to yourself or anyone else. When we were all confined during the pandemic, there was a certain comfort in it, the custody – a consoling hush as everything died down, everyone kept their distance, out of danger. I would go out into the garden and stare up at the flight-free sky, thinking of all the planes that definitely wouldn’t fall from it now. But obviously that was a fallacy, butterflies getting trodden on until you couldn’t see the ground.