Better than Monet
by Michael G Casey
Copyright 2012 Michael G Casey
BETTER THAN MONET
As art thieves they weren’t exactly top drawer. On a recent job they’d lifted a painting by a relatively unknown plodder, ignoring the Giotto that hung beside it. Their regular fence, Hedgerow, often told them they were morons and that they should change to jewellery or something that sparkled.
But they decided to give paintings one more shot---Tony had been apprenticed as a sign writer and actually liked paintings--and they spent weeks planning their next job. It would be their most ambitious ever because it involved a small, early Monet that had been found in the attic of a convent in Hertfordshire and had made its way to a gallery in Mayfair.
They didn’t know much about alarm systems either, so their plan was a primitive one and depended on speed. One minute for the break-in (under cover of darkness of course), two minutes for cutting the canvas from the frame and one more minute at most to get back to the van which would be souped up for the job.
On the appointed night the driver waited in the van with the engine running. The street was dark, wet and almost deserted but the alarm from the gallery was loud enough to wake the dead. The driver was greatly relieved to see Tony and Reg run towards the van. He sped off even before their backsides were safely in.
Back at the flat the driver got his cut and left. The two thieves went upstairs and unrolled the canvas on the pine table of the kitchenette. It had been a neat job and the adrenaline rush was over.
“Nice,” Tony said. He seemed to be absorbed in the painting.
“Worth a bob or two I should think.” Reg went to put the kettle on for tea which helped him calm down after a heist. And this was a big one, no doubt about that. Even he had heard of Monet.
The trouble was so had everyone else. They spent weeks trying to fence it. Hedgerow turned them down flat and laughed them out of his DIY shop in the high street.
“Gawd in ‘eaven,” he’d said. “You geezers come in with a Joe Bloggs one day, then you produce the king of the ‘ill. You couldn’t shift Monet with a fork-lift.”
Even Spagbol who had contacts in the US gave them the deaf ear. It was too hot to handle and the word was out already. The only thing they had going for them was that the plod would never credit them with the moxie for that job; it was way out of their league. The Turk was no better though he did offer to take it off their hands for a pony just to hang on his own wall.
“It’s just not right,” Reg said one evening at the flat. “This painting is worth a couple of mill and we can’t even get a hundred for it. It’s just not right.”
“The problem is that this bloke, Monet, is too well known.” Tony stated the obvious.
They spent most of the next week in the local library looking up art books. As a result of this research Reg came up with an idea. It turned out that there was another painter with a similar name but not so well known as our friend Monet. They set to work one evening, sitting at the pine table which served as an easel. With a small sign-writer’s brush, Tony changed the ‘o’ to an ‘a’. They could hardly wait until the morning when they rushed around to Hedgerow and beckoned him away from the DIY counter into a back-room.
Hedgerow laughed until the tears came and the cigarette burned itself out in the ash-tray. It was stupid, he said, to change the signature from Monet to Manet. The dogs in the street knew the difference between both painters. Monet painted his own garden with vines, a curved bridge, plenty of flowers, and lily pads in a pond. These were his trade-marks. Hedgerow then advised them to contact the insurance company and try to do a deal. Reg had been down that road once before and found it tortuous and highly dangerous, requiring negotiating skills which he lacked and which Tony wouldn’t even be aware of. No, he had no stomach for dealing with insurance companies. They were bigger thieves than anyone and you couldn’t believe their dying oath.
The painting was beginning to grow on Tony, and Reg had to warn him not to get too attached to it. It was a commodity like any other and they had to off-load it for the best possible price.
“The problem is the name and the trade-marks,” Reg reminded him a number of times. And then he had another bright idea. “We tried changing the name but that was no good. Suppose we change the trade-marks as well.”
Tony demurred. It wasn’t clear if he thought it wouldn’t be right or whether he doubted his own ability. Reg reassured him on the latter point, reminding him that before their present occupation, Tony had been the finest sign-writer in the East End. It was a radical idea and they walked around it for a few days. One evening they had a few pints in ‘The Dog and Duck’ and heard the disconcerting rumour that it was they who had the missing painting. They denied it of course but weren’t convinced that, despite their mediocre reputation, their denial was believed. Trouble with rival gangs was the last thing they needed, so that forced a decision and Tony went to an art shop to buy a few tubes of oil paint and a couple of extra hogs-hair brushes.
They worked on the kitchen table. Tony painted out the signature with a bluish wash to match the colour of the pond. Then he painted a new signature, an ordinary name, William Smyth. Adding the ‘y’ was intended to lend a certain authenticity. He added some white to the blue and brought the sky further down to blot out the tresses of vines and cascading foliage. He wasn’t working fluently though and was fearful of making too many changes.
“Don’t worry about that,” Reg assured him. “I’m keeping my eye on that. Just keep on going.” He walked around the table to give himself different perspectives. “We’ll have to get rid of the bridge though. It’s a dead give-away.”
They worked through the night using a mechanic’s portable light, stopping once for tea and fags at three in the morning.
“It’s hard work, “Tony said, “You wouldn’t think it.” He mixed more paint on the dinner plate which served as a palette.
Reg peered closely and pointed to an area where the over-paint was ridged because of the heavy texture of the original paint beneath. He wanted Tony to scrape it off or sand it down but Tony refused on the grounds that all ridges, lumps and bumps looked good, natural like.
They discussed the irises and agapanthus and decided that these too were trade-marks. Reluctantly, Tony changed them to roses—fairly primitive ones---and daisies. He asked Reg to move back a bit in case ash from his cigarette might fall on the canvas.
“It’s still a nice picture,” Reg said after a while. “You’re not bad at this, mate.”
“It’s just a trade, innit.” Tony hesitated before returning to his task. He wondered if he wasn’t ruining the picture. His colleague assured him that he was not, that he was as good as any of them, that he should have more faith in himself and that painting was just painting.
Soon they got down as far as the water lilies. According to Hedgerow these were a dead give-away, so they would have to be changed. The problem was to find out what else grew, or lived, in water. They spent a long time on this and eventually settled for a combination of bull-rushes, reeds and ducks.
“Not too much yellow on the ducks,” Reg advised. “It sort of clashes with the blue.”
“Yeah, mallards fit in better. I’ll make them mallards.”
Tony worked diligently during the rest of the night. Reg stayed quiet, leaving him to it. At about six in the morning as the early light was beginning to seep through the kitchen window, Tony laid down his brushes and gave a long sigh of contentment. Both men studied the work in silence. It was a nice picture without a doubt, one that would grace any wall.
“Wait,” Reg said, his head leaning to one side. “It’s great but there’s something…not quite right….”
??
?What?” Tony was mildly irritated. It was he who had done all the work. Still, he respected Reg’s judgment.
“Got it…The extra blue in the sky should be reflected in the pond.”
Tony saw the point and began mixing cobalt blue and titanium white on the makeshift palette. He was sorry that the original had all but disappeared but they had no other choice. Reg was right about that.
They had to leave it for over two weeks for the paint to dry. Then they started hawking it around, concentrating on middle-of-the-road dealers. They met with little success. Most of the dealers agreed that it wasn’t a bad landscape but added that there were tens of thousands of equally good ones around. One dealer said that it reminded him vaguely of a Monet. That was good and bad but mostly bad because that meant the painting was derivative. Most of the dealers weren’t interested in the merit of the work and seemed to be put off by the fact that they had never heard of an artist called, William Smyth.
“Shit,” Reg said on one occasion when they found themselves out on the pavement once again. “Now the bloody artist isn’t famous enough. There’s no justice. I’m getting out of this game.”
Some days later they had a better experience with a more up-market dealer in the West End who had an instinct about the picture and brought it into a back-room for closer inspection. His heart did somersaults in his chest; this was the sort of day he dreamed about all his life. He paid them two thousand in cash, saying that he just happened to like the mallards and bull-rushes.
Both thieves were delighted with the arrangement. They saw through the dealer’s little pretence, of course, but they couldn’t quite figure out why a painted-over Monet should be worth so much more than an original, unsullied Monet which they couldn’t even give away. Nevertheless, they had learnt a valuable lesson and, as far as Tony was concerned, no real harm would be done because his paint daubs would eventually be stripped off whatever old masters they doctored in the future.