Goya'S Dog by Damian Tarnopolsky

never spoken to told him that Mr. Burner was at the lakeshore donating his sloop to the navy for them to train volunteers. Dacres returned the next day, Friday, and waited outside the factory gates for lunchtime. When he saw crowds of blue-clad workers gather he ambled into the building. It was five past one and there was no one at the desk outside Burner’s office. He grasped the cold door handle and marched in.
    â€œWhat the devil?” Burner said.
    They were not high up but there was a good view of the lake through three square windows and the light flooding in bleached the room. Momentarily, Dacres just stared out. Burner was twelve feet away behind a grave-looking desk with a green blotter. There were photographs on the desk, but they were turned away from visitors. Others, on the back wall, were too far away for Dacres to make out. In a diagonal line at Burner’s right were three black telephones.
    Burner himself looked smaller than before and more wan than Dacres remembered. He was probably only ten or fifteen years Dacres’s senior. Dacres reminded Burner that they’d met and shortly the light of recognition came into his little eyes.
    â€œYes,” Burner said telegraphically, “Lady Dunfield—your tour—bridges and aqueducts, is it?”
    Dacres smiled without opening his mouth and said, “Edward Dacres.”
    Burner stood and offered Dacres a seat across from the desk. They sat down at the same time and then stared at each other, then Dacres looked at a silver tray which had what looked like an eagle feather stuck to it. Next to that, a clock embedded in a golf ball.
    â€œBut whatever are you doing here?” Burner finally asked.
    One of the telephones rang and suddenly Burner was the dynamo Dacres had met.
    â€œTell him not until December. Well I can’t now. No. You said Sturton at two, didn’t you? No, I’m with someone.”
    Dacres cleared his throat. He didn’t see any paintings. Pipes were mounted on the walls with little white cards underneath, and on the black display shelf to his right, opposite the windows, was a French horn. You were never supposed to go to a meeting like this without going to a pub first. But there were no pubs in the city. So how did anyone here ever get ahead in life?
    Burner had been told something very funny and he brayed into the phone, laughing and zesty. Then another black telephone rang and Burner lifted up a finger to say “Wait,” put the first receiver down, and picked up the second. Dacres started to feel annoyed. In his belly anxious bubbles popped.
    â€œSorry,” said Burner to Dacres eventually. “The likelihood is we’ll have to convert to armaments in the coming year and it’s going to be a heck of a job of work. Might be easier to just build a new foundry from the start! Not that the agitators are helping us any, the unions. And of course you can’t get a straight answer from the ministry about the whens and wherefores. But the times demand it. Now …”
    Burner waited.
    Dacres tried to put into words what he was doing there without being crass, that is, without asking outright for money or favours. But as soon as he opened his mouth his little speech sounded ridiculous and he immediately faltered.
    â€œYou remember our conversation? At your house, at the reception. You said there were opportunities for painters here.”
    â€œI did?” Burner looked surprised. “How odd.”
    â€œYoung country, you said. Document it … To be honest, I couldn’t bear another minute of that delegation, they were going to Windsor or something of that nature and then returning to England—and I’m not sure frankly how strong an idea that is, now.”
    Burner squinted. Traitor .
    â€œSo,” Dacres said, conscious of not really having explained himself. “Here I am.”
    Burner looked down at his desk.
    â€œIndeed,” he said. “And what