Mrs. Pargeter's Point of Honour by Simon Brett Page B

. . . they nicknamed me after one of the great geniuses of my profession – Vincent Van Gogh.’
    â€˜I see.’ Mrs Pargeter was silent for a moment before asking the inevitable question. ‘Then why aren’t you called “VVG”?’
    â€˜I told you. They made a mockery of me.’ The misunderstood one took another angry slurp from his mug, as he spelled out the detail of his humiliation. ‘They called me “Vincent Vin Ordinaire”.’
    Hamish Ramon Henriques ran a hand through the luxuriance of his moustache to prevent his smile from becoming too overt, and Mrs Pargeter was glad she wasn’t in eye contact with him, as she soothed the injured genius with the meaningless words, ‘Oh. Oh well, that’s nice.’
    But VVO’s well of bitterness was far from dry. ‘They’re always making fun of me,’ he moaned on, ‘laughing at my aspirations to be a great artist . . . dismissing my paintings as mere imitative daubs . . .’
    â€˜Oh, come on,’ HRH protested. ‘We always respected what you did best.’
    The artist was incensed. ‘No, you didn’t! You respected my hack work!’ Fuelled by anger, he rose from his seat and started to circle the room. ‘You respected me when I produced a Rubens.’
    As he spoke, he picked up a canvas of a buxom nude whose bottom blushed appealingly. Mrs Pargeter, who had seen a similar sight in the bathroom mirror earlier that morning, could not restrain herself from murmuring, ‘Oh, that’s very good.’
    â€˜Or a Goya,’ VVO went on vindictively, picking up a lady wearing a black mantilla whose authenticity was only let down by an unpainted patch of canvas in the top corner.
    Though this picture struck no personal chords, Mrs Pargeter could still recognize the skill of its execution. ‘That’s smashing too,’ she said.
    â€˜Or a Jackson Pollock.’ On this third canvas, however, she could express no opinion. Mrs Pargeter had always found it tricky to tell a good Jackson Pollock from a bad one – or indeed from an accident in a paint shop.
    The tortured genius let all three canvases clatter to the floor, as he struck his chest in impassioned misery. ‘But what happens when I express
myself
. . . when I do a painting that is a true
Reg Winthrop
?’
    To reinforce his words, he picked up a picture which had stood facing the wall. It was fixed in a gold frame, and was quite definitely the ugliest work of art Mrs Pargeter had ever seen. No weekend painter, suffering from a terminal overdose of sentimentality, could ever have produced worse.
    A black Scottie dog, with an anthropomorphic smile and a tartan bow about its neck, sat coquettishly in front of a little humpbacked bridge over a tinkling stream. Spotted toadstools poked up through the grass. Bluebirds circled aimlessly overhead. The painting could have won a Queen’s Award for Winsomeness. Even a chocolate-box manufacturer would have rejected it as too coy.
    â€˜Hmm . . .’ said Mrs Pargeter awkwardly. ‘Well, yes . . .’
    â€˜See!’ VVO let the painting slip from his hand and hurled himself histrionically back into his chair. ‘You’re just like all the others. You can’t appreciate what I’m really trying to say. You can’t see through to the soul of my art. Ah, is it always the fate of genius to be misunderstood?’
    Hamish Ramon Henriques decided that pursuing such speculation would be fruitless. It was time to get down to business. ‘VVO, in fact the reason we are here is that—’
    But the artist’s list of grievances was not exhausted. ‘Not only does nobody appreciate my painting, I’m also excluded from all the exciting bits when we’ve got a job on. I’m always left on the sidelines. While the rest of the lads are having fun, out and about breaking and entering, I’m