Opening #1

"She always was lovely", he remarked, picking wax from his ear in a way that suggested he had the words pre-arranged and didn't have to think about them much as he was saying them. "But I wouldn't expect to take a Cezanne home from Paris just because I saw it in the right light."

"So what now?" I responded.

"Now", he allowed, "we learn to paint".

"Is that a metaphor?" I enquired.

"No", he said. "It isn't".

He scratched his face briefly and switched off the television, while I waited for Sophie Marceau to finish downloading. The telephone rang. It was Sophie Marceau, and she wasn't happy.