Page 21 of Matilda’s Summer of New Beginnings

‘I think,’ I whispered, ‘that these aren’t really poo-pictures.’

‘According to the label,’ whispered Jay, ‘they are melting ice creams. To signify the changing of the seasons on the visceral landscape.’ He didn’t look convinced at that description.

I ardently hoped that nobody would ever, ever interpret my art as human waste.

At that moment, I heard a weird rumbling sound coming from a tiny, womb-like room on the side. Jay and I looked at one another, and together headed into the ante-room. We stepped into a forest of what I originally thought were sausages, but realized upon closer inspection were intestines. Something brushed my cheek and I jumped — a light flashed on, and there were some weird wobbly things around me, touching my head and moving around. My GCSE Biology came back to me in a flash — villi, I think those things were called. They had something to do with digestion.

There was also an odd pulsing feeling, then another one of those loud rumbles. Then a sort of pfffffft sound came out of a speaker. I felt my eyes widen.

‘Oh my God. We are in a stomach,’ I said.

‘We are apparently human waste,’ commented Jay, reading from a handy label. ‘Being manufactured in some politically driven sausage factory. Fuck me.’

‘No — because if they do that, we could end up anywhere in the human body . . .’

Jay snorted out something between a laugh and the pfffffft sound, and that set me off too.

We pushed our way through the rest of the intestinal maze, which took an inordinately long time because we kept reaching dead ends of symbolic atrophied flesh and/or rotting bits of food that hadn’t made it out of the digestive tract. When we finally came out of an exit that looked like (and smelled liked) — well, I’ll leave that to your imagination — we stared at one another. Jay looked shocked and horrified and slightly green. I gasped for air, sniffing my wrist to get a noseful of perfume instead of . . . that sort of smell . . .

And suddenly I didn’t want to be in Julio’s any longer.

I tugged on Jay’s arm. ‘Come on, I’ve seen enough. It was really kind of Edie to suggest this, but it’s not appropriate for me at all. I don’t think I’m crazy enough.’ To be honest, I could see Damien’s work here more than mine. It pained me to admit it, but Damien was a much better artist than I was.

His work, like his damn hats and his piercings, was a lot more edgy and in keeping with the work I’d seen at Julio’s than my quirky inks would be — and I did adore my lovely ink and wash buildings. Damien however specialized in steampunk style sculptures — all cogs and wheels and leather thongs. Sometimes there was a skull involved, and I’m not sure if that was steampunk, but they were very tasteful skulls and fit the installations already at Julio’s quite well. He also did mad, industrial style landscapes, but they always looked rather post-apocalyptic to me. Generally, there was a skull involved there too — or something similar hidden in the undulations of the ground, or peering out malevolently amongst the big, scary clouds in the sky.

Yes. Damien was much better suited here.

‘Are you sure?’ Jay looked down at me. We were shuffling away from the exit of the digestive display and determinedly not looking at it. ‘We are incognito, remember — they aren’t going to know that Edie suggested you come and have a look to scope it out, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘No — and I don’t want them to know that. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I don’t know.’ I looked around Julio’s and could not, for the life of me, see my work in here. If it got in, I was pretty sure it would be because of Edie’s influence and not my talent. My work was far too different — and very unsuited to Julio’s. Even if he did have one of the best galleries in London, and that’s what people were aspiring to . . .

It was a sobering thought, and something I’d already been considering for a while. Seeing what I was up against really brought it home. ‘Perhaps I should think of another career path,’ I mused. ‘This place is for people like Edie who’ve got that way-out method of thinking. That expansive talent that can excite people. It’s even for people like Damien. It’s not for me. I’m not that sort of person, and I think, actually, I prefer to be under the radar a bit.’

‘Okay.’ Jay, bless him, didn’t argue. He simply took my hand and squeezed it, then dropped it quickly, as if he’d realized that was too much given I was his sister’s friend. ‘Let’s go.’

I nodded gratefully, and we headed out of the gallery. I picked up a couple of postcards and a brochure because I didn’t want to appear — well — to appear exactly as I was: a person wanting to exit this wonderfully plush place. The prices were eye-watering but I paid with a smile on my face, and Margot was very lovely.

But boy was I pleased to be heading out into the usual buzz of London, and not trapped in a random stomach any more.

There was one thing I was dying to say, and I just had to say it as we shut the door behind us and found ourselves on a bustling pavement again.

‘Poo-pictures,’ I said.

‘Definitely poo-pictures,’ Jay replied.

‘And actual poo?’

‘I would not be surprised.’

I was very glad he agreed.

Chapter Eight

We’d had such an . . . interesting time together that afternoon, I was really glad Jay was staying with us overnight and we were able to do something fun that evening. Sadly, the ‘something fun’ also consisted of Damien attaching himself to us as we went out for a Chinese meal (well okay, he had been previously invited). Oddly, I didn’t want to share what had gone on that afternoon at Julio’s. I didn’t even want to tell Rosie the whole truth about it — how it had made me doubt my life choices.

I felt somehow that I was letting everyone down by being so ridiculous about it — if there’s a word for the opposite of self-confident, I was it. Self-doubting? Maybe that was it . . .

But of course, the situation came up in conversation, because Rosie is Rosie and despite working for a gossip-and-fashion magazine, she is a trained journo and can sniff out a story.