The Second Signature, Part 3: Not Now
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Part 3 of 4. Nadia takes her proposal to the museum director, who has built his whole career on the name Halloway. He has a folder he has kept locked away for twenty-five years.
Never had Nadia seen Paul Esterhaus lose his temper, and he did not lose it now. He simply read her proposal twice, placed it face-down on his desk and asked her to close the door.
'Do you know,' he said, 'how many Halloways this museum owns? Twenty-three. Do you know how many exhibitions I have built around them?' He did not wait for an answer. 'Not once in thirty years has anyone questioned that signature.'
'No one has looked under the frame,' Nadia said. 'I have. And I've seen the paintings in Clara Voss's flat. Twenty of them, all in the same hand as our harbours, none of them signed by Edmund.'
Esterhaus said nothing for a long time. Outside, a school group was being led noisily towards the dinosaur hall.
Only then did he turn the proposal over again. He took a folder from a locked drawer and slid it across the desk. Inside was a letter on museum paper, dated 1998, from the conservator who had worked there before Nadia. It described a second signature on a Halloway harbour. It recommended further research.
Underneath, in Esterhaus's handwriting, were two words: 'Not now.'
Hardly had she finished reading when he spoke again, quietly. 'I was thirty-four. The Halloway retrospective was my first show. If I had said yes to that letter, there would have been no show, and no me.' He rubbed his eyes. 'I've been waiting twenty-five years for someone to make me say yes.'
Not until she was back in her own office did Nadia realise that he had not, in fact, said yes. He had only told her the truth.