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Rose was standing in front of Moriarty’s Second-Hand Furniture Emporium on Kilburn Lane, waiting for her father. He was late. He’d been late all her life. Mick Moriarty was famous throughout London for both his ability to find whatever you were looking for and not showing up on time. He’d get things wrong by days rather than minutes. Knowing this, Rose had rung him twice this morning. But still, Mick was nowhere to be found; the shop was closed and his mobile mysteriously unavailable. Luckily, Rory had fallen asleep in his pushchair on the way over. She gently rolled him back and forth. At least he wasn’t awake, screaming and wriggling, wanting to get out.

Her father said he had something for her and Rose couldn’t afford to turn him down. It was sweet, really, the way he earmarked various bits of furniture for her. But she didn’t have all day to loiter about; she was due at the gallery this afternoon for a meeting with Olivia and Simon – a meeting she was dreading.

She checked her watch again. Now she was going to be late too.

Her dad was a law unto himself. He was a good father, so long as you didn’t actually need him for anything. There’d been a time, when she was very small, when he’d been different. Normal almost. Mick Moriarty had always liked to fix things. But after her mother had left, what had been a hobby became not only a profession but a mania. He became obsessed with what everyone else thought of as just junk. He only had to clean it, repair it, redeem it and send it out into the world again; maybe it wasn’t quite as good as new, but better than it had been. There was something in his zeal that Rose recognized; a way of making sense of the one event of his life he’d never managed to recover from.

Finally, just as she was on the verge of leaving, Mick rattled up in the battered white Transit van that had been the result of one of his earliest negotiations.

‘Dad!’

‘I know! I know! But you’ll never believe it!’ Hopping out, he flung open the back doors of the van. ‘Just look at this!’ He pointed to what looked like a pile of old kitchen units, in a strange turquoise colour. ‘Flung into a skip! As if it were junk! Isn’t that incredible!’

‘It is junk, Dad.’

‘You must be mad! Look! They’re original fifties units; I can get three grand for them if I take them over to Islington. Get in the van.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re going to Islington.’

‘I don’t want to go to Islington. I only came because you said you had something for me!’

‘Yeah, that’s right. You’ll love it. Can you put Rory on your lap?’

‘You’re not listening to me! We’re not going anywhere! As a matter of fact, I was hoping you’d look after Rory for me – I’ve got a big meeting and I have to get to Mayfair …’

Mick was already lifting the sleeping Rory out of his chair. ‘I’ll drive you, luv. Get in. God, he’s heavy!’ He gave him a cuddle, smoothing his hair down. Rory, exhausted from hours spent racing around the park chasing dogs and collecting used ice-cream sticks, wasn’t waking up for anyone or anything. He flopped over Mick’s shoulder, a solid, dead weight. ‘Get in!’

‘Mayfair’s nowhere near Islington and I don’t want you hauling him from shop to shop, Dad. He’ll go mad.’

‘Oh no, I can’t take him, angel. Not till later, anyway. But I’ll get you to Mayfair, no problem. Haven’t had a look around there for years. They’ve got nice digs in Mayfair.’

Rose thought she would scream. He was impossible. But still she found herself climbing into the front seat and taking Rory, strapping the seat belt across the both of them, burying her nose in his hair. The only way to deal with her father was to go along for the ride.

She watched in the rear-view mirror as he folded the pushchair up, putting it into the back along with the entire fifties kitchen and Lord knows what else. Slight, with thick dark hair and blue eyes, he was still an attractive man; handsome even in his funny white boiler suit. She’d never got to the bottom of the boiler suit – one day it appeared and suddenly it became part of his professional identity. Like a doctor in a white lab coat, he insisted upon wearing it every day, never visiting a client without it. Considering that most of his clients were willing to sell their own furniture to pay their debts, this delicacy struck her as particularly funny.

Climbing in next to her, he started the engine. ‘So what’s this meeting then?’

‘It’s to do with my new job.’

‘Which is?’ He pulled out, nearly slamming into a red Fiat. He thrust his head out the window. ‘Wanker!’

Rose had avoided telling her father the details of her new profession, mostly because she wasn’t sure if she could explain how she’d entered it and because she was absolutely certain she couldn’t tell him what it entailed. ‘Well, Dad, I’m an artist.’

Mick laughed. ‘Really? You? But you can’t even draw, can you?’

‘Honestly, Dad! No one draws any more. Everyone knows that!’

‘So what do you do? And I’m warning you right now, if it involves taking your clothes off, you’re in big trouble!’

‘I’m a contemporary artist. It’s all about defamiliarization.’

‘And what’s that when it’s at home?’ Mick leant on his horn. ‘Pick a lane, pal!’

Simon had spent the best part of an afternoon trying to explain it to her. At the time she’d been tempted to write notes on the back of her hand. But in the end she settled for memorizing a few key phrases. ‘It’s when you take familiar objects and put them in a different context so that the viewer is forced to see them in a new way.’

‘Right.’ Mick ducked into a bus lane, speeding past a long line of traffic. ‘So, like if I put a cheese grater into, I don’t know, the Albert Hall, suddenly it’s art?’

He was trying to make her feel stupid.

It was working.

‘Could be,’ she said sullenly.

‘What do you mean, could be? Either it is or it isn’t!’

‘Well, it all depends on who you are, Dad. It’s not just about the art – it’s about the artist. I mean, if Picasso draws on a napkin at dinner it’s definitely art but if Rory has a go, it’s just a ruined napkin, see?’

‘So how did you get to be so special?’

This was the nagging question that had disturbed her ever since that fateful day in Chester Square. She’d gone over it again and again in her mind. Why was everyone so excited? Could it have been her handwriting? Or the way she’d balanced the cards? The worst part was, now they were all expecting her to do it again. The opening of the exhibition was looming and she had nothing else to offer them. And deep in her heart, Rose had to agree with her father on the cheese-grater-in-the-Albert-Hall affair: at the end of the day, it was still a cheese grater to her.

‘I don’t know. Actually, Dad,’ she confided, ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle.’

Mick turned. ‘Do they want money? Never do anything where you have to give money up front to get started.’

‘No, Dad, it’s not that. It’s just I’ve done this thing, this installation …’

‘Did you follow the instructions?’

‘No, that’s what they call the art, they call it an installation. I’m supposed to have another one for today and …’ she hugged Rory closer for courage, ‘and I can’t do it, Dad! I don’t know how.’

‘Well,’ he nipped down a one-way street, ‘how did you do the first one?’

‘It was an accident really. And I’ve tried coming up with another idea but it’s … it’s so hard, Dad! I’m completely stuck!’

While Rory was at nursery, Rose had spent the best part of the morning trying to be inspired.

She sat at the kitchen table.

And thought.

Hard.

About art.

Nothing came.

She made a cup of tea instead.

Drinking it, she concentrated on her favourite paintings. There was one her aunt had in her living room of a hay cart next to a river. That was nice. Peaceful. Maybe a bit too brown for her liking. Then she remembered nature was meant to be inspiring.

So she spent a long time staring out of the window of her flat at the small patch of scraggly lawn in between the council blocks. She never let Rory play on it because the man downstairs took his bulldog there. All she saw was filth.

She concentrated harder.

But still, it was all dog poo to her.

Finally she tried her hand at drawing. Simon Grey claimed it didn’t matter. He’d reeled off the names of half a dozen supposedly well-known artists who couldn’t scribble a circle let alone render a reasonable likeness. But Rose didn’t believe him. First she tried to draw Rory. After all, she was with him all day long; she ought to know what he looked like. But he came out all stiff and round, and his eyes too close together. He looked like an angry stuffed toy.

She might have more luck with Victoria Beckham. Opening a copy of Hello!, she chose a photograph of her standing outside the Ritz in Paris in an evening dress. That went a bit better. But still her head was far too big, the dress too long; she looked like a mermaid, except Rose got stuck on the feet and had to draw them both in side view. This gave it an Egyptian feel.

The whole morning was depressing. Rose felt inadequate, irritable and small. The more she tried to think of something original or interesting, the duller and more mundane she felt.

‘Well, can’t help you there, luv. Why don’t you get a proper job?’ her father suggested. ‘Be a hairdresser or something. People always need their hair cut.’

Rose’s father had been trying to get her to be a hairdresser since she was three. ‘Dad, I don’t want to be a hairdresser! I’ve never wanted to be a hairdresser! Just because Mum wanted to be a bloody hair—’

‘Oi!’ he interrupted. ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead!’

‘She’s not dead, Dad. She lives in Brighton.’

‘Same difference.’ He ran through a red light. ‘Anyway, you’ll have to own up sooner or later. If you haven’t got the gift, then that’s that. Nothing to be ashamed of. Not everyone’s a Damien Hirst, after all.’

Rose stared at him in amazement. ‘How do you know about Damien Hirst?’

Mick laughed, pulling into Brook Street. ‘You could always put a cheese grater in the Albert Hall, kid! Just remember, I want a little credit on that one! Now, where is this place?’

Rose sighed. He wasn’t taking her seriously.

Then again, why would he?

It was so typical of her life; just when she thought she was going to get somewhere, be somebody, she fucked it all up. Always. It was like that at school when she was doing so well, studying for O levels, and then fell in love with Rory’s dad, a DJ at a big club in the West End. For three whole weeks they were mad about each other; she actually thought he was going to propose. But the next thing she knew, she was pregnant, her father furious, and he’d buggered off to hit the club circuit in Ibiza with some girl named Doreen. There was no point continuing with her studies; her fate was sealed.

In school they’d studied Hamlet; the teacher banged on and on about him having a fatal flaw. That was her all over. No matter what she did, how hard she tried to alter her destiny, her default setting was failure. And now here she was again; she would have to explain to Simon and Olivia that her worst fears were true: she wasn’t a natural talent, only a fraud. And her budding career as an artist would be over before it had even begun.

A few minutes later, Mick parked on a double-yellow line in front of the gallery, jumped out and opened the back of the van. Rory woke up crying and as Rose tried to soothe him, she spotted a parking warden heading their way.

‘Dad! Dad!’ she hissed.

Mick poked his head out. ‘Shit! I just want you to have a look at this chair, luv. Wait a minute.’ He ducked back inside the van and Rose could hear him struggling with something.

Simon ran out. ‘There’s no stopping here! Oh, Red!’ he greeted her in surprise. ‘Please say this is your latest piece! After all, we’re opening soon!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I … I know you’ve been so supportive and I so badly wanted to be an artist but I have to tell you, I can’t do it! I …’

The parking warden was upon them. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘Unloading!’ Mick shouted, struggling to unearth a particularly ugly brown velour armchair from the back of the van. ‘Won’t be a moment.’

Simon stared at it. ‘What is it?’ He gingerly picked up the yellowed lace doily from the headrest.

But Rose recognized it immediately. It had belonged to her father’s neighbour, Mrs Henderson. She’d been a sweet old lady, like a grandmother to Rose. Unfortunately, she’d passed away two weeks ago.

‘Oh no!’ she murmured, her eyes filling with tears. It had been a tense morning and now just seeing it made her feel emotional. ‘No, no, Dad!’ she whispered. ‘Put it away! I can’t even look at it!’

‘But wait!’ Mick insisted, bending down to demonstrate the reclining feature; he pressed a lever on the side and a faded footrest shot up, nearly knocking Rory over. ‘It’s a beauty, Rose! It was broken but I fixed it. Another Moriarty original!’

Simon’s eyes lit up. ‘A Moriarty original? Rose! At last! I knew you’d come through!’

Rose shook her head. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said to Simon.

‘Oh, yes,’ Simon smoothed the doily back in place. ‘I think I do.’

‘But Mrs Henderson died in this chair!’

‘My God! That’s powerful!’ Backing away, he stared at Mrs Henderson’s recliner in awe. ‘An entire tale of life and death in a single chair! The … sheer … ordinariness of the whole thing is so moving!’

‘What’s he going on about?’ Mick wanted to know.

Rose ignored him. She grabbed Simon’s arm. ‘You don’t understand! It’s junk, Simon! Nothing but old junk!’

‘It’s always the same!’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Everyone thinks their work is junk when they deliver it. Nothing more than nerves!’

Rory was clambering all over it now. The parking warden reached for his pad and pen. ‘Look here, there’s no stopping any time …’

‘Except,’ Simon interrupted, ‘when unloading valuable new pieces of art!’ He plucked Rory off, handed him to Rose and picked the chair up. ‘You have surpassed yourself, Red! I can’t wait to show Olivia! Now, if you don’t mind!’

He nodded imperiously to the parking warden, who, somewhat confused, held the door open while Simon pushed the chair inside.

Rose knew her father was staring at her but she found it hard to meet his gaze. After a while, he took Rory from her, turning him upside down until he giggled.

‘So, I guess you’ll take it,’ he said, flinging Rory onto his shoulders.

Rose nodded. ‘I guess I will.’

‘Well, maybe Rory and I will go and have an ice cream, eh?’

‘Ice cream!’ Rory shouted, refreshed from his nap. ‘Chocolate! Banilla! Ice cream!’

‘What about Islington?’

‘It’ll be there tomorrow. Anyway, I think we need a break, eh, champ?’

Rory beamed up at him.

‘Thanks, Dad.’

Rose gave Rory a kiss and watched as her dad strapped him into a booster seat. ‘Drive carefully! Please!’

As they pulled away, the parking attendant smiled shyly. ‘Would you mind?’ he said, handing her the pad and pen.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your autograph! You’re a famous artist, right?’

‘Oh! Yeah, I suppose so.’

‘You never know, it might be worth something!’

‘You never know,’ she agreed.

And then she signed ‘Red Moriarty’ across the page in a strange, firm hand. It glared back at her, full of sharp angles and unfamiliar shapes. She passed it back to him. He was looking at her in a different way, as if she were a completely new person from the one she had been ten minutes ago.

He walked back down the street, grinning proudly at the signed parking ticket.

Rose stood by herself on the steps of the Mount Street Gallery.

Maybe, she concluded, the whole art thing was like being a top model; you got loads of attention for doing nothing. And maybe, just like a naturally beautiful woman, she’d never be able to really see what everyone else saw or what the fuss was all about.

It was sad.

Still, there were probably worse things in life.