Fitzroy The Artist

The Mews

What art stays hidden because of human schemes

FITZROY THE ARTIST

London Mews

A knock on the door

Door opens

The lady of the house looks out

Two figures, male, female, media arty types

Can I speak to the man of the house, says female media arty type

I am he, says she

They laugh, embrace, it’s a joke you see

Old friends and more, daresay, from university days

You can almost feel the summer sun playing on the Ox

The faint sound of choristers at practice

The spires rising up beyond the riverside meadows

But today it’s business

Get the coffee on

Female media arty type sips coffee and speaks

Working on a programme, undiscovered art

And I have a work that lay undiscovered until, well, recently

Been on the wall of an artist’s modern-day garret

When by chance a well-known art critic seeing it was said

To have wept uncontrollably

While spluttering out

It has

The precision of an Ingres

The subject matter of a modern-day Lautrec

The freedom of a Picasso

The wit of a Warhol

The audacity of a Hirst

Look, here is the work

Stunned, or maybe in polite silence, the lady of the house studies it

Wow

Artist claims he found it in this Mews

Fluttering like a butterfly’s last flight in the autumn wind

A heavy boot arrested its dance of death

Look, you can still see the faintest of imprints

So I am here as a kind of art detective, by the way, let me introduce my sergeant

The male media arty type looks up, mouth full of cake, and nods

Um interesting, says the lady of the house

Let’s go to the playroom and see what’s what

Little bit worried by the subject matter

The playroom door opens, bedlam

Five precious minutes of two busy media types’ time it takes to calm the scene

Mum shows the picture to shrugs and giggles

Now no one is going to get into trouble but who produced this work

Silence

Why the silence

The oldest mumbles

We don’t want to grass no one up see

Been watching too many TV cop shows

But as it’s that know it all, done it all, good at everything

Pistol toting, high flouting, son of a gun

Been watching too many westerns

Perhaps we make an exception

All right, it was one of the bears

Which one, Jake, Betty, Fitzroy, Tuffty

I think you can guess Mum, it was Fitzroy

Wow what a story this will be, chorus media arty types

But Mum says no

Downstairs the mood subdued

It’s all about a mission, espionage, double treble dealing, something rotten somewhere

Official secrets, D notices

Should not be telling you this

My husband and his bear up to their sweet necks in something

You cannot touch this, not now

Now come on, let’s think this through

Says media arty type, not wanting to see the story go

Well perhaps we could say it was one of the other bears, say Tuffty

Tuffty, erm, don’t think so

No, no, it was always a bit like that with you, where’s your integrity

And in any case, who would believe you

Busy media arty types leave, the door clacks

A kind of peace returns to the Mews.