Fast Fiction: Interview With Edie
A journalist gets rather more than he expected when he goes to interview Edie Dalton, leader of the graffiti-on-plywood school of artists, in this short story by Richard Mallinson.
The features editor of the Daily Blare told me to interview Edie Dalton, leader of the graffiti-on-plywood school of artists.
‘To discuss her theories of art?’ I asked.
‘Bugger her theories, just find out who she is screwing.’
Her studio was up some stairs in a small dingy house.
‘Come in and sit down,’ she said bossily, pointing to a cushion.
She was wearing a many-coloured smock. She had traces of green paint on her sensual face and in her coppery hair.
‘Do you have shorthand?’ she asked, waving a paintbrush.
‘Well, no. I never actually went through the mill -’
‘Mill?’ she snapped, ‘what mill? Dark satanic mill? I’m from the north… The workers were treated like dirt, weren’t they?’
This upset me. ‘My uncle was a mill-owner,’ I said, ‘and he was a caring employer. He hoped I would join him but industry isn’t my thing.’
She slashed the air with her paintbrush.
‘So what the fuck is your thing, then - doing crappy little interviews for a crappy little tabloid?’
She went on slashing the air for a while and then calmed down.
‘Well, what is it you want to know?’ she asked, almost contritely.
‘I want to know,’ I said, ‘something about your theories -’
She gave me a lovely smile (wonderful teeth).
‘Bugger mi theories, luv,’ she said and knelt down in front of me.
‘What I want to talk about,’ she murmured, edging ever closer, ‘is who I am screwing… So are you ready to get this down in longhand or is that a tape recorder in your pocket?’
