She consults her notebook. “You hated twenty-seven out of thirty-six descriptions. But they’re only short so I can probably get them to you in the morning.”
“Good. All right. Through here will be the Laxos exhibition.”
I swipe my pass and push through the doors into the space. At the moment it’s vast and almost empty, with the display cabinets waiting against the walls. Several workmen at the far end of the room are constructing scaffolding to support the palace recreation.
“It’s the first time these items will be loaned to a foreign country.” I point to a space in the middle of the room. “That’s where the Laxos Disc with be displayed.”
The Laxos Disc is the drawcard of the exhibition, a ceramic disc stamped with symbols that defy translation. Its inscrutability makes it more valuable and interesting than all the gold and bronze objects we’ll exhibit alongside it.
Lacey scans the room, but there isn’t much to see yet. “What do you think about the claims that the disc is a fake?”
She’s heard of that? The dispute wasn’t picked up by many of the online magazines. “They wouldn’t let it out of their sight if they truly suspected it was fake. We might run our own tests while we have it and embarrass them.”
When curators start telling me that a dubious artifact is too delicate to be loaned, that’s when I smell a rat. All the same, it’s fishy that they’ve never run a thermoluminescence test to determine the disc’s precise age.
“Will you? Run your own test, I mean.”
I scratch the side of my cheek, thinking. “Well. That would be a very rude thing to do to the Laxos Museum.”
She shoots me a look, as if she can tell how tempted I am to do it anyway.
“Wait, this isn’t your thesis topic, is it?” I ask, wondering if getting Lacey into the museum as an employee is a scheme by Chris Petrou. What an uproar it would cause if his daughter discovered the disc was a fake. It’s convoluted and kind of paranoid, but I wouldn’t put anything past a man who can display his urine for the sake of being sensational.
“No. Mine’s about the deadly gaze in Greek myth. Medusa. Actaeon. Panoptes.”
Thank fuck for that.
I take Lacey back to her desk and leave her to it for the rest of the day. I’ve got several meetings, and in between I go through my emails, flicking some over to Lacey to handle as I go.
At six I send her home, telling her that eight-thirty is fine as a start time from now on. It was a promising first day. We’ll see if she can keep her head when I really start to load her up with tasks.
When I arrive at the museum at seven forty-five the next morning, she’s already at her desk. I don’t say anything. If she wants to be a workaholic for the next two months that’s fine by me. She won’t run out of things to do.
At ten I have a free half-hour and call her into my office so we can go through the descriptions she’s rewritten. I open my post as she reads them aloud, nodding as she finishes each one. They’re structured well and give just enough context for the pieces.
I make a disgusted noise at a grotesque neon flyer I’ve just taken out of an envelope, and Lacey looks up.
“Malcolm Hesse?” she asks, eyeing the artwork.
“Yes,” I mutter darkly.
“He’s a friend of dad’s. What did you think about dad’s exhibition, by the way?” she asks, and when I glance up there’s an innocent expression in her eyes.
I set the flyer aside. “You know these people. Maybe you can explain something to me. I’m the director of a museum of antiquities, and yet I seem to get an invitation to every modern art opening in London. Why?”
She casts her eyes over me, smiling faintly. “Well, you’re Scandinavian, and you guys do have a reputation for being progressive. As you know about antiquities, you lend some gravitas to the room. And there aren’t many museum directors with tattoos. Maybe the artists think you’re edgy.”
I glance at the dark blue ink on my fingers, scowling. Kristus, they’re shallow.
“But what did you think of the exhibition?” she presses me.
“It was fucking terrible.”
I wonder if she’s going to be annoyed with me for being so blunt, but Lacey puts her hands over her mouth and snorts with laughter. Her laughter is infectious and I find myself wanting to smile back. “I’m not saying his work doesn’t have value or purpose. It’s just that when I look at it, my gut tells me I hate it.”
She shakes her head, still laughing. “It’s all right, art is subjective. But I think you should know how much dad name-drops you at parties. He tells everyone that you’re a fan. Expect a lot more invitations.”