Something Invisible by Siobhan Parkinson

“They’re ones of paintings.”
    That sounded marginally better, but not as good as the castle in Transylvania or the dragon’s egg.
    â€œBut the house is full of real paintings. Why would you want postcards of paintings?”
    â€œTo send to my friends,” she replied.
    â€œLike the one you sent me,” he said, slightly shamefaced at his lack of enthusiasm. “But even so…” he said.
    â€œThe thing is, the paintings in the house are all ones I have bought over the years, and I love them all, but I don’t have any truly great paintings, by the Old Masters. They cost thousands. Millions. You only get to see them in art galleries, and then you buy a few postcards of them as a souvenir. Like a consolation prize.”
    â€œI’ve never been to an art gallery,” Jake said. “I thought they’d be boring.”
    â€œLike Hull?” said Mrs. Kennedy. “Well, they are like Hull—not as dull as you’d expect, as long as you are prepared to look hard. And if you want to be a fish painter, I’d say you should go and look at a few fish paintings, don’t you think?”
    â€œAre there others? Apart from the one you sent?”
    â€œOf course. Oodles.”
    â€œYou mean, lots of other people have painted fish?” asked Jake, surprised.
    â€œYes,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
    It was the strangest thing. Mrs. Kennedy had a whole shoebox full of fish paintings. Jake was in heaven. Well, actually, there were a few other things as well in the paintings. Not absolutely every one had fish. Some had dead pheasants. Some just had apples and pears. Some had a Bible and a globe and a tablecloth. Some just had a group of jugs. But they were all pictures of things on tables.
    â€œBut do you know something queer?” Mrs. Kennedy said, as they examined the postcards. “People don’t like pictures of dead fish. They must give them the creeps, or something. The thing is, if you have a picture of, say, grapes or watermelons or something like that, and let’s say it’s by an important painter, and it’s worth, oh, let’s say half a million euro—it’s mostly dead painters whose paintings are that expensive, by the way—well, now, if you have a picture by the same artist only it’s of a dead fish, it’s probably worth only about half that. Isn’t that the oddest thing?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWell, people don’t like looking at dead things, I suppose. They don’t want to have them on their walls. So the paintings aren’t as valuable.”
    â€œDoes this mean I shouldn’t be a fish painter?” asked Jake.
    â€œWell, it means you should probably only paint live fish.”
    â€œBut you couldn’t do that,” Jake protested. “They wouldn’t keep still long enough.”
    â€œThat’s a point. Maybe you could photograph them instead. Or film them. You could be a fish filmer.”
    â€œIs there such a thing?” asked Jake.
    â€œThere must be,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “because you do see fish on the television, from time to time, don’t you?”
    â€œI suppose,” said Jake. “And they are usually wiffling, aren’t they? Which means they’re alive.”
    â€œI wouldn’t know,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “I don’t think I’ve heard of wiffling.”
    â€œIt’s Stella’s word. She probably made it up. She’s good with words. I think she should be a poet when she grows up.”
    â€œThere’s no money in poetry,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “Even less than in fish painting, I’d say.”
    â€œOh, well,” said Jake, “I suppose we could work in McDonald’s for our real jobs and only paint fish and write poems at the weekends. Do you think that would work?”
    â€œPossibly,” said Mrs. Kennedy.

CHAPTER
    31
    â€œWhere’ve