Even though Lizzie has now thankfully recovered from Covid, her sister H. – one of the two sisters who took her to Daylesford Covid (I mean Organic) Market in the Cotswolds – is feeling contrite. To attempt to make amends for the Daylesford disaster (despite the fact it really wasn’t H.’s fault that Lizzie caught Covid there), H. has asked Lizzie to paint four paintings – two each for her two stepdaughters.
Lizzie has mixed feelings about this. H. hasn’t been specific about what she wants Lizzie to paint, for the stepdaughters. Chances are, whatever Lizzie does paint… will be totally wrong.
For one thing, H. has quite particular tastes. And, for the other, H.’s stepdaughters (who are both thirty-ish) are probably not going to be interested in Lizzie’s usual florals… and (as Lizzie puts it) will probably want a painting of ‘sunglasses’ or something, which is not really her thing.
So… what should Lizzie paint? She throws in a curveball… and decides to paint a freaky animal skull (a dog’s?!) which we found behind the garage, when we were clearing out nettles the year before last.
The painting, when finished, looks impressive – but is also very clearly a painting of an (unidentified) animal’s skull.
Lizzie texts a picture of it to H.
H. texts back, moments later, with the message that she can’t give a painting of an animal skull to either of her stepdaughters – ‘because they’re both vegan.’
So that’s that. Back to the drawing board (or, rather, painting canvas) then.
At this point, Lizzie posts an image of the skull painting to her Instagram page – as she does with all of her new paintings.
Moments later, a new follower posts next to it: ‘this is BEAUTIFUL!’
We squint at the post. The new follower is called ‘Corpse Donkey’ (name slightly changed, to protect the innocent/undead).
What kind of strange, dead-animal-obsessed goth is called Corpse Donkey, I wonder? What kind of person is Lizzie’s art now attracting?
Lizzie asks me: ‘how should I reply?’
For a long time, I’ve been saying to Lizzie (semi-humorously, but with a grain of truth in it) that she should exploit her illness and paint morbid, dark paintings which show her ‘exploring her mortality’ and which reflect the ‘very real physical manifestation of darkness which she discovered to be growing inside her this year’ (or some such pretentious nonsense. Art critics and curators love to hear this kind of guff, I’ve always felt, and it might help Lizzie flog a few more paintings).
So I say… ‘why don’t you say the skull painting is exploring your mortality and reflects the very real physical manifestation of darkness which you discovered to be growing inside you this year?’
Lizzie thinks about this for a moment… but then shrugs it off and instead simply writes ‘Thanks Corpse!’
I nod. A much better response.
A few moments later, Lizzie frowns and asks me: ‘do you think I should have used the exclamation mark?’
I shrug. Who knows? We’re both thinking the same thing. Anyone called Corpse anything (even Corpse Donkey) is probably pretty serious and maybe won’t like exclamation marks.
P. D. Clifton 
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