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THE HAMMERED HEART

A short story by Sharon Owens

 

It sat serenely in the window on a white podium made of polished opaque glass. A solid bronze heart studded all over with crooked nails and rusty rivets. Its mottled surface was a mixture of bottle green, burnished gold and chocolate brown. It was beautiful. Seven spotlights shone down upon it day and night.

 

Edmund wanted the heart. He wanted it badly. Edmund was an art lover. He saw the heart every morning on his way to work. And every evening on the way home again. The gallery was only three doors down from his bus stop. He knew the price of the Hammered Heart and he was saving hard to buy it. His only hope was that no other collector would beat him to it. The artist was clearly a genius. Soon his work would increase in value and Edmund would be priced out of the market forever.

 

Edmund had also taken a fancy to the girl who worked in the art gallery. Her shoes were bottle green, her hair was the colour of burnished gold and her eyes were a deep chocolate brown. She was beautiful, serene and expensive-looking. Edmund wanted to ask her out. “Would you like to go for a coffee sometime?” he said twice a day. But the words were only ever spoken inside his wildest dreams.

 

He didn’t know the girl’s name. She was younger than he was. Probably she was twenty-nine or thirty? Edmund was forty, recently divorced, slightly depressed and utterly broke. His ex-wife had kept the house. Even though she’d left him for a wealthy cardiac surgeon. Her two children from a previous marriage were taking their mother’s side in the divorce battle. They loved him still, he knew that. But life was easier all round if Edmund didn’t push for visiting rights.

 

He lived in a rented apartment on the Lisburn Road. His next-door neighbours were two chatty ladies from Seskinore. They winked at him sometimes in the pale blue corridor. But Edmund had no desire for any female company except for the girl in the gallery. Edmund worked in a hardware store. A bit of a comedown from the bank but what with the recession and all, regrettably, they’d had to let him go. And so he spent his working days in a light brown overall, weighing nails into plastic envelopes and stacking splintery planks in the storeroom. It wasn’t the worst job in the world. At least now he had time to think. At least he no longer had to watch the news to see how the money markets were doing.

 

One rainy day as Edmund was passing the gallery he noticed that the bronze heart was missing. The miniature spotlights shone down on the empty space where the heart had once sat. Edmund’s own heart convulsed and turned over. Had it been sold? He was still over a thousand pounds short of the asking price. Gasping with palpitations he pushed open the heavy glass door and entered the gallery. Silence enveloped him. There was a mixture of smells in the air: oil paint, emulsion paint, wood varnish, freshly brewed coffee, brick dust and his own desperation.

 

“Can I help you?” the girl said. Edmund swallowed hard.

“The heart?” he began.

“The Hammered Heart?” she said.

“Yes. Where is it?” Edmund said softly.

“Sold. It was sold yesterday.”

“Oh I see.”

“I’m sorry. Did you have your eye on it?”

“Perhaps,” Edmund admitted.

“We have other works by that artist,” she smiled.

“I wanted the heart.”

She seemed to understand his disappointment.

“Would you like a coffee? I’m Catherine, by the way.”

“I’m Edmund… Are you sure about the coffee?”

“Yes. It’s only a coffee.”

“Even if I’m not buying anything today?”

“Of course. It’s all part of the service. Plus it’s fairly quiet at the moment. The recession and so on... Take a chair, won’t you? I’ll just fetch us a cup each. Milk and sugar?”

“Neither. Thank-you very much.”

 

As Edmund and Catherine sat sipping their coffee and talking about art the phone rang. Catherine got up to take the call and as Edmund watched her he almost decided he was going to tell her how he felt. “I’ve had my eye on you for six months,” Edmund said, but it was only in his imagination.

“Well, you won’t believe who that was,” Catherine said when she came back to the seating area.

“Who?”

“The buyer of the Hammered Heart. He’s changed his mind.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He’s a cardiac surgeon, isn’t that very appropriate?”

Edmund spilt some tea on the polished wooden floor.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “My heart slipped. I mean my hand slipped.”

“I’ll get a cloth,” she said calmly.

Soon the floor was immaculate again.

“Yes, the surgeon said his girlfriend didn’t like the sculpture when he showed her the picture in the brochure. So he doesn’t want it now.”

“So that means there’s a chance for me?” Edmund laughed.

“If you like? It’s still here in the gallery. Would you like to see it?”

“I would,” Edmund said, thinking frantically about selling his collection of Jazz  records. Or asking his old bank for a loan.

“It comes with its own metal box,” she added. “It’s meant to be kept locked in the box. When it’s sold, I mean. It’s not meant to be on show, not ever. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t think precious things should be kept locked away,” Edmund said quietly.

“Neither do I,” she said meaningfully. They looked at one another for a few moments.

“I’ll come back next Saturday,” Edmund said at last.

“I’ll be looking out for you,” she said, smiling.

They said goodbye and she held the door open for him. Outside the rain had stopped. Edmund suddenly felt as if his own heart had been set free.

 

THE END