Meeting Francis.

   

Meeting Francis Bacon wasn’t too difficult. Simon simply wandered into the Colony Room. He knew he would have to take some abuse from the regulars but he figured he could hold his own. Bacon wasn’t there when he went in so he ensconced himself in a corner and waited. He got a few funny looks from Muriel Belcher but nobody talked to him.

Then Francis came in. Very drunk. Just sold a painting. Ordered champagne for everybody. Simon managed to introduce himself to no obvious effect. He was not invited to the ‘oyster nosh’ at Wheelers.

The pay-off came some time later when he saw Bacon negotiating the escalator at South Kensington Station. They walked together to the artist’s studio at which point Bacon asked Simon who the fuck he was and what did he want. Simon muttered something about being a friend of John Deakin. Totally untrue.

‘Deakin doesn’t have any fucking friends.’

Simon followed the painter up a steep narrow staircase to a kind of studio loft crammed with stretchers, paints, brushes. There were photographs pinned to the walls. Books, stacks of newspapers and magazines everywhere. The floor was covered with newspaper clippings, paint cans and boxes.

Simon found himself staring at a large screaming Pope.

‘Should make a few waves don’t you think?’ said Bacon, ‘Shock the bastards. People disgust me you know, but still I need to connect. One tries to get close to whatever it is. Painting helps. Sometimes they work but I generally destroy the bloody things.’

‘I’d love to own one,’ said Simon. ‘Any chance of buying a reject?’

‘Are you queer at all?’

‘Pretty sure I’m not,’ Simon said.

‘Pity’ said Bacon. ‘I could use a good whipping.’

Thus it was that Simon acquired his study of Henrietta Moraes.