Far West

Far West is a painting by Peter Lanyon that hangs in the drawing room at Wortalleth West, where it conceals a safe containing the switch for the panic-room door. In the novel, the work is both an object of aesthetic attention and part of a concealed access system: its blue and green forms invite Don Challenor to imagine open sky, while the wall behind it holds a mechanism with urgent consequences.

Identity and provenance

Jack Harkness identifies Far West as an abstract work by Peter Lanyon. He says that he owns a couple of Lanyon paintings, that another is in Zug, and that he gave a third to a friend; all, he says, are from the artist’s Cornish period. The painting at Wortalleth West is thus presented as one of several works associated with Harkness, rather than as an isolated possession. The evidence does not establish how it came to be hung in the house or when it was installed there.

Harkness connects Lanyon’s work to gliding, describing clarity, perspective, and freedom as what one finds in the sky, with wind as the only power keeping a glider aloft. He explains that a pilot unable to return to the aerodrome must land wherever possible, a field landing that can be rough or fatal if mishandled. He uses this image to describe his own predicament as a landing in an unexpected place. The painting therefore carries an association with flight that comes from Harkness’s account, not from any evidence that the work itself depicts a glider or a particular view.

The painting and the concealed safe

When Harkness is dying, he tells Don how to open the panic-room door: behind Far West, in the drawing room, is a safe; inside it is a switch, and throwing that switch opens the door. Don does not initially know how to operate the system, so Harkness supplies a sequence of practical instructions. The combination is a three-number date: the date Harkness says he killed Jory Fry, given as one, eight, seventy. The painting is consequently more than a visual cover. It marks the concealed route from the room’s visible furnishings to the safe and, through the switch, to the panic room.

Later, when Amos French demands that Don open the panic room, Don leads French and Gennady Zlenko into the lounge. He pauses before the painting and looks into its blue and green blocks of colour. For a moment, he imagines gliding peacefully above the Cornish coast, as Harkness has described Lanyon doing, and Harkness following that same imaginative path. The reflection does not provide Don with an escape: he recognizes that no flight path can carry him away from the immediate danger. The contrast is sharp. The image and Harkness’s story suggest movement through open air, but Don is caught in a room where the painting’s hidden function has made it a point of coercion.

Discovery and narrative function

Don lifts Far West from its hook and props it against the wall. Behind it, the safe is exposed: a grey steel box about two feet square, with a countersunk handle and a dial numbered from zero to a hundred. The description makes the concealed object materially specific, replacing the painting’s broad fields of colour with the safe’s measurable dimensions and mechanical face. French turns on Zlenko and asks why he failed to find it; Zlenko answers with a shrug. The concealed safe has been missed, and the painting’s ordinary position in the room has helped keep its presence unremarked.

The painting’s narrative importance lies in this double visibility. While it hangs in place, it is a work Harkness can discuss in terms of art, Cornwall, and gliding; it also hides the means of opening the panic room. Once Don removes it, the safe becomes visible, but the painting’s significance does not end with the reveal. It has brought Harkness’s image of a forced landing into the same space as the concealed mechanism and the danger surrounding Don. The object joins aesthetic perspective to physical access without making the two equivalent: the freedom Harkness associates with flight is unavailable to Don as he faces French’s demand.

Rehanging and concealment

After the immediate confrontation, Glenys Probert tells Don that he will have much to explain to the police. Don says he has something to do before they arrive. He lifts Far West back onto its hook, covering the safe again, and asks Glenys to say nothing about what lies behind the painting. She agrees. This is a deliberate restoration of the concealment, not an accidental return to the room’s previous arrangement. The scene does not explain Don’s full reason for keeping the safe hidden from the police, so the act remains significant as a choice without an explicitly stated motive.

Glenys then notices that the painting is hanging crooked, with its right side raised. Don adjusts the left side of the frame until it looks right to her. The small correction restores the painting’s appearance as a properly hung artwork even as it restores its role as a screen. Sirens are growing louder, and a police car has stopped outside the house; Don’s final attention to the frame takes place just before Glenys goes to let the officers in. Far West thus ends this sequence in its original visible position, its neat alignment masking the safe once more.