‘Esme. Darling!’
Esme swivelled around.
It was Bill, just as she remembered him, a bird of paradise, resplendent in a plum suit and turquoise shirt, polished loafers and no socks. Time had thickened his waistline and thinned his hair, which was slicked back in a pomaded cap. His bottle-thick glasses were as round as he was.
‘Hello, Bill!’ Esme went over to him, unsure how to greet him. A peck? Or a hug. The last time she’d seen him a decade ago, he had just been Godfather Bill. Now he was her boss.
Before she had time to decide, she was swept into the solid bulk of the man, his thick arms encircling and squeezing the very breath from her. He released her and waved his hand in front of his nose.
‘I can tell you have had a coffee! Oh, my. Here. Have a Polo. Still, there are those far greater than either of us who have worse than coffee-breath. My father’s halitosis? Urgh. Smells like a badger shat in his mouth. And there’s a principal Royal Ballet dancer… Well, you wouldn’t understand the source of his foul breath.’
Suki burst out laughing, ‘Bill! That’s no way to greet a lady. Poor Esme, you have embarrassed her.’
Esme crunched the mint. Forcing aside her awkwardness, she lifted her arm and sniffed her sweater ‘At least I don’t have BO.’
‘Ha! We are going to get on famously. We always did, when you and Sophia were girls. Do you recall the time we hid your hamster in the laundry basket? Poor Mrs Bee nearly had a heart attack.’ He pressed a fist against his wide grin and stood back. ‘How are you, my darling girl? Let me look at you.’
He spun her around, patting her down like a champion breed at Crufts.
‘My, how you have grown. What’s it been? Eight years?’
‘Probably.’
‘How do you like the gallery? Has Suki Su been looking after you? When did you get in?’
‘Seven thirty,’ she said. ‘And yes, the gallery is beautiful.’
‘Goodness, you’ve been loitering for hours. Have you seen your lodgings?’
She shook her head.
‘They’re not much, I’m afraid, but you can stay until the next waif blows in. I’m sure it won’t take long for you to find something more permanent, once you’ve sorted that death breath.’
Esme laughed. She could see why her father loved this man. And why Sophia worshipped the shag-pile carpet he walked on. Everything about him was over the top. Flamboyant, fabulous and warm. She was instantly in love.
‘So, where are your things? I’ll show you upstairs as Suki has clearly been too busy deciding if you are going to be competition for my affections.’
Suki looked at Esme and rolled her eyes. ‘You’re an evil queen, Bill.’
‘And that, my dear, is why I rule supreme on Jermyn Street. The gayest, and most expert eye in the art world.’
‘I’ve hardly brought a thing. Just a few changes of clothes. And my toothbrush, you’ll be happy to hear,’ said Esme.
‘Want to start afresh eh? I completely understand, my darling. All those useless toffs. Time for you to be introduced to the real world. My Javier is longing to meet you. He wants to take you on as a “project”, whatever that means. You will come for dinner with us tonight. We can catch up. The house is walking distance from here. Come at six thirty, we can have drinkies whilst Javier slaves over the hot stove.’
‘Sounds lovely. Thank you.’
‘Suki, was that delivered this morning?’ asked Bill, pointing at Esme’s wooden pallet.
‘It’s Esme’s.’
‘Yours? You brought that huge fucking thing all the way down from Scotland? I’m impressed by your tenacity. What is it?’
‘She doesn’t know,’ answered Suki.
‘Darling Suki, you wouldn’t know the Mona Lisa if it slapped you in the face.’
‘True,’ she said, no offence taken.
Esme realized you’d soon grow a thick skin working for Bill – and that his astonishing rudeness was matched by an equal warmth and joie de vivre. She felt instantly accepted and suddenly the thought of opening the painting didn’t send a chill through her. Still, she wondered how much Bill knew of the depth of the relationship between her family and the Culcairns. Her father might have been too ashamed to tell him of her mother’s affair with the Earl or the subsequent fall-out. She also knew Bill had curated an exhibition which included some of the castle’s equestrian paintings a few years back and that he and the Earl had a shared interest in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century portraiture. They had become friends in their own right so he might have heard a different story to her father’s.
‘Well, we better open it up and take a look,’ said Bill. ‘Your room can wait.’
Bill disappeared into the office and came back with a crowbar. Contrary to his camp demeanour, he attacked the wooden shell with the force and expertise of a lumberjack.
‘Your testosterone is off the chart today, Bill,’ said Suki.
Clearly, she and Bill had a thriving understanding and appreciation of each other which allowed them to get away with personal verbal assassinations. Esme chuckled.
Bill dropped his voice several octaves and growled.
‘C’mon, ladies. Don’t just stand there. Help me lever this thing open. You too, Esme, my honeypot.’
The three of them pulled and forced the planks to break apart.
‘There she is. Now careful. We don’t want to damage the canvas.’
They eased the picture out.
‘Deliver it like a baby. Forceps please, nurse,’ said Bill, taking hold of the crowbar that Suki handed to him.
Gently, he slid the picture from its protection. Esme held her breath. Bill lifted the painting up.
‘Christ alive,’ he breathed.
Chapter Two
No one spoke. The painting Bill held up was barely recognizable as a painting. Were it not for the frame, it might as well have been a piece of blackened chipboard.
‘This looks like a set piece from The Towering Inferno,’ Bill said, eventually.
Although Esme’s expectation had been low, her hopes had rested on something she could at least hang and admire. This made no sense. Why would the Earl bequeath a picture so damaged? One thing she knew for certain was that there was more to this picture than the charred wreck in Bill’s hands. There had to be. She hadn’t expected to get anything when he died but she was certain he wouldn’t have left this mess unless there was meaning to it. It wasn’t in his nature to play games. Unless this was all a cruel joke by the Contessa. Esme stood by Bill who was looking closely at the picture through a magnifying glass.
‘You see here?’ he said, pointing to a spot at the top of the canvas.
Esme could just make out the vague relief of brushstrokes.
‘It’s not beyond repair. The actual canvas is still intact. Looks more like smoke damage than anything sinister. Wait…’
Now inspecting the bottom right corner, he said in a whisper, ‘It’s been cut. Look.’
He stood back and gave Esme the glass. ‘Is that a signature?’
‘Could be, but whoever did this – and believe me it was deliberate sabotage – wanted to ruin the picture’s most obvious sign of authenticity. Very amateur. There are more subtle ways of ruining a work of art. And look at how fine and precise the cut is.’
Esme looked and said, ‘The edges are clean.’
‘Exactly. This was done after the fire damage discoloured it. My reckoning would be a Stanley knife. They didn’t have those in the eighteenth century.’
‘How do you know it’s eighteenth-century?’ asked Suki.
‘The frame. Classic French but still, that doesn’t mean the picture is by a French artist or indeed of the same date.’
Suki sighed. ‘Well, at least you won’t have to lug the thing around London anymore. There’s a skip in St James’s Square.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Suki. Have you learnt nothing since you’ve been here? Of course, it’s not going to the junkyard. Esme, you are going to
take this painting to my dear friend, Max Bliss.’
‘The restorer?’ said Suki.
‘Well, I’m not suggesting Esme take it to the bloody fishmonger,’ said Bill and turned to Esme.
‘Max is the most talented picture restorer working today. Rescued paintings by you name it – Leonardo, Gainsborough, Corot. He’s a genius and frightfully nice with it. A bit scatty but brilliant. He owes me a favour. If anyone can save your painting, it’s him.’
‘But what if it’s a dud underneath all that smoke? I’ll just be wasting his time,’ said Esme.
‘Anything with the Culcairn provenance won’t be a dud. As you know, that gloomy place holds one of the best private collections in the world.’
Esme had studied the castle’s paintings at all hours of the day and night, padding down the long corridors in the moonlight, the eyes of Culcairn ancestors watching over her. There was a painting to reflect and deflect every emotion. Where there was rage, Madonna gazed peacefully down at her newborn. Where there was sadness, Turner’s strokes frothed a sunlit sea into joyous life. Ugliness could be brushed away with the delicacy of Tiepolo’s luminous execution of form with colour. In the paintings, Esme was able to escape from the muddle of her family life and the toxicity doled out by the Contessa. In them she found calm. Some of the sitters had become friends to whom she could express herself without fear of judgement or reprisal. Forget about the famous ‘Munroe eye’, it was the collection at Culcairn which had instilled the love of art that ran in her blood.
Bill handed her the painting.
‘Keep it upstairs for now. I don’t want clients being put off.’
Bill flicked a flashy watch from his shirtsleeve.
‘Unfortunately, I have a meeting now that will most likely take all day. Suki, help Esme take her things up to the garret. Don’t expect too much. It has that dank, unlived-in feel but it’s cosy; barely big enough to swing a cat. And remember, you’re coming for supper with Javier and me this evening. See you tonight.’
Suki took Esme to her room. They climbed a narrow staircase, past a small landing with a closed door and red-wine stains and cigarette burns on the threadbare carpet outside.
‘Some people have no bloody respect. Uncouth guests come up here to smoke when there are too many people in the gallery.’
In sharp contrast to the spotless showroom, paint cracked and peeled away from the walls leaving the stairwell moth-eaten and derelict, so the faded charm of her top-floor room was a relief.
After giving her a one-second tour of the amenities, Suki left Esme to unpack. A Louis Vuitton trunk that had seen better days doubled up as a bedside table. She would put her clothes in it. Added to that she had a total of two plug sockets, a rickety bed and a hook on the back of the door with three coat hangers. At least she had a bathroom to herself. It was bigger than the bedroom with a panelled tub and skylight. Ancient bottles of Floris bath oils lined the edge of the bath. She picked one up. It was sticky with age and smelt more of cooking oil than the Rose Geranium printed on its label. But since there was no room for the painting in her bedroom, she set it down next to the loo. Appropriate place for the wretched thing, since it was now likely to be worth nothing more than the loo paper next to it.
She opened the window. There was no view, just a redbrick wall that looked like it needed repointing. Pockets of moss grew from cracks in the brickwork. Subsidence maybe, given Jermyn Street was built on an incline. The curtains were dated but she recognized them as classic David Hicks, a geometric design in varying shades of brown and orange. Not what Esme would have chosen but they were lined and thick enough for total blackout.
The bedcover was in the same fabric and reminded her of a ploughed field. Lying down, the mattress felt like it looked; a lumpy, unyielding pad of knotted horsehair that was more like sleeping in a ditch than on a divan. The springs no longer sprung but screeched like a crying baby. Oh well, she wouldn’t be in it much.
‘All settled?’ Suki came back in carrying a desk lamp. ‘Thought you could use this. Save you getting out of bed to turn the light out.’
The thing she held resembled no lamp she had seen before. It had a spaceship sphere aboard a reedy little stem which bent according to the desired angle.
Esme plugged into the wall. ‘Well, it works.’
‘It’s horrid, I know, but I thought we could nip out and buy a few things to brighten the place up.’
‘There’s not much point. I’m going to be sleeping here for such a short time and I’ll bring more stuff from Scotland once I’ve found somewhere permanent to live.’
Esme began the sentence to cover for having no money and then realized it was in fact true. And if she did end up staying here longer than planned, she may not have cash to splash but she knew she could ‘borrow’ some bits and pieces from her father’s business. Surplus furniture and objects from her parents’ former London home sat in profuse quantity at a warehouse in Peckham along with the countless shelves of antiques and collectables he was supposed to be selling on. Their London house in Pelham Place was the only one of her parents’ assets that her father had been willing to relinquish to pay for the school fees, domestic bills at The Lodge and his continued antique collecting. He had more than enough furniture and artwork to stock ten houses but flatly refused to put any of them up for auction saying they would always increase in value. He was a hoarder not through necessity but possessiveness and not a little pride. He liked being known for his brilliant eye and had to continue his charade with dealers that he was still flush with cash.
Esme had been ‘Christmas shopping’ at the warehouse a few times with her mother, who filched presents for her sisters and godchildren. ‘Daddy won’t notice, darling. He bought one chandelier only to buy an identical one a week later. He doesn’t care what he buys, just so long as he is spending. Far better to give these pretty things a happy home.’ Esme had seen the sad look in her mother’s eyes and realized she too was one of the pretty things left to linger unseen and unloved – little wonder she’d sought solace with the Earl.
Norman the warehouse manager was, like so many men, half in love with her mother. He had worked in the storage depot – part of the Munroe family business – for years. The warehouse and affiliated fine art transportation company housed and moved works all over the world. Her father joked that the humidity- and temperature-controlled Munroe lorries would keep a body in perfect condition for decades. If Diana decided she wanted a Raphael in holding for the National Gallery, Norman would have turned a blind eye as she popped it into the boot of her car. He adored Esme too, so surely having a few bits on loan would be no problem.
When she’d finished unpacking, she went back downstairs to set to work. The phone didn’t stop ringing from the moment she sat down. Unfamiliar with the flashing extension buttons she’d cut the first caller off.
‘Cartwright,’ she said as she’d tried again.
‘What happened?’ said a strong accent. ‘Is Bill there?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ apologized Esme, grateful the caller couldn’t see her blush. ‘I’m afraid not. May I take a message?’
‘It’s Serge. I’ve got news on the Claude.’
Esme scribbled his name and the time. It was ten thirty and a stack of messages had already built up.
‘May I take a surname?’
‘Très amusant, Suki…’
‘It’s not Suki. My Name is Esme. I’ve just stated working here.’
‘Ah. OK. If you could ask Bill to ring. Etienne is my surname.’
Esme reckoned she spoke to six different accents from around the world that first morning. Each individual must have been a multi-millionaire, considering the easy way they spoke about snapping up masterpieces and artists that commanded hundreds of thousands of pounds on their price tags. At one point there were three customers holding on the line and she felt like queen bee of a hive she had no control over. It wasn’t till noon that things calmed down and she was able to leave her desk.
‘Esme?’ shouted Suki.
‘Hang on, I’m just on the loo. Haven’t been since I arrived,’ she yelled back.
‘I’m coming up. It’s nearly one o’clock. Shall we grab some lunch?’ said Suki, a little breathless after the stairs.
‘Yes. I feel faint with hunger,’ said Esme, hanging a dress behind the door.
‘Let’s see that.’
Suki held up a floral printed frock.
‘Oh my God, Esme. You can’t possibly wear that. It’s so dated. Fine for tea with the vicar’s wife but not for London. Bill will have a coronary if he sees you in this sack. Fire you on the spot. We better go shopping at the weekend. I’ll bring some things of mine in until then. We’re about the same size.’
‘What’s wrong with it? I got it from Laura Ashley.’
‘Exactly,’ said Suki, tossing it on the bed. ‘Come on. We better go out now as we have to be back by two. You can wear my coat.’
Suki set the gallery alarm and locked the door.
Jermyn Street had filled up. A mass lunchtime exodus of office workers and gallery owners. They looked like pupils leaving school all in a uniform similar to Suki’s. A gaggle of big hair and navy blue. Esme was grateful for Suki’s mac.
The restaurant was a small Italian cliché, like the ones Esme had seen in films. Red-and-white check tablecloths and hurricane lanterns burning moodily despite it being the middle of the day. They were shown to a tiny table above which lopsided photographs littered the walls. A smell of thyme and wine wafted through the air. The Italian owner posed with friends in all of them. Esme recognized Francis Bacon in one and Michael Caine in another.
‘Do these people really come here?’ she asked Suki, pointing to another photo where the owner stood grinning next to Bill Wyman.
‘Not so much at lunchtime but during Wimbledon all the tennis players come here. Look. There’s Vitas Gerulaitis and I saw Roscoe Tanner in here once. Did you know his serves reach over 150 mph, 153 actually?’
Summer in Mayfair Page 3