The Art of Deception

by The Art of Deception (retail) (epub)

  The little picture glowed, hanging alone on its own wall. I hardly need to describe it, the image is so well known. It shows the head and shoulders of a woman who is turning her head over her left shoulder, gazing directly at the viewer, with a faintly questioning expression. One hand is raised to her breast, holding the lapels of the eponymous jacket together, revealing the underside of the reveres. The air is filled by a cold, clear light falling through an invisible window on the left side of the panel. The handling of the paint produces a soft luminosity, which seems to surround the woman on all sides. Tiny dabs of paint along her nose, on the fullness of the lower lip, on the pearl in her ear, give a vibrant radiance to the painting. The pelisse is of golden brown silk and the light glosses it and picks out fine individual strands of its fur lining, so that they shine like gold wires. All the recognised qualities of the painter are there.

  In its new position, literally seen in a new light, the picture had a different aspect. Had it been cleaned, I wondered. It was stupendously beautiful, and yet, and yet… I felt uneasy, as if a trick was being played on me. The woman’s gaze was too limpid, too innocent. There was something wrong. I stepped closer, to search for a reason for my gut feeling and noticed the coarseness of the brush strokes on the face, the uncharacteristic clumsiness of the rendering of the hand.

  A heavy footstep could be heard. I turned from Vermeer’s harmonious world, now dissonant, to see Minna Horndeane. I glanced at my watch.

  ‘Minna, am I late? I was distracted by your pictures.’

  ‘Not late yet,’ Minna said. ‘But I decided not to let you be. I’ve a busy afternoon ahead.’

  I had known Minna for years and our relationship had always been amicable but not close, partly because she was a good twenty years older than me and partly because I was not beholden to her. She was an example of a female academic of her generation, extremely clever, probably cleverer than most of her male contemporaries, with the self-confidence to back her artistic judgements. She had adopted the strategy of androgyny, you could almost say drag, and wore grey suits and black brogues. Her cuboid body was topped with a wild brush of brindled curls. She was often seen in the company of her dog, Berenson. I am not sure of his breed; with his rough grey-brown coat, deep bark and overpowering personality, he was uncannily like his owner.

  Minna was by now extremely eminent, almost pre-eminent, among art historians in London. She belonged to a certain generation and the radical interdisciplinary interpretations of the feminist or social anthropological schools had barely penetrated her consciousness. Yet she was still highly honoured for her extensive and often pioneering work in the past and for her power. She sat on the boards of museums and government heritage committees. She had produced throughout her working life a steady stream of publications, including one major three-volume work on Dutch genre painting of the Golden Age. She had also developed a highly regarded postgraduate seminar at the Foundation. In this way she knew generations of young art historians, had hand-picked many of those who had continued in the discipline, whether as academics or with the great sales houses. She and her ex-pupils formed a powerful clique in the art world. In short, Minna was a formidable woman, important to placate, dangerous to offend. As I have explained, I came to art history in an indirect fashion, through medicine and psychology and through my family’s art collection. I did not need Minna’s patronage, but nor did I want to antagonise her.

  She led me away from the Lady in a Pelisse, saying, ‘You’ve just been visiting my favourite, I see.’

  ‘I was looking for the van den Bergh Courtesan which you’ve rehung.’

  ‘A long time ago. It shows how often you come here, Nicholas.’ We had reached the lift and stepped inside, joining a slight man, carrying an elegant leather folder under one arm. He had a thick head of wavy grey hair and a distinguished face, with flaring, up-cut nostrils. The doors slowly closed on us, trapping us uncomfortably close within the steel box.

  ‘Do you two know one another?’ Minna said in her abrupt manner. ‘Nicholas Ochterlonie; Anthony Watendlath. He’s come from America to be my deputy. He’s a great computer man, wants my job.’

  Her remarks, unintelligible in detail, were eloquent about the state of relations between them. We acknowledged the introduction with nods. He so studiously refused the initiative that I wondered if they were on speaking terms.

  ‘How are the applications going?’ Minna went on. ‘Anthony’s starting up an undergraduate course.’ Still no reply from her deputy.

  ‘Remind me, Minna,’ I said, to fill in the awkward pause, ‘of the provenance of the Vermeer.’

  Scholars on the whole have slow reactions. They take time to absorb new material, working out the implications for their own ideas. My enquiry was, I suppose, an implicit questioning of Minna’s favourite, but it was voiced in the most casual way. Her reaction was one of rage, impressive for its immediacy and disproportionate force. Her broad face, too close to mine, became even more florid.

  “You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘All those questions were settled years ago. No one, but no one, has queried that picture in thirty years.’

  I saw Watendlath looking drily from her to me and back. He smiled, a reverse smile, formed by turning down the corners of his mouth.

  The doors opened on the fifth floor. Watendlath ostentatiously permitted me to precede him out of the lift. Minna marched ahead, shouldering open the door to her office. Berenson was lying beneath his mistress’s desk. He got up, wagging his tail in foolish amiability. Long-practised, I warded him off as he rushed forward to thrust his nose into my genitals. Minna accepted his greeting, patting his rough head, and sat down heavily, regarding me masterfully from behind the desk.

  ‘I’m telling you, Nicholas, not to start on this.’

  ‘Minna, I’m not starting on anything. I just asked where the picture came from. Let’s leave it. I can look up the literature any time.’

  She did not look mollified and our meeting, about something quite different, a conference to be held in Moscow the following year, did not pass compliantly.

  That evening I gave my first lecture. As usual, the Coulounieix committee gave a drinks party beforehand to open the series, and many of the eminent and even the smart turned up. Probably because of the events of the previous night, I felt more than usually detached from what was going on around me. I shook hands in a vague professorial way with people who had crowded into the hall in the Senate House to drink warm white wine. Fortunately, my sense of experiencing everything at long range diminished once I stood at the podium and looked around the lecture hall. The semi-circular tiers were well filled. My cousin Jamie and his wife, Sibyl, were there in support. I saw Anthony Watendlath settling, with a look of bright expectation, into one of the seats on the front row, which are always the last to be filled in English lecture halls. Just before I began, Prisca swept in and joined him there. No Minna.

  The Lady in a Pelisse must have made a deeper impression than I realised, coalescing with other questions of identity, of another woman in a fur coat, playing one of those mental tricks that artists exploit. For as I was speaking, I saw how my reaction to the picture illustrated a point about the visual judgement of a work of art. It was a passing example, an unscripted remark, when one looks up from one’s notes for longer than usual in order to speak directly to the audience, fixing one’s eyes on a particular face. I could not see the one I was looking for.

  ‘… Take the Vermeer in the Litvak Foundation that we all know so well. When we look at it, are we really seeing what we think we see? Do we revere it because of the label attached to it or for what it is? Is it by Vermeer, or someone else and if the latter, does it matter, in the aesthetic sense, rather than the financial, of course. It is this question which, with the growth of popular culture in this century has teased artists in producing and reproducing: Marilyn Monroe, cartoons, baked bean cans…’

  Because it was delivered in this manner, it was not part of my text and I could nev
er remember afterwards exactly what I had said. But what I had meant and what had been understood was clear: the Lady in a Pelisse was not what it was believed to be. I moved on to the rest of my discourse, thinking no more about it.

  4

  The lecture was over. It had been well received and I was almost satisfied with it myself, but I needed someone with whom to share my triumph. As I dropped my keys into the drawer of the hall table in my mother’s flat, a loose key, a stranger, fell with the others. As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was. I remembered slipping it awkwardly into my pocket as I pushed open the door of the flat opposite, just before my companion stumbled out of my arms and onto the floor. I picked it up again, resolving to go down later and give it to Victor, or at least ask him who was in charge across the landing.

  As I moved around the flat, turning on lights, the television, pouring myself a drink, I was aware of the key in my pocket. After I had eaten, I telephoned the hospital to ask after Miss Bennet. At last, I let myself out of the flat. On the landing, in front of the lift, I hesitated, though I don’t know why. I had intended all along to do it.

  I am a prudent man and I began by ringing the doorbell, twice. I could hear its sound within, but no answering footsteps. This precaution taken, I inserted the key into the lock and opened the door.

  The hall was dark, but a lamp shone in the corner of an adjoining room. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. I found myself in a large space rising to double height, with a gallery on the floor above, reached by an open, curving staircase. The previous night I had not had time to observe that it was furnished with statues, each of exceptional quality. There was a boddhisatva with a tranquil moon face standing almost four feet tall to welcome new arrivals. On a plinth was a pregnant woman sitting cross-legged, carved in smooth, dark green marble. I stroked each one suspiciously, unwilling to believe that they were what they appeared to be.

  I walked through an archway into the drawing room and in the half-light I could only make out certain details: a Turkey carpet in ruddy pinks, large sofas, a glass coffee table, a huge vase of lilies like sculpture, a marble fireplace and gilt mirror above it. The room was conventional enough. What lifted it above what could be expected in every other drawing room in the block was the painting on the inside wall above one of the sofas. The vibrant colours of Matisse were unmistakable.

  I saw that an area the equivalent of double my mother’s flat had been completely opened out and redefined. The design was excellent and there were some superb pieces. Or were they copies? Doubt assailed me, at seeing so much in one room. The place had been put together by someone with a passion for colour and a strong sense of space and mass. There was, however, something synthetic about the whole, as if one had stepped into a stage set, the falseness lying not so much in its inauthenticity as its theatricality.

  When I had opened the door I had meant to learn what I could about the beautiful Julian Bennet by peering into her flat. I had almost forgotten about her in the interest of the apartment itself and I could see no reason, now I had made the first step into the forbidden, to halt in the entrance hall.

  After visiting the kitchen and dining room, like a tourist in a National Trust house, I started up the stairs to the gallery. The first room I came to was an office. A computer sat blankly on the desk with its modem and fax. Filing cabinets were marshalled along the walls, with shelves of box files above them. I could gain no idea of what business was carried on there from loose papers or jottings on the telephone pad, faxes recently arrived: there were none. Everything was filed away with fanatical neatness. I only glanced around, before walking back along the gallery to the bedrooms, flicking on lights with the confidence of a resident. Even here, I was glad to see, whoever had designed the place had not lost his grip. The first room was strongly coloured (a rather acid blue-green, that I was not sure I could sleep with) and contained one important piece of furniture (an inlaid French bed with scrolled ends placed lengthways to the wall). The second bedroom contained a tallboy with oval medallions on the doors and, as I saw when I looked inside, a magnificent array of drawers and pigeon holes.

  I opened the final door, which I took to be Julian Bennet’s own bedroom, with some anticipation. I had no chance to admire the decoration, for the first thing I saw was a naked man lying face-down on the bed, asleep. The room was not lit, but the curtains were undrawn, so light from the square lay across the room, drawing it in black and white.

  I am not someone who is stimulated by shock or fear. Instead, I become icy cold, slower in my movements while my brain races. I began my retreat immediately, with great care. At the same time I observed all the details of the scene. He was a tall man, as tall as me, with fine pale hair and very white skin. He was thin, with hollows on the outer curve of each buttock. One knee was drawn up, the foot tense, about to kick out. I could not see his face at all. His arms were thrown above his head, his hands loosely rolled into fists. Clothes were strewn around the room, as if he had torn them off and thrown himself down: a leather jacket, a pair of black jeans. Even his watch lay on the floor beside the bed. I retreated from the room backwards, not taking my eyes off him, as if by looking at him I could compel his unconsciousness.

  Closing the front door, I remembered the rectangular box on the bedside table, with a tongue of foil sticking out from between the open cardboard flaps. He must have taken a sleeping pill, which had obliterated the natural defences of recognition of unaccountable noise. I stood innocently in front of the lift, feeling my heart beating above its normal rate and my breathing more rapid than usual.

  Downstairs, Victor was reading his book. I laid the key in front of him.

  ‘I held onto this last night. Is there anyone I should give it to?’

  He made no attempt to touch it. ‘I don’t know who it’d be.’ We looked at the object between us. ‘If I was you, I’d keep it and hand it back to her when she comes out of hospital. You’re as trustworthy as anyone.’

  I picked it up again. Did Victor know about the man asleep in her bedroom? Had his discretion reached the point of complete noninvolvement? And if so, why, in this case? He had always revealed himself so helpful to my poor mother. A guarded expression descended on his face when I asked him directly if there was anyone else living there.

  ‘No,’ he said without hesitation. ‘She’s alone. There’s no one else there.’

  ‘Has anyone enquired after her?’ I asked. ‘Any family who should be told?’ He stared back at me.

  ‘No one, sir.’ Then, as if he could not prevent himself from asking, ‘Any news, is there?’

  ‘I phoned this morning and they said she was comfortable. Whatever that means. They never tell you much, hospitals.’

  ‘No, well, they can’t be too careful. You never can tell, can you?’

  His conventional phrases seemed loaded with significance that evening. His expression was bland, refusing to know.

  That experience, my first essay into if not criminal, at least dishonourable, behaviour, should have warned me to abandon my interest in Julian Bennet. I should have sent flowers to the hospital and returned to the comfortable London condition of not knowing my neighbour. If we had met in the lift from time to time we would have greeted one another as good friends, for people who have been through a mugging together are bound to feel a certain camaraderie. But nothing more than that was called for. And I did try to behave in this conventional fashion. I did not go again to the hospital, though I couldn’t prevent myself from phoning daily to ask about her progress.

  Looking back at this period, I ask myself where I stepped over the line, when did I cease to act reasonably. The key had tempted me. I took it and opened the door voluntarily. The action was not only wrong, it was unwise, but I could not stop myself. Time and again, in the weeks that followed, I made resolutions that I would not do something that was unreasonable. Yet I found myself, as if without my own volition, acting in ways quite contrary to my overt determination, as though a subterranean pe
rsonality, with a force much stronger than my usual self, emerged at crucial moments and took over my actions. The first time that this happened, when I clandestinely entered Julian’s flat, I told myself it was an aberration, which would never happen again. Far from being an aberration, it was the start of a pattern.

  5

  In the days immediately after my first Coulounieix lecture several people reacted to my comments on the Lady in a Pelisse. A curator from Edinburgh said in passing, as she congratulated me afterwards, that she, too, had always had doubts about the work and weren’t there any tests. Anthony Watendlath rang me the next day to applaud my lecture and say that more work was needed on the Vermeer.

  Minna had had her spies there. Who had reported to her with a summary of what I had said, including my unscripted remark about the Vermeer, I do not know. It could have been any one of the considerable number of her ex-students, fellow-trustees, -board and -committee members among the audience. Whether Minna took the next step herself or encouraged someone else to do it, again I never discovered. My cousin’s wife, Sibyl, a sculptress and always well informed about the art world, alerted me to what had happened. She rang early the following week and I know the eagerness with which I answered the phone was not because I expected to hear my cousin’s voice.

  “You saw that piece in the Standard, about your lecture?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’ve done something to offend Minna Horndeane. What have you been up to?’

  “What was it about, Sibyl? What did Minna say?’

  ‘It was just one of those diary pieces, saying that you attacked London’s favourite painting, the Vermeer, they call it Girl in a Fur, “without rhyme or reason”, yes, I promise you, “without rhyme or reason”.’ I could hear the disdainful quotation marks enclosing the cliche. Then they asked Minna for her opinion.’ There was a rustling of newspaper. ‘She says nothing to defend the picture; she just says, well basically, that you don’t know what you’re talking about.’