‘Delectable,’ says John Quiss, as he examines Tilda. ‘Such delicate flesh tones. The moulding of the cheeks is particularly fine.’
He sits himself down at the kitchen table. So Laura was wrong, and it’s not some harmless local clergyman that I saw worshipping her pictures. It’s the deadly John Quiss, the art hisorian who knows everything.
I make some coffee. I think it’s coffee I’m making – it may be an infusion of rat poison – I can’t really see what I’m doing. The calm resignation I achieved when the horror in prospect seemed to be marriage counselling has been replaced by the most intolerable anxiety yet. Did he see the Merrymakers?
I try to keep a grasp on plausibility. It’s really not possible. She can’t have taken him upstairs! Or can she?
‘We’ve been meaning to ask you over ever since we came down,’ says Kate.
‘I know – I couldn’t wait any longer! I adore seeing the insides of other people’s houses.’
He glances round the homely confusion of the kitchen with carefully imprecise benevolence. ‘Lovely things,’ he says. ‘But I think the most important piece is your beautiful little daughter. I have to confess I really came over to look at your neighbour’s house. I gather I have you to thank for that. Mr Churt rang and said you’d been kind enough to mention my name.’
Of course. It was Kate who put Tony on to him. It’s the most monstrous betrayal she could have committed. It makes her imaginary grievance against me even more outrageous. But did he see the Merrymakers?
‘I’m so sorry,’ says Kate, without so much as a glance at me. ‘I don’t know how he got hold of you – I simply mentioned your name. I didn’t mean him to go badgering you.’
‘No need to apologize!’ he cries. ‘I know most of us hate being asked to tell people how much their ghastly heirlooms are worth. But I adore it! I always spring into the saddle and pedal off with the utmost alacrity – it’s such a chance to peek and pry! Anyway, there’s always the hope you might find something lovely.’
And has he? He might simply have asked to use the bathroom, it occurs to me, then taken off on his own tour of inspection …
‘I assume you’ve been in and done your stuff already,’ he says to Kate.
‘We had to go to dinner,’ she says ruefully.
‘Oh, you poor loves!’ he cries. ‘Peeking ‘s one thing – eating’s another. I always decline the honour. Simply hop on my bike and drop in. So you sat there all night with those dreadful people – and all an utter waste of time, because of course he didn’t trust you. They never know who to trust, people like that! So they end up advertising their wares to every shark in the business.’
Whether he humorously means to include himself among the predators I’m not sure. But has he seen it?
‘Anyway,’ he says to Kate, ‘what did you make of it all?’
He speaks as lightly as before, but now I detect a shadow of seriousness, even anxiety, in his voice. He wants to know Kate’s assessment almost as much as I want to know his. This is why he’s come here. It’s not a social visit. He thinks he’s on to something. He’s desperate to make sure that no one else is.
‘I didn’t really look at anything,’ says Kate. ‘I’m no good at these games. Martin was quite interested, though.’
Quiss turns to me, surprised. I think he’d forgotten that this silent figure fussing with the coffee pot was a part of the household.
‘I didn’t know you were one of us,’ he says. ‘I thought you were something respectable. A philosopher or a bookmaker or whatever.’
I shrug. ‘Slight amateur interest.’
‘Oh, my God,’ he says, ‘that’s what really puts the wind up the pros – the thought of some amateur pipping them to the post.’
I smile politely. He’s seen something, I’m sure of that now.
‘So what do you make of the mighty Giordano?’ he asks. ‘Why is it bulging about in the breakfast-room like that? The poor love looks as if she’s being crucified. Is it on the HP? Are they hiding it from the repo man?’
From creditors of some sort – yes, very possibly, now I come to think about it.
‘I’m not a great fan myself,’ says Quiss. ‘Fa Presto, by all means – fa as presto as possible. But he always seems more like Fra Pesto to me. Forty different kinds of pasta, but the same jar of Marks and Spencer’s sauce poured over all of it. What about the other bits and pieces, though? Anything of interest there, do you think?’
The other bits and pieces – this is what he wants to know about. ‘No idea,’ I say.
‘Not making any offers yourself, then?’ he persists.
I smile, and shake my head.
‘Well …’ says Kate, frowning.
It’s not my dishonesty that’s going to finish us – it’s her honesty. Quiss looks at her, then at me, waiting for us to agree on our story.
‘I said I’d look around,’ I say finally. ‘See if I could find anyone interested.’
‘And have you?’ His curiosity is getting slightly beyond polite limits.
I hand him his coffee, and smile.
‘I see,’ he says. He glances at Kate, then back at me. ‘What, someone in the Bahamas? Some little tax dodge?’
Kate looks at me as well. The idea hadn’t occurred to her before, any more than it had to me before Laura mentioned it.
‘Not anyone in the Bahamas,’ I smile. But what I’m thinking is: did it occur to him so readily because this is what he’s proposing?
‘So which one are you trying to shift?’ he asks. ‘The Pesto?’
‘Milk?’ I ask.
‘Thank you. Or one of the others?’
All pretence of polite conversation has broken down. I feel licensed to respond in kind. ‘Which one are you proposing to shift?’ I ask rudely.
For a moment he gazes straight at me, trying to decide how seriously to take me. Then he smiles. ‘How flattering,’ he says. ‘I’m afraid I’m merely a humble woodsman in the groves of academe.’
He sips his coffee for a moment, then abandons me and turns back to Kate.
‘Not some great bosom pal of yours, is he, Mr Churt?’ he asks Kate. ‘No, of course not. Heartbreaking, that house, you know. I believe they had several really rather good pieces at one time. All gone to feed the pheasants. Fool of a man, by all accounts. Not that I’ve actually met him. Only the chatelaine in residence when I called.’
He laughs. ‘I don’t know what to make of her,’ he says. ‘Rather a … what shall I say …? Rather a juicy little number, isn’t she?’
Kate smiles tautly, and doesn’t look at me. ‘Is she?’ she says.
He laughs again. ‘Actually she wasn’t entirely on her own. Some gentleman upstairs when I arrived. Certain amount of excitement and shouting going on up there.’
Kate gives another of her dreadful little smiles.
‘It was probably just the plumber,’ says Quiss. ‘Working himself up over the plumbing. I must keep my somewhat rococo imagination under control. Though when the good lady eventually came downstairs I couldn’t help feeling she seemed a trifle distraite.’
He looks at me. I smile in my turn. I assume he’s not suggesting that there was anything familiar about the voice. In my anxiety about Quiss’s artistic discoveries I’d forgotten about my ill-timed suggestion to the dogs. Something to do with shoving their snouts elsewhere, I recall. It was a more apposite suggestion than I realized at the time. I feel like offering it again. In the end, though, Tilda wordlessly makes much the same proposal herself. Quiss sniffs and then delicately coughs. ‘I think I’d better change her,’ says Kate.
After he’s gone a silence settles over the cottage. Kate and I both have a lot to think about.
Halfway through the afternoon she speaks. ‘So it’s in the bedroom now?’ she asks politely.
No reply seems to be necessary. Around teatime, though, I initiate a short conversation.
‘It’s the picture I’m after,’ I explain. ‘Not her.’
‘S
o I assume,’ she replies, as politely as before. ‘But maybe they come as a pair.’
As we sit at dinner she tries again. ‘You’d better go back tomorrow‘, she says helpfully, ‘and find out how far John got with them both.’
I think about this for some time. ‘Thank you,’ I say finally.
‘No – I just want to get the whole thing over as soon as possible.’
Actually, it’s not the thought of his having seen it and recognized it that’s preoccupying me by this time. It’s an even more disturbing possibility: that he’s seen it and not recognized it.
The Land-Rover’s in the yard at Upwood next morning, but once again it’s Laura who opens the door to me.
She smiles helplessly; she’s undisguisably happy to see me – and I, of course, am helplessly pleased by her helpless pleasure. ‘He’s in the breakfast-room,’ she says quietly. All the way up through the woods I’ve been planning the kiss to greet her with, trying to design something that will strike the exact balance of closer acquaintance and continuing emotional distance, but before I can execute the graceful compromise I’ve settled for she’s glanced over her shoulder, then pulled the door to behind her, stretched up and kissed me. It’s very swift and light, but it’s on my lips instead of on her left cheek, and it’s not at all what I had in mind.
Disconcerting as this is, it’s a relatively minor setback. What I’ve also been planning, more importantly, is how to find out if Quiss saw the Merrymakers, but without suggesting any misleading curiosity about the degree of intimacy he achieved with her, or any pressing interest in the picture itself. What I’m going to do is this: I’m going to ask what he thought about the dog picture on the stairs. If he didn’t get as far as that, he plainly never reached the bedroom.
‘Listen,’ I begin at once, before any interruption or distraction can occur. But she puts her finger to my lips, as she did before. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she says, keeping her voice down. ‘It was all my fault. I’m feeling horribly ashamed of myself.’
I’m lost. I don’t know what’s happening. My carefully planned speech has become undeliverable after the first word.
‘Yesterday,’ she explains softly. ‘Springing on you like that. As soon as I saw the look on your face, I realized – I’d fucked it up once again. So stupid! It’s just that … I didn’t know what else to do! People round here – well, they expect it. That’s how they pass the time when there’s no shooting … Oh, my God, now you’re looking all shocked and disapproving again. You’re not like that – I know, I know. Obviously. One look at you and I should have realized. I suppose I thought, well, intellectuals – everyone knows what they get up to. Just shows how ignorant I am. Playing way out of my league, that’s the trouble.’
She smiles ruefully.
‘Please!’ I babble, and I think what a fool I made of myself yesterday, what a chance I threw away. ‘For heaven’s sake! Entirely my fault! I’m sorry! Let’s just forget about it! Listen …’
She closes my lips again. Not with her finger this time, but with another quick kiss.
‘And you were so sweet about it!’ she says. ‘Only now you’re going to think that’s what I’m like, and I’m not, as a matter of fact, I’m absolutely not. I really would like to … well, just be ordinary together. Just talk about things. Anything. Pictures. I really would like to know about pictures! And your work, your normalism thing. Everything. I mean, I understand about Kate, and so on. I don’t want to cause any trouble. I’d just like to be friends.’
Friends, yes. Why not? A few simple but enjoyable tutorials on art and philosophy, pretty much as I’d imagined to myself that first evening. What do I feel about this sudden access of moderation? Relief, I suppose. Also a simultaneous stab of disappointment. Plus a suspicion that I’m being somehow made use of in her ongoing private war against Tony. That once again it’s not I her, as I’d supposed, but she me – that it’s yet another of the nightmare shifts from nominative to accusative that are undermining my position in the world.
One other thing I certainly feel: an almost overwhelming sense of her physical proximity. She’s wearing one of her oversized sweaters again. Dark blue, this time, and made of some very soft wool. She’s so close to me that I have the warmth of it on me. We’re standing there in the porch, with the wind rippling the water in the puddle behind me, and the front door pulled to behind her, and her grey-faced, razor-nicked husband presumably somewhere not far behind the door, and all I can think of is the softness and warmth and abundance of her.
Well, this is almost all I can think of. I make a great effort to concentrate on the other topic of the day.
‘Listen,’ I say, but under the pressure of events the carefully planned casual legato I had in mind has somehow become abrupt and staccato. ‘The dog. On the stairs. The picture. That man. Did he see it?’
‘What, yesterday?’ she says, puzzled. ‘That little art person?’
‘What did he say? Did he say anything? About the dog? On the stairs?’
She frowns. ‘It’s the dog you’re interested in, is it? I thought you seemed rather taken with it.’
‘No, no. I just wondered. Did he see it? The dog?’
She suddenly laughs. ‘Or do you mean did I take him upstairs as a substitute for you?’
‘No, no …’
‘You’re worried about that little man with the ears?’ she asks incredulously.
‘Of course not. I just wondered … if he said anything. About the dog.’
She gazes at me, smiling rapturously. I’m evidently jealous. I’m even jealous of a little man with ears the size of rhubarb leaves who’s patently never so much as cast an unchaste look at a woman in his life. April for her has suddenly turned to May. ‘What about the one in the bedroom?’ she says. ‘Don’t you want to know what he said about that?’
I laugh. I can’t think of any other answer. No, as a matter of fact I can. I stop laughing.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘What did he say about it?’
Now it’s her turn to laugh. She presses her index finger against the tip of my nose. ‘I’m not going to tell you.’ she says.
There’s a huge snuffling and snorting around my knees, a massive wetness of muzzle and thrashing of tail. The front door’s open behind her, and Tony Churt’s standing on the threshold.
I start back. He starts back. What I’m trying to do is to get my nose away from Laura’s finger. What he’s trying to do is to conceal something behind his back. It leaps out of his hands, though, describes a yellow curve through the air, then comes slithering across the porch to my feet.
‘Martin knows all about your other art person coming here,’ says Laura calmly, as Tony joins the dogmass scrabbling around my feet. She’s addressing him, but keeping her eyes on me, and still helplessly smiling. ‘He’s terribly jealous.’
‘Second opinion,’ says Tony, as the yellow object escapes him again. ‘I always get a second opinion.’
He stands up. He’s balancing a wet bar of yellow soap on the bristles of an upturned nail brush.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says, ‘it’s her Crabtree & Evelyn. Ithought I might just have a little go with it. If it’s safe enough for her to soap her tits with, then it’s not going to eat through paintwork.’
‘I thought some great expert told you not to touch the thing?’ says Laura. ‘Why do you waste people’s time asking for their advice if you’re not going to take it?’ She turns to me. ‘He’s getting obsessed with that picture. He still thinks it’s a Rembrandt or a van Dyck or something.’
‘Well, it’s certainly not what it says on the label,’ says Tony. ‘I’ve ploughed through the complete works of your friend Mr Vrancz, and even I can see it’s nothing like him. A little splash of soap and water, and I think it may turn out to be a … you know …’
I wait with sinking heart.
‘Who do I mean?’ he demands.
Nothing in the code of practice I’ve agreed with myself says that I have to read his unarticula
ted thoughts for him. I wonder whether to suggest one of the Valckenborch brothers, or Mompers, attributions which are just about imaginable. But Tony’s never heard of Mompers or the Val-ckenborches. There’s only one remotely plausible author of this work whose name he has heard of, and even if I don’t say it he’s just about to.
He gazes frowning into the distance, and at last the word forms itself on his lips. ‘Fuck,’ he says.
I’m so relieved that it’s not the name I was expecting that for a moment I’m ready to endorse the attribution. Then the dogs rush barking off into the distance and I realize that he’s gazing at something behind my back. I turn to look. Another four-wheel-drive is bumping over the potholes towards us. A much larger, cleaner, more modern and streamlined one than Tony’s.
‘Fuck,’ says Tony to himself again. ‘Oh, fuck!’
Out of the car, bizarrely, climbs Tony Churt. A much larger, cleaner, more modern and streamlined Tony Churt than Tony Churt himself. Not painted in yellowy-brown ochres, like the old Tony Churt, but in a discreet dark blue that matches the new four-wheel-drive. Dark blue blazer, well filled with flesh. Dark blue vertical stripes on the shirt clashing impressively with the light blue diagonal stripes on the dark blue regimental tie. A study in exotic indigo and expensive ultramarine. And above the shirt, where the old Tony Churt has tried to set off the overall brown of his colour scheme with a face of azurite blue-grey, this new Tony Churt achieves the contrast no less inappropriately with a face pigmented in red lead, or the dark exudations of Oriental lac insects. It’s curious; if they’d swapped heads they’d each have achieved a considerably more harmonious effect.
The dogs have gone mad with simultaneous recognition and non-recognition. ‘Shut up, you fools,’ says their alternative master, lifting his arm at them, and they cower away from him, beating their tails on the ground and growling. He turns to the original Tony.
‘I’ve just been going through the contents of Mummy’s house,’ he says.
‘I thought you were in South Africa,’ says the original.
‘Well, you were wrong. Once again. I just want the answer to one simple question: where is it?’
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