“Come through,” says Gilda theatrically. “And see what Philip has in store for you.”
“Lunch, I hope,” says Magnus.
“Oh, there’s more. Much more.”
“Morning,” says Magnus, stepping through the hall and greeting his star artist.
“Afternoon,” says Philip to his dealer. They always talk like this. Philip has changed out of the long white robe and is wearing one of his white boiler suits, and a bow tie raffishly decorated with red hearts. Philip is the only other person in Magnus’ life who wears ties, but they are always bow ties. If you ever ask him why he favours the bow tie, he will always have the same answer.
“For the same reason as a gynaecologist does.”
Today, however, he merely bows solemly and gestures for Magnus to follow.
They walk downstairs through to the knock-through kitchen and sit at a scrubbed pine kitchen table, which is decorated by an array of daisies casually popped into Robertson’s jam jars.
Unlike everyone else on the Square, Philip and Gilda don’t approve of the latest style in contemporary kitchens. They do not wish to live alongside stone counters, islands, bar stools, wine fridges and taps of instant boiling water. Their kitchen is dominated by a giant wooden dresser, displaying bone china tea cups and painted jugs, sourced at bijou flea markets in Sitges or Quimper. The wooden chairs are painted. The floor has rush matting on it. Nothing matches, deliberately.
Along one wall are a set of black and white photographs of Gilda looking titillatingly raunchy, in stockings and suspenders, accessorised with a balcony bra and stiletto heels. One of them also involves a feather boa which she is holding tautly between her legs. They were taken by a Sunday Times magazine photographer, when Gilda was quite a lot younger. Everyone on the Square longs to visit Philip and Gilda’s house in order to check these pictures out.
Nobody ever has.
They are therefore spoken about with the hushed reverence usually associated with high religion, or high porn.
Philip stands in front of the black and white photos, and holds up a bottle of wine with a quizzical air.
“Yup,” says Magnus, who has a bad drink habit. Used to have a bad drugs habit too, until he was taken to one side by the director of the Basle Art Fair and told in no uncertain terms that if he carried on giving coke to the artists, he would be banned from the Fair, both in Switzerland and in Miami. For life.
“I’ll get on with the bread and Brie. Bring Magnus back in ten minutes, my dove,” says Gilda, tying an apron around her somewhat solid middle.
“Come up to the studio,” says Philip.
The two men walk into the long, airy room where Magnus is confronted with a new object on the trestle table before him. It is a lot larger than the golf holes. A lot larger. It is higher, too, and altogether more complicated.
“Marathon courses,” says Philip with a flourish.
Magnus stares at the table. He looks carefully. The piece involves a snaking long grey route weaving around various hillocks, skyscrapers and across Tower Bridge.
“The London Marathon,” whispers Philip. “Run by 40,000 people a year, every year. Don’t tell me one of those bastards isn’t going to want to have something like this in their boardroom. Think of the scope, Magnus. Think of it.”
Magnus is thinking of it. He can see the commercial opportunities at all his galleries across the world. Is there a marathon in LA? He fervently hopes so. He knows there is one in Geneva because a former girlfriend once ran it. Christ. She moaned about her hamstrings for about six months before, and six weeks after, until Magnus dumped her.
“Then there’s Berlin and Boston and Chicago. There’s even one in Las bloody Vegas,” says Philip. “Gilda researched them all for me. There are about 200 of these bastards.”
Magnus looks at Philip. Philip returns his look equably.
“How much?”
“Yes, how much?”
“I am a famous artist. Probably the most famous artist in the country. Certainly the most famous artist in this city.”
Yes, well, thinks Magnus. As long as you keep bringing in the money. And there might be quite a lot of money in marathon courses. Maybe even more than in golf holes, frankly. Although the manpower needed to make them, and the time, and the materials… I need to take soundings on this, he thinks. Consult my Board. But Philip is already slapping down virtual figures for Magnus to salivate over.
“£150,000? I think possibly even more. Quarter of a million? Look how fucking big it is, Magnus. It will cost me, though. This took over a week. If I get an order book going, I’ll have to hire not only that boy from the estate but also all his friends to help me build it, you know.”
“It’s tempting. Very good. Very good. Makes golf holes look pretty basic by comparison.”
Philip raises an eyebrow.
“Although basic is what they are, of course, not,” says Magnus hurriedly.
“Let’s talk about it anon. Shall we have lunch?”
“Yes, yes. Of course. Gilda will be expecting us.”
Just as Philip and Magnus have a formal manner of speaking, they also have a formal way of eating lunch together. Magnus knows the routine. Gilda will have laid the table as if for a three course meal. There will be proper cutlery, and napkins, and two glasses per setting. Good, thinks Magnus, for whom eating is an important event.
Before sitting down, guests must stand with the two hosts alongside the chairs, and bow their heads while Gilda recites a humanist prayer.
Magnus and Philip take their places. Gilda takes the tiara off before leaning forward and incanting the prayer.
“As we eat, let us turn our minds to every individual we know and wish them plenty, love and comfort on this day and every day. As we celebrate, let us turn our minds and hearts to love, always love, of everyone in this world.”
Philip and Gilda draw back their chairs, and sit down.
“Excuse me,” says Magnus, stepping back, taking leave to go to the downstairs cloakroom. As he stands before the toilet, urinating, his eye wanders as always over the bas-relief nature of the cloakroom. Tiny sculptures dot the surface of the walls. It was only after he had been going to Philip’s house for a while that it dawned on him these sculptures were not strangely shaped coat hooks, but plaster cast mouldings of Gilda’s genitals. Well, he had always assumed they were Gilda’s. They might be another woman and Gilda together, or another woman/women completely.
This time, as he casually gazes at the assemblages of labia, clitoris and vulva he notes that there is indeed a discrepancy of size. Maybe there are a whole lot of women here, he thinks, washing his hands and drying them on a towel which reads Royal Hotel Newquay. The Burrell downstairs toilet is of course another fevered talking point on the Square, which nobody had seen but everybody wanted to. Jane once called it the Burrell Collection, which she thought was very funny indeed.
Over the Brie and artisan bread, which Magnus pulls apart fastidiously and crams into his mouth rather less politely, Gilda brings Jane into the conversation. She had bumped into her on the way to the bakers’.
“I met Jane on the way to Craven’s,” she announces, putting her small hands flatly onto the table. Magnus notices how perfectly she has painted each tiny nail. Pearl pink, with a shimmering white tip. French manicures. Christ, he hasn’t seen a French manicure for years.
“Oh yes,” says Philip, abstractly.
“Jane?” says Magnus.
“Bitch who lives on the Square. No, not the bitch you are thinking of. Another bitch. Not the one I fancy, ha ha.”
Magnus hates it when Philip descends into bawdiness, but like everyone else, he puts up with it. He looks at Gilda. She is looking down, staring at her hands. She is quite used to the way Philip sometimes insists on talking.
“Anyway, seems as if Jane is organising a big fundraiser for us here. To get new railings or something.”
“Fundraiser! As if there’s not stacks of money in every single bloody hous
ehold here. Christ Almighty.” Philip grew up on benefits in an impoverished household near Truro, and would like everyone to remember it.
“Nightingale. May I continue?”
“I’m listening,” says Magnus gently, covering one of her tiny hands with his. He’s rather fond of the mad old bat, in her tiara.
“Anyway. The idea is to have a Talent Show.”
There is silence around the table. Philip raises his chin.
“Talent!” he says eventually. “What, what on earth do this lot know about talent? Laywers and bankers, the lot of them. There’s only one real talent in the whole bloody place, and you are looking at him.”
Gilda puts a hand on his cuff. “We know, darling. We know. But you know, sometimes, you have to let people have a go.”
She’s quite clever, thinks Magnus. In terms of dealing with Philip, she vacillates between being a child and the persona of a mother.
Philip snorts. “What did she want us to do, then?”
“Oh, I don’t think anything. She just wanted to let us know it was happening.”
“Nothing? You share a neighbourhood with someone who had their own stand at the Frieze Art Fair, and you don’t want to have a sniff at their talent? She didn’t want me to be involved? Christ Almighty. They are lucky to have me on their doorstep, bloody lucky.”
“Well, I think she is open to suggestions, my shooting star. Why don’t you suggest something? I mean, why don’t you give a talk?”
“Yes, yes,” muses Philip. “A talk, maybe that’s the thing.”
Magnus has had enough artisan bread and Brie. He has also had enough wine. He now has a strong urge to leave this lunch and this chat about the neighbours, and get back to his office where he can have some decent coffee and do some serious thinking about the marathon pieces, how much he could get for them and how the hell he will exhibit them. All of that will be left to him to work out, he knows it. Philip Burrell may have started out in a garrett doing everything himself. He certainly doesn’t do that now. He pays 50% to his dealer and expects his dealer to sweat blood for it. Magnus feels that before he can leave it will be incumbent on him to solve the Talent Show conundrum. Philip clearly wants to be involved.
“Well, you could sell an old piece. What about one of the golf holes that nobody wants? You know, that one of the 4th at Augusta which was commissioned by the man who went bust. We’ve still got that in the gallery. You could have an auction for it. Might raise thousands, you know.”
He stands to leave, catches a glimpse of the photos of Gilda in her underwear, remembers the moulded genitalia and is struck by a bright idea.
“I’ve got it. Why don’t you offer tours around your house? £20 a head. You’d clean up. Probably make enough to redo the whole bloody Square, and then some.”
Chapter Six Tracey
It’s true. There isn’t much money in nails. Or, indeed, door-to-door makeup sales at the moment.
At the appointed hour, Tracey is ready. She is not a woman who is late, hates it. She looks at Belle and Grace, her daughters. She worries whether they are ever going to live up to the aspirational female attributes of their names. Each is intently focused on a tiny hand held screen.
“Dad’s going to look after you tonight. What about your prep, Grace?” she says.
“Talk to the hand, Mum,” says Grace, not looking up.
“What?” Tracey hates that phrase. “I am asking you about your prep.”
“No-one calls it prep any more. Too posh. These days, it’s just called homework.”
Stung, Tracey whips out a response.
“What, even at your posh school? It’s called The Prep, for God’s sake! How can you outlaw a word which is part of your own identity?”
Grace simply shrugs and carries on tapping the screen.
Tracey thinks of that school. The fees. The uniform. Her mind clicks through the whole morning routine. The mothers outside. Their perfect jeans. Their bags. Their bags. Sometimes she thinks it would have been better if they had never had any money at all, never had such a giant bloody windfall, then they wouldn’t have had to move house, sign up to the private way, BUPA, schools, bookshops not libraries, private clubs not the local pool, everything. Life might have been a bit easier.
The door bell rings.
“Prep, homework, I don’t care what you bloody call it. You’re doing it. That is Harriet and she is taking me out, so Belle you will have to be in charge for a while. Until Daddy gets home. Please make sure Grace does her homework.”
“Oooh, Mummy’s swearing,” sighs Belle.
“That’s £1 in the Swear Box for you, Mummy,” says Grace with prim delight. Why are my children ranged against me, thinks Tracey vaguely.
“But we’ll let you off,” shouts Grace, “because we know you haven’t got any money any more!”
She can’t even put a quid in the kids’ fucking swear box.
Which makes it two quid. Although she didn’t actually articulate that curse, so it doesn’t count.
The door bell rings again.
“Harriet.”
“Tracey.”
They embrace. Tracey grasps Harriet’s bulk, inhaling her personal bouquet of tobacco and perfume. Harriet must be one of the last people in London, if not the UK, to still be a smoker.
“Alright, so what are we seeing?” says Tracey.
“You’ll love it. We are going to the Book Fair and we are going to hear Alan Makin talking live,” announces Harriet, with a grin.
“Oh, my goodness!” shouts Tracey, clapping nail varnish to lipstick. “Really?”
To the Max with Makin. God, she thinks. I hope Harriet doesn’t think we are broke, because we are not. Just a bit skint. At the moment.
“Alan Makin, visiting our weedy little Book Fair?”
She is amazed that he is on the programme. Alan Makin is a star of financial daytime television. The man in a linen suit who says you should always keep a grip on your money. The man who advocates weekly budget sessions and spreadsheets and other things which just make Tracey’s head ache. Yes, that might be useful. She’s also excited to have the chance to see someone from television, just down the road in a marquee. As if they have been spirited directly from the airwaves. This is the sort of thing which happens in her life now. Her new life, her post-Lottery life. Christ, she is glad it happened to them.
“You are quite, quite brilliant,” she says. “Do you know, I’ve always wanted to meet him. Bye, girls.”
There is a hummed response from the screens. Neither girl looks up. Tracey leaves the room and opens the front door.
She smiles at a plump man in a very well-cut suit, walking quickly away from Philip Burrell’s house. He smiles back, nods his head.
“Anyone you know?” says Harriet.
“No, at least I don’t think so. See him quite often, though. I think he might have something to do with, you know, that artist Philip Burrell. His agent or something.”
“Probably runs his gallery,” says Harriet. “Selling all that stupid sporting stuff. Do you know I saw an ad for one of those golf sculptures the other day, it was going for £20,000. Loony.”
Even though she’s won the Lottery, Tracey doesn’t want to grapple with the idea of people spending the equivalent of a year’s school fees on a sculpture of a golf hole.
“Do you think I am smart enough?” she asks Harriet. Harriet surveys the tight skirt, the tiny cropped jumper with the words Bien Sûr emblazoned on the front, the leather coat. Dear Tracey, she thinks. She never gets it quite right. Well, that’s what happens when money just falls in people’s laps, isn’t it. Wasn’t brought up to know how to spend it.
Harriet conceals her thoughts, and smiles. “You’re fine,” she says. She is swathed in a giant pashmina and Ugg boots.
“So, is it true that you really always wanted to meet Alan Makin?” They step out into the Square.
Tracey arches her eyebrows. “Are you kidding? My mum thinks everything he says is gold dust.�
�
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll meet him, but you’ll certainly hear him and see him. I’m so glad I got you a ticket. Are you interested in his financial brilliance? Or do you just like seeing people off the telly?”
“Both,” says Tracey. “I mean, it’s not like we are stony broke, or anything, but… ”
“Oh, I know… ” says Harriet quickly, opening the car door.
“… Its just nice to know you are doing the right thing with the money that you have.”
“Absolutely.”
“Because, you know, sometimes you feel a bit, you know… ”
“I know.”
“You know.”
“I know.”
“Skint.”
“Yeah!”
Why are English people so crap at talking about money, thinks Tracey. Ever since we, ever since she and Larry, since IT happened, talking about money has been more difficult, not easier. You’d have thought that having money, a lot of money, would make it better, but it hasn’t. And now, what with the money they spent on the house and school fees and her cosmetics business slowing down quite a lot, things are beginning to look a bit tight again. Tracey doesn’t quite know how that has happened, even having two million quid suddenly slammed into her life, but somehow, it has. Everything suddenly went up a notch. Bags, cars, houses. Piano lessons.
Harriet drives ferociously to the Book Fair, quickly smoking two cigarettes on the way.
“Love smoking at the wheel,” she says. “Best place to do it. It always gives me a thrilling illusion of being in control.”
Tracey smiles and quietly opens the window.
At the Book Fair, several hundred chairs are set up in front of a small temporary stage, on which is positioned a large easy chair behind a desk, with a microphone and a large name board. There is also a banner over the desk. Both read ‘ALAN MAKIN, Taking You Through The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in The Finances Game!’
The Square Page 5