‘Don’t be upset!’ said Delores. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you twenty pounds for it.’
‘I paid more than that.’
‘So you just threw away even more money! If we could buy masterpieces in junk shops, we’d be multi-billionaires.’
Annie nodded sadly. Delores was right.
‘You are an interesting cook and a lousy judge of art – I am a rotten cook and a brilliant connoisseur. That’s the right way round. Now cheer up and toddle off, dear girl – time for my afternoon nap.’ Delores pointed at the door. ‘Send me menus in the next fortnight.’
Placing the painting carefully in her rucksack, Annie walked out of the room and along the corridor. When she got to the top of the stairs she started to run, out of the apartment block, down the stone steps and along the street.
*
Less than two miles away, at Tate Modern, Vlad walked alone through a retrospective of the artist Damien Hirst, who, Vlad noted, was a few years older than he was. A week ago he had not heard of the Tate or Hirst, but in the last few days Barty had arranged for several experts to talk to the Russian about art and now for him to meet Ruggiero De Falacci, a dealer famous for regularly outperforming his colleagues by multiples of five. This year, when the art index had, for the first time since the last dip in 1990, fallen to -3.28 per cent, Ruggiero’s clients were still up by 16 per cent.
Vlad had arrived early and walked into the first room, devoted to works by the artist done when he was in his twenties; these included brightly coloured pots, an upended hairdryer whose hot air kept a ping-pong ball bobbing happily in mid-air above it, and a messy painting of brightly coloured spots. When I was that age, Vlad thought, I was working underground in a coalmine a hundred feet deep, planning my first murder. He wondered how he would have translated that experience into art. Hirst’s naïve and colourful work demonstrated that the artist had enjoyed a relatively sheltered life.
In the next rooms there were fish and a shark and a calf suspended in formaldehyde in glass tanks. Vlad shuddered, trying to imagine what his brother would look like pickled. That would be truly shocking, he thought wryly, seeing a dead man rather than a dead fish. Walking through the rooms he saw the artist try out the same ideas in different forms: life, death and spots over and over again. Vlad tried to be moved or interested in these themes, tried hard to feel and understand what Hirst was telling him. Nothing happened. Looking around at the other visitors, staring earnestly into the mouth of a shark or the back end of a cow, Vlad felt bewildered and slightly humiliated: why did these objects do so little for him? Wasn’t he supposed to have some transformational, transcendental reaction? He supposed it was the poor educational system in Smlinsk or the vodka in his mother’s breast milk.
Vlad decided to try harder and looked the shark straight in the mouth, willing the animal to transport him from the vast empty spaces of the Tate Modern to somewhere else. He wasn’t sure what or where this other destination was supposed to be. Please, Mr Hirst, he prayed silently, spirit me from this group of earnest bystanders, away from London, from my loneliness, away from my issues with the Office of Central Control. Reach out and tell me that you understand my difficulties and my dilemmas. Vlad imagined that he was whitebait swimming up the open jaws into the belly of mutual understanding and willed Hirst and his strange beasts to swallow his feelings. But when Vlad opened his eyes, he was still stuck in front of the torpid beast in this temple of illusion.
Vlad walked on through the exhibition. The artist, he decided, was like so many others, nothing more than a one-trick pony. Spots, flies and dead things all repackaged and rearranged in different orders, on different backgrounds and in varying formations. Still, Vlad thought, most don’t have even one new idea and just dumbly follow previous generations, repeating the same patterns and mistakes over and over again. Vlad’s father and grandfather had been miners and their forebears had slaved in either the feudal or the communist systems. Only one small idea set Vlad apart from his father – to get away from Smlinsk. Like Hirst, Vlad had just been repeating that same thought over and over again: everything he did, whether it was a business deal or a murder, was to put distance between himself and his hometown.
A few months ago Vlad would never have wasted hours in a gallery. Recreation was a distant dream. Only now that he had great swathes of time could he begin to have hobbies. This was why art was such an incalculable luxury: it sent out a message saying, ‘I have time to subcontract all the menial, dull chores out to others; I waste hours in idle contemplation of a piece of cloth covered in spots; I am an art lover; I am time-rich. I can mooch about in a sea of pickled sharks.’
Pushing through some plastic doors, Vlad found himself in an artificially heated room where live butterflies feasted before dying. He looked around at the endless circle of life and how, once dead, broken corpses were stuck to large canvases on the wall. Again Vlad thought about his brother. Instead of butterflies he saw hundreds of tiny suspended Leonards. Feeling panic rise in his throat, Vlad took off his leather jacket and forced himself to breathe slowly. These were butterflies, not brothers, he told himself, pushing open a plastic door and leaving the steamy morgue for the cool of the next room.
He walked past cabinets full of medical instruments and surgical tools and into another room where the artwork was a huge blackened sun made of dead flies. Vlad thought, it takes a lot of shit and death to make a world. Suddenly he got Hirst: the man was a brilliant comedian making a joke out of life and the art world and all those who took it seriously. Vlad almost sprinted into the next room and, getting there, laughed out loud when he saw that every work of art was studded with diamonds and backed with gold leaf. For Vlad the artist’s message was simple: you can encase anything, add jewels and precious metals, but it’s still the same old shit. You might think you have got out of Smlinsk, you might be dressed in posh clothes and stuck in a fancy multi-million-pound house but you’re still just a turd covered in diamonds – you are still the same old Vlad.
Vlad had been so engrossed in his reverie that he failed to spot Ruggiero De Falacci shadowing him through the rooms. As he came to a stop beside a gold-plated vitrine filled with cigarette stubs, the man sidled up to him.
‘Clearly you are a person of exceptional discernment and intellectual capabilities,’ Ruggiero said in a slightly breathy but appreciative voice.
‘What?’ said Vlad.
‘I was watching you look at the art and saw that you totally understood what the artist is saying.’ The advisor’s tone was honeyed.
‘I get it,’ said Vlad.
‘Ruggiero De Falacci at your service,’ said the man, bowing slightly. ‘Barty has told me so much about you.’
‘Expensive?’ Vlad asked looking around him
‘Exceedingly,’ Ruggiero purred mellifluously.
‘Get me that one,’ said Vlad, pointing to the fly heap. ‘More diamonds. More gold.’
‘These are one-off artworks,’ Ruggiero said. ‘Mr Hirst doesn’t do commissions.’
‘Tell him name price.’
‘I will do my very best. Perhaps Damien will make an exception.’
Ruggiero tried to keep the smile from his face. That Barty was a clever weasel, worth every cent of his large commission.
Vlad walked out of the Tate and slid into the rear seat of his new pale blue Maybach.
Staying south of the river, the car passed Lambeth Palace and turned over the bridge opposite the Houses of Parliament. Looking out of the window, Vlad had to admit that though London was not Moscow, it was a beautiful city. But all pleasant thoughts evaporated as the traffic slowed to a slow crawl. Money could buy him a smart car and a chauffeur but it couldn’t clear the roads. In Moscow every person worth anything had police outriders to clear the way. London, Vlad thought, is so backward. Thirty minutes passed and they were only just on Pall Mall.
‘There is a demo, sir,’ said the chauffeur to Vlad, who sat in the back looking out of the window. ‘Complainin
g about Israel, most likely.’
‘Late,’ said Vlad said tapping his Rolex impatiently.
‘Doing my best, sir.’
Vlad stared out of the window at the angry youths waving placards. ‘Out of Settlements’, ‘Not your promised land, our homeland’. Where was his homeland now? Was it here in England? In Smlinsk? Or somewhere in between? Could he go back again? Vlad knew he could never go back. He had seen too much, done too much. He had lost the ability to talk to the people he grew up with but had yet to learn how to talk to anyone else.
In the last few weeks, Barty had insinuated himself into every aspect of Vlad’s life; finding the Russian a smart group of friends, a larger house and a better tailor. There were intensive English lessons and ‘improving’ events. Barty was ‘preposterous’ and ‘outlandish’ but he was also amusing, irreverent and fantastically useful. Last night they had started at a drinks party at Downing Street where, following a donation to party funds, Vlad met the prime minister and his chancellor; later, they caught the first act of Tosca at the Opera House, missing the rest to attend Paris Hilton’s launch of a new shampoo, and then went to M. Power Dub’s for dinner. The evening ended with a visit to one club called the Box and another called Lulu’s. For Vlad, the evening was like sitting on a carousel, spinning round and round, getting dizzier and dizzier.
Half an hour later, in the far corner of the Zianni restaurant in London’s Brook Street, Vlad sat down opposite another émigré, Dmitri Voldakov. Although he was only a year older than Vlad, Dmitri had become his mentor since arriving in London and it was a huge relief to talk in his native tongue. Like Vlad, Dmitri had been summoned one afternoon to the Office of Central Control and offered two exit strategies: the left door led to prison, the right to the airport. Dmitri chose London because he liked soccer and it had the most advantageous tax system.
A waiter approached their table and shook out Vlad’s napkin with the flourish of a matador approaching a ten-ton bull.
‘We will have truffles in scrambled eggs to start, lobster pasta for main course. Château Latour 1960 to drink,’ Dmitri told the waiter. Then he told Vlad in Russian to take the batteries out of his phones. ‘These things act like microphones to the authorities.’ He also insisted on covering the glasses with napkins. New technology meant lasers beamed from space could listen in to any conversation via convex materials.
After knocking back a few glasses of wine and deliberating upon the latest Chelsea matches, Vlad gathered up his courage to ask his friend’s advice.
‘I have a problem,’ he confessed.
‘No worries – I have good doctor,’ Dmitri said, patting Vlad on the arm.
‘Not that kind. Money,’ said Vlad.
‘Can’t be!’ Dmitri knew that Vlad’s tin mines were producing millions of dollars of metal a month.
Vlad looked around the restaurant to make sure that they were not overheard. ‘How to make the weekly payments.’
‘Ah. Yes,’ Dmitri said, tapping his nose. Like Vlad, he had to pay at least 30 per cent of his income to the Leader to guarantee his safety. Only last week, a fellow countryman who had fallen behind on his dues was found face down in St Katharine’s Docks.
Since 9/11 and anti-terrorism initiatives, transferring large sums of money from Britain had become increasingly difficult. Transferring money directly into Russia attracted too much unwanted attention.
Lowering his voice to a whisper, Dmitri told Vlad, ‘Alternate stocks and shares with art or jewels. Make drop at the safe house.’
Vlad was about to ask for more details when an astonishingly beautiful woman sashayed towards their table. The whole restaurant fell into a silent appreciative hush. Next to the Europeans in the room, she looked like a thoroughbred horse let loose in a field of Shetland ponies.
‘Lyudmila,’ Dmitri rose to kiss the apparition on her cheek. ‘Meet Vlad, a recent arrival.’
Vlad could only nod. He felt a stab of disappointment upon seeing an enormous diamond on her third finger.
‘Lyudmila is my fiancée,’ Dmitri said firmly.
Lyudmila smiled sweetly at Vlad. ‘See you around,’ she said and returned to her table of friends. Vlad saw that she had dropped her handkerchief on the floor and, pretending to tie up his shoelace, he bent down and placed the scented linen discreetly in his pocket.
‘She was my art advisor,’ Dmitri said.
‘Art?’ said Vlad. If he bought art would he also find a Lyudmila?
‘Barty set me up with her. He said that I needed a hobby and an advisor. I was not sure, until I saw her. Barty is a fucking genius.’
Vlad nodded in agreement.
‘She is also a genius,’ Dmitri said. ‘She made me buy an Andy Warhol for twenty-five million dollars last month; I was offered fifty million this morning. I will make a drop next week. Gold is far too volatile and rather heavy.’
‘I am also going to buy art,’ Vlad said.
Dmitri took hold of Vlad’s wrist and squeezed it hard, hard enough to convince Vlad that the next piece of advice was not friendly.
‘My friend, remember that I have monopoly on Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, late Picasso – I have forty-four in storage waiting to give Leader. You can have rest,’ said Dmitri and then let go of Vlad’s wrist.
Vlad shifted uncomfortably in his seat, thinking of a certain piece made of dead flies and diamonds, which he had already decided was a perfect metaphor for the regime back home. The Leader could hardly complain: after all, it was art. Dmitri, Vlad reasoned, need never know.
Neither man realised that the beautiful woman sitting on the adjacent table had a camera concealed in her earring. A few days later Dmitri received a package containing footage of Vlad purloining the handkerchief and a copy of a commission note for a new work by a certain artist. Dmitri interpreted these as declarations of war: he was in no doubt who would win.
Chapter 11
Hello.
I am still here.
And let’s not forget that I am the hero of this story.
And far more interesting than food.
And longer lasting than love.
I am still here.
Moi.
Chapter 12
Jesse walked along the Thames from his studio to his friend Larissa’s apartment in Battersea. It was a crisp evening, the temperature hovered just above freezing, and the street lights cast wavy shadows on the water. Normally Jesse loved this walk but since meeting Annie he felt little enthusiasm for anything. Instead of racing from work to his studio, he had taken to sitting in the corner of pubs or catching early-evening movies. Unable to concentrate on much, his thoughts rarely strayed far from Annie, where she was, what she might be doing. Her absence smothered anything in his present.
Until meeting her, Jesse had taken a laissez-faire approach to romance; allowing women to pick him out, he’d had a succession of pleasant if domineering girlfriends who had decided, for reasons Jesse could never really understand, that he was a suitable consort. Sooner or later each had become frustrated with his ambivalence and inability to commit.
‘What planet are you on these days?’ Larissa Newcombe had called out two days earlier when he entered the Wallace Museum staff room. ‘Is your mind accompanying your body?’
‘What? Sorry?’ Jesse forced himself to stop thinking about Annie and back into the present.
Larissa burst out laughing. ‘You see. You’re not really here.’ She patted the sofa beside her and Jesse sat down heavily. He liked Larissa, who swept through life swathed in brightly coloured silks, with feathers in her hair and heavy jewellery clanking from her wrists and neck, navigating the art world like a ship in full sail followed by a flotilla of admirers who’d read her many papers or books and who signed up to her lectures and attended her courses. Her subject, the depiction of music and musical instruments in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art, was rarefied but Larissa’s enthusiasm was boundless and infectious.
‘You look like someone stepped on your m
andolin. What’s happened?’
‘Nothing, that’s the problem,’ Jesse said wearily.
‘A woman!’ Larissa clapped her hands together in delight. She had just submitted a lengthy piece on the use of tambours in Mannerist paintings and was ready for a little light relief. ‘Spare no detail,’ she commanded.
‘That’s the problem,’ Jesse admitted miserably. ‘There is no detail, there’s nothing to report.’ He poured out details of every encounter, text message, cup of coffee and meaningful look. ‘She walked into the Frans Hals room, I looked up and straight into her face and I was lost. I didn’t know where or who I was, as if she and I were the only figures in a featureless, noiseless room. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, but I am still falling, waiting to come out of the other side.’
To his relief, Larissa didn’t laugh. She could tell from the smudges below his eyes and the slight tremor in his voice that he was bewitched and clueless.
‘How many texts have you sent her today?’
‘Four.’
‘Yesterday?’
‘Five.’
‘When did she last respond?’
‘Two days ago. She said she would go to the British Museum as I suggested.’
‘The British Museum?’
‘She found a picture in a junk shop. I offered to help her find out who it was by.’
‘Ingenious, using the picture as a hook to see her again.’
‘It’s a nice picture,’ Jesse said shamefacedly.
‘I have stooped to far worse ploys in the name of love,’ Larissa said. She pushed her chair back and, standing up, clapped her hands together. ‘The painting is going to have to play Cupid,’ she pronounced with satisfaction.
She insisted they plot over a decent bottle of wine and supper. Although they had been friends for many years, it was the first time Jesse had been to Larissa’s home. He brought a bunch of narcissi, small, pale yellow and deliciously scented, which she put into a small jug and on to the table.
The Improbability of Love Page 17