He waited for me to react. Presumably he thought that I approved of contemporary installation art.
“I don’t like that sort of thing myself,” I said.
He stared at me. “Koons and that crew?”
“I don’t particularly like Koons’ work. I saw something of his that looked like an air conditioner.”
He laughed; he was visibly relaxing. “Probably was. Five million dollars?”
“Something like that.”
“Created value,” he said. “The collectors keep the prices up. The stuff has only scrap value, but they can’t let people think that.”
“Dutch tulips.” I had just read about that.
He looked at me with heightened interest. “The best example there ever was. Although, frankly, I’m surprised the Dutch behaved that way. They were a sensible bunch—solid traders—and then they suddenly went wild over tulip bulbs.”
He turned to Hermione. “Mrs. Thing has made dinner for us,” he said.
She explained. “Mrs. Thing has got a name, Andrew. Mrs. Dallas. Daddy calls her Mrs. Thing.”
He shrugged. “She doesn’t mind. I wouldn’t call her Mrs. Thing if she minded.”
“She’s a really good cook,” Hermione continued.
Peter moved towards a drinks trolley against the wall behind him. “Something to drink?” he asked. “Mrs. Thing wants us to eat in fifteen minutes or her soufflé will collapse. She always threatens us with collapsed soufflés, but never makes them. It’s a peculiarity of hers.”
He mixed us drinks and then, while we drank them, he quizzed me. At first the questions were of the sort that might be asked in any friendly conversation, but then they developed an edge. Did I think that my school education had prepared me adequately for university? Did I really think that university degrees needed to be as long as they were, or could they be compressed into two years, or even one? Were my professors there simply because they couldn’t do anything else?
I could have been more forceful in their defence, and would have been—in different circumstances. “They’re good at their job,” I said quietly.
He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. But it all sounds a bit easy to me. What time do they start in the morning? When do they go home in the evening?”
“I think they’re there all day.”
He lifted his glass to his lips. “And you? Do you work a full day?”
Hermione shot him a glance, but he ignored it.
Now he answered his own question. “I’m sure you work very hard.” He paused. “Art history’s certainly interesting. You want to work in an auction house, I take it?”
I told him that I had not made up my mind yet.
“You could work in a museum or gallery, I suppose.” He looked at me with amusement.
I swallowed hard. I felt vulnerable. There was a note of condescension in his tone—something that was almost a sneer—and now I knew why Hermione had felt that she had to warn me. Her father was unlikeable—it was as simple as that. I did not like him at all, and I imagined how most people who came across him would think that way.
“Those jobs are quite hard to get,” I said mildly.
He smiled. “And that, of course, is why the pay’s so low. Jobs that lots of people want to do—and that anybody can do, of course—will never be paid well. Supply and demand.”
I felt my heart thumping within me. I had to say something. “Money’s not everything,” I said. “There’s job satisfaction …”
“I think you’ll find that money is everything,” he retorted.
Hermione came to my rescue. “I’m with Andrew on that,” she said. “You can’t put a monetary value on everything.” She was polite enough, but I could tell that she was both irritated and embarrassed. I had never been ashamed of my parents, but I knew that there were people who were, and Hermione must have been one.
Her father turned to her with a condescending smile. “Can’t you?”
“No,” she said. “You can’t. And anyway, we need to eat. Mrs. Thing …”
“Yes,” said her father, putting down his glass and standing up. “We must consider Mrs. Thing.”
As we went into the dining room, I glanced at my watch and worked out that we had another two hours of his company.
WALKING BACK TO THE RAILWAY STATION AT HALF past nine, Hermione slipped her hand in mine. “You did really well.”
“He’s not too bad.” He was, of course. He was worse than I had imagined—a parody, almost, of the condescending magnate, sure of himself, dismissive of those he considered beneath him, arrogant in the core of his being. I had never met anybody like him before, and so I did not understand, as I understand now, that such attitudes speak to weakness far more frequently than they speak to strength.
“That’s kind of you. He’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but he’s got his good points.”
I waited for her to enumerate them, but nothing came.
“He’s got a lot of enemies in the business world,” she said. “I think it’s his style. He picks fights.” She squeezed my hand. “He was trying to pick a fight with you—you realised that, didn’t you?”
“I’m not sure. There were things he said …”
“That question about whether you worked a full day. I could see what you were thinking.”
“Maybe.”
She squeezed my hand again. “He’ll try to get rid of you,” she half whispered.
I let my astonishment show. “You mean he’ll try to kill me?”
She giggled. “Oh no, nothing that crude. He’ll just try to stop … to stop us. He’ll do all sorts of things to put a wedge between us. He won’t want you to stay with me.”
I asked her why. Was it jealousy, or was it because he did not think I was good enough for her?
She thought about her answer for a moment. A breeze had arisen suddenly, a warm breeze, and on it was a trace of some highly scented plant in one of the gardens. It was a scent I knew from our garden at home, but I could not remember the name of the flower.
“Mostly because he won’t think you’re good enough. Sorry, but you asked. It’s difficult to explain.”
“Wrong background? Not grand enough?”
She looked down at the ground. “Yes. And money …”
“I don’t have enough?”
She looked resigned. “Money’s everything to him. You heard what he said.”
“And what about you? What do you think?”
Perhaps I sounded offended, because she stopped and put her arms about my shoulders. “I wouldn’t care if you were ten thousand pounds in debt. Twenty thousand. I don’t care in the slightest. I like you, you see; you.”
I took her hand. “He made me feel … rather inadequate.”
“That’s what he does to everyone.”
“Perhaps he should look out in case somebody kills him …”
I immediately regretted saying that. She frowned, and then turned away. “I still love him, you know.”
I tried to make up for it. “Of course you do. And I’m sorry.”
“I’ve tried to imagine life without him,” she said. “I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like if he … if he just weren’t there … if he just went away. But …”
“But he doesn’t go away.”
“No.”
“And you wouldn’t want that, anyway, would you?”
She shook her head.
“You need him, I suppose. Your life would be very different if it weren’t for him.”
She looked at me reproachfully. “It’s not just his money …”
“I didn’t mean that,” I said quickly.
“Does it matter to you that … that I’m rich?”
“I thought people with money never used that word. And no, it makes no difference.” I stared at her. She looked miserable. “You said that it didn’t matter to you that I didn’t have a penny to my name. Well, same for me, the other way round.”
It was a strangely intimate conversation, thi
s talk of fathers and money. I bent down to kiss her. She opened her lips. We kissed twice, three times and then we heard the train approaching. We were still a short distance from the station, and so we disengaged and ran the last little distance. The wheels of the train made a strange sound as it approached—a ringing, humming sound, like the sound of metal strings being played with a great bow; or the sound made by a massive singing bowl, one of those brass bowls that Tibetan monks have and that resonate when the rim is rubbed with a finger. A note is emitted that stretches off into the musical distance, sending shivers up the spine; a train and a singing bowl and a sky above that was still light, but fading and bore witness to the feelings I had for her. I wanted to say, Forget your father; just forget him. Come with me. We’ll go away. Away from him and all of this.
What would she have said? I did not imagine that she would agree, as the bonds between father and daughter must surely be far stronger than anything I could offer her, who had known her for only a couple of weeks. But people don’t necessarily think that way when they are in love. The new lover, of a few weeks standing, may seem more precious than friends of decades. I felt like that about her.
We returned to London. The next day at work, something very odd happened.
I WAS CALLED TO A MEETING WITH TWO OF THE senior members of my department. These were people I had met but not really had anything much to do with—one of them was on holiday when I had started and had only recently returned; the other had spoken to me once or twice, and had been polite enough, but had given me the impression that interns were, at most, a necessary nuisance—something one had to put up with.
The more senior of the two, the one who had been on holiday, was called Eleanor; her colleague, the one who was unenthusiastic about interns, was called Geoffrey. Eleanor said to me that there was a small collection that had been consigned for sale and that needed cataloguing. It was not an important sale—day sales were reserved for paintings that would not be expected to attract the major buyers; paintings that might be good enough in their way, but that would never be talked about much or take a prominent place on the walls of galleries. They were going over the ten paintings involved and would be happy for me to draft the initial catalogue entries. Of course they would have to approve the final text, but there would be a small amount of research that I could undertake. It was an advance on the proof-reading that I had done earlier on, and I accepted the task with gratitude.
“The owner has a rather inflated idea of the importance—and value—of these paintings,” Eleanor said. “But everyone is like that, I suppose. All of us think that whatever we have is better than it actually is, don’t you think?”
I asked her whether she was referring to life in general.
“Yes,” she replied, smiling. “We like to put the best possible gloss on our lives, I’d say. Look at the way people describe their houses. Or their children for that matter.”
“But there must be at least some people who are honest about these things.”
She laughed. “Name one.” It was as if she was expecting me to reply. “No? Well, let me tell you, collectors always inflate their paintings’ attributions. Always.”
“So there’s nothing important in this collection—the one we’re going to be looking at.”
For a moment she looked rueful. “Not really. It’s solid enough, but nothing to cause much fluttering of hearts in the auction room.” She looked at her watch. “Ten o’clock? In my room. The porters are bringing them up now.”
When I arrived at ten, Geoffrey was already there. He glanced at me when I came into the room and muttered something in response to my good morning. I think that Eleanor picked up his indifference. She looked at me quickly and I sensed that she disapproved.
“Andrew will be helping us,” she said. “He’s going to draft the catalogue entries.”
Geoffrey turned to me. “Fine,” he said. “It’s a bit of a rag-bag, I’m afraid.” His tone was slightly friendlier now, but I still felt he doubted whether I really needed to be there.
Eleanor had ordered coffee and she made a point of giving me a cup before she gave one to Geoffrey. “So,” she said, “let’s take a look at what we have here.”
The porters had stacked the paintings, three or four deep, against one of the walls of her office. At Eleanor’s request I went over and put the first of them on an easel that had been set up at the side of her desk. It was not a large painting, but the frame was ornate and heavy.
“Let me know if you need any help,” said Geoffrey, sitting back in his chair and sipping at his coffee.
“I’ll be all right.”
“Don’t drop anything,” said Eleanor. “Who was that young man, Geoffrey, who broke that lovely Dutch frame? A couple of years ago?”
Geoffrey shrugged. “The interns fade into one another, I’m afraid.” He looked at me and made a falsely apologetic face. “Sorry.”
Eleanor noticed this. “And we probably all look the same to them,” she said.
It was a gentle reproof, but Geoffrey seemed unmoved by it. Gesturing towards the painting, he passed his judgement. “Not a bad painting. Looks like Gimignani to me.”
“I was thinking the same,” said Eleanor. “But which one?” There were, I learned, two of them: father and son.
“Giacinto, I think. The father. Not Ludovico.”
I stood back and looked at the painting. A group of shepherds was standing under a tree, one of them cradling a baby. The baby was staring out of the picture, so positioned that his eyes would meet those of anybody standing directly in front of the painting.
“That baby looks confused,” I said.
Geoffrey glanced at me. “The finding of the infant Paris,” he said. “And yes, infants often look confused, not to say miserable, in art. They’re usually wondering why they’re there.”
“A good question for all of us,” said Eleanor.
Geoffrey raised an eyebrow. “Very Delphic this morning, aren’t we, my dear?”
There was an undercurrent between them, but I was not sure what it was. Professional jealousy? Or was it something else—something more personal?
Eleanor turned to me. “Do you like it, Andrew?”
I hesitated. I was feeling a bit more confident now, but I was still aware of the fact that they knew everything, it seemed, and I knew next to nothing. I ventured an opinion on the technical skill of the artist and on the composition, which I said I found very pleasing. The shepherds balanced the centurions, I suggested.
Eleanor nodded encouragingly. “Always trust your judgement,” she said. “It’s the best thing you can do in this business. Trust what your eye tells you. If it says the painting’s good, then the painting’s good.” She turned to Geoffrey.
“Agree with that?”
Geoffrey nodded. “You need an eye.” He looked back at me. It occurred to me that he resented her support for a junior member of staff, and that if I was not careful I would be making an enemy. People liked to recruit others, I reminded myself, and perhaps Eleanor was enrolling me on her side against Geoffrey. “Tell me, what else do you see here?”
I looked at the painting again and wondered whether there was something about the sky I should notice. “Perhaps …”
He cut me short. “Over-painting,” he said curtly. “Here, here and here. See?”
I peered at the places he had pointed out. Now that I looked more closely, it was obvious. I should have picked it up.
“Yes …,” I began.
Again he interrupted. “It’s fairly obvious, I would have thought. The surface of the paint is a bit higher and rougher.”
“I see …”
Had Eleanor seen the over-painting? She must have. He had described it as fairly obvious—was that a barb?
He turned to her. “An estimate of forty to fifty thousand? What do you think?”
She nodded her assent and signalled for me to remove the painting and put the next one on the easel.
“Ah!” sai
d Geoffrey. “I see this is listed as by our friend Dughet. I think I can support that.”
“Yes,” said Eleanor. “Fairly typical.”
She looked at me. “You know about Dughet, Andrew?”
I was pleased to be asked. This would give me a chance to make up for my failure to spot the obvious over-painting in the Gimignani.
“Poussin’s brother-in-law and pupil?”
Eleanor seemed pleased. “Yes. Exactly. The National Gallery hangs him next to the Poussins. He called himself Poussin, of course, as you probably know.”
I did. “Good career move.”
She laughed. “He was never the painter his brother-in-law was, but he was a solid disciple. His skies are very Poussinesque.”
Geoffrey sniffed. “Of course he was the more enthusiastic landscape painter. Poussin was more interested in classical mythology at the point that he was teaching Dughet. So the skies may have come from Dughet rather than Poussin himself.”
She hesitated. “Possibly. Possibly. But see that village on the hill—that must have been painted countless times.”
“There’s always a call for Italian hill towns,” said Geoffrey. He leaned forward and examined a figure in the foreground. “Another shepherd. Very pastoral.” Turning to Eleanor, he told her what he thought the painting might fetch. They discussed that for a while, and then we moved on to the next picture. But my eye seemed drawn to the Dughet, and even when we were discussing the rest of the paintings, I kept glancing at it again as it rested against the office wall. There was something there that was not quite right, but I could not work out what it was.
At the end of the meeting, I asked whether I could take a photograph of the Dughet. “It interests me,” I said.
Eleanor shrugged. “Yes, of course. You can take a look at any of them again while you’re preparing the draft. They’ll be downstairs.”
“When you write the entry for that Dughet,” said Geoffrey, “make sure that you mention the Gaspard Poussin aspect. It always attracts attention from people who would like to own a Poussin but who could never afford one. There are lots of them.”
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