Virtually Perfect (14 page)

Ben was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Boy, you done good with that bear...

They came out on Great Russell Street.  Eve paused, looking up at the ivory Georgian terrace.  Her eyes settled on the first floor; the third window from the right.  The lights were off.  There were no signs of life.

'That's a publishing house,' Ben told her.  'Faber & Faber.  It's very famous.'

Eve couldn't help but smile. 

You'd like this one better, I know you would...

Her smile wilted.

...I wish I'd listened to you.

Ben was studying her.  Eve looked up at him, squeezed his hand.  He squeezed hers back.  They started walking again.

They strolled through the gates of the British Museum, through the colonnade.

'You know,' said Eve, 'it was coming here one day and looking around, I mean
really
looking, that started me off smoking again.' 

She glanced up at Ben. 

'I mean, before I gave up again, obviously.'

'Obviously,' said Ben, with a smirk.

'It's called the British Museum, right?  But what's so British about it?' 

She waved a hand at a hulk of rock in the foyer. 

'The Rosetta Stone?  ...Nicked.  Elgin's Marbles?  Nicked.  The Egyptian Room?  All of it.  Nicked.'  She sighed.  'Basically, we're just a nation of thieves.'  She shook her head.  'It's so depressing.'

'...Well what did we come for?' asked Ben.  'We could always go to the Victoria and Albert.'

'What?' scoffed Eve.  'So we can go and see the costumes they were wearing when they pinched it?'

'...They've got an amazing Art Deco collection,' Ben told her.

'No,' said Eve.  'I like it better here.'

They stood at a doorway, peering up at a sign. 

The Hall of Fakes
.

'Ah...' grinned Eve.  'The House of Horrors.'

'Do you get many fakes?' asked Ben as they stepped through the archway.

'Very occasionally,' she said.  'It's only happened to me twice, that I know of.  But it's every auctioneer's worst nightmare, especially with the new legislation.  You know, you're not even allowed to speak with the vendors.  That's called 'tipping off'.  It lands you in as much trouble as them.  In case they're in on it, in case you're in on it too...  No, you have to go straight to the police. 

'The first thing the vendor knows, is when they get a visit from the boys in blue.  Sometimes they knock. Sometimes they don't.  Sometimes they'll smash the door down in the middle of the night... Imagine that?  In all likelihood, the vendor hasn't got the faintest idea.  So not only is their nest egg suddenly worthless, confiscated, but they're being treated like a criminal.  And they're pretty heavy handed about it too...  Then there's always the chance that they
do
know, that they
are
involved in organised crime.  And you've just gone and informed on them.  It really does get a bit twitchy.'

Ben slid his arm around her waist, pulling Eve to him.  She casually slid her arm around him, hooking her thumb through his belt loop.

She looked up at him.

'You do have to wonder though.  Some of them are amazingly convincing.'  She gestured to an infantile attempt at Picasso.  'Not this!' she giggled.  '...But I'll bet the odd one must get through.  None of us are infallible.'

She paused in front of a huge oil on canvas; a woman with flaxen hair and porcelain skin. 

'You know, the artist who painted this probably spent a lot more time on it than Rembrandt did on the real thing.  He was pretty talented in his own right - see the strokes?'  Her fingers swept the air inches from the luminous skin.  'He would have painted it over and over again, experimented with paints and thinners until he got the colours, the texture, the contours just right.  It probably took years.  He probably painted it a hundred times, but he would only have ever dared sell one.  I mean, some of them are just simple forgers, you know, like painting by numbers, but this one?  This one is very good...  The brushwork is superb.' 

She turned back to Ben.

'Why would you waste so much time, so much energy, on something so negative, on being a fony, when you have it within yourself to create something spectacular, make a name for yourself in your own right?'

'Greed,' said Ben, rubbing the back of his head.  'Maybe they weren't happy with their own life.  Maybe it wasn't enough for them.  Maybe they wanted to try someone else's?'

'...I suppose,' said Eve, turning back to the painting, lost in thought.  'I suppose it was different back then.  As an artist, you weren't often worth much until you were dead.  But even so, it's still sad...  It just seems such a waste.  You have to wonder what would be in this room if they'd just been themselves, as artists.   Left to their own devices.  It's a room of wasted talent.  Maybe they could have made something better?'  She sighed.  '...Who knows.'

They wandered into The Great Court, voices echoing all around them; bouncing up a mile to the hatched, ram's horn spiral glass ceiling.  With matchstick men and matchstick women milling all around, it was like walking through a huge Lowry painting.  The expanse of white reminded Eve of John Lennon's
Imagine. 
They paused for a second, holding hands, gazing up, through the domed glass roof.  A solitary pigeon circumnavigated a spotless, opalescent, blue sky. 

Just as with the Natural History Museum, the building itself fascinated Eve every bit as much as the sum total of what it contained.

They climbed the white steps skirting The Reading Room.  It used to be a magical place.  A place for books and scholars.  Kindred spirits, sharing a sole purpose: to learn.  A place of absolute silence.  And then the Terracotta Army invaded.  The museum had run out of space.  Ever since, one exhibition had been replaced by another, and the room became just like all the rest.  It had lost its soul.  Eve could remember sitting there, chewing a pen, gazing up at the beautiful ceiling.  The enormous powder blue dome, the thick gilt eaves slicing it into segments, the row of huge, white framed arch windows.  Today, the museum must have been switching displays.  Today, they found it was closed.

They entered Room 33,
China, South Asia and Southeast Asia
, splitting up and wandering around.

Ben found Eve lingering in front of a gilded Buddhist figure.  A bare-breasted, saronged woman with wide hips; an over optimistically pinched in waist. 

Tara, the consort of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.

She didn't have a very pretty face.  She didn't seem particularly impressive.  She wasn't very big, the gilding was flaking off.  Eve seemed quite fascinated with her.  Ben watched Eve, a smile playing on her lips.  She stared at the statue for a second longer.  He saw her close her eyes.

Found between Trincomalee and Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, AD 700-750.

'You said you went there didn't you?' said Ben.  '...On holiday?'

Eve's eyes shot open.  She looked embarrassed.

'Yes,' she nodded.  She thought for a second, then shook her head.  'Well, not a holiday, exactly.  I took a sabbatical when I was at Bonham's.'

'Sabbatical?'

Eve shrugged.

'It's just a posh word for getting a round-the-world ticket and bumming out for a while.'

'Sweet!' grinned Ben.  'They must have been good employers.'

'They were,' Eve replied, reticently.

'You were there for a long time.  Why did you leave?'

Eve pulled a face, shaking her head.

'...You got the sack?'

'I can't complain,' she said.  'They kept my job open for me for a year.' 

'How long were you gone?'

'All in all, about four.'

Ben's eyebrows shot up.  He grinned.

'Four years?  What the fuck were you doing?'

He watched Eve's gaze fall to the carpet.

'...You know, I've asked myself that same question a lot recently...' she said, staring into nothing.  'The truth is, I have absolutely no idea.'

Her eyes flicked up guiltily.  She knew alright.  And she could never tell him.

'Do you wish you'd never gone?' Ben went on.  'Do you wish you'd never left London?'

'My life would be very different now if I hadn't,' she said.  'But I always planned to leave London.  I was always going to work for Marcus, once he'd started out on his own.  I'm just glad that he gave me a second chance after Bonham's.  I really embarrassed him.'

'...But he still took you on?'

'Marcus is a family friend,' said Eve.  'It's funny,' she said, ruefully.  'My own family still haven't forgiven me.  But Marcus did, in a heartbeat.'

Eve felt Ben's hands on her shoulders.  She looked up at him nervously. 

'I think there's another reason, don't you?' 

'...What do you mean?' she murmured.

Ben smiled.  He shrugged.

'You must be good at your job.'

'...Maybe,' Eve said eventually, faintly smiling back. 

He pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her.

'Come on,' he said, growling, squeezing her in a bear hug.  Eve giggled, her face buried in his soft leather jacket.  Her hand slipped underneath, felt the warmth of him through his flimsy t-shirt.  He pressed a noisy kiss to the top of her head.  Her hair tickled.  He rubbed his nose.

'Let's get out of here.'

They rolled into Piccadilly.  They began transcending the silver maze of escalators.  Eve wanted to go back.  She was tired; the soles of her feet were beginning to burn; she was aching from unpacking all of those boxes on Friday. 

But it was Ben's turn now.  This was where he wanted to go.  He'd asked for nothing all day.  She squeezed his hand, smiling up. 

They emerged onto the rabble of concourse, peering up at the exits.

'Eeeny, meeny, miny...'  Ben paused.  'Are you ok?  Is it hurting?'

Eve extinguished the frown, pulling her hand from the small of her back.

'I'm fine,' she told him.

'You sure?' he said.  'We can go back if you want to.'

She just waved a hand and smiled.

'Alright then.  It's not far,' Ben told her.  'We'll just stay for a couple of drinks, then we'll go.'

They exited onto Shaftesbury Avenue, traipsing past The Gielgud.

'I saw One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest there,' Eve remembered, peering up at the
Les Miserable
billboard.

'Was it any good?'

'Well...' she said, leaning into him, lowering her voice, her eyes furtively darting around.  'I had a terrible cold at the time.  You know... when you're just full of snot?'  Ben nodded back at her, with a slight sense of trepidation.  'I'd been sucking Tunes all day.  I was fine all the way through, but at the very end, I started coughing...  I just couldn't stop!  I coughed all the way through the death scene...  Can you imagine?'  She shook her head.  'It was so loud, it echoed around the theatre.  I couldn't get my breath.  I thought I was going to die...  Pissed everyone off, no doubt.  I could feel them all looking, wanting to throttle me.  I'm surprised there wasn't a lynch mob waiting outside.' 

She grinned, with a shrug. 

'But I did get to see Christian Slater in his pants.  So, all wasn't lost.'

Ben looked down at her, raising an eyebrow.

'...What?' She faced back to the pavement.  'I don't see the problem,' she said introspectively, with a shrug.  'They were very nice pants, actually.'

He led her across the zebra crossing.  They took a left onto Deans Street.  Eve peered up at the Costas Coffee sign on the right.  She'd once dated one of the baristas.  Nice guy, Pepe, she thought he was called.
Was it Pepe?  Perhaps it was Paolo
?  Eve glanced up at Ben, caught his blue-eyed stare.  Her gaze hit the tarmac again. 

Ben stopped. Eve followed his stare, looking at the tall, white building; the black framed sash windows, the little green conifers flanking the doorway. 

They'd got a new sign.

The Groucho Club
. 

Eve smiled to herself.

'The last time I was here,' she said, 'Tracey Emin was in.  She was absolutely trolleyed.  I thought she was fantastic!'

'I thought you didn't like modern art?' said Ben.

'I don't,' said Eve, turning briefly to him,  'on the whole.  But there's just something about her.'