Pandora (42 page)

Realizing while he’d been quizzing David everyone else had practically finished, Si picked up a steak knife and fork to attack his smoked trout.

‘Fish knife, Si,’ murmured David.

Feeling he’d done his stuff chatting up Geraldine, Jonathan turned thankfully to Ginny on his left, who was toying with strawberries, enhanced by neither cream nor sugar.

‘How long have you been married?’ he asked.

‘Six months.’

‘Happy?’

‘Kinda – Si’s last wife passed away, but he won’t verbalize about her. My analyst told Si he was being very selfish not helping me to work it through and bury her ghost.’

Hence the sad Alsatian eyes, thought Jonathan.

‘It would be worse if he talked about her all the time,’ he said, drawing the thick black hair on the top of Si’s head as a jagged palisade. Next moment his pen shot downwards giving Si a thin gigolo sideboard as Geraldine, on his right, slid a bony hand under his table napkin.

‘My clients call me their “hired eyes”,’ she was simultaneously boasting to Si. ‘I help people put art on their walls, not unlike an interior designer’ – she flashed big teeth at gay Pascal – ‘but art is more intellectually stimulating, and does have an asset value.’

‘She helps lame dogs over lifestyles,’ giggled Jonathan to Ginny.

‘Si keeps buying new properties to accommodate our art,’ murmured back Ginny, who was longing to run her hand through Jonathan’s hair – he was so cute.

Geraldine turned to Ginny warmly. ‘I am sure I can advise you and Si. I’d love to introduce you to . . .’

But Ginny had shot off to the Ladies.

‘Every time a marriage breaks up, I make a fucking fortune,’ gay Pascal was whispering to Barney. ‘The new wife moves in and changes all the décor and needs fifty million dollars of new art to go with it.’

‘Can’t be bad.’ Barney let Pascal do the talking, enabling himself to shovel quantities of Scandinavian ice berries smothered with white chocolate sauce into his face.

As Si was still being clobbered by Geraldine, David pinched Ginny’s chair.

‘I’ve just had a call from Dame Hermione,’ he told Jonathan furiously. ‘I learn instead of videoing her yourself, you sent round that scrofulous beast Trafford with a Box Brownie. Dame Hermione is most displeased and threatening to pull out. And Enid Coley is even more disappointed with her portrait, she doesn’t think you even painted her face.’

‘I thought she did that herself with a trowel,’ said Jonathan sulkily.

‘Stop being flip. This cannot go on.’

‘It can’t,’ agreed Jonathan. ‘I at least did these all myself,’ he added, handing two menus to a returning Ginny Greenbridge, who went into ecstasies.

‘Oh my Gard. This is to die for, so like me. May I keep it? You have real talent, and look, Si, Jonathan has made you look like a real gentleman.’

Si was so touched by this miracle – and also because Jonathan hadn’t made a pass at Ginny (most men did) – that he promptly commissioned him to paint her portrait.

‘Can you do it straight away?’ begged Ginny. ‘We’re off to Berlin on Sunday. Si and I are global citizens.’

Jonathan tried not to laugh.

‘Certainly he can,’ said David firmly, ‘I’ll sort out a price.’

I expected David to be fun and easy to work with, thought Jonathan darkly. He’s just a bloody Hitler.

‘I wouldn’t tell everyone,’ Geraldine was now confiding to Si, ‘but Maurice, my husband, and I have given half a million to Tate Modern.’

‘Si gave forty-four million dollars to cultural projects last year,’ interrupted Ginny crushingly, ‘and Si and I not only give money, we give of ourselves.’

Si was still looking at Jonathan’s drawing.

‘I’m told the Norwich School is a good buy, I kinda like an artist called John Sell Cotman.’

‘Marvellous,’ agreed Jonathan.

‘Too parochial,’ said David dismissively. ‘I wouldn’t bother.’

‘I would,’ said Jonathan sweetly. ‘My father has a beautiful Cotman of Duncombe Park with the trees turning at home. He might be prepared to sell it.’

David was so cross he overtipped by mistake, and as the rain had stopped, suggested walking back to the Pulborough.

As they strolled along a dripping Jermyn Street, David, remembering how he had benefited from Raymond’s example in the Seventies, warmly recommended Raymond’s tailors – whom he now regarded as his own – to Si. ‘They’re excellent and very reasonable. Just mention my name,’ he added loftily. ‘What are your plans for tomorrow?’

‘Going to the art fair. I’m after a Degas drawing of a jockey.’

As they entered Cork Street, David was amused to see Jupiter and Tamzin his assistant still wearily clearing up glasses and chucking out drunks. Across the road, David’s assistant, subtle Zoe, had the coffee on and the liqueurs out.

Brandishing colour swatches, Ginny pored over half a dozen of Jonathan’s canvasses.

‘The rest are sold,’ said Zoe apologetically. ‘Jonathan’s work is rocketing in value, you’d have a real investment here.’

‘I just adore the little kid with the pink beach ball.’ Ginny turned to Pascal: ‘Perfect for the playroom.’

‘I didn’t know you had children.’ Jonathan took a swig of kümmel.

‘We’re thinking about it. Babies are so hip at the moment.’

‘Boom, why does my art go boom,’ sang Jonathan, quickstepping Zoe down the gallery. ‘Mrs Greenbridge doesn’t realize that the pink beach ball is the end of the little kid’s cock.’

‘For God’s sake don’t tell her,’ giggled Zoe.

Meanwhile, in a white-washed back room lit like a chapel hung a reclining nude by Modigliani priced at £10 million.

‘Everyone’s after it,’ murmured David, ‘the Tate, MOMA, the Getty, but I wanted to give you first look.’ Then, handing Si a glass of Napoleon brandy, which cost more than dinner, he added smoothly, ‘I’d be happy to accompany you to Grosvenor House tomorrow. Dealers at fairs can be iffy if you don’t know the ropes. Although you couldn’t do better than the Modigliani.’

Si looked at David meditatively. He might be in thrall to the daydreams of his wife’s designer, but he was not going to be patronized.

‘You can steer me into your smart tailor, David, you can tell me what knife to use, or even how to hold my dick, but not what art to buy.’

David went magenta. ‘Only making a suggestion,’ he spluttered.

‘Well, don’t,’ snapped Si, ‘the Modigliani doesn’t grab me and it’s way overpriced.’

Jonathan felt increasingly drawn to Si and wanted to stay and talk to him. But not wishing to bug David too much, and having been urged to suck up to Geraldine, he offered her a lift home.

Only when Barney had swept Pascal off to his gambling club, dropping off a weary Ginny at the Ritz on the way, did Si despatch Zoe to make him another cup of coffee, and say to David, ‘I have two Leonardo drawings at home, and one by Michelangelo, but my dream is to own a Raphael.’

David’s heart leapt. ‘My dream is to find you one. I’ll put out feelers.’

‘Keep it low key. If people figure I’m nosing around, the price will shoot up.’

Getting out his spectacles, Si got up to have another look at the Modigliani. Turning, he caught David with his hand up Zoe’s skirt as she put the coffee cup down on the table.

‘Mrs Pulboro’ doesn’t like London?’ he asked pointedly.

‘No, she’s a country gal,’ replied David heartily. ‘I can only tempt her up to town for the Chelsea Flower Show. Her father was Sir Mervyn Newton, you know.’

‘I look forward to meeting her in July.’

‘You do?’

‘Sir Raymond has asked us to visit Foxes Court.’

David was enraged but not so furious as Geraldine was later.

Although Jonathan thought her a pretentious cow, he made a detour to Hoxton to show her his pictures. All the way, Geraldine boasted about her contacts.

‘The art industry is built on relationships, Jonathan. If you play ball your oeuvre could end up on the most influential walls in Europe.’

Reaching the loft, they found a furiously growling Diggory and Choirboy having a tug of war over a Hermès scarf. Trafford, stripped to the waist, was arched over a microscope, drawing his own sperm. Geraldine was enraptured.

‘In an increasingly godless age, one’s own body is the only site of identity,’ she cried.

Trafford had been having an annual tidy-out of his bedroom, which meant using the communal studio as a waste-paper basket. In the middle rose a pile of beer cans, curry trays, Pedigree Chum tins, fag ends, twelve months of unopened bills and bank statements and torn-up photographs of models Trafford had failed to pull. On top was a dressing of pages torn out of porn mags.

Mess created by artists seems to electrify the outsider.

‘This is very fine,’ exclaimed Geraldine, walking round the pile. ‘Does it have a title?’

‘Cunterpane,’ grunted Trafford, intent on his drawing.

‘How apt! Perhaps
Cunterpane One
. I hate to be hard nosed, but is it for sale? Nothing ventured . . . how much?’

‘Hundred thousand,’ said Trafford, adding another tadpole.

‘A very fair price, I know half a dozen homes for which it could form a vital centre piece.’

Jonathan, getting bored, wandered off to his bedroom to find some suitable canvasses to show Geraldine. Geraldine, however, was more interested in sex. Following him, she shoved him back on the bed, attacking him like a Dyson. A minute or two later, she said tartly, ‘It isn’t a legal offence to move your tongue, Jonathan.’

She was undressing him briskly and Jonathan was wondering whether he was capable of performing at all without more Charlie, when the doorbell rang.

‘Jonathan, are you there?’ yelled a voice through the letterbox. ‘I can see your light’s on.’

It was Sophy Cartwright, monstrous crush on Jonathan unabated.

As he tugged on his trousers, Jonathan apologized to Geraldine.

‘My sister’s rolled up’ – well, it was nearly true – ‘you stay here while I get rid of her.’

Sophy had arrived with cheesecake, raspberries and a bottle of Tesco’s champagne, all of which Jonathan, who had the serious munchies, got stuck into.

‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ said Sophy wistfully.

Only when she asked him twenty minutes later what he was working on at the moment, did Jonathan remember Geraldine.

‘Kerist, you’ve just reminded me. Sorry, darling, there’s something I’ve got to finish off next door. Here’s twenty quid for a taxi.’ It was pouring with rain again. Jonathan felt a sod as he despatched a desolate Sophy into the cold, wet night.

Trafford was enraged.

‘Bloody dog in the manger. Why didn’t you pass Sophy on to me?’

‘Shut up,’ hissed Jonathan.

‘How can you prefer that stick insect?’

‘She’s a stuck insect now.’

Alas, flipping through Jonathan’s canvasses, a marooned Geraldine had been enraged to discover portraits of many of her friends in various states of undress. She hadn’t dared come out in case ‘Jonathan’s sister’ knew her or Maurice, her husband. But hearing the front door bang, she rushed out in a fury, beating Jonathan round the head with a squash racket. Collapsing on the floor, lying as still as a reclining nude, Jonathan pretended to have passed out. Luckily Diggory, who was frantically licking his master’s face to revive him, decided instead to bite one of Geraldine’s incredibly thin ankles, sending her shrieking into the night. Outside she immediately rang David on his mobile.

‘I’m stuck in Hoxton.’

‘Si’s still here,’ lied David, spitting out one of Zoe’s pubic hairs, ‘I’ll call you in the morning.’

‘Tell Si I’ve discovered an important artist.’

Having applied two more squirts of Right Guard to ten other layers stiffening under his armpits, Trafford caught up with Geraldine in the middle of Hoxton Square. Drenched, limping, waving her thin arms, she had all the pathos of a Lowry grandmother.

‘Would you like a lift home?’ asked Trafford.

Returning much earlier, Si had found his wife awake.

‘Gotta call coming through from LA,’ he told her. ‘Go get yourself ready, baby.’

Wandering into the bedroom five minutes later, he found Ginny, her long blond hair in pigtails, naked except for a gym slip and white socks, skipping in front of a long mirror.

‘One, two, three, four,’ she counted in a shrill, childish voice, breasts bouncing, pleated skirt flying, skipping rope hissing through the air, ‘five, six, seven, eight.’ Her blond bush was darkening. She never got to twenty.