Pandora (64 page)

Back at the hotel, Jonathan poured Sienna a large vodka and announced he was going back to England.

‘You can’t leave me.’

‘Adrian’ll look after you. The museum says you can stay here as long as you like. You’ve boosted their turnover enough. And you’re being offered shows all over the world.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Yes you do, babe. You and Al are the serious ones. You’ll get your passport back in a week or so. You’re so lucky to have a record. There won’t be a party you’re not asked to – like O.J. Simpson.’

‘Where’s Zac?’ asked Sienna dully.

‘Opening the champagne, I guess. If he comes anywhere near you, Trafford’s promised to bury him. And try not to talk to the press, darling, the case is
sub judice
.’

Jonathan felt a shit, but he had to get back to Emerald. Before leaving England, he had written to Raymond, apologizing for spending so long in Vienna, but saying it had enabled him to get to know and adore Emerald. He was convinced her insecurity stemmed from not being certain she was a Belvedon.

‘I have persuaded her to have a DNA test. Could you bear to have one as well? There’s a sweet man called Bredin in Harley Street.’

Jonathan’s guilt about abandoning Sienna evaporated as Emerald ran into his arms at Heathrow. Silken violet-scented ringlets snaked over her shoulders, her pale face was flushed with colour like sunset on the snow. New high-heeled black boots meant her luscious scarlet lips were four inches nearer his. Jonathan just managed to stop himself kissing the life out of her.

All the way home she bubbled over with excitement – how she’d spring- or autumn-cleaned his studio, taken Diggory for walks, completed two heads, and made him a monkfish and scallop pie for tonight. As they passed the Lucozade building, with the bottle tipping gold liquid into a glass, she demanded a debriefing. Jonathan was all praise for Sienna’s courage in keeping the Raphael secret for so long.

Two further revelations irked Emerald, that that ‘bastard Zac’ had been taking Sienna out and that ‘darling Patience’ had sent Sienna a birthday card. Suddenly all her old jealousies reignited. Did Jonathan still lust after Sienna? Did Zac who dumped Emerald lust after her too? Did Patience like Sienna better? Emerald couldn’t bear to share.

It was a grey, glaring day. Leaves gathered in the gutters. Flowers in window boxes had been pinched by the first frost. Reaching his studio, not sure why the temperature had plummeted, Jonathan received a delirious welcome from Diggory, praised the heads – one rather wooden of himself – and the unnatural tidiness. Would he ever find anything?

For a minute Emerald pressed a biro in and out then she erupted.

‘How could Sienna be so irresponsible, waltzing off with the Raphael, bringing shame on the family? Everyone was under suspicion. You all thought Zac and I were in it together. Zac nearly got arrested. Sienna never thinks of anything but herself and her precious work.’

‘D’you blame her?’ said Jonathan icily. ‘None of us remembered her birthday,’ then, as Emerald started to play on an imaginary violin: ‘Just stop it.’

Guilt at abandoning Sienna and frustration at not being able to screw all the bitchiness out of Emerald fuelled Jonathan’s rage.

‘Just remember,’ he shouted, ‘Sienna never had a mother, just bloody Anthea, who’s given you more affection in six months than she’s ever given Sienna. And you’ve got Patience, well named, she needed to be called that, putting up with you. She’s one of the nicest women I’ve ever met, she adores you, so does Ian, and they’re proud of everything you do. When did Patience ever miss a carol service, or a lacrosse match, or a school play? Think of all those plusses: boarding and art schools, trips to Florence, lovely clothes, houses in Fulham, fast cars. The whole family’s jumped to your whining tune. When your father went broke, all they worried about was how it would affect you.’

‘Stop it, stop it.’ Collapsing on the sofa, Emerald clamped her hands to her ears.

‘Quite frankly,’ went on Jonathan brutally, ‘you settle once and for all those arguments about nature and nurture. None of Ian and Patience’s niceness and attempt at bringing you up to be a decent human being rubbed off. You’ve remained a bitch just like Anthea. And you were bloody lucky to be adopted too. If Anthea had brought you up in a one-bedroomed flat in Purley, she’d never have coped and you’d have ended up in a children’s home, being abused insensible by some bearded goat.’

Emerald was so shattered, she ran out of the studio. Out in the street, two small boys stopped playing football and gazed at her in horror as she began to cry. Jonathan was right. How could she have bitched about Sienna, whose brother she had stolen?

Jonathan wandered round distractedly, noticing the fish pie, the table laid with candles, mint lying on top of the new potatoes, flowers everywhere. There were clean sheets on the bed; Emerald had even cleaned the windows. In the waste-paper basket, he noticed the remains of a green leather belt Diggory must have chewed up, which Emerald hadn’t even made a fuss about. Rushing outside, he bumped into her rushing back in again, sobbing her heart out, gibbering apologies.

Taking her in his arms, he calmed her, saying how sorry he was, that he worshipped her, that they were both uptight because any moment they’d get the result of her and Raymond’s DNA test.

Raymond, who could never deny his favourite son anything, had dutifully trotted off to Harley Street, but, unable to face hysterics about the lack of trust, he hadn’t told Anthea.

And if he wasn’t Emerald’s father, who was? And what did it matter compared with losing his beloved Pandora? He kept thinking of her imprisoned in some New York warehouse like a shuddering Grenville in kennels.

The Belvedons’ attitudes to the discovery of the Raphael were sharply divided. Jupiter was furious with Sienna for stealing his birthright but, ever practical, set about marshalling funds to pay back the insurance and for the civil case next spring. Aunt Lily, Dora and Dicky all felt Sienna had been very brave and resourceful. Anthea was wildly disapproving. How could Sienna have remained silent when everyone was accusing everyone, including her stepmother, of nicking the Raphael? It was also typical that lucky Sienna should be bailed and now housed in New York by a glamorous single chap like Adrian Campbell-Black.

Second wives tend to be snoopers. In search of slights and to discover what was going on, Anthea had always read her stepchildren’s diaries. Now they were grown up, she read their letters marked ‘private’ which had been sent to Raymond. Longing to be outraged, she was disappointed Alizarin had not yet begged for money.

She was also dying to find a recent letter from Jonathan marked ‘strictly private’. After days of scrabbling, she tracked it down under the green paisley lining paper in the top drawer of Raymond’s desk in the London flat, and nearly died.

On the back Raymond had scribbled ‘Mr Bredin, 28 Harley Street, 3.30 October 15’. That was eight days ago.

Whimpering, Anthea snatched up her mobile.

‘We’ve got to talk, I can’t discuss it over the phone.’

They met in a dark corner of the Cavendish, St James Hotel, at midday. In the belief that one gained more from people if one looked pretty, Anthea was enchantingly dressed in a little Parma violet suit. She smelled deliciously of Shalimar; her soft crimson nails matched the Kir Royale she was delicately sipping.

‘Sugar,’ she cried, as her shaking hand spilled a few drops on her skirt.

Whipping out a red silk handkerchief, David’s habitually wandering hand caressed her thighs as he mopped her up.

‘Well, what is it?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a crucial lunch in half an hour.’

‘Jonathan’s persuaded Raymond to have a DNA test to discover if he’s Emerald’s father,’ she said.

‘So?’ David drained his dry Martini and waved to the barman to fix him another.

‘They’ll find out he isn’t,’ bleated Anthea.

‘Ah, but they won’t find out who is.’

‘But Raymond will be furious I’ve lied to him and he will want to know who it is. I’m going to say that you and I had a night of passion, when I was traumatized at being fired over Galena. I’ll explain that you comforted me, we got tiddly, and little Emo was the result. I’ve got to tell him it’s you, or he’ll start suspecting Eddie the packer.’

She’s got it all worked out, thought David bleakly.

‘I stood by you twenty-seven years ago,’ he snapped, ‘I risked my marriage and my job. Raymond will forgive you, he always does.’

‘But his vile children won’t. Please, David.’

Apply cocktail onion to eye, thought David as the barman placed another dry Martini in front of him. He was now feeling too sick to drink it.

‘Raymond must have fucked you enough to believe he was Emerald’s father,’ he said sulkily.

‘We only did it once, he hardly came inside me. I thought it was safe. I never dreamt for a moment Emerald wasn’t yours. I only told Raymond he was the father to get you off the hook.’ Her voice was rising in hysteria.

The barman looked up and sighed. Mr Pulborough up to no good again. David forced himself to pat Anthea’s hand.

‘Stay cool, don’t confess to anything until Raymond gets the results and you’ve talked to me. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.’

David had booked a private room for another secret assignment, but when he reached Prince Igor’s in Bury Street, Casey was already seated at the bar, noisily ordering a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé and a first course of foie gras because he and Galena had always had the same in here. His booming voice was so distinctive that everyone in every nearby gallery must know David was busy poaching the Belvedon’s star artist.

‘I forgive you for being late, and have ordered double portions,’ announced Casey, shovelling up nuts like a bingeing squirrel.

As befitting the great artist only to be mentioned in the same breath as Bacon and Freud, Casey wore a navy blue smock suit which covered his paunch. A black beret perched on his shaggy pepper-and-salt hair, like a slug on winter grass. The parts of his face not covered by beard and moustache were wrinkled and red from excess, yet he still felt he had a divine right to every woman in the world as he crinkled his eyes at the comely barmaid.

David felt so sick he could only sip still water, but was able to show Casey a photograph of
Millennium Buggers
, in which Jonathan had portrayed Casey as a vast penis.

‘The little shit,’ roared Casey, rattling every bottle along the bar. ‘That’s going straight to my lawyer. Think of the fortune I’ve made for that family.’

‘Shall we go through?’ urged David, who’d just seen Tim Bathurst and Johnny Van Haeften, two dealers who were friends of Raymond, coming through the front door.

‘Raymond’s completely out of touch, of course,’ went on David as he ushered Casey into the best chair and poured him a third glass of Pouilly-Fumé. ‘Only interested in himself and his television programme. A star’ – David massaged Casey’s musclebound arm – ‘should never be handled by another star, only by a back-room boy.’

Casey’s demands were endless. He wanted major prizes, exhibitions worldwide including a Tate retrospective, the price of his pictures quadrupled, a slot on television bigger than Raymond’s and Emerald Belvedon (maybe Pulborough: David felt sweat trickling down his ribs) on a gold plate.

‘How would you like to paint Dame Hermione?’ he asked. ‘There’s no way the NPG are going to accept
Expectant Madonna
, but they’d jump at a portrait by you. Dame Hermione is keen.’

‘Lovely breasts.’ Casey’s mouth doubly watered as a huge helping of foie gras was placed before him. What a good thing Pulborough wasn’t drinking. There was a wonderful bottle of Mouton Cadet Rothschild to come with his venison.

‘How about a quiet supper next week with Emerald Belvedon?’ asked Casey, his voice thickening. ‘And with Dame Hermione and perhaps Nick Serota. Or if Dame Hermione can’t make it, then just Emerald, you and myself. I am compelled to paint that young woman.’

The thin toast disintegrated beneath the weight of the foie gras Casey was piling on it. David had a vision of frail Emerald similarly crushed beneath Casey’s gross body. Casey was now swilling down his vast mouthful with a great gulp of Pouilly-Fumé, smearing butter and pâté all over his beard. Could he really put up with this disgusting satyr for the next twenty years? wondered David.

On the other hand, two Hockneys David had paid £300,000 for last week had turned out to be fakes and Barney, who was supposed to rally the punters, produced nothing but restaurant bills. If Rosemary threw him out, he would need Casey.

‘I’m sure Emerald would regard it as a great honour,’ he said smoothly.

‘I am also anxious to have access to Galena’s memoirs,’ went on Casey. ‘I know they’re still in the hands of that stubborn old bitch Lily Hamilton. Your Rowena’s a close friend of Lily’s, isn’t she? Tell her to put in a good word.’

The Belvedon was in trouble. The rumours spread by David had been deadly. Worried about stock valued too high, Raymond’s bank was calling in its huge loan, ordering the disposal of everything that had passed its sell-by date. But punters, unnerved by newspaper reports about the Raphael being looted, had lost faith in the gallery and were not coming forward to buy. Had other pictures been stolen?