The Biographer (8 page)

'Mischa's her polar opposite. Like he's always described, a big,grizzly bear of a guy,messy,no dress sense,pronounced Czech accent, excitable, up-front emotional. He presents as totally straightforward and spontaneous, unlike her. I'd say she's heavily into self-censorship, won't let anything out without giving it a mental makeover. Whereas he just lets rip, couldn't care less what he says. I get the impression political correctness doesn't get much of a look-in with him, or with Rollo Sonabend either, for that matter.

'Mischa's never still, always fiddling with objects.Within minutes he'd picked the wine cork to bits then set about building little heaps of cork and breadcrumbs. At dinner he was making patterns with the salt, chewing matches, drawing.The moment we sat down they brought out butcher's paper, covered the tablecloth with it for him to doodle. And a box of crayons.They obviously do that for him every time, like he's a kid with hyperactivity syndrome. Or their tame Picasso.They're very proud of him and Rollo, that's obvious.

'Mischa proceeded to draw this incredible intricate maze.Well, it started as a maze; ended up more like a jigsaw puzzle. I took it home.Yet I don't think all this activity is a nervous habit or attention deficit or anything, it's just surplus energy boiling up and spilling over. For sixty-five, that's something. He looks his age, but kind of doesn't act it.'

Greer turned over in bed. Mischa had an arm flung out, wedged under her neck.
He was snoring. She tried to reposition herself more comfortably,then gave
up and slid down in the bed. His arm followed her, resting heavily against
the top of her head, hot and sweaty. He had fallen asleep immediately, as
he usually did. She had lain awake for some time, eyes open in the darkness.

Before she met Antony she had a clear mental picture of him. It had arrived of its own volition just the other morning, when she heard Mischa loudly singing in the shower. He was belting out his own rock 'n' roll adaptation of Blake's 'Jerusalem', an arrangement he neither varied nor tired of and which never failed to remind her of their first encounter. When he reached the last couplet, 'And was Jerusalem builded here, Among those dark, satanic mills?' Greer had seen Antony Corbino. Two words clinched the vision. Antony's face would be dark and satanic, she was certain of it.

Instead, as she stood on the steps and watched him materialise in Agnieszka's
excitable wake, she saw that he was light-haired and boyish, and far too urbane
to betray anything much. He had a good-looking face in a conventional, regular-featured
way. Open and round, with unblinking blue eyes.Voyeuristic blue eyes?

Strictly speaking he should have a cleft chin,she thought, but even without one
he reminds me of those illustrations of fair-haired, clean-cut young men from
the
Boys'Own
annuals of my father's childhood. Athletic, smiling chaps who were clones of
each other, wearing sleeveless Fair Isle sweaters and holding tennis racquets,
well-mannered and eager to please. His manner's faintly old-fashioned too,
although he may have adopted that out of a misplaced consideration for our
seniority. He's younger than I imagined.

They shook hands. I am very likely shaking the hand of my enemy, Greer thought. His handshake was firm and cool. He was smiling, and she noticed unusually white, even teeth in a smooth, tanned face.

'I hope you were vaguely expecting me,' he said.'I heard about the computer glitch.' As he said this he inclined his head in Agnieszka's direction. He had a pleasant voice, well modulated.It reminded her of Gene Kelly's.And his clothes lay on his body with the same casual elegance. Last week she and Mischa had watched
Singin' in the Rain
again at one of Rollo and Guy's regular video nights.

'Your email flew off into the ether . . .'

He gave her a wide smile.'As they do. Hey, what a place you have here. I'd heard about it, of course, but the real thing –' He shook his head.

'Did you have any trouble finding us?' she asked.

'Absolutely none at all. I had that cute little cartoon by Rollo Sonabend. I'm going to have it framed.'

Rollo would enjoy that description of his map. She looked at her watch, then across the courtyard. Sure enough, there he was emerging on cue from the chapel, pugs in tow. At home his habits never varied. Six pm on the dot was knock-off time, the signal for Campari or a gin and tonic (sherry in winter) or champagne if there was any going. With an airy, 'Look, there he is now, in the flesh,' she signalled to him and beckoned.

Rollo's solid flesh could be a bulwark, for the moment, between her and Antony.
Mischa could wait. His working hours followed no pattern and were completely
unpredictable. If they had nothing arranged, and sometimes even if they did,
he frequently worked into and through the night.

'That's
the
Mr Sonabend? Wow.'

She led Antony through the sitting room and down the steep steps to the south
terrace.They talked landmarks, while Rollo and the pugs ambled over. Antony
had done his homework. He knew the layout already: Mischa's studio in the tower,
Rollo's in the chapel, even the old walled cemetery and the path that wound
through olive trees and horses on agistment to the swimming pool on the side
of the hill.

They could hear Rollo's grumbles before he showed up,mopping his brow.'It's never like this in April.It's all this global warming and dimming. You'd think they'd cancel each other out, wouldn't you?' He winked at her.

She knew he was well aware that she needed him there and why, and she observed him closely as he was introduced. It was Rollo's impression of Antony that she most wanted to hear. Rollo had been mastering the art, he said, of character assessment (you mean assassination, Guy would say) for close on eight decades, and no one could touch him for accuracy. Greer was inclined to agree, with him and with Guy.

Antony came forward, hand outstretched. 'It's a great honour to meet with you, sir. I'm an admirer of your work from way back.'

Rollo turned to Greer.'Did you hear that,darling? He's one of my admirers, not that way back is very far back, in his case. But he's very good-looking, which is an excellent thing in a biographer, and he's got off to a good start by sweet-talking me. He knows I can be a big wheel in this bio. An essential primeval source.'

He plumped himself down with a satisfied grunt. Greer knew without looking that his appraising eyes were still actively focused on the visitor. He had a tendency to stare on first meeting, which some people found disconcerting.

'So, this is the unscrupulous young pup who will disclose to the world where the bodies are buried.'

'Absolutely, sir, and I'm hoping that you're the trusty mole who's going to divulge all the locations,' Antony was saying as Greer went inside for drinks.

She reached for things slowly as if on autopilot, reluctant to return: gin and
tonic, mineral water, a plate of crostini and a bowl of bright green Sicilian
olives. When eventually she came back, put down the tray and retrieved ice
and cold glasses from the second fridge on the terrace, Rollo wasn't sir any
more, one of the dogs was lying in his lap, the other in Antony's, and Rollo
was recounting stories about his life as an art student after World War II.

'I've been regaling him with my Slade period, darling. Like your Australian period, only more sordid and sleazy. I'm hoping he'll do me next, you see, after Signor Svoboda. In fact, it's a condition of my indiscretion. If I'm to be the Deep Throat in this bio, I must be bought off.'

Antony was grinning.'Deal.'They shook hands on it.

'But how soon can you get this little number out of the way? You've been at it for years,haven't you?'Rollo paused for a beat.'The book,I mean,'he added roguishly.

'Oh, you mean the
book
.Well, I've done pretty much all the research, the travelling around and hard slog. The solid background work. Now is the fun part, when I get to colour things in, you know, fill in the foreground. All the up-close and personal bits.'

'It's like adding reclining nudes to a landscape, isn't it? Well, you'd better not take for ever. I might not be around. There can't be that much to say about Mischa, surely? He's far too lacking in notoriety. How much longer are we talking?'

'That depends a bit on what comes up. I haven't interviewed any of you Castello
people yet.'

'You're talking to us now, already.'

'In private, I mean. People are way more indiscreet in private.'

He's smiling at me again, Greer thought. The face is bland, but those guileless blue eyes are sparkling.

'Oh,
way
more, you're right on the knocker there. I'll give you a completely different story when Gigi's out of earshot.'

'I haven't even got to meet with my subject yet.Your maid was appalled at my tardiness.'

'Oh, he doesn't need to meet with his subject, does he? It would be quite superfluous. We can tell you everything about Mischa. Besides, he's spectacularly inarticulate about his work, isn't he?'

'He is, rather,' Greer said. Rollo's trying to include me, she thought. I ought to say something. She added, 'He's an instinctive painter, not an analytical one.'

'Pretty amazing instincts, huh?'

She nodded. He was still smiling. His teeth were really quite small, but remarkably
white and regular.The top and bottom rows were equally visible, like the picture
of a gleaming porcelain smile in a toothpaste advertisement.

Rollo said, 'You mustn't give too much credence to what people say in interviews.There would be a gruesome amount of best behaviour going on, I should have thought. Lashings of sanctimonious spin.'

'That can certainly be true, but you make allowances for embellishment, and everything gets massively cross-checked again anyway. On the other hand, I have to say it's more than balanced by the amount of bad behaviour you get thrown at you.'

'Really? You don't say.' Rollo's ears were pricked.

'People out to settle old scores, and so on. The most lavish informants are not exactly devotees of their subject. Mostly failed painters in this case, blaming Mischa for their own less than stellar careers and lack of talent.'

Antony looked at Greer.'But don't worry on that score, the grudge groupies are wildly transparent. They're child's play to see through. Most of them haven't even set eyes on Mischa in years.'

'Well, who has, really, apart from us? And even we don't see that much of him, do we?' Rollo laid his hand over Greer's.'This is probably just another failed painter talking,but our young friend here will have to confront the bitter truth in his bio eventually, won't he? Your soul mate's got a serious dose of the workaholics. Full on, he's not just a recovering one like me. He's never been a social flutterby or a nightclubable chap.'

She made an effort to play along. 'He doesn't feel the need for what most people think of as essential – a busy social life, the kind where you keep up with a wide circle of friends.He's happy with a select few.And with them he can be quite,'she looked at Rollo,'he can be quite extrovert.'

'Ain't dat de truth.' Rollo chuckled.

'That's why it's so great to get here at last and meet with you guys, the inner circle who really do know him. I've been itching to put faces to the names I've had in front of me for so long.'

'But surely you've already seen photos of us guys? And interviews on the telly? There must be a few home movies gathering dust under people's beds too these days, although we've never gone in for them here. Far too incriminating.'

'There are, but it's not the same. Even when you've seen photos and TV clips. People are usually nothing like you imagined. In the flesh.'

He's looking at me again, Greer thought. He's hardly touched his drink. She refilled Rollo's glass, added the two ice blocks he liked, and said, immediately regretting it,'Are they better or worse?'

'They're neither. Just different. The same way you get a mental picture of someone from a voice on the telephone, and when you go face to face with them you're gobsmacked.'

'Isn't that spot on? And isn't it extraordinarily odd? They're usually the exact opposite of your mental picture. Why do you suppose this is?' Rollo leant forward. He could chew over this kind of discussion for hours.When she tuned back in they were roaring with laughter over something, and looking at her expectantly.

'She's in a dream,' Rollo said.'You'll have to get used to that. Don't take it personally. She's apt to go off at any time, whether you're Nelson Mandela or Cary Grant.Or,I suppose, Brad Pitt.'

'Especially Mr Pitt,' she said.

'I was just telling him, darling, that although we'd never spoken on the phone I had a definite conviction he'd be a receding brunette with horn-rims, like your standard prune-lipped critic. Not a nice blond preppy. How did you visualise him?'

'Oh,' she looked down,'I don't think I had any mental picture.' She felt Antony's eyes on her again. He knows I'm lying. He may be fair-haired but my conviction was right: he is dark, deep down. He has a dark gaze.

'Mrs Smith! Where are you hiding?' Mischa's shout, although she had heard it a thousand times, made her jump.

She called, 'We're out here.' She turned to Antony and said, looking over his head, 'He always does that. Even though he could have seen us on his way here from the studio, if he looked up, and there's a limited number of places I might be . . .' Why was she explaining this, she wondered. She went to the bar fridge for his beer.

'Antony's here, and Roly,' she added loudly and unnecessarily, feeling foolish,
as Mischa lumbered in on them.

'Have you got a beer for me? Ah, what a good woman.' He gave her a smacking kiss then seized the bottle and pumped Antony's proffered hand. '
Salve
, Tony! This is my authorised biographer, base rabble, and nobody told me he was here!'

Greer thought, he's still sounding awkward.

Another drink later and the four of them had given up on Guy and his wine buyers and gone down to eat in the village. Just a jumped-down tratt, Rollo told Antony, nothing fancy for you. But the biographer couldn't fail to see that the group were regulars there, knew all the other diners, were hailed by Maria Paola the moment they set foot in the door, had their chairs ceremoniously pulled out and, what was more, Rollo's own special chair, upholstered in worn velvet, carried ceremoniously in.