The Bulgari Connection (16 page)

‘Yuk.'

‘I think they're rather good,' said Barley, but then he would.

‘But why twenty?'

‘It's an invasion,' said Miranda. ‘Perhaps the other girls are too busy to shop for themselves. Fat chance we English have; we've got to sit at desks, how else to earn a living now they're over here.'

Barley decided that he had probably not been singled out for individual attention, that he'd misheard the name Makorksy, that there was nothing sinister in the fact that the woman knew he was free for lunch, or would have been if Flora hadn't called by chance – many men, thus propositioned, would have cancelled any appointment there and then – and went off light-hearted to the Ivy for lunch. He was indeed tired, morally and mentally as well as physically.

‘Grace,' said Walter to his loved one, ‘if you were to look at me as a stranger would, how old would you say I was?' ‘About forty,' she said, ‘but I'm very bad at ages.' It was evening. The nights had closed in. Rain and wind battered against the windowpane. They were cosy together, and whatever had happened at Doris's apartment now made them laugh, not weep. How quickly women forget, and men too. A life that seems intolerable one day, the next seems quite passable, at least if sex is there to provide a united front against life.

Without it, couples quickly spring apart and resume their separate identities. To be separate is perhaps a nobler aim, but to be united, as St Paul might have said, was at least better than to burn.

Doris's face on the easel was nearly finished now, and sat rather oddly and thinly on Lady Juliet's robust body. Walter would turn his attention to narrowing the figure presently. He would move the background in and fuzzy up its edges a little: he liked the idea of substituting a white and blue streakedbackground for the solid blue it now was, but seemed to remember, though he could not be quite sure, Doris saying she wanted the portrait wholly unchanged, other than what she called the two significants: Lady Juliet's head must become hers, and she herself must be seen as no more than a size ten, an eight if possible. He told Grace he felt obliged to obey. ‘You have your artistic integrity,' Grace protested. ‘You have your reputation to consider.'

‘I compromised those when I accepted this commission in the first place,' said Walter. ‘What painter in his right mind takes on this kind of duff job?'

‘Goya,' she replied, smartly, and that made him feel better. When a new patron beats upon the gates, it is wisest for artists to express their enthusiasm, and there is honour in the custom. Integrity is what you can afford. He decided not to worry about it. Things were going well otherwise. The Manhatt. had told him that a British film company had been in touch, wanting to film the private view if dates could be arranged. He wondered what film company that could be; he'd get back to the Gallery and ask them.

‘We'll be rich!' cried Grace. In her head her money was his money, so his was hers. As long as he wasn't too proud how happy they could be.

But the Manhatt., he warned her, would take fifty per cent of the wall price, the Bloomsday would want their cut, his agent would take fifteen per cent, and Inland Revenue would be taking twenty-five per cent if he sold a few, and forty per cent if he sold any more, so no, he would not be rich. You only got rich when your paintings got above the £10,000 mark. But he might become respected. He wanted respect. He did not like being patronised. He did not like being young. He wanted to cease to be seen as an Outsider in the Young Art Scene, andbecome an Insider in the Established Art Scene, where he and his paintings would be much more comfortable.

‘You look serious enough already,' she said. ‘Standing in that light you could just about pass for forty.'

‘That's good,' he said. ‘Forty's good. But I wouldn't want to get any older.'

‘I don't want to get much younger,' she said. ‘It's too unsettling.' ‘We're not really, are we?' he asked. ‘It is all in our heads.' She picked out another grey hair from his head. His eyebrows had got noticeably shaggier. Her period had started. Every now and then she had to clutch her stomach and take aspirin. Supposing she got pregnant? ‘Of course it's all in our heads.'

Doris, though her head still perched a little oddly, and Walter would have to see to that, smiled down at them quite pleasantly, as once had Lady Juliet. Grace had prevailed upon Walter to paint her in as kindly a fashion as he could, bearing in mind how she was born, not how she had become. How Doris would have been, according to Dr Jamie Doom, had she not fallen in love with her father one day, and learned to hate her mother and all wives thereafter. It had been quite difficult to persuade Walter, but she'd managed it. ‘We are put here in this world to sop up evil,' Grace earnestly explained to him. ‘We must see ourselves as scavengers of good and find the best in everything, even Doris.'

She even stopped him adding boiled linseed oil to the paint, so that Doris's head would turn black in a hundred years' time. At least he had proper turps now, and not the cheaper substitute that he'd used on the layers underneath. But was there something different about the new batch of paint which Walter had bought? Because on occasion when they got upin the mornings the new paint would have failed to hold properly on its base and a little would have slipped and slid, even cracked, so as to pull down the edges of Doris's mouth, or slant her eyes, and make her look not quite so nice. The effect was quite other than Walter's earlier attempt at light-hearted caricature using acrylics on oil-varnish glaze, and now overpainted: it had an unsettling, slightly hideous new quality to it.

Walter called the paint manufacturers on the phone, who insisted that no-one else had complained, and that their product was not at fault; they superciliously suggested that the canvas might not have been properly prepared. So Walter just painted over to cover up the damage and hoped to God the varnish he'd use when everything was finished would do the job, and keep Doris's face in one place.

Grace confessed to Walter that she'd had his meeting with Doris Dubois taped by Harry Bountiful, and at first he was angry, as he had every right to be. Then he laughed and said when they had the courage they would both go round together to Tavington Court and hear what the tape had to say, and his lost hours be restored to him.

Flora was looking pale but very beautiful and rather angry. She wore a little flowered skirt and a flimsy jumper and a string of pearls and arrived at the Ivy without a coat. She shivered a little over the Caesar salad; but soon warmed up and her cheeks even grew a bit pink with animation. She knew so much about so many obscure things to do with history, culture and art it used to leave Barley stumped. But he was catching up, thanks to Doris.

In the four month gap between Doris sending in Flora to do the research for the show in which Barley was to feature and the actual taping of the programme Barley had come to realise just how inadequate, uneducated and ignorant he was. Talk of Brunelleschi or the Van Eycks, or Medici patronage and Barley had no idea what anyone was going on about, or even what century. Grace never had much of a clue but knew a bit more than Barley did: and that had disconcerted him too. Who was Savonarola? Some kind of salami sausage, Barley thought. But no. Some religious geezer way back then. Flora knew, Doris knew. Grace guessed but got it wrong: she thought he wassome kind of Marxist philosopher. Barley just made a fool of himself.

One of the reasons he had married Doris, Barley didn't deny it, was to rid himself of the feeling that he was not the equal of the architects, the politicians, the planners with whom he dealt daily and who had all been to University, many even to Oxford or Cambridge. Sure, Barley had the knack of making money at a level that they for the most part did not, but they mysteriously won more of the world's respect and he wanted part of it.

He was not ready to hear Doris criticised – she was his wife, after all – and to her credit Flora did not indulge her obvious anger. She told him over the croutons that she had been fired by Doris, and was now unemployed.

‘She is quite good at firing people,' said Barley, cautiously. ‘It's her strength. She even got Grace fired,' and he laughed a little. He asked Flora what the reason was: there must be some kind of reason. She must have done something wrong. Even Ross had refused to lose weight; if he'd had any self-discipline he would have lost at least a pound or so. So what was it? ‘I wore a white dress to your wedding and my legs are better than hers,' said Flora promptly. ‘I upstaged the bride.' Barley automatically looked down to see if they were – she had them rather fetchingly tucked round the feet of her chair – and it was true they were supple and shapely, with perhaps a little more flesh around the calf than Doris sported. Doris's legs were very long, but a little too thin for perfection. And Flora had delightful knees.

‘Oh come off it,' said Barley. ‘That's stupid talk.'

‘And you looked at me too long,' said Flora, ‘and she caught you at it.‘You just looked so nice,' said Barley helplessly. ‘Why now, then? If you're right and this is the reason, why has she waited until now to pounce?'

‘Because she thought she'd found someone else to do the job,' said Flora. ‘Only she hasn't. Jasmine Orbachle. I went to art college with her. She works at Bulgari now, but before that she was doing research on ancient jewellery. I've warned her off so now she's staying put and that means Doris doesn't have anyone.'

‘Oh dear,' said Barley. It was difficult to know what side he was on. ‘That's bad.'

‘It is particularly bad,' said Flora, ‘because of the Leadbetter business coming up. The show's backing Leadbetter to get the Turner and he simply isn't going to. The public have gone right off all that Culture of Disgust stuff. The critics will follow like lambs. There's going to be a seismic shift and Doris will have three whole programmes in the can about yuck art.' ‘The show's allowed to make a mistake sometimes,' said Barley. ‘It's normally spot-on. It's famous for it.' ‘Because of me,' said Flora. ‘Not because of Doris. Doris is good at knowing everyone who's anyone in the art world but she can't tell a good painting from the back of a bus. She's dreadfully insecure, you know.'

Barley's mouth fell open. A waiter asked if everything was all right. He said it was. ‘The knives are out for her,' said Flora. ‘In the end you can make too many enemies. She's not the only one just waiting for an excuse to fire people. The thing is, she needs me, and I want you to tell her so. For her sake: because you can get quite fond of Doris even though she is a monster.'

Barley said he knew that. Flora said it was strange how and why you loved and liked people: it was seldom because theywere good. Except for a few people like Grace. She had wept buckets when the marriage split up, and had been to see Grace in prison but Grace wouldn't see her.

‘She did a lot of not seeing people,' said Barley.

‘I pray for her,' said Flora.

‘Keep it up,' said Barley. ‘Because I reckon she's quite happy.' He would have liked Flora to pray for him too but felt too embarrassed to say so. He felt like crying, which was not what grown men in the Ivy often did. There was a table a couple along at which were sitting four new peers of the Realm, from the worlds of art, architecture, opera and cultural television. They were drinking pink champagne – a magnum – and seemed very cheerful. He thought they might well not be if the rumours about the new ascendency of Science were true. But they waved happily at Barley, who had met all of them at many a meeting about Opera Noughtie. He waved agreeably back. No doubt they thought Flora was his mistress. Too bad. The women the Lords were with tended not to spend too much time on their appearance. They wore long drippy flat clothes: much as they would have done in the Sixties. The miniskirt had simply passed them by while they thought of more important things. Very few women got it right. Grace felt easy in clothes which would have suited a vicarage garden back in the Fifties. Doris's were whatever
Tatler
said they should be. Flora's face was way back in Medici times, so far back it made her pale, but her clothes and her style were of the effortless Now. He liked that. And her wrists were so thin.

Ethel Handy is thirty-nine, or so she says. She has a neat small-featured face and dark short hair. She looks competent and is good at figures. She wears tidy blouses and well-fitting skirts. She embezzled £80,000 from her employers, a chain of bookmakers and got three years when discovered. She was trying to pay off her mortgage and a man who was blackmailing her about some rude photographs taken when she was sixteen, which he threatened to show her aged parents. He had been the photographer. She thought her employers exploited both her and the public. She thought that if she gave him what he wanted he would go away, but he didn't. He went to the police about the fraud and vanished with her best friend and the money. The mortgage company foreclosed. She was sentenced to three years inside. The prison authorities were more soft-hearted than the judge and gave her as many privileges as they could.

When I was in prison Ethel was a good friend. She stood between me and the other girls. Grace can't help speaking the way she does, she'd tell them. She's a doctor's daughter.

She can't help crying. She loves her husband and her husband ditched her. Yes, she's the woman in the papers who tried to murder the husband's mistress. No, she doesn't want drugs. It's not her fault Sandy (one of the women guards) fancies her. She doesn't like being touched up either, she just doesn't spit and snarl like the rest of you animals. No, Grace, if it's Lancaster Stew on the menu don't have it, someone once found a sheep's eye in it, take the vegetarian instead. No, she's not going to give her visitors letters to take out of the prison. Her visitors get searched just like anyone else.