Chapter Five
Esme looked at the address for Max Bliss’s studio again. She was in Fulham and on the right street, outside the correct number. She rang the bell for a second time and stood back to see if there was any movement in the windows. Her painting clattered to the ground.
‘Fucking hell.’
All the curtains were drawn. Maybe Bill had forgotten to tell him she was coming? She started to count the seconds before she rang the bell again, waiting then counting her heartbeats so that she felt like she had power over her nerves. There were two choices: to leave or persist even though she felt out of her depth. All her earlier curiosity about the painting’s real identity had changed to anxiety. She chewed the inside of her cheek and told herself to stop being pathetic.
Hellooooooo?’ she yelled, head upturned like a she-wolf howling at the moon.
‘Yes? Are you Esme?’
Esme looked around to see where the voice was coming from.
‘Here. To your left,’ said a deep voice filled with mirth.
A tall blond man in his forties, wearing ragged clothes and a broad grin was standing outside some garage doors.
‘Are you Max?’
‘No, I’m the fucking Queen of Denmark. Of course, you nit. Come in.’
The door which swung shut behind him had a heavy padlock dangling from a metal arm. Grabbing her painting, Max held the door open for her to enter the great man’s grotto.
An overpowering smell of turpentine and glue stung her eyes.
In her mind’s eye, Esme had envisaged the studio to be lofty, light and airy. A restorer was the custodian of works worth millions and his place of business would surely reflect that. As would the man himself. But neither Max nor his chaotic studio matched what she’d imagined. Thinking at first that Max was wearing leather trousers, she saw that they were in fact jeans lacquered with spilt oil and varnish. His shirt and jumper were more gamekeeper than art historian. The checked collar was dirty and frayed and his pullover was pelleted by moth holes and crumbs of God knows what. Although it was only eleven o’clock, he held a smeared goblet of red wine in one hand and picked up a chipped mug of tea with the other. His hair was deeply parted to one side and he had the bluest eyes that glinted with merriment.
‘Builders’ or vino?’
‘Just some water, please.’
He cut a path through the clutter to a cracked Butler sink stockpiled with an assembly of crockery and congealed cutlery. Taking a cup that dislodged the heap – which he ignored as it mostly clattered to the ground – he filled it from the tap.
The studio was a barely converted garage stuffed with frames and canvases stacked against exposed brick walls. Dust and long-abandoned cobwebs capped the rough blocks like forgotten tombstones. The space was long and narrow with scarcely enough room to move. Every surface – be it the trestle table, water pipes or shelves – was littered with pots, brushes, bottles and old tins. Dirty rags were strewn across the paint-splattered floor. Strip-lighting and a tree-like lamp made up of bare light bulbs illuminated the only clean thing in this pigsty. Gleaming upon a battered easel was an exquisite still life. It rose like Venus from a polluted sea, proud, commanding and spotless.
‘There you go.’
The water was warm and the mug had a tide line of curdled milk. It still smelt strongly of coffee.
‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’ he continued.
Esme didn’t know what to say. The painting moved her in a way that made her feel euphoric and overwhelmed with emotion. At once she was both close to tears and yet also consoled. It was extraordinary how a painting could summon such feelings instantly, could bring the past alive in such a tangible way. The flowers were more vibrant and alive than the real thing.
‘Who is it by?’
‘Simon Verelst. A Dutch painter.’
‘Sixteen hundreds?’
Max nodded.
The Dutch Golden Age. Esme had studied it in Brussels.
‘Bullseye. He was known for his flowers but painted marvellous portraits, too.’
Max handed her a Polaroid. It was a photograph of shadowed colour and indistinguishable form.
‘Is this the same painting?’ she asked, thinking it impossible.
‘Yes, poor love. She arrived a month ago. It beggars belief how people are capable of such abuse. Of course, the muck had built up over centuries but it’s a crime to allow a painting to suffer like this. The owners should be shot. The only reason they are having her cleaned now is because they want to sell her and they wouldn’t have bothered had the dealer not told them a sale was inconceivable in this state. Greed has saved her from a life of grime.’
Esme held her painting more tightly. When he saw the state of it, would Max consider her a criminal inoculated against culture and the responsibility that comes with owning fine art?
‘Is this what Bill wants me to collect?’ She almost had to pinch herself at the fact she was trusted with such treasures.
‘Yes, but it’s not quite dry yet,’ he said, dabbing his finger on the paint.
‘Where’s the frame?’
‘That’ll take two seconds. Just got to find the bloody thing.’
Fat chance, thought Esme. She’d be here for hours whilst he rifled through the hundreds of mounts that all looked the same.
As Max rooted through frames, a grey blur of a dog rushed into the studio and practically assaulted Esme.
‘Leave her alone, Flea, for fuck sake.’
Max pushed the hound’s nose away from Esme’s crotch.
‘Don’t worry, I’m used to dogs,’ she laughed.
She knelt down and took the dog’s face in her hands, kissing it on the forehead.
‘Boy or girl?’ she asked.
‘A boy. Dirty old bastard. Like his owner.’
‘He’s lovely.’
Flea was more wolfhound than lurcher, with a rough, steel-grey coat, shaggy face and kind eyes. Bred to course hares, they were as fast as greyhounds and notoriously lazy. He grunted with pleasure as Esme scratched him behind the ears, trying to lick her wrist without moving his head away from her fingers. He smelt of paint and turpentine. It can’t be good for him being surrounded by these fumes, she thought. Satisfied Esme was friend not foe, Flea finally loped back to a battered wicker basket under the sink.
‘How old is he?’
Flea had the same wise eyes as her old dog, Digger. Esme often thought that the only reason she was vaguely sane, aside from having Mrs Bee, was because of Digger’s unwavering loyalty and love. He had instinctively known when she was upset or lonely, was always there when she’d needed something to cry into.
‘I have no idea. Rescued him from some yobs who were torturing the poor bastard. That was six years ago and he was fully grown then.’
‘He was lucky.’
‘That’s debatable, but he’s certainly better off than being kicked around like a football,’ said Max, turning to Esme’s painting. ‘So this is the picture Bill wanted me to have a look at?’
There was no point in trying to hide anything from this man, Esme decided. She sensed he had the kind of emotional intellect that could sniff out everything you tried to hide. He was direct, with no bullshit. She gave him a look she hoped said, ‘Let me introduce you to your nemesis.’
Without so much as a glance at the front of her painting, Max swiped clean the trestle table. Tubes, paint, boxes of nails were all sent flying before he placed the picture face down on the surface. He then got a piece of chalk, drew two double lines that bridged from frame to panel and wrote, CART.
‘Now I know who the dealer is and which frame and where to put it back. Like a puzzle. Simple but effective.’
It seemed the restoration was beginning without the restorer having inspected the actual painting or asking anything about it. Clearly, he and Bill had spoken and Max had been instructed to clean it, regardless. Did he know it was actually hers or a perhaps he thought it was a work to be cleaned for the Culcairns?<
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‘Pass me those, will you?’ said Max, pointing to a wall covered in tools nailed to chipboard.
He could have been pointing to one of a hundred instruments of torture. Screwdrivers, hammers of every size, carving chisels and gouges. Esme took a lucky dip and lifted a pair of pliers.
‘Perfect.’
He pulled out the rusty nails holding the canvas to the frame. Each came out with surprising ease, like rotten teeth from an old man’s jaw. There was nothing delicate or careful in his method. The pincers nicked the wood leaving splintered scars.
‘Does it matter that you have damaged the frame?’
‘No. Shows the age of the picture.’
He then lifted the frame off the canvas and added it to stack behind him.
‘Right. The moment of truth,’ he said, turning it over.
Esme tried to lift her heart that was sinking to the floor.
‘Oh God, I’m so embarrassed.’ She covered her eyes.
The responding silence spoke a language she didn’t understand. In the distance, she heard the siren of an ambulance or fire engine. She ought to know the difference, having had both turn up at The Lodge on multiple occasions. Both emergency services were appropriate for this corpse of a painting laid naked on the slab, though. But as they passed and the silence returned, she peeked through her fingers and saw Max inspecting the canvas through a magnifying glass. He tore a piece of cotton wool off its roll and tipped purple liquid onto it. Swabbing gently in the centre, the alcohol uncovered a rosebud pink that with soft swipes became a shy smile. The wad turned a brownish-yellow within seconds and was deposited into an old petrol drum brimming with fellow clumps of cotton wool turned the same ugly colour. Taking what looked like a skewer, he wrapped the tip in more wool and gently rubbed it over the thulium oil paint.
Still mute, he lifted the Verelst off the easel and replaced it with Esme’s painting.
A piece of fresh cotton wool – larger this time – was doused in more alcohol and wiped in broad circles across the canvas. The rhythmic movement made a quiet comforting sound, like a breeze through trees. Once again, the varnish – yellow with age – readily came away and with each sweep it was as if someone had flicked a switch on. The dirt cleared to briefly reveal the portrait of a woman before evaporating and clouding the image back under the soot that had blanketed but not destroyed the image. But already a shadow of the portrait was visible. It looked like a young woman. For a fleeting moment, the image reminded Esme of her mother. But unlike the Verelst, Esme could see there was less precision in the paintwork and the brushstrokes seemed to be bigger and less photographic.
‘Can you tell if it’s any good?’ asked Esme, relieved there was at least recognizable form.
‘The composition is very pretty. Lots of movement,’ he said.
All Esme could see was a ghostly figure draped in material. A kind of spirit bride that was impossible to date by what she was wearing. As far as Esme was concerned this could have been painted any time in the last two hundred years.
‘You see how the artist has created a figure of eight – well, more of a question mark, with the veil?’
Peering again, she could see Max was right. The fabric almost floated around the sitter’s head, falling loosely over her breasts and shoulders. If it was her mother, at least she wasn’t naked.
Max rubbed another section then pointed at the bottom right side, next to the slash.
‘You see this bubbling?’
‘You mean the cut?’
‘No. We’ll get to that.’
He reached for a paintbrush and pointed at a small gathering of pimpled oil, like nettle rash or goosebumps.
‘That’s from heat. Most likely a fire, given the soot coming off. It’s interesting that the frame wasn’t scorched.’
It did seem strange that the frame was intact. Perhaps the damage happened before the frame was put on. Having no clue as to the age of the picture it was impossible to say whether the frame was original.
‘Can you tell who the artist might be?’
‘Christ, no. But what I can say is that I have never restored a painting by this artist before. I’ve restored so many that I can recognize an artist’s hand instantly. I’m never wrong.’
Esme looked at him, deflated that Max had ruled out it being by one of the big-name artists in the Culcairn collection. Only when it was ruled out did she realize a part of her had been hoping some precious treasure had been lurking under the soot.
‘Don’t look so crestfallen, Esme,’ he laughed. ‘I could lie and say you’ve brought me a Renoir but it certainly isn’t French’ – he studied it briefly again – ‘or even Italian.’
‘And you’re never wrong?’
Max laughed, ‘It’s simply a fact, Esme. I may be many things but a bullshitter, I’m not. The problem comes when I try and get my own treasures authenticated. The so-called experts don’t like that one bit. They hate to be caught out.’
As much as she adored Bill, she could easily imagine him casually turning his nose up at a Rococo masterpiece he hadn’t snuffled out himself. But his insides would be an enraged, boiling vat of envy. She chuckled thinking of him desperately trying not to show it. There was nothing subtle about Bill.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘Just thinking of Bill as one of your “experts”. He would rather boil his balls than admit you had beaten him to a long-lost gem.’
Max filled his wine glass, with white this time, from a bottle that looked lifted from one of his paintings. It poured more like honey than wine.
‘Sure?’
Esme shook her head.
‘The thing about Bill is that, for all his hysteria, he is one of the most loyal men I know. He authenticated a painting I knew to be by Pontormo. I picked it up at Christie’s for a pittance. Bill was the only dealer who had a) the eye and b) the imagination to see what I did before I had cleaned it. Some owners have no artistic vision, no patience. That’s where I step in and get to buy up overlooked gems.’
Bearing in mind Max’s words, Esme was reluctant to state outright that the painting was hers and that Bill had pulled rank to get it looked at. The last thing she wanted was for him to think her to be a spoilt brat who would use contacts to get what she wanted – or worse, that it was somehow her fault that the thing got damaged.
‘I mean, look at what’s lying in wait behind the soot and dirt. This has been painted by someone very accomplished. I just don’t know who yet because I suspect it’s later than my area of expertise. Whatever is revealed will be beautiful. As to its value, I have no idea. But that’s not the point, is it?’
Esme wasn’t sure. She had begun to hope the painting would be of some value, perhaps something that she could sell to reinvest in a work of her own choosing. But to air this thought to Max would be like force-feeding Darwinism to the Pope. He would be deeply insulted and she was in no position to do that.
‘D’you think the Verelst flowers are dry yet? I should get back to the gallery. Bill will be pacing and unable to do a thing until he gets it. You know what he’s like.’
‘When he sees how beautifully she has polished up, he won’t care if you are a month late. He will be thrilled and deservedly so. Leave it with me a while longer and you can collect it when you come to check on how our soot-covered lady is coming along.’
Esme knew her painting was in safe hands but it still pained her to leave it. Not because she would miss it – she would be glad of not tripping over it in her bathroom every day. No, it was more a question of finality, of confronting her own history. And along with the dirt, would her past be washed away – and then what?
Chapter Six
The week that followed was a baptism of fire. Planning for Bill’s upcoming exhibition was an unrelenting frenzy. Bill – dear old Bill, her knight in kaleidoscopic colour – transformed into a carping tyrant, sniping and finding fault with the tiniest of details and drowning her in a slew of trivial tasks. His eye kept veerin
g from the critical parts of the exhibition to trivialities that bore no relevance to its success or failure – or for that matter anything at all. Silly little things like the angle of the desk diary (which he straightened on Esme’s desk with a sharp sigh) and emptying a practically empty wastepaper basket. When he wasn’t in the running to become Irritating Boss of the Year, he was winning an Oscar as Best Despot in a Leading Role. The gallery was his territory and he governed it in a constant state of panic, with no clear directive or consideration for its people. Suki and Esme were issued tasks that had already been done, or in Esme’s case were far beyond her realm of experience. The two girls worked tirelessly, Suki motivated by obedience and Esme, fear. The stakes were higher for her. She couldn’t afford to lose this job.
Her first encounter with a photocopier, something she had never seen let alone used before, was a nightmare. Not daring to admit ignorance, she fed price lists into every orifice until in frustration, she recruited Suki’s help. How was she supposed to know that the built-in stapler was a vicious little thing? It clamped its teeth before piercing the copied sheets together. A pile of squashed staples grew until she gave in and used paperclips.
The stationery cupboard became her refuge as well as her operations centre. Once she had mastered the workings of the office paraphernalia, if she needed to escape an outburst, she could retreat to her bunker. She took pride in organizing the blocks of A3 and A4 paper, alphabetically ordering the reference books and tidying the spare biros. Pencils of varying softness lined a tray with the precision of an army on parade. The red petty-cash box had its key left conveniently in the lock for anyone needing to dip in. There wasn’t an inch of that room she didn’t know intimately so was able to find anything at a moment’s notice if Bill had a fit of temper.
The exhibition had diverted her from the paintings themselves but she still desperately wanted to succeed and was willing do whatever was required, however menial. She took great pleasure in being organized and hoped Bill would see how hard she was trying after the opening night was over. Meanwhile, she kept out of his way and increasingly worked from the back rooms rather than front-of-house as she got more done. She addressed the invitations on her knee, using a stepladder as a stool, pausing to take in some of the grand names and fine addresses. Bill had said the guest list was select and focused, only collectors interested in seventeenth-century landscapes rather than anyone just chasing a night out and some fizz. Suki pointed out that none of his famous friends were coming.
Summer in Mayfair Page 7
