Holly Lester

by Andrew Rosenheim

  He nodded, but assumed she was confusing him with someone else. He was struck by her clothes: in her fifties, she had nondescript black hair and a face which, by the most generous assessment, could barely be called handsome, but she was a striking figure just the same. She had kept her figure, and wore a simple tight black skirt – Bruce Oldfield? Armani? Billings knew only it had to be such a name – with a single loop of freshwater pearls and matching earrings. The cut of the skirt, the understatedly perfect tan, and the elegance of her jewellery made their mark.

  ‘We were talking about the Constables,’ said Trachtenberg, and for a moment Billings wondered if they were present as well at this do. Then he remembered: Getty were trying to buy seven of them from a Northern museum down on its luck.

  Sally Kimmo said, ‘Frankly, I can’t get very worked up about it. It’s not as if there weren’t a lot of Constables to see in this country. And without travelling two hundred miles. I’d gladly give them the lot if it meant getting Kitaj back to London.’

  This was such a treasonous assessment to Billings that he thought it most polite to ignore it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said lightly to Trachtenberg, deciding that if his putative nemesis was going to act light-hearted he should do the same. ‘It seems to me that here’s an opportunity for you to spend some money saving national treasures that aren’t based in London. You’ll get two for the price of one: patriotism and the provinces.’

  Trachtenberg looked coldly at him, as if to say leave the phrasing to me darling, but then he smiled smoothly. ‘I like that,’ he declared, as if Billing’s petition for membership to his club had just escaped his blackball. ‘We can tell the Getty that the bidding’s with Bradford.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Sally Kimmo rhetorically, with the slightest hint of accent – Swiss perhaps? – though Billings could tell her heart lay in London. He had yet to meet a foreigner interested in art who took any real interest in, or had any real attachment to, anywhere provincial.

  ‘So you’d block the export license?’ Trachtenberg asked him, still breezy, but with a certain steel to his voice that seemed reminiscent of their earlier odd encounter – that sad Tory cunt’s called a General Election. Billings suddenly realized he was no longer in his usual world of hypotheticals – in a few weeks’ time, presumably Trachtenberg could block the export license. Billings associated money and power with New York, where he had grown accustomed to his occasional attendance at the confluence of the two – dinner, say, on Fifth Avenue seated between the Deputy Mayor and a MOMA trustee. But his low-key life re-entering London meant he was nervous now, back again in High and putatively Highbrow Society.

  Caught between politesse and vigour, Billings opted for the latter. ‘Absolutely,’ he snapped. ‘You’ll find there’s very little to lose on the political front. It distances you from the Tories, who would take the higher bid – fine art’s just another market to them, and Getty’s money is as good as any the provinces can offer. And this way, you get the nationalist vote. As well as the soppy art community – like me.’ He paused, looking for a pithy way to round off this untypically forthright sound-bite. ‘Politically, keeping the Constables can’t lose.’

  Trachtenberg gave him a long look of appraisal. He, too, was dressed beautifully, in a sharkskin suit of grey that could be New York – Paul Stuart – or Milan. He wore a rainbow tie of knitted wool and had a red rose in his buttonhole. As he continued to look at him, Billings resisted the temptation to say anything more, opting instead to look back at the man, not icily, not coldly, but steadily nonetheless. The growing awkwardness of this standoff was cut short by Sally Kimmo. ‘We must talk again soon,’ she said to Billings, reaching again for his hand. ‘I’m so pleased to have met you.’

  When she had left, each man looked down at his glass. Nicky of the spiked ear appeared again and Trachtenberg looked up and smiled at him in relief. ‘Ah Nicky,’ he said fondly, ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ He turned to Billings. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand that your invitation went out rather late. It’s standing room only in the hall, so I do hope you won’t mind where we’ve put you. Do come backstage afterwards. If you think it appropriate.’ And before the sting in this tail (‘appropriate’) had sunk in, Trachtenberg had walked away.

  Billings looked at Nicky, who smiled perfunctorily but seemed embarrassed. ‘Please follow me,’ he said and led Billings across the mezzanine to the lifts. Everyone else seemed to be going down the stairs to the auditorium where Harry Lester would speak.

  In the lift Nicky pushed the button for the top floor and they began to ascend. ‘Where are we going?’ asked Billings.

  ‘I guess Alan didn’t really explain. There are simply no seats left in the Hall. But he wanted you at least to hear the speech.’

  Mystified, Billings followed him out of the lift, down a corridor, out a fire door, up a short flight of metal stairs, then through an unmarked door into a long low-ceilinged room, an odd eyrie tucked in the uppermost corner of the building. There was a sandalwood conference table running down its centre, with tan chairs of soft leather placed around it. At its far end sat an immense leather sofa, with a television behind it on a table. Its screen displayed a long shot of a stage, with an unoccupied podium in its centre.

  ‘Alan says help yourself,’ said Nicky, pointing to a bar by the door which held a vast array of spirits – whisky, vodka, gin, even rum – and mixers of every conceivable sort. ‘Enjoy Mr Lester’s speech. If you need anything,’ and he pointed to a phone on the wall, ‘ring 347. That’s 347. Someone will pick up right away. When the speech is over, come down to the manager’s office if you like, and I’ll take you backstage.’

  It was only when Nicky had left that Billings started to sense how peculiar his treatment had been. So there were no seats available, but weren’t people standing in the back of the auditorium? He imagined Trachtenberg would be one of them, mobile phone in hand, barking orders into it about the lighting on Harry or the preliminary music.

  The bar was completely fresh; nothing had been touched. He opened a litre bottle of Teachers and poured a healthy two inches, then added Strathmore water from a small bottle, fantasizing briefly that if business stayed as bad as it was, perhaps he could start importing American fizzy water – something manifestly from that continent, preferably with a Native American Indian name. Damariscotta Springs, or Muskegon Mineral. Something like that.

  At the end of the table Billings found the television’s remote control. Turning up the volume, he sat down in one of the soft chairs and swung round to watch the events taking place one hundred feet below him. He turned up the sound and watched as a grey-haired man walked across the podium to the stage and quickly began to speak. He looked like a corporate businessman, and thinking of his invitation Billings realized he was a businessman. It was the CBI hosting the event, yet another sign of Labour’s mainstream appeal.

  The man’s introduction was neutral, low key, banal; without any sense of pace it suddenly yielded to Harry Lester, who walked quietly across the stage. For a moment the applause seemed disproportionate to the television Billings was watching; then he realized he was hearing it through the floor under him as well.

  Lester briefly acknowledged the applause, set his script on the podium before him, and began to speak, so quietly at first that Billings turned up the volume on the remote control. My invitation to speak here tonight, he was saying, is just one more indication of a new spirit in this great nation of ours. It is a healing spirit, one which binds wounds rather than opens them; brings people together rather than sets them apart.

  His voice was rising now in pitch and volume, and as it did his arms came alive as well, moving up cupped together in front of his chest, then opening to the side as if to embrace his audience. The effect was sufficiently distracting to make Billings lose track of Lester’s words. Concentrating on them made him realize that he hadn’t been missing a lot.

  They look at people and say, what class do they belong to? They listen to a pe
rson’s accent, not to their words. They judge someone on the cut of their clothes, not the cut of their intellect, or the size of their spirit.

  As an assault on the Tories, this seemed relatively tame, but Billings reckoned it served further to paint Labour as a moderate and mending force of British politics. Finding his own spirits near depletion, he got up and added a hefty slosh of Scotch to his glass. He supposed he would have to stick it out for the duration in this odd little hideaway, but he couldn’t see the point of his invitation. Had Trachtenberg superficially acceded to Holly’s request that Billings be there, then used the opportunity to insult him? It seemed a peculiar way to cause offense. Billings wished he had brought something to read; such was the grim functionality of this meeting room that there weren’t even prints on the walls to examine.

  ‘You should be watching more carefully. There’s still a lot about the Party you need to learn.’

  ‘Christ you scared me!’ he said, having poured roughly half his drink over his hand.

  ‘Aren’t you glad to see me?’ Holly closed the door and stood still, looking at him with an enormous smile. Her eyes – which the papers and even the television never adequately displayed – danced wondrously, big as marbles.

  ‘I am very glad to see you.’ Putting down his drink, he took a paper napkin and dried his hands. ‘I was wondering exactly what I was doing here. I thought maybe Alan was letting me know he wanted me out of the way.’

  ‘This was my idea actually. You couldn’t very well sit next to me downstairs, now could you? Aren’t you going to kiss me hello?’

  He walked towards her and as he drew near she threw both arms around him. They kissed passionately, and she began to press against him, until he broke off. ‘But aren’t you meant to be downstairs?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. But even the Queen has to go to the loo sometimes. Come on,’ she said, grabbing his hand and leading him towards the sofa. ‘We haven’t got much time. If we’re quick about it, I’ll miss the boring bits and still get back before anyone notices I’ve been gone.’

  She began to take off both their clothes until he protested. ‘What if someone comes in? Alan’s little friend? Or some security guard?’

  Holly laughed. ‘Mrs Diamond couldn’t make it up these stairs. And Terry the Runt’s too busy watching out for hecklers to come looking for me.’

  They had reached a fairly critical stage of undress, and Holly pushed him down on his back, lengthways across the sofa.

  ‘Seriously,’ he complained, as she began to climb on top of him. She held the remote control in front of her and pushed the volume down.

  ‘I locked the door,’ she said, then sighed as she moved her hips and moved down onto him.

  He had slept with no one since last seeing her, and found himself quick to climax. ‘Sorry,’ he said, looking up and brushing aside her soft black hair so he could see her expression. She was smiling, tight-lipped, with her eyes closed and now slowly shook her head as if slowly waking up. ‘Perfect timing,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get back so it’s just as well you were quick.’ She opened her eyes, and looked at him with a detached affection. ‘I guess I have to go.’

  He lay back with his own eyes closed, listening as she picked up her clothes and began to put them on. He felt sleepy and sad – until suddenly a voice erupted next to him.

  We know who you are! He jumped up, to find himself between a laughing Holly on one side and the on-screen visage of her tub-thumping husband on the other. Holly was holding the remote control in her hand.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said, sitting down naked on the sofa. He felt more angry than relieved.

  She looked greatly taken aback. ‘Sorry,’ she said mildly, as if placating a neurotic. ‘That was pure serendipity.’ She laughed. ‘Harry’s only banging on about the Tories.’

  Billings sat up. ‘You said you’d had an inspiration. About how we could see each other. Or was this it?’

  She was pulling on her dress, then reaching for her heels. ‘No, I do have a plan, but it may take a little while. I have to be sure it will work before I tell you. Be patient,’ she said teasingly.

  The same fear of exposure he had felt on first seeing the cover of the News of the World on his television screen suddenly surfaced again. ‘I don’t want you risking anything. Not now; the stakes are too high.’

  She looked at him coyly. ‘You mean you actually want us to win? Tsk-tsk.’

  ‘I mean it, Holly. You must be careful.’

  She smiled but kept her lips tightly sealed. Shaking her hair out, she sat down next to him on the sofa and put a hand to his forehead. ‘I must go.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips.

  ‘When…’ he began to say, then stopped.

  ‘‘When will I see you again?’’ she sang, and they both laughed. She had a lovely light singing voice.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Soon,’ she said, and stood up to go. ‘I will ring you this time.’ She nodded at the monitor. ‘You’d better get dressed yourself. I know this speech by heart, and he’ll be hitting the home straight pretty soon now.’ And she was gone.

  He dressed quickly, then finished his drink as Harry Lester finished his speech:

  And I say to you, in a time of present trouble the future can bring hope. When the air around you is misted and unclear, the future can bring clarity and light. With this government, no one can look today for answers. But in two weeks’ time there can be the beginning of a process that will provide answers, and establish what the questions are. And I say, let the questions begin afresh, let the answers begin to emerge. Thank you, and goodnight.

  The words themselves seemed so dreadful to Billings that he could hardly believe the applause that emerged deafeningly on the box and like a huge subterranean wave through the floor beneath him. His scepticism was soon replaced by a sense of mystified disturbance as he left the room, for he discovered that the door Holly had claimed to lock was incapable of being locked – it had no lock at all. What on earth was she playing at? It didn’t take a post-graduate student in Freud to wonder if she wanted to be caught. But why? He had known from the beginning that he was dealing with a dangerous situation by seeing her; he hadn’t realized that Holly herself was contributing to the danger.

  He made his complicated way downstairs and walked down the mezzanine stairs towards the crowd slowly leaving the building. ‘He was wonderful,’ gushed one woman in an expensive-looking raincoat, and her pin-striped husband harrumphed neutrally.

  Billings spied the manager’s office, but there was no way now that he wanted to go backstage. Any doubts about this were dispelled when he saw the sharp-suited figure of Alan Trachtenberg, talking jokingly with his assistant Nicky. Billings had felt the man’s charm with Sally, had felt it, before Trachtenberg’s last snide remark an hour before, with himself. He was bemused by this new mix in the man; far better that he be the icy Rasputin of Billings’s preconceptions than a slippery sliding amalgam of campy charm and ruthlessness.

  As he came to ground floor level, he found himself joined in the crush by Sally Kimmo. Together they moved slowly with the crowd towards the doors. ‘He was very good tonight, don’t you think?’ she asked.

  When he nodded politely, she said, ‘A breath of fresh air. When was the last time you heard a future Prime Minister talk about the arts in a major address?’

  Had Harry talked about the arts then? At what point in Billings’s session with Holly? Maybe it had come earlier, when he was almost falling asleep over his Scotch.

  ‘And to businessmen no less,’ said Sally. ‘Not that I have anything against businessmen. My husband happens to be a very successful one. But it tickles me to think what these people made of Harry’s remarks – I should think most of them think the Booker Prize is for vegetables,’ she added, pronouncing every syllable of the word. ‘You know, like those men in the North with their marrows. What they made of his mention of poetry goodness knows.’

  ‘He must be very conf
ident of winning if he’s talking about poetry. I suppose it would be nice to have a government that isn’t completely Philistine,’ Billings said. But would it? Did he really want more government intervention in the arts, wielding subsidy like a sledge hammer, trying futilely to popularize activities that were inherently of interest to only a pampered few? What had Harry Lester said? Something not obviously suited for a pin-striped audience of sceptical manufacturers.

  ‘Yes, it will be,’ said Sally, then clutched his arm. ‘We shouldn’t count our chickens, Mr Billings,’ she said, and he resisted the impulse to say it was her farm. ‘But I agree, things are looking most encouraging. And I was most intrigued by what you said to Alan.’ He looked at her politely and she said, ‘You know. About the Constables. What you said struck me as very savvy. Alan, after all, is really only interested in the here and now. And that applies to art too. If someone can explain the political advantages of carrying about heritage matters – Old Masters, old houses, you know what I mean – it could be very important.’

  ‘I’m sure he has very good advisers.’

  They came through the doors and suddenly the pressure dissipated as the crowd dispersed outside. She turned at the top of the stairs leading down to the street and looked wide-eyed at Billings. ‘Don’t be so modest, Mr Billings. I know your gallery.’

  ‘You do?’ he asked, flummoxed by her non sequitur.

  ‘Of course. Holly has told me of little else. Believe me, you will have a great part to play.’

  ‘Part in what?’ he could not help saying.

  She chuckled. ‘Like me, you don’t believe in counting chickens. Very well then, Mister Billings, we will wait two weeks before speaking so confidently. But then we will meet again. I know this. And I look forward to it.’

  She shook his hand and went quickly down the stairs. He looked up and realized there was a small demonstration going on in the street below. About fifty people – all young, dressed mainly in fatigues, accompanied by a strange assortment of scraggy-looking dogs, were trying to block the traffic but were being held back by twice as many policeman. While Sally Kimmo walked down the stairs, Billings watched as a uniformed chauffeur moved from the street and brought her back to his car, a dark Mercedes, parked right in front of a small cadre of demonstrators. As she neared the car, Billings could hear, even in the noise of night-time traffic and people departing the hall, one demonstrator, stepping forward towards the limousine, shouting above the din, ‘RICH BITCH.’