by Annie Dalton
FOUR
Anna took a sip from the heavy, ice-cold goblet that had been pressed solicitously into her hand, so cold the water hurt her teeth. She still felt that ominous buzzing in her ears. She hadn’t blacked out, but she’d come close. The matinee idol man had swiftly helped her to a chair inside his office, then brought her the water. Alexei somebody, he’d said he was, but she’d still been too shocked to take in his last name. She must have blurted out something, because he’d murmured something about it being ‘a very great honour to have Julian Hopkins’ daughter here at Hempels’.
Anna had a strange sense of being back in her own home and wondered if it was just because of the wooden shutters. Once upon a time, when she was very small, Hempels had been like her second home. Alexei’s vast desk hadn’t been there in her father’s time, she was almost sure. Polished to a silky sheen, there was nothing on it except a telephone and a framed picture or photograph, though of what or whom she couldn’t see from her chair.
The walls had been repainted here too in some no doubt authentic Georgian red. A few exquisite objects were displayed here and there and she was surprised. She couldn’t remember later what any of them were, only her surprise that they weren’t locked inside a glass case, but kept out in the open, as though this was some opulent private apartment.
The office even smelled opulently of beeswax, good coffee and money, she thought. Alexei continued to hover, concerned.
‘Would you like me to refill your glass?’
Anna could see a flawlessly folded silk handkerchief in his top pocket. It was an ox-blood red, like the walls, and brought out an identical dark crimson fleck in the tweed of his Savile Row suit. He has kind eyes, she thought, wishing she could summon up his last name.
‘More water would be lovely,’ she said, ‘though I’m feeling much better, thank you. It was just the shock.’
‘I can imagine,’ he said sympathetically, ‘I am so sorry that you had to witness such a distressing scene. Unfortunately, Ms Carmody, our receptionist, is off sick. She normally fields unwelcome intrusions such as Mr Fischer’s.’ He refilled her glass and she noticed his wedding ring, a wide gold band with a pleasing geometrical pattern etched into it.
Anna took another sip from the heavy, glass goblet.
‘Who is he?’ she asked. ‘And why would he drag my father into this?’
Alexei gave her a reassuring smile, ‘Hempels is small but it has acquired a certain cachet. Unfortunately, some people believe everything they read online and they associate us with astronomical sums of money changing hands. We have one lady who calls us up from Hereford wanting us to verify yet another priceless Old Master she bought in a car boot sale. Mr Fischer comes here every few months and vents his feelings about his imaginary Vermeer. It goes with the territory, I’m afraid. It’s extremely regrettable that your visit and his happened to coincide.’
Anna felt a frisson of shock. It had never occurred to her – why would it? – that Fischer had been talking about a lost Vermeer. Such a painting would be priceless.
‘But he was talking as if he’d had personal dealings with my dad,’ she said, bewildered. Julian had been dead for over sixteen years, yet Fischer’s disappointment seemed so fresh. Before her conversation with her grandfather, she might have been less suspicious. But now she knew her father had been involved with the Scott-Nevilles, all kinds of alarm bells were ringing.
Alexei shrugged. ‘Your father was well respected in the art world. In this age of the internet, it wouldn’t be too hard to come up with his name. He is mentioned in our website after all.’ He gave another faintly foreign shrug.
‘I suppose.’ She longed to believe that this matter-of-fact explanation was the true one.
‘I don’t doubt that Mr Fischer himself fully believes what he’s saying,’ Alexei seated himself on the edge of his beautiful empty desk. ‘But …’ He shook his head. ‘… He is deluded, I’m afraid.’
‘His painting really doesn’t exist?’
He shook his head. ‘Inside his tortured mind only.’
But Anna could still hear Fischer raging, ‘Julian Hopkins knew we were telling the truth. He told me he believed me!’ He’d made it sound as if her father had let him down in the worst way. She felt she couldn’t bear it, if Fischer’s assessment of her father was true. Wild and strange as he had seemed, he hadn’t struck her as mad. Yet sixteen years later, he was still trying to track down his imaginary painting.
Alexei’s kind, blue-grey eyes briefly met hers.
‘I knew your father,’ he said quietly. ‘I learned the business from him and I admired him more than I can say. You won’t remember seeing me at his funeral, but …’ He made a sorrowful gesture. ‘It was a terrible time for all of us at Hempels. As for you, Anna – may I please call you Anna? I cannot bear to imagine the loss.’
A young woman appeared at Alexei’s door wearing a white shirt and charcoal grey trousers. Alexei smiled at her.
‘Ah yes, Caroline. Any word from the agency?’ Caroline quickly crossed the space between them and murmured in his ear.
‘Not till tomorrow?’ Alexei made an irritated tisking sound. ‘Then do you think you and Sophia could sort something out between you, just for today? We must have someone on the front desk.’
Anna bent to pick up her bag, embarrassed. ‘I’ve come at a bad time.’
‘Not at all.’ Alexei took a breath. ‘As it happens a client has just cancelled. If you are fully recovered, would you like me to show you around, so you can see some small changes we have implemented since you were last here?’
‘I would love that, thank you,’ Anna said, ‘that’s so kind.’
‘It is my pleasure! Come, I will take you on a tour.’
They made their way upstairs and through a set of double doors into the long high-ceilinged hallway, familiar to Anna from her childhood visits. But, as they walked into the first showroom, all familiarity fled. In her father’s time, the building had been a ramshackle warren filled with wonders. This was a different, polished, more orderly world, full of light and space; so much space, she marvelled. The effect was to make the widely-dispersed objects on display appear more priceless still. Burnished wooden floors stretched on for miles. Tall, columnar vases, filled with fresh flowers, were placed at perfectly judged intervals. This new version of Hempels resembled nothing so much as a prestigious art gallery.
Anna had a sudden vivid image of her six-year-old self, sturdy Clarks shoes echoing on scuffed floorboards as her father took her to see her favourite thing in Hempels; a stuffed zebra which she had secretly longed to take home.
What’s that word? She thought suddenly. Palimpsest? The filmy layers of the present through which you occasionally discerned ghostly traces of what had been here before. That’s what Hempels felt like to her now.
They walked along an avenue formed between immense Chinese vases – the kind the six-year-old Anna had imagined hiding inside, like Ali Baba and his forty thieves – and into a room which displayed only antique porcelain. Her eye was instantly drawn to a Limoges tea-set; the impossibly delicate cups seeming to glow, as if giving off their own inner light.
‘How beautiful.’ Anna swiftly pushed away a memory of dresser shelves crashing down.
‘Is this strange for you, being back here?’ Alexei asked.
‘In a way,’ Anna said. ‘But lovely too.’
‘You feel close to your father here?’
She nodded. ‘He loved this place. It meant everything to him.’
‘You must come again,’ Alexei said.
As they walked from showroom to showroom, he told her how he had come to work in the UK.
‘I was born in Soviet Russia. My mother defected during the late 1960s. I was just a toddler then, so still quite portable.’ He smiled. ‘It was a big scandal. My mother was a well-known opera singer. The Soviets were not happy to lose her.’
Alexei was older than he looked, Anna thought, and less foreign than he seemed, if
he’d grown up and been educated in the UK. Perhaps he’d found being a professional Russian émigré a useful persona in his line of work? Or maybe Alexei had spent all his childhood listening to other Russian exiles and now this was just who he was?
They looked into several, dimly-lit rooms, where paintings by famous artists hung against walls the colour of wet slate.
‘Is that a Turner?’ Anna asked, hoping Alexei couldn’t hear her stomach rumble.
‘Yes, yes! Well done. Your father taught you well!’
They entered a room where glass cases glittered with jewels and Anna told Alexei about the Tsarina’s crown. They wandered past chairs, tables and inlaid cabinets, while Alexei helpfully murmured names; Sheraton, Chippendale, Adam Hepplewhite. Anna could feel her blood-sugar dropping. She should have stopped for sushi after all.
And then.
‘The zebra!’ Anna said, astonished. ‘He’s still here!’
‘But of course! He is Hempels’ lucky mascot,’ Alexei said, smiling. ‘We have had him repaired here and there and now he is as good as new! Oh, but now you look sad, Anna. Something has upset you?’
‘I was genuinely so pleased to see him,’ she said apologetically, ‘but I can’t seem to feel quite the same about him as I did when I was a little girl. I didn’t worry about animals becoming extinct in those days. I think I just saw him as an especially wonderful kind of stuffed toy.’
‘Then we will quickly move on,’ Alexei said. ‘This tour was not intended to make you feel guilty or sad.’
‘So when your mother defected did she bring you to London?’ she asked, to make up for her reaction to the zebra.
‘Yes, yes. She established herself very quickly at the Royal Opera House. It was around the same time that many Russian performers, including Nureyev, had defected. There was this feeling that London was the place where exiles would always find a warm welcome.’ Anna pictured him as a little boy, in a room filled with the smell of Russian cigarettes, someone playing Rachmaninov or Stravinsky on a grand piano, passionate political discussions and tears for the country they’d left behind.
‘Not such a warm welcome now unfortunately,’ Anna said, thinking of recent items on the news.
‘No, not nearly so warm. My mother and I came here as refugees and now …’ Alexei gestured smilingly to their surroundings. ‘These days it’s not so easy, I think.’ He took a breath. ‘Anna, if I have not worn you out, I want to show you something very beautiful before you leave.’
Anna was beginning to feel dazed, but he had been so kind that she didn’t feel she could refuse. Alexei led her to a room devoted to antique rugs and hangings. She followed him through a blur of colour and pattern. She heard him murmuring Arabic-sounding names that slipped away from her like water, as soon they were spoken. Concentrate, she told herself, feeling her palms growing damp, longing now to be back home with Bonnie.
At last, Alexei stopped and she saw his gaze come to rest on a rectangular carpet, densely patterned in the profound blue and violet hues of a twilit garden.
‘Pure silk,’ Alexei said in a reverent voice. ‘From Isfahan in central Persia. Four hundred years old. Yet look at these wonderful blues, scarcely faded.’ It was true; against the chalky pallor of the wall the colours seemed astonishingly fresh and bright.
‘And these stylised little birds look! Can you make them out? The ratio of knots per square inch is so high it can’t even be counted.’
‘That makes it especially precious doesn’t it,’ Anna said, remembering her father enthusing in similar language.
He nodded. ‘We expect it to fetch up to five million pounds.’
What stories this carpet could tell, Anna thought. She imagined tall date palms casting long shadows against the brilliance of the desert and women’s hands, some gnarled with age, deftly knotting those cooling garden colours in the dust and heat, the call to prayer drifting from the mosque.
‘Isfahan was larger than London four hundred years ago,’ Alexei said. ‘It was more cosmopolitan than Paris.’
‘And now?’
He shook his head. ‘Now it is mostly known for a highly contentious nuclear facility.’
They went back into the wide shining hallway, just as someone emerged through a door, talking and gesturing to an elegant, young woman, who was busily entering notes into her tablet. Her simple, shift dress looked as if it had been knitted from expensive designer moss. Her hair was twisted into a silky, nut-brown coil on the back of her neck. She didn’t appear to register either Anna or Alexei; all her attention was focused on the stocky, silver-haired man beside her.
‘Oh, here is my boss, Herr Kirchmann, who owns Hempels now,’ Alexei said in an undertone. ‘He is with Alice Jinks, his PA. I must introduce you.’ He waited until Herr Kirchmann and Alice had finished their discussion, then stepped forward smiling.
‘Thomas, if you have a moment, I have someone special for you to meet.’
To Anna’s astonishment Thomas Kirchmann smiled at her in delighted recognition.
‘But I know you, don’t I? You are Julian’s eldest daughter. How wonderful that you’ve come to visit us. Has Alexei been showing you around?’
‘Yes, he has.’ Anna hoped she didn’t look as disconcerted as she felt. ‘I feel rather guilty at taking up so much of his time.’
‘Not at all. This is a momentous occasion for us. Have you had lunch, Anna?’ Before she could reply, Herr Kirchmann frowned at his watch. ‘But I think it is too late now for lunch?’ His face cleared. ‘In which case, we must go out for afternoon tea!’
‘No, no, really,’ Anna said. ‘I turned up completely unannounced. I couldn’t possibly …’ This was not at all how she’d envisaged her visit to Hempels turning out.
‘I won’t take no for an answer,’ he said cheerfully. Hempels’ new owner was already gently steering her by the elbow. ‘Alexei, you will come with us,’ he added, including him with a gesture that was part welcoming, part command. ‘And Alice of course.’
A tiny crease appeared in Alice’s smooth forehead. ‘But Herr Kirchmann, your diary—’
‘Nonsense!’ Thomas Kirchmann interrupted and Anna felt the hidden steel beneath the jolly, German uncle exterior. ‘We can always make time for old friends. We shall all go to Pfeffers. It is the only place in London where they know how to make good coffee!’ he added to Anna.
‘I’m not sure if that is strictly true, you know,’ she said laughing, resigning herself to catching a much later train. Bonnie had a dog flap, so she could access the garden any time she needed to. All the same, Anna didn’t like to leave her for so long.
‘Alexei knows I am right, don’t you, Alexei? Every time I take him, he buys their special strudel for his wife. They are absolute perfection, believe me! Alice, you will call ahead, please and reserve us a table.’
Anna found herself feeling sorry for Alice, as she was dispatched to clear Thomas Kirchmann’s diary, reserve a table at the perfect coffee house with the perfect apple strudel and call a town car to take them there. At last, all the arrangements had been made and their little group of four emerged from the auction house. Above the rooftops, the London skies were growing hazy, threatening rain.
‘You know I was once a client of your father’s?’ Herr Kirchmann said. ‘He always had a photograph of you on his desk.’
‘Yes, he did.’ Anna felt herself doing a belated double-take. ‘Surely that can’t be how you recognised me?’
‘Thomas never forgets a face,’ Alexei explained. ‘Not even one he’s glimpsed in a photograph.’
‘Seriously?’ Anna said. ‘That’s virtually a super-power!’
Herr Kirchmann spread his hands. ‘But, Anna, you have not changed!’
She laughed. ‘I think I have.’ A gleaming Jaguar drew up.
‘In essence you are exactly the same,’ Kirchmann insisted. ‘And now I think this is our car! You really haven’t been to Pfeffers before?’
‘Never,’ she said.
‘Then
I can assure you that you have a treat in store.’
Reluctant to get into the back with the others, Anna smilingly climbed in beside the driver before Alexei or Alice could pre-empt her. They drove off and Anna heard faint beeps from Alice’s tablet as Kirchmann’s PA valiantly continued to send and receive messages, squeezed in between her boss and Alexei.
She heard Alexei say, ‘David Fischer was here when Anna arrived.’ Then he dropped his voice but Anna caught the word, ‘distressed.’
‘I am extremely sorry to hear that,’ the older man said heavily, but as Anna wasn’t sure if he was addressing her or Alexei she didn’t respond.
Herr Kirchmann abruptly leaned forward addressing the driver. ‘Where are you from, young man? Afghanistan?’
The driver looked as startled as Anna had felt when Kirchmann identified her from a childhood photo.
‘Yes, I am from Kabul. You have been there?’ He sounded understandably cautious, Anna thought, not knowing what his passengers’ prejudices might be.
‘I have been to Kabul but a long, long time ago,’ Herr Kirchmann said.
Kirchmann and the Afghani driver were soon chatting amicably. Free to think her own thoughts, Anna stared out of the window, aware of the stale breeze stirring her hair. In a few moments, they’d be passing Harvey Nichols. When she was sixteen, she and Natalie would come up to London just to wander from floor to floor of this flagship Knightsbridge store, deciding what they’d buy when they were grown up and free from all adult constraints. Afterwards they’d go to Patisserie Valerie for coffee and a slice of incredible lemon tart, which they’d divide scrupulously between them.
A black, lycra-clad courier zipped past on his bike, barely making it through the lights. The driver made a disparaging comment and Herr Kirchmann said, ‘Not as bad as in Kabul, surely,’ and they both laughed. Airbrakes hissed. Buses exhaled diesel fumes. The traffic came to a standstill and Anna found herself outside her old Temple of Delights, looking into a window which resembled a set for some glorious extra-terrestrial production of The Magic Flute. It was impossible to tell, from inside the car, what the glittering fantasy forest populated with peasants, princesses, fairy-tale birds and animals was supposed to be promoting, but it was so charming that she didn’t care.
