I laughed at this, recalling the strength of Jim’s feelings on the matter. He had declined to share a drink with his neighbour, Vern Glasser, on so many occasions that, one day, I had asked him why he could not try to be more accommodating. After all, I had to share a bathroom with Vern, and their festering resentment for each other was making the atmosphere in our mews house rather fraught. But Jim said, ‘I’ve nothing against Vernon in particular. It’s just that all he has to drink is that awful stuff from Kentucky, and, frankly, I’d prefer to swig from his toilet.’ How I missed being Jim’s assistant. The simplicity of our life together. That everyday affiliation we used to have. The longer I went without hearing from him, the more I thought of those days in St John’s Wood and yearned to restore them.
‘More to the point,’ Bernie Cale went on, ‘if he’s in the States, wouldn’t somebody have bumped into him by now? I mean, it’s not like you can hide in New York, is it? Not if you’re trying to make a name for yourself. It’s a very big scene over there, but it’s all a bit—what’s the word—incestuous.’ I had never been to New York so was not qualified to pass judgement.
The rumours about Jim’s whereabouts were founded on a scarcity of facts, with the gaps coloured in by guesswork. According to received opinion, he had gone to New York to live with his sister. This theory hinged upon a drunken conversation that Jim was supposed to have had with two regulars at the Prince Alfred pub, who had told Max Eversholt that they had held Jim’s ticket for the boat in their very own hands (they also claimed that Jim had begged the barmaid for a lift to Southampton). The problem with verifying this story was that nobody knew if Jim really had a sister. His drinking pals could not remember what her name was, where she might have worked, or what part of the city she lived in. They did not even know if she was older or younger. Eversholt believed their word was reliable, even if the details rang false when I called the shipping companies: they had no recent record of a passenger named James Culvers. All in all, the New York theory was quite unsound, but we had no other clues to follow up on.
Jim had abandoned his studio just a few weeks after I moved out of his attic. ‘A midnight flit,’ was how Eversholt put it. ‘Ditched everything but his sketchbooks.’ He had shown me the eerie state that Jim had left the space in: all his oil tubes thrown into a box, his easels folded down and stacked, the On Highs painted over with white gesso, leaned up by the window. ‘If you want some extra room, it’s yours,’ Eversholt had said. ‘You can work it out between yourselves when Jim gets back. Assuming he’s not lying dead in a gutter somewhere.’ I was revolted by his glibness, and he quickly apologised. ‘Sorry. That was in poor taste, even for me.’ The prospect of a stranger moving in to Jim’s studio was so dismaying that I agreed to take it on in his absence. I used it mostly to store overflow materials, though sometimes I would go and stand in those empty rooms when I needed separation from a particularly mulish piece of work. At first, it helped me to surround myself with the remnants of Jim’s thoughts, to pace in his old circles. But each time I tried to work there, I felt that I was painting over memories of him, changing the meaning of the space, so I stopped going.
Max was good enough to keep on covering the rent for Jim’s flat in Maida Vale. The landlady was thrilled to tell me all about the dirty pots that had been left to moulder in Jim’s sink, how his bins had not been put out for collection, and how she needed to let herself in with the master key when the smell became insufferable. She had promised to put Jim’s things in a storage locker for me if I paid her twelve shillings a month—I was sure that she would only dump everything and pocket the money, so instead I arranged for someone to pack up Jim’s possessions and kept the boxes in his studio, guessing he would thank me for it some day. But fortnights passed and still no hospital could account for Jim’s admittance when I called around, no duty officer could identify him in the drunk tank, no long-lost friends emerged to claim him as their lodger. I waited months for a letter to arrive, a postcard from America, anything. My heart flinched every time the phone rang, tempering when all I heard was the voice of Max (‘Darling, I’m headed your way. Any chance I might swing by with some friends? They’re itching to see what you’re working on’), or another gentle enquiry from Dulcie Fenton, the director of the Roxborough Gallery, who checked on my progress more frequently than I believed was necessary: ‘Anything you need from this end, just say the word.’ It took me a full year to accumulate the pieces for the show. Through that long, intensive period of work, I attuned myself to the idea that Jim would not be there to see the paintings when they were finished. In fact, I began to wonder if he would ever see another work of mine again. I accepted my aloneness, embraced it as my fate.
‘Paris is a decent bet, I reckon,’ Bernie Cale said, pushing out his lip. He picked off a handful of canapés from the server’s tray as it went by. ‘He used to go on about Giacometti and that crowd all the time.’
‘It’s possible,’ I said, doubting it.
‘Wasn’t he there for a bit, after the war?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t talk about it much.’
‘He’d like the lifestyle, I reckon. And the racing’s not bad either. You might want to put the feelers out, just in case.’
‘Paris is a mystery to me. I don’t have any feelers. I don’t even know if I’m pronouncing it correctly. Par-iss. Pa-ree? Which is it?’
‘Not a clue.’ He looked for somewhere to put his used cocktail sticks, settling for the floor under his boot. ‘I’ll start asking round, if you want. I know a few people.’
‘Sweet of you, Bernie. Thanks.’ I smiled at him, truly meaning it. ‘I was thinking St Ives might be worth looking into—Dulcie says a lot of painters have been moving down to Cornwall lately. I know Jim always loved the city, but he grew up on that part of the coast.’
‘Why’d I always think he was a northerner?’
‘I’m not sure. You must’ve been punched in the head too often.’
‘That’d explain it.’ He stuffed a finger in his ear and waggled it, studying the damp, waxy deposit under his nail. Another server went by with a tray, but this time he let her pass. ‘Well, wherever he’s gone and buggered off to, I’m sure he’s doing all right. Always thought Jim could handle himself, if he needed to.’
Coming from a boxer, this was oddly reassuring. ‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Course I am.’ Bernie stared at me. There was a slothful quality about his features that made him seem permanently on the edge of passing out. But he seemed to take a particular interest in my face that night, appraising it in long, heavy gazes that I tried to ignore. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I hear this lot are taking you to Wheeler’s after.’ He nodded in the general direction of the crowd, but it was clear to whom he was referring: Dulcie Fenton and her two fawning assistants.
‘I’d rather go straight home to bed, to be honest with you.’
Bernie hung a stare on me. ‘If the gallery’s paying, you should have the number two oysters.’
‘I might just do that.’
‘You won’t find better in London. It’s a proper old place is Wheeler’s. They do a cracking dressed crab to start with—make sure you get that. And the turbot, if you’ve room.’ He must have noticed my attention was wandering. ‘Or I could drive you back to Kilburn, if you like. I’m going that way anyway.’
‘I can’t just leave. It’s rude.’
‘Go on, duck out with me. Who’s going to notice?’
‘It’s my show, Bernie. I can’t.’
He scanned the room, deflated. ‘All right. But no one’s here to look at your paintings, you know. They’re here to be seen looking at your paintings. I thought you were clever enough to know that already.’
‘I’m trying to stay open-minded.’
‘Waste of time. Jim’d back me up on that, if he was here.’
I did not take kindly to this summoning of Jim’s name just to unsettle me. ‘So that’s why you came tonight, is it, Bernie? To make the society
page?’
He shrugged. ‘I won’t lie. When Max tells me to be somewhere, I show up nice and punctual. It’s a lucky bonus if I like the paintings.’
‘And how do you feel about these ones?’
‘Still making my mind up on that.’
‘Well, no rush. Send me a telegram when you decide.’
This seemed to injure him more than I expected. ‘Actually, I like your other pieces better. Nothing’s really moved me tonight,’ he said.
‘Did you see the diptych yet?’
‘Yeah, that was my favourite. But it didn’t frighten me like the older stuff.’
I could not pretend to Bernie Cale or anyone else that I was satisfied with the work that had been chosen for the show. Only three days before, I had been installing the pieces with Dulcie and had been overcome with such a sense of anti-climax that it took a great deal of resolve not to run out onto Bond Street and hail a taxi home. We had themed and organised the paintings on the walls, rearranged them in every possible configuration before agreeing on the final hanging. The technician had tacked the title cards into place, and Dulcie had said, ‘Wonderful. I think we’ve finally cracked it.’ I had expected this moment to be joyous—the culmination of so much dreaming and endeavour—but I did not feel that way at all. Of the nine canvases that appeared in the show, seven had been worked on steadily, over months, and the labour that underpinned them was much too obvious. I had wanted to include six different pieces: older paintings I had made in a bloodrush late one night in Jim’s attic. These works, I knew, were not as technically refined, but there was an exciting tension in their rawness. Dulcie made me second-guess them: ‘I’m just not sure I understand what you see in them. I mean, they’re certainly striking, and I think they’d be fine in a retrospective further down the line, but we’re looking to establish a genuine presence for you here—you understand that’s the point of this whole exercise, don’t you? It’s a staggered process. It’s fine for the men to go straight for the jugular with their first big show. We have to tantalise a little. Play hard to get. You know what I’m saying. Show the bolder stuff next time, once you have a captive audience.’
Dulcie had a way of turning every dialogue into a soliloquy. She had risen up the echelons at the Roxborough, starting as a secretary to the gallery’s owners, proving her acuity by managing the diaries of artists on the books. Soon, they asked her to stand in as assistant to the director, and, when his tenure ended due to illness, she was made director in her own right. There was no more respected woman on the London art scene at that time. She had established a reputation for intuiting trends in the market and had helped to launch the careers of many artists I admired. Max Eversholt deferred to her instincts on most matters, and I was swayed by her opinions because I thought they were born of an experience greater than my own. When she said that my newest paintings were the most sophisticated, I had to listen. Every time the word ‘collectable’ escaped her lips, it stung my heart and then recoiled into the ether like a wasp to die. Perhaps I would have felt that sting much harder if Jim had been there. Perhaps. Too many perhapses.
As it turned out, the only painting that did not sell at the private viewing was the work I was most proud of: a diptych that Dulcie had agreed to include in the show by way of a compromise. I had called it Godfearing. The left-hand panel was six feet wide and four feet tall, depicting a layered mountainscape in dark grey oils that I had dragged through repeatedly with the edge of a plasterer’s trowel, dulling the paint in sections with the heels of my hands (you could see the grain of my skin impressed in some of them). Across one corner of this image, a dazzle of blurred white stripes was roughly scraped on a diagonal. These stripes flowed into a right-hand panel of the same height and half the width. This smaller canvas showed the hollow profile of a baby. It was a ghostly figure that touched the edges of the space, as though enwombed by the frame; a faceless shape, hiding behind a gauze of pallid streaks. Its arching back was pressed against the left side of the canvas and seemed to hold up the landscape behind it. From afar, the baby appeared to be damming an avalanche with its shoulders, and, in turn, the jagged rocks seemed to keep the baby from toppling backwards. I had mounted the two panels a quarter of an inch apart, hoping to imply a sense of conjunction between them. It was the point of much discussion over dinner at Wheeler’s that night.
‘I’m surprised nobody took it, given the others went so quickly,’ Max Eversholt said. He offered to fill my glass with Chablis and I shook my head. ‘Still, I have to say it looked a tad incongruous. The title alone was a challenge for some people. Ted Seger’s wife didn’t even want to stand near it—and we all know who controls the chequebook in that particular household.’
‘The Segers haven’t bought a piece from us in years,’ was Dulcie’s response. ‘I only invited Ted because he’s a handy chap to have in my pocket in certain situations: tax season looming and all that. Besides, the diptych will find a home eventually. You know what they say in Egypt . . .’ This caused both of her assistants to chuckle, and Max threw me a helpless look. I could only blink back at him.
‘We seem to have walked into a private joke,’ he said. ‘How unfortunate.’
Dulcie straightened her face. Her assistants went quiet. ‘Just something we were talking about on the way over here. In Egypt, when you come to the end of a good meal, it’s respectful to leave a small amount of food on your plate.’
‘I see. Respectful to whom?’
‘To the cook.’
‘Well, terrific. Thank heavens you invited so many Egyptians tonight—oh, no, wait,’ Max said, beaming.
‘Not for the first time, old love, you’re rather missing the point.’ Dulcie shucked an oyster, barely gulping. ‘If we’d sold all nine pieces already, what would I tell collectors once the reviews start coming in?’ She made a telephone of her thumb and pinkie: ‘Yes, that’s right, sir, only one left, I’m afraid—oh, by far the most progressive piece in the show, yes, sir—it would take someone with a particular insight just to see its—pardon me? The price? Well, hold on a sec, and let me check the book for you. I’m not sure the artist really wants to part with it . . .’ Dulcie retracted her fingers. ‘Don’t you know anything about the market, Max? I thought this was your game.’
‘You’re forgetting who brought Ellie to your attention in the first place. I didn’t hear you patronising me then.’ He gestured at the waiter. ‘Another round of number twos over here, please!’
Dulcie laughed. ‘I do wish they’d call them something else.’
‘Never. It’s half the fun of eating here.’
I had become accustomed to this sort of discussion—the type in which I sat as an observer, hearing my own work being spoken about without being invited to contribute an opinion. I was passed around between people like the head on a coin, regarded only when questions needed a quick answer or small points required clarification.
At least I was not the only person who was adrift from the conversation that night. The young man in the seat opposite had not said a word since ordering his green salad, which he had proceeded to nudge around his plate with a lot of indifferent forkwork. He had told me his name on the pavement outside the gallery, but I had misheard it in the drawl of passing traffic and been too embarrassed to ask for it again. It had sounded like ‘Wilfredson’.
He had a smooth, slender face and an attractive way of smoking with one arm slung over his chair-back, as though entirely bored by everything Max and Dulcie had to say. The jacket he was wearing had neat cross-stitching around the lapel in yellow thread, and he kept more pens in his breast pocket than I suspected he required. His blond hair was thickly pomaded, but it flicked into a strip of tight dry curls above his brow, giving his head a curious lopsidedness. ‘If I might ask something about the diptych,’ he said, gazing at me. ‘Unrelated to the pounds-and-pence of things. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.’
‘Why would she be uncomfortable?’ Dulcie cut in.
‘Sometim
es it’s difficult for artists to explain their work.’
‘This is just a friendly dinner, not an interview—I thought I’d made that clear.’
Wilfredson tapped his cigarette. He seemed irritated by the interruption, resetting his gaze on the table before addressing me again. ‘For what it’s worth, I thought it was the only thing in the show of any substance. Which is probably why nobody paid it the least bit of notice all evening. And why no one bought it. Sorry if that’s a bit forthright. It’s only my opinion.’
I was about to say thank you, but Max got his words out first: ‘Dulcie just said the very same thing.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Wilfredson. ‘Though I admit I wasn’t hanging on her every word like you were.’
‘Well, I’m telling you she did. Progressive—that’s what she called it.’
‘Really. Gosh. That’s even more egregious.’
Dulcie wafted the smoke from her face. ‘They warned me you had an attitude. I can see I needn’t have worried.’
Wilfredson gave a flickering smile. ‘I’m just wondering who decided to shunt the best work to the back end of the room tonight. Can’t think it was the artist’s choice. I mean, I know the Roxborough’s a commercial gallery, but do all the hangings have to look like they’ve been thought out by an Avon lady?’
‘Steady on,’ said Max. ‘No need for that.’
Dulcie’s two assistants blushed on her behalf. But she would not be distracted from her plate of oysters. She picked up another shell and tipped its glistering flesh right down her throat. ‘Please, go on. I’m not one to stand between a man and a good tirade.’ She reached for her wine glass. ‘Just keep in mind: we only show the work, we don’t make it. So if you’re going to attack the gallery or its staff in print, don’t be surprised to get uninvited to our shows.’ Dulcie tidied the sides of her grey bob and sat back, awaiting a response.
‘Oh, you’ve nothing to fear in that regard. I don’t mention the names of incidental people in my reviews.’ Wilfredson let ash fall upon his meal. His arm was still slung around the chair. ‘Enough old faces in the room tonight, I noticed. You’ll get your flatter-pieces in the broadsheets, no question. How much do you have to pay those good old boys, by the way, Dulcie? They must charge by the adverb, from what I’ve seen.’
The Ecliptic Page 15
