Masterpiece

by Janet Pywell

  ‘Please, be compassionate, Mikky. She needs someone to care for her–’

  ‘Then she had better bring her own nursemaid. I’m a very busy woman.’

  Javier is waiting for us. I barely have time to change out of my Queens of the Stone Age T–shirt. I would much prefer to go to a rock concert and play air guitar with passion to get rid of this pent–up frustration and anger that circulates my soul.

  But once at the Opera I am captivated with the atmosphere, the audience and the stage production of The Nutcracker Suite and surprisingly, I lose myself in the ballet, the movements, the lifts and the music.

  On our way home Andreas says, ‘Ms Lavelle has overdone everything since you arrived. She is very tired this evening.’

  ‘We spoke endlessly about the type of portrait that would be suitable and she was shattered afterwards,’ Javier replies.

  ‘She would find London exhausting if she’s tired after today,’ I add.

  However when we arrive back to her home she is awake and sitting beside a dwindling fire with a shawl around her shoulders. In the candlelight her cheeks are hollow. Dark circles accentuate her eyes making her look pale and interesting and I realise I would like to capture the look she gives me on my camera.

  They fuss around her but she looks over their shoulder at me with reproach so I turn away and absorb myself in the titles of the books along the shelf.

  Andreas produces a light supper of sliced melon, blue cheese, dates, nuts and olives then he pours red wine. We sit in our places on the white sofas and Javier heaps praise on the artistic performance and the beauty of the Semperoper.

  ‘Thank you so much for arranging the ballet we loved it, didn’t we, Mikky?’ He nudges me with his knee.

  ‘It was very special. The building is stunning,’ I smile.

  ‘And did you have champagne? Andreas did you arrange champagne?’

  He finishes chewing an olive before replying. ‘They did.’

  ‘It was a wonderful evening,’ I say before Javier can prod or provoke me again.

  ‘I’m so pleased you enjoyed the ballet perhaps I may get you interested in opera next?’ Her smile is slow and her gaze captivating.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I grin back.

  Javier pushes his knee against mine. ‘She’s not really a Philistine – she prefers rock music – her parents were bikers.’

  I move my leg away from his and drink my wine quickly.

  ‘Really?’ Josephine leans forward. ‘How interesting.’

  Javier continues but this time about himself. ‘When I was young my parents always took us to the opera in Madrid. I remember once I saw you on stage in the Teatro Real.’ Javier’s cheeks flush crimson.

  Josephine looks thoughtful as if he has reminded her of her age and then the moment passes.

  ‘Yes, I sang there many times. I once sang with Montserrat Caballé – you must know her?’ She raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Of course, she sang Barcelona with Freddy Mercury,’ Javier replies and then a conversation begins about operas and classically trained singers who have become international stars like Katherine Jenkins and Sara Brightman.

  I smother a yawn.

  ‘They are not proper opera singers,’ she says. ‘They have lowered themselves to the genre of pop music. Now take Glorietta Bareldo – she is a star. She is in Norma at Covent Garden early next year and has offered me a box. You must come and be my guest – both of you,’ Josephine says looking at me. ‘I would be delighted to show you real opera, Mikky. I think until you have witnessed a performance and have been moved by it you will have no comprehension of the emotion involved. I would like the opportunity, if you would allow me?’

  Her request hangs in the air like a floating bubble.

  ‘That would be fantastic,’ Javier replies for me rubbing his palms. If he had a tail he would be wagging it. ‘I would love to see her. They say she is amazing – well, not as good as you but–’

  Josephine holds up her hand. ‘Please, Javier, she is every bit as good as me. In fact, I believe, she is better. She has a quality and tone that has added timbre to her voice in the past few months and it supersedes any range I may once have had.’

  ‘Impossible. I cannot agree with you,’ he protests.

  ‘You will when you hear her voice.’

  ‘I cannot believe you are friends. Is there no competition between you?’ I ask.

  Javier stares at me. Andreas looks away.

  The logs hiss and one falls in the grate causing a burst of orange flames.

  I cut a sliver of cheese, chew slowly then sip the red wine from Saxony that Josephine has assured us is the best in the region and I wait for her to answer.

  ‘We were rivals for many years but in the past months we have become very good friends. It is surprising, I know. It was an enormous lesson for me to learn. That someone you once resented or don’t like, or of whom you may have been jealous, may very well turn out to become a very special friend.’ Josephine regards me before continuing. ‘She once gave me this.’

  She reaches into her pocket then holds a clenched palm across the table and when she unfurls her fingers a small golden ingot gleams in the lamplight.

  It is a two inch golden icon of the Madonna.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ I take it and turn it in my fingers examining it carefully with a practised eye. ‘She is absolutely exquisite.’

  ‘She saved my life,’ Josephine whispers. ‘I had nothing left to live for but now – I do.’

  When I return it, her hand is shaking and the intimacy is over.

  Javier talks about Rafael’s, La Madonna dei Garofani, hanging in the National Gallery and I slug back the Saxony wine.

  The room is warm so I pull my black jumper over my head forgetting my thin, worn out T–shirt, with Guns and Roses emblazoned across my chest but it is not my old and creased shirt that attracts Josephine’s gaze. It is the elaborate and shocking tattoo that I have on my right forearm.

  Her eyes widen and she gasps unable to hide her surprise and shock.

  I wait. I want her to say something. I want her to challenge me. I would welcome confrontation. I have so much pent–up emotion inside that I want to leap to my feet, jump on the white pristine sofas and play air guitar with high energy and attitude. But instead I pick up an olive and chew it deliberately with my mouth open.

  ‘Perhaps when you are in London we can go together,’ Javier asks. He looks from Josephine to me and then to Josephine.

  Andreas talks about a visit he once made to the Tate Modern and the conversation turns to her visit, the opera, the Royal Albert hall and random words that suddenly don’t make sense and float around me like airborne dust motes.

  ‘Mikky,’ Javier whispers, ‘don’t drink any more’

  I shake my head. I want to be back in London. I want my painting.

  Josephine asks where we will eat supper after the performance of Norma then she frowns and adds.

  ‘You know, there is one condition attached to you painting my portrait.’

  Javier’s shoulders stiffen and I trace the scar on the back of my hand.

  ‘You will gain a lot of publicity and Nico Vastano will want you at the unveiling in Lake Como next year but there is one thing that I must insist upon. Has Nico mentioned it to you?’

  ‘No…why, no…’ Javier appears confused.

  ‘No? But I have insisted. I told him – I told Nico.’ She looks at Andreas but he remains impassive.

  ‘There is one journalist that you must never speak to, Javier. Never invite him to any press gatherings and certainly there should be no private interviews. Do not mention anything about me to him. In fact, you must never speak to him – ever.’

  Javier’s body relaxes and he grins. ‘You had me worried. I thought–’

  ‘His name is Karl Blakey. You must never speak to this man or I will cancel everything. There will be no commission – no painting.’

  Javier scratches his chin.

  I bite
my lower lip. I remember the journalist’s name. There was a vague promise of a television documentary – and lunch – in Javier’s favourite restaurant: champagne and oysters?

  ‘Agreed.’ Javier raises his glass with a determined smile. ‘No problem.’

  Josephine smiles. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  But one nudge from Javier tells me not to say another word and my question is swallowed up in a flurry of movement as Josephine decides she is exhausted and is going to bed.

  Javier holds out his arm like a chivalrous knight in an old black and white B movie and escorts her to the door.

  ‘Thank you Javier, perhaps you will help me just to the end of the corridor. I can manage the stairs. Goodnight, Mikky. I do hope that you will feel in a better humour tomorrow. Perhaps if you come to Dresden again I may interest you in a trip to the New Green Vault – our Museum of Treasury Art. It might stir your enthusiasm for this beautiful country. Or perhaps I should think of a better way to please you?’

  ‘It’s a beautiful city. I enjoyed my visit–’ I reply.

  ‘Perhaps you did.’ She doesn’t look at me. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Josephine.’ I watch her slow gait until she leaves the room then I smile at Andreas as if he is my new best friend.

  ‘I am going home tomorrow.’ I punch the air with my fist and play air guitar to the Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly.

  The following morning I slide into the seat across the table from Javier. He hasn’t touched his breakfast but he is nursing a mug of coffee. He doesn’t smile and he shakes his head at me.

  ‘Don’t be angry. It’s you she loves,’ I say.

  ‘No thanks to you – we are guests here. And your behaviour was–’

  ‘Do you think she heard?’

  ‘I think you woke the whole house. You tripped and you screamed – remember?’

  ‘I thought there were giant cobwebs attacking me–’

  ‘You pulled down the Christmas decoration.’

  I giggle. ‘I have a hangover if that’s any consolation.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  I cannot remember a time in our friendship when he was this angry.

  ‘What about Karl Blakey? What was that all about?’ I ask.

  ‘Shush!’ He looks over his shoulder just as Andreas appears.

  ‘Morning,’ I say with false cheerfulness. ‘I’m sorry if I was a little …loud last night.’

  He doesn’t smile and I am subdued by his coldness. He places heated croissants on the table and when he leaves the room I whisper, ‘He’s like something out of the Addams family.’

  ‘You’re not funny.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just that, well, come on, this place – have you noticed there’s a wooden swing and a rope ladder hanging from the tree in the garden? Is this her home? Or is this Andreas’s family home? Is it rented?’

  Javier shrugs.

  ‘Where is her family?’ I persist. ‘She must have one. What about that journalist – Karl Blakey? Did you meet him for lunch? She will cancel the commission if she finds out.’

  There are quick footsteps.

  ‘Shush.’

  Andreas stands in the doorway.

  ‘Ms Lavelle sends her apologies but she feels unwell this morning and is unable to join you in the castle. She wishes you both a pleasant journey home.’

  Javier scowls and his face tells me that it’s all my fault.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.’

  Edgar Degas

  It’s three days after the New Year, I have finished my own masterpiece and I am cleaning up the flat. It smells like an art studio: oils, varnish and turpentine. The dank canvas clings to me and I am transported back to my childhood when I would hide in the dark recess of Spanish churches, behind sketchpads, surrounded by pencils, oils and paintings, staring at minuscule biblical scenes carved intricately into wood and recreated in stained glass.

  I feigned the pressure of work as an excuse not to go to Madrid with Javier for Christmas telling him Sandra Jupiter’s pre exhibition schedule is demanding and I’m pleased to get him out of the flat so I can paint without the smell causing suspicion. I think he was also pleased I stayed behind in London. My visit to Dresden has caused him anguish and concern – he still hasn’t forgiven me – even when I kissed him on his cheek, gave him presents for his family and wished him Happy Christmas.

  The quality and detailed photographs that I took of the painting when Mrs Green went into hospital has allowed me to paint slowly and with consideration. I was confident I could do a good job and now as I step back from the canvas admiring my work and clean my fingers with a paint-stained rag, I smile. Remarkably, I haven’t lost my touch.

  Raffa would be proud of me. I had been one of the first students to arrive in his studio and I remember our conversation early one morning with the warm Italian sun shining through the circular window. He had leaned over me, his breath filled with tobacco and warm coffee as he steadied my hand pointing to the detail and finally leaning back he said:

  ‘Han van Meergeren, a Dutchman, was most probably the most prominent and successful art forger. He forged old masters including several by Vermeer and was possibly most famous for his forgery of Johannes Vermeer’s The Supper at Emmaus. He sold it to the Director of the Museum Boymans in 1937 for 540,000 guilders. I don’t know what that would be worth today – but believe me Mikky – it’s a lot!’ His laugh was throaty and warm.

  ‘He wouldn’t get away with it now,’ I had replied.

  ‘In his lifetime he amassed over half a billion dollars by painting fakes. Unfortunately for him this particular painting ended up in the possession of Nazi minister, Hermann Göring who, as I’m sure you know, was stealing and collecting artwork across Europe for Hitler’s museum in Lintz.’ His dark passionate eyes reflected the excitement in his voice and he leaned forward, analysing my replica of The Astromomer.

  ‘Van Meergeren was put on trial and forced to demonstrate his forgery techniques and he became known as, The Man who Swindled Göring. The secret is not to get caught, Mikky. Don’t get greedy.’

  I smile remembering his words. He would be proud of my work today. Now all I have to do is to swindle Roy and I am happy to spend Christmas alone in order to do this. My makeshift table is covered in old newspapers, paints, brushes, varnish pots and soiled rags and like an art studio the room has plenty of light. Two easels are side by side; one to hold the Vermeer photographs stuck around the wood; countless close-up images revealing intricate details of faces, hands and background – all equally important – that I will dispose of with care. The other easel contains my recently finished canvas. It is drying now and I am pleased that I trawled London markets looking for the right canvas. The Concert was painted in 1664 so wanted to find an old painting from around that time. I plugged wormholes created by beetles and silverfish and added fox marks and rusty looking spots for authenticity. Having seen the original next door I was confident I could replicate it quite adequately.

  Vermeer would grind his pigments. He used lead white paint and blue ultramarine known as lapiz azul. It was extracted from a semi-precious stone found in 1600 in Afghanistan but paint takes a long time to dry – time that I don’t have. I need my canvas to look authentically old and once the paint is hardened I will crack the oils and fill the fissures with Vaseline and dust from the vacuum.

  For his fake masterpieces, Van Meegeren used genuine seventeenth-century canvases and to seal the pigments he used Bakelite which when heated, hardened to produce a surface similar to that of a seventeenth-century painting. This convinced the so-called experts of the authenticity of his works but I would not presume to be in the same category as him nor would I go to so much trouble. My painting needs to appear hardened and weathered with age like the one next door and I only need a temporary illusion – not an exact replica – I only have to fool Roy then make my escape.

/>   I sip coffee and stand gazing at my painting.

  Forgery is a performance and I am simply the magician. It is an art in itself to suppress a natural artistic inclination or creativity and although I’m copying a Vermeer I have not found the process as hard as I had anticipated. I only have to create a painting that looks convincingly old. I do not have to prove where the painting has been or who has owned it. I have no need to produce a fake provenance. The Vermeer is after all – and as the whole world knows – a stolen masterpiece.

  My forgery wouldn’t pass the scrutiny and chemical tests that van Meergeren’s painting had been subjected to and it wouldn’t fool many of the world’s ‘so called’ experts but it would be adequate, if not perfect, for the untrained eye.

  My initial plan had been simple. I would just duck into Mrs Green’s house at the appropriate moment – straight after her death – and make the switch, stealing the painting now hanging on her bedroom wall. I would substitute it with a photograph of the painting that I would varnish over. She had no visitors and no friends and there was no one who could prove I had replaced it. Timing was crucial, observation paramount and my plan – perfect.

  But two things changed: Mrs Green became ill and Roy moved in. Now my plan is understandably flawed because Mrs Green and Roy would spot a varnished photograph immediately and know the painting had been switched. Since my visit to Dresden I realise I must replace the original with a forgery. Now my plan is to sneak into the house next door and switch the original painting for my fake – easy.

  The fact that Mrs Green has left the painting in her Will to the art dealer in Bruges does not faze me. Although Roy might not know an authentic Vermeer the art dealer would be harder to fool. But I’m hoping that he will assume that Roy is the culprit. And if Roy tries to sell the painting he’d be told it was a fake and as long as he could never implicate me or suspect me I would be long gone and free with my treasure.