The Improbability of Love

by Hannah Rothschild

  Ward-Thomas imagined the floors of his beautiful gallery strewn with gum-chewing students checking email accounts and Skyping their friends. His heart sank.

  Instead he heard himself say, ‘We are opening late on Friday nights to encourage young people to meet and mingle.’ Ward-Thomas didn’t add that he had been utterly opposed to Sen’s latest initiative.

  ‘Meet and mingle nights! Love it.’ Wheeler wrote that down too. ‘Maybe the minister will come – as you’ve read in the Daily Mail, he’s single now.’

  ‘I don’t read the Mail,’ Ward-Thomas said.

  For the first time during their entire conversation, Wheeler looked truly interested.

  ‘You can’t be serious? It’s everyone’s guilty pleasure.’

  ‘Mine is custard creams,’ Ward-Thomas said.

  Curtis Wheeler put the lid back on his pen and placed it in his inside pocket. ‘Better go and write my report. Never know, might see you at Meet and Mingle.’

  Ward-Thomas smiled wanly and rose to shake the young man’s hand.

  After Wheeler left, Ward-Thomas sat down heavily in his chair and placed his head in his hands. To be made director of the world’s most perfectly formed collection of Old Masters had been the fulfilment of his dreams, but he had not anticipated that this glorious, illustrious appointment would come with so many unexpected and unwelcome additions. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was already midday. In less than one hour he was due to show a group of American collectors around, followed by a meeting with his finance committee, followed by a meeting with his senior staff. Later that night there was a dinner with London’s most important dealers in Old Master paintings, Rebecca and Memling Winkleman, in honour of the American collector Melanie Appledore.

  His sense of deep ennui was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ he said.

  ‘Got a mo?’ It was Ayesha Sen, reeking with ambition. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  Without waiting to hear it, Ward-Thomas looked Sen up and down and said, ‘Ayesha, I have one piece of advice for you. Be careful what you wish for. Be very careful.’

  Less than half a mile away in Houghton Street, in the boardroom of Monachorum auction house, at an emergency meeting of the board of directors, Earl Beachendon was trying to account for the recent significant losses. The boardroom had mahogany floors, walls made from marble. An ornate ceiling was balanced on massive mahogany fluted Doric columns. Every whisper echoed slightly; each raised voice reverberated like a shotgun. This morning the cacophony of crossness emanating from the board seemed to drill into the Earl’s temples. Taking a clean white handkerchief from his top pocket, he wiped it over his glistening balding head, trying to smooth the little hair he had left. The Earl had one of those unfortunate pink complexions that took on a high colour at times of embarrassment or exertion. Glancing down at the highly polished surface of the mahogany table, he saw his face was already cherry red.

  ‘Why did you guarantee those prices?’ Abel Mount, the chairman of the board, asked, shaking his head in disbelief. Formerly head of the Stock Exchange, Mount had a penchant for port and a nose that had come to look like a piece of Stilton cheese, which he stroked when annoyed.

  ‘Every other auction house in London, Paris and New York was after his collection. Apart from the Lloyd Webbers, Harry Danes has the finest group of pre-Raphaelite pictures in private hands.’ Beachendon shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  ‘What happened to your underbidders? It’s hardly a secret that every important sale has a guarantor.’

  ‘I was let down by the Qataris at the last minute.’ Earl Beachendon felt a tiny trickle of sweat work its way down the back of his neck towards his spine.

  ‘But to go ahead and promise the vendors the top estimate plus ten per cent!’ Mount said, stroking his proboscis with some force.

  ‘The week before, a Burne-Jones sold for double its estimate,’ Beachendon protested.

  ‘James, I am not going to tell you how to do your job,’ said Rachel Westcott-Smith, leaning across the table. All twelve board members knew that she was about to do just that. Westcott-Smith, an American hedge-fund manager with $17 billion under management, had recently bought 10 per cent of Monachorum. ‘But you know the rules: we never ever take foolish risks. That was an insane gamble,’ she said.

  The trickle of sweat had turned into a small stream and Beachendon wondered if it had soaked through his shirt and into his jacket.

  ‘It is extremely hard to secure these pre-eminent collections without some kind of guarantee,’ said Beachendon. ‘The heirs of the estate had been offered estimate plus eight per cent by Denham’s.’

  ‘Had they, or were they bluffing?’ Rachel snapped.

  Beachendon had to admit that he had not checked the offer.

  ‘The problem is, James, we have gone from holding the top spot as the most profitable and long-established auction house in London to being a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old institution teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. We have handled thousands of estates, sales, auctions and so forth, and, thanks to your catastrophic misjudgement, we are now three hundred million pounds in debt.’

  ‘That’s not all. What about the three lawsuits pending regarding misattributions?’ Abel Mount said.

  ‘Actually there are four,’ Roger Linterman, the company lawyer cut in. ‘There is Constable’s Man at Lock with Horse; the Howard Porphyry Vases; the disputed Pieter de Hooch and the follower of Titian.’

  ‘Could you take us through these one by one please, James?’ Rachel asked with icy politeness.

  Beachendon wasn’t sure whom he loathed more: Rachel Westcott-Smith with her G5 jet purring in anticipation at Northolt airport; Abel Mount, who was only on the board at Beachendon’s own recommendation, or Roger Linterman, who was seeking promotion at any price. In addition to all this, Monachorum’s competitors were upping their game. In recent months, Bratby & Sons, once a no-hope dusty little auction house, had been bought by some Russians and had been given a major facelift while their main rival, Conrad and Flight, had replaced their long-serving CEO with a guitar-playing ex-vice-president of a tech company who had trebled their profits in one season by dragging his firm into the digital age.

  Beachendon knew his days were numbered. If only he could hang on long enough to get the last two daughters, the youngest Ladies Halfpennies through St Mary’s Ascot with a few qualifications.

  ‘All these cases are unfortunate,’ Beachendon said, using his most urbane manner to calm the worried faces around him.

  ‘Do you call a fake Constable unfortunate?’ Rachel asked.

  Beachendon looked at his shoes. ‘The picture had been in Tamoka Castle for at least three hundred years and the same family had once owned three Constables.’

  ‘It was an open secret that when they sold their real Constables in the 1860s they had copies made to fill the empty spaces,’ Rachel said. ‘Roger, how much are we being sued for on this one?’

  ‘There is the thirty-million-pound sale price plus the taxes and commissions and another twenty million for personal damages and loss of face. They are also bringing an incompetence suit against the house.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Herman van Pampe asked.

  ‘Basically it claims we are unfit to trade.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ Rachel snapped.

  ‘Let’s move on to the Howard Porphyry Vases.’ Abel Mount said firmly.

  ‘This is a very unfortunate case,’ Beachendon admitted. ‘We thought we had the sole and exclusive chain of title to sell these vases.’ He hesitated. ‘It turned out that the objects were owned by the vendor’s cousin. Once the sale had gone through, the cousin, who had been living in Tasmania, suddenly reappeared and has asked for the objects back.’

  ‘Where are they now?’ Herman asked.

  ‘We are not entirely sure. We have the money in the bank but the vendor took the vases home to wherever he or she lives.’

  ‘If you have the money, surely you
have an address. He or she didn’t just walk in with a suitcase of money. What did they go for? Four million pounds or something?’ Florian Grey had sat on the board for ten years; this was the first time anyone had heard him speak.

  ‘The transaction was done by a direct transfer from a bank in the Cayman Islands. It’s not unusual.’

  ‘So this is a case of money laundering?’ said Rachel.

  ‘It would appear so.’

  ‘The police are going over every single transaction we have made over the last five years to see if we have been involved with illegal washing of funds,’ said Linterman.

  ‘Now the Pieter de Hooch – that was an almost unavoidable situation,’ said Beachendon.

  ‘Failing to spot a forgery is unavoidable?’ Rachel asked sceptically.

  ‘The mighty van Meegeren struck again,’ said Beachendon. ‘We are not the first or last to be duped by the world’s greatest forger.’

  ‘You make it seem like it’s an insignificant amount,’ interceded Rachel.

  ‘Seven million is not a trifle, of course,’ said Beachendon, feeling a blush creeping over his fine temples, ‘but at least van Meegeren’s are worth something in their own right. We can scrape back a few hundred thousand pounds.’

  ‘The forgery has a value?’ Herman asked incredulously.

  ‘The works of a master forger are now considered important,’ Beachendon explained. ‘I have clients who hang his work with plaques that say “So and So by So and So realised by Meter van Meegeren”.’

  ‘This would be interesting,’ said Rachel, ‘if we were talking about a small loss, but this fake is costing us seven and a loss of face.’

  ‘Sadly true,’ Beachendon admitted. The sweat had definitely seeped from his shirt into his suit.

  ‘Will you leave us for a few minutes, James?’ the chairman asked Earl Beachendon.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Beachendon’s heart sank; he was surely about to be fired. He thought of his long-suffering wife, his son and his lovely daughters – perhaps they would like Pimlico Academy. The holiday cottage would now go. They could sell their house in Balham and relocate to Lewisham. Tonight there was the Winkleman dinner – maybe the art dealer would offer him a job; a stipend in return for a bona fide English title on his masthead.

  Barty and his friend Delores Ryan, the art historian, sat side by side in his large double bed. They often met to share gossip, Chinese food and catch up on television soaps. Barty wore a pink face mask, Delores an oatmeal-coloured one.

  Unlike the staterooms downstairs at the White House, Barty’s personal quarters, in the former servants’ rooms, were spartan. Every surface was painted off-white. The curtains were made from thick cream cashmere and even the carpet from finest white Axminster wool. Barty was not a homemaker; he was hardly ever at home. His life was lived in other people’s arenas. Besides, having to settle on one style of decoration or commit to a particular object was anathema to the quixotic alchemist.

  ‘I tell you he is going to get off with her.’ Delores jabbed her chopstick at the television.

  ‘Don’t be so vulgar, darling,’ Barty remonstrated.

  ‘Tell me about Sasha,’ Delores said, referring to a mutual friend.

  ‘All she did was marry a rich man; now she’s in grave danger of drowning in a sea of self-importance.’

  ‘She must be having some fun.’

  ‘God no, she’s gone philanthropic and apparently is single-handedly keeping the nation’s museums and hospices operational.’

  ‘John’s written another book on the history of taste.’

  ‘The heart sinks. He will tell us everything we need to know about the subject and quite a bit more.’

  ‘In his review, Trichcombe Abufel unkindly called it “a burden to the bookshelves of the London Library”.’

  ‘What’s happened to your archrival, Mr Abufel? Is he still an art-world outcast?’

  ‘Still plotting the downfall of Memling Winkleman. It will never happen – that family has it all sewn up,’ Delores said. ‘Tell me about the Russian. Is he really rich?’

  ‘Staggeringly. Didn’t we order duck pancakes?’

  ‘They’re under your left thigh. How many billion?’

  ‘Eight, apparently.’

  ‘Gas or oil?’

  ‘Tin, I think.’

  ‘Attractive?’

  ‘If I can get rid of the leather coat.’

  ‘Not another. They all follow the Chelski man like ducklings. What’s this one into?’

  ‘He doesn’t know yet; that’s my job. I’m thinking contemporary American, Cap Ferrat, the odd racehorse and a fuck-off yacht.’

  ‘I desperately need a new client,’ Delores said. ‘Please. Darling. Please. The only dealers who make any money these days are the Winklemans and that’s because they are into everything.’

  ‘Winkleman, Winkleman, it’s all anyone can talk about. There must be another game in town?’

  ‘A few manage to nibble off the edges of their territory but the Winklemans always produce something better. God knows where they find the stuff.’

  ‘Aren’t you on their payroll?’

  ‘Only a miserable stipend like everyone else in the art world,’ Delores moaned.

  ‘French eighteenth century is so unsexy and there’s so little around. I need him to spend spend spend, not wait around till a rare Boucher comes on the market.’

  ‘I have rent to pay.’

  ‘Can you see a seventeen-stone, six-foot-eight Russian going “Rococo”? All that delicate foliage, all those love scenes and fat little cupids? My main worry is keeping him away from cars.’

  ‘You are mean.’

  ‘He’ll want sexy girls, smoky parties and cocaine, not lectures and dreary dinners.’

  ‘I’ll give him a going-over.’ Delores ate a spring roll in the manner of a coquettish young woman.

  Barty looked at his beloved, rotund fifty-nine-year-old friend. ‘Got to be cruel to be kind: my Russian is never going to fancy you.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Delores said, crestfallen.

  ‘It’s a choice, darling – cream buns or men’s carrots? You choose.’

  ‘Yes, I would rather stuff it in my mouth than—’ She stopped mid-sentence and shrieked, ‘It’s eight o’ clock! I am late for the Winkleman dinner.’

  ‘You’ve just eaten enough to feed an army,’ Barty exclaimed.

  ‘That was my aperitif. Now I’m really hungry.’ Delores climbed off the bed, brushing the remnants of dim sum and duck off her dress. ‘Besides, dinner at the Winklemans’ is always disgusting – boiled fish, boiled potatoes and vegetables murdered to a pulp by overcooking. No wonder Rebecca is so thin.’

  Delores pulled on her coat.

  ‘The face mask,’ Barty said. He had been tempted not to remind her. ‘I can’t believe you are leaving me alone.’

  ‘A night in will do you good.’

  ‘The vampires of my soul will descend.’ Barty, panicked by the thought of his own company, wondered who he might call.

  ‘How do I look?’ Delores smeared the last of the mask off with a damp dishcloth.

  ‘Like a blancmange.’

  ‘Love you too.’ Delores undulated out of the room, down the stairs and outside to hail a cab.

  Carlo Spinetti finished his evening exercises. The routine never varied: half an hour of press-ups and sun salutations. Moving to the shower, he rubbed himself briskly with rough sea salt under hot water followed by an icy-cold blast. He was fifty-four years old. Age had made him more handsome: his now heavily lined skin, etched by sunlight, had softened the cheekbones and Roman nose. ‘Noble’ was the word the young actor Chiara had used yesterday. While filming The Sun King, Carlo hadn’t laid one finger on his leading lady but once the picture was in the can, he lost no time spiriting her into his bed.

  He had watched Chiara’s face carefully as he undressed, worried that she would be appalled by a body that was beginning to look like a badly stretched canvas on a frame. Yo
ung people had no idea how flesh detaches itself from bone and muscle creeps away from sinew. He hoped her professed ecstasy hadn’t been an audition for his next film.

  Carlo sprayed a fine cloud of extract of lime around the bathroom and walked quickly through it; a hint of scent was enough. The thick mulberry red carpet felt soft against his bare feet as he padded next door into the bedroom painted in black lacquer and hung with mirrored panels. The windows were draped with curtains of deep purple velvet and the furniture was upholstered in wolf skin. The door handles were copies of lion heads from an Italian palazzo and the window blinds were printed with black-and-white stills from his films. The bed dominated the room: empire-style with feet of huge gilt tiger paws.

  Rebecca had given him the room as a ‘present’; he would have preferred a simple white linen bed and cream-coloured walls but left matters of decoration to his wife and father-in-law. Carlo knew that behind his back Memling referred to him as ‘my daughter’s husband’. It had been accepted that their own daughter Grace would follow in her maternal family’s footsteps. She was at Cambridge doing a master’s degree in history of art and in three years’ time would find her name over the gallery in Curzon Street.

  Carlo looked at a painting of Grace by David Hockney hanging over his bed, another present from Rebecca to remind him of what mattered in life. He would, for obvious reasons, have preferred to hang Grace in a more neutral area but Carlo had no say over what hung on the walls or how long the paintings remained. He had learned never to get fond of an image: the pictures rarely stayed for long. Twice a month there were intimate dinners hosted by Rebecca and her father for prospective clients. If numbers needed balancing, Carlo was expected to turn up, to be charming and occasionally to express a well-rehearsed and entirely complimentary line about a particular work of art.

  Like everyone else who lived in the Winkleman orbit, Carlo was on the family payroll in return for the odd favour. Memling used Carlo’s films as a way of illegally transporting paintings around Europe. Works for sale were insinuated into the inventory of props, loaded on to trucks and shipped across the Channel. Transport lorries would often take circuitous routes to reach their locations. If the Winklemans needed paintings taken to France, Germany and Italy, the lorry might make three stops on its way to the location in Hungary. In the unlikely event of being stopped, the hapless driver would shrug and say he was only following orders. Carlo would meet the convoy at each place, ostensibly to check the sets – in actuality, he would replace a specific painting with a copy. The original would be presented to its new owner. Everyone was happy: Carlo got his movies heavily subsidised; the Winklemans made a sale; and the new owner received their work without the interminable hassle of export licences or sales taxes.