The Improbability of Love

by Hannah Rothschild

  Beachendon walked on, reflecting gloomily on the ultimatum issued by the board: he had six months to find a sale or series of sales to reverse Monachorum’s fortunes and put right the deficit: basically, he had been given a stay of execution. Few, including Beachendon, believed that he would be able to source a £300-million blockbuster auction in such a short period of time. Trawling through his notebooks and database, Beachendon had come up with a list of twenty collectors or artists to visit, who might just, and it was a very long shot, be persuaded to consign their collections to a sale.

  Finding Sir Patrick O’Mally’s house took another twenty minutes, during which time the Earl had passed another five lethal, four-legged killers and their owners. ‘My earldom for a chauffeur,’ he thought. Fat chance: the people upstairs at Monachorum would only allow him to take the odd taxi within the M25. Fuck the cuts, the Earl thought, fuck their stinginess, and fuck Roger Linterman and co. Each week he sold paintings for tens of millions of pounds to collectors whose annual incomes were greater than the GDP of many countries. He took bids for some great but mainly mediocre works for amounts that would cover his own overdraft a thousand times over. It was his job to whip up frantic battles of desire, to create the thrill of a chase to secure a particular work, the indefensible in pursuit of the inedible, yet his proprietors insisted that he either took public transport or used his own dilapidated car, which would probably fail its MOT this year, heaping further indignity on to its cash-strapped owner.

  Forcing himself back to the present, Beachendon took out a crib sheet from his pocket and went over the details of the collector Sir Patrick O’Mally’s life. Born to a working-class family of Irish immigrants, O’Mally had studied art at Ruskin College in Oxford and later at the Courtauld Institute in London, where he developed a passion for German Renaissance works. Scouring the small salerooms and private collections, he was, for fifty years between 1934 and 1984 a lone enthusiast, collecting and publishing his thoughts on these artists to a small group of cognoscenti. Many years later, the market caught up with him.

  For nearly thirty years, dealers, gallerists, auctioneers, collectors and museum directors had paid court to Sir Patrick, hoping to spirit even one canvas from his collection of seventy-four Old Masters, now estimated to be worth over £100 million. The largest works were on loan to leading world museums; only the smaller ones stayed at his Whitechapel house. The older Sir Patrick got, the more assiduous his admirers became. The most devoted was Memling Winkleman, who each year threw him a birthday party grander than the last. Sir Patrick never needed to sell anything: he lived comfortably off the gratuities offered by his collection’s ardent, avaricious admirers. If he needed anything – a new roof, a mobile phone, a bronze turkey – all he had to do was lift the phone and there were over twenty people who considered satisfying any urge a worthwhile investment.

  Sir Patrick’s house was a handsome villa set back behind a wall on Whitechapel High Street. A few hundred years ago it would have been open country; now buses and lorries rattled its foundations as they made slow progress in and out of the suburbs. The last time the Earl had been to this area of town was to attend the funeral of a prominent Jewish philanthropist who had escaped the Holocaust and gone on to make a killing on the Stock Exchange. Rumoured to be worth £20 million, Manny Parkins had refused ever to leave the one-bedroom flat that the council had assigned him on his arrival in London in 1946. ‘Lest we forget,’ he told his family and friends. He was buried in one of the Jewish cemeteries hidden behind the high street in Whitechapel, his body wrapped in a white cloth, placed in a rough-hewn coffin and trundled on a wheelbarrow through the graveyard. Leaving the burial ground, the Earl bowed to Mrs Parkins and her four sons, offering his sincere condolences.

  ‘Don’t weep for us, dear boy,’ she said cheerfully. ‘We can now move to our dream house in Epsom.’

  The Earl rang the doorbell and minutes later a woman in a severe blue dress opened the door. Assuming she was the nurse or housekeeper, Beachendon smiled graciously and handed her his overcoat.

  ‘Sir Patrick is waiting for you next door,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Tea, coffee?’

  ‘Any chance of a sherry?’ The Earl felt he had earned a snifter.

  ‘I’ll look in the kitchen,’ the woman said kindly. He followed her downstairs and noticed that she was not, as he might have expected, wearing sensible shoes but kitten heels edged with fur around the toe.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked politely.

  ‘Lechlade,’ she said with a finality that did not invite any further questions.

  Beachendon felt a sudden desire to rest his head on her shoulder, unburden himself, tell her about his debts, about his little Ladies Halfpennies and his son Viscount Draycott. He would confess that if Sir Patrick didn’t agree to sell at least three of his pictures via Monachorum’s saleroom, the Earl would almost certainly lose his job, and his beautiful children and noble wife would probably end up in sheltered housing on benefits.

  ‘While I am looking for the sherry, you’d better go upstairs, as Patrick is waiting for you,’ she said. ‘It is at the end of the corridor on the right.’

  Beachendon wanted to linger a little longer in the kitchen but something about the woman’s demeanour hurried him on and he followed her instructions.

  Sir Patrick, who had just turned ninety-eight, was confined to a wheelchair. Though his brain and eyes were still working, his sinews and muscles had deteriorated, leaving his head inert, slumped over his left shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Patrick,’ Beachendon said with gusto.

  Sir Patrick didn’t reply but squinted through damp pink-rimmed watery eyes.

  ‘Must be twenty years,’ Beachendon said. He wondered if he should sit down and cock his head on to his shoulder so that the two men were face to face but decided instead to keep his own at a natural angle. ‘Very nice nurse – or is it a housekeeper? – you’ve got. I wish I had one of those.’

  Sir Patrick blinked.

  ‘So what have you been up to?’ Beachendon asked, wondering if Sir Patrick could speak these days. There was a rustle behind him and the woman returned with a tiny glass of brown liquid.

  ‘We haven’t got sherry, but I found some brandy. Will that do?’ she asked.

  Beachendon smiled gratefully and, taking the glass, finished it in one gulp.

  ‘I was rereading your monograph on Jan Gossaert the other day,’ Beachendon said. ‘It remains the most balanced, illuminating and inspirational work on any artist.’

  Sir Patrick blinked a bit more.

  ‘It’s astonishing to recall that when you wrote it, few knew anything about Gossaert, a forgotten great master. Amazing to think that you were beating the drum for the German Renaissance when the rest of the world dismissed the movement as ugly and uncouth.’ Beachendon knew that he was talking too much but was unsure how to have an entirely one-sided conversation. ‘Nowadays everything is in fashion somewhere or other,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘We like the Holbein book more,’ the woman piped up.

  The use of ‘we’ confused Beachendon. Was the old man channelling his thoughts through his carer?

  ‘Of course, that monograph is splendid,’ Beachendon said, ‘but Holbein’s reputation did not need the same kind of resuscitation. Thanks to his sojourn in England and his portraits of Henry VIII, we all got him.’ The Earl tried not to condescend to the nurse who, he assumed, knew more about catheters and bed pans than Altendorfer and Cranach.

  ‘We don’t pay much attention to fashion,’ the woman said, smiling sweetly.

  ‘I would remind you,’ the Earl replied smoothly, ‘that Sir Patrick wrote a whole book about taste through the ages and the importance of provenance.’

  ‘Now in its eighteenth edition; Patrick is so clever,’ the woman said, looking fondly at Sir Patrick.

  Beachendon felt a deep blush creeping from his heart towards his neck. It was not possible that this lovely young creature, barely older than his first-bor
n, was somehow ‘involved’ with the near cadaver lolling in this chair.

  ‘We were never formally introduced,’ Beachendon said holding out his hand.

  ‘I am Josephine O’Mally, Patrick’s wife,’ she said. ‘You can call me Jo.’

  ‘His wife?’ Beachendon said.

  ‘We got married last year so I suppose you could still call us newly-weds.’

  Beachendon looked from Sir Patrick to the woman.

  ‘I know what you are thinking. What was it that first attracted me to the famous multi-millionaire art collector?’ Jo said.

  Beachendon smiled weakly.

  ‘It was his mind,’ she continued. ‘Sir Patrick transported me from my dull little world to an imaginary state of bliss and fantasy.’

  ‘Bliss and fantasy?’

  ‘Bliss and fantasy,’ Jo said, firmly. ‘We are very happy.’

  Beachendon looked over to Sir Patrick and saw a tiny bubble of spit forming on his top lip as he tried to force out a word.

  ‘Squapppppy,’ Sir Patrick said.

  Jo went over to her husband and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  ‘I know what else you are thinking,’ Jo said.

  ‘Really?’ Beachendon asked, feeling inordinately depressed.

  ‘Spladdgeuery,’ Sir Patrick added.

  ‘Could I have some more brandy?’ Beachendon asked.

  ‘Are you driving? If you are, I can’t really recommend it,’ Jo said. ‘Now do tell us, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?’

  ‘Purely social.’

  ‘Purely?’

  ‘Schalteralterrigis,’ Sir Patrick commented.

  ‘Sir Patrick thinks you came here to try and persuade him to sell his collection.’ Jo translated.

  ‘Sclrlortifiscathy.’

  ‘Are you sure you want me to say that, darling?’ Jo knelt next to her husband and gently wiped some spittle from his lower lip.

  ‘Justhshioipoishldkhy.’

  ‘He says you cunt vultures have been circling his body for years but he’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘This really is a social call,’ Beachendon protested.

  ‘Crrasphoihslkenfijhnklend.’

  ‘And his mother is the Queen of Timbuktu.’

  ‘Vlskjidhsot.’

  ‘Sorry, Vladivostok.’

  Beachendon looked at the canvases hanging from floor to ceiling; there was a tiny Holbein of Erasmus, a study for the great work at the National Gallery; two late Brueghels; an almost perfect Lucas Cranach of a young girl, and a Mathias Grünewald of an old woman. Upstairs in heavy mahogany chests, he had heard there were sheaves of beautiful, priceless drawings and another four floors of great paintings all bought for under £200 by the young Sir Patrick. Beachendon’s fantasy had been to package the whole collection in one huge sale stretching over three days. Now, just when everyone thought that the old man could not survive another winter, he had gone and married a young woman who looked good for another fifty years. If the old man left his collection to his wife then decades of careful courtship by the art world’s will-hunters had been totally pointless. Beachendon’s bitter disappointment was tempered only by the realisation that there were others who would be even more upset by the announcement of a new Lady O’Mally.

  ‘I can’t believe the time,’ Beachendon said, getting to his feet and bowing slightly to Lady Jo. ‘I am on my way to Cambridge for a lecture and thought I would stop by,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll fetch your coat,’ Lady Jo said. ‘Just keep Patrick company.’

  Beachendon leant towards Patrick and, putting his eye close to the old man’s watery pink one, he said softly. ‘Game, set and match to you, old boy.’

  ‘Fluckingsthelrrfff,’ said Sir Patrick. Beachendon detected the faintest of smiles on the old man’s lips.

  Lady Jo reappeared carrying Beachendon’s coat. ‘It is so nice that someone comes just to say hello. There was one curator the other day, from an American museum, who walked in, took out his credit card and said “Name your price” as if we were some sheep farmers from Glamorgan.’

  Beachendon put on his coat and nodded sympathetically.

  ‘Another person tried to seduce me! He came on all strong about wanting to comfort me in that special place in a special way that my husband couldn’t. I was outraged. Totally outraged.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘I nearly called the police.’

  Turning to Patrick, Earl Beachendon gave him a wave but the old man’s eyes were firmly closed.

  ‘It’s time for his nap.’ Lady Jo nodded at the front door.

  ‘My card – in case you need my services,’ Beachendon said, handing over his business card.

  ‘I’ve got everything I want for now,’ Lady Jo said, smiling.

  Beachendon walked back to his car. This time he hardly noticed the canine weapons of mass destruction. Stepping in a large pile of excrement, he didn’t stop to scrape the shit from his shoe. What was the point? Arriving at the car park, Beachendon saw that the door was closed and bolted; on the door someone had tacked a note. ‘Family probz. Got to go. Soz. Back laters.’

  Turning around, Beachendon walked back towards Whitechapel where he hoped to find an underground station. The final dregs of a fruit and vegetable market littered the pavement. Stalls were being dismantled, boxes of unsold cabbages and apples remained piled up and the ground was strewn with discarded and damaged leaves. ‘Last box o’ pears, yours for a fiver,’ a seller called out with little enthusiasm. With each step, Beachendon caught a whiff of dog shit and rotten cabbage.

  How did this happen? Beachendon wondered. Forty years ago he was an eighteen-year-old buck leaving Eton and about to take a place at Oxford. Handsome, impeccably connected, he was supposed to inherit a grand title with an estate, but the chasm between expectation and reality had widened year by year as the full extent of his father’s mismanagement became clear. Five weeks after the honeymoon ended, the very auction house that Beachendon now worked for had moved in and divided up his supposed inheritance into separate lots. Even his teddy bears had been catalogued under ‘aristocratic childhood memorabilia’. His mother and he had sat in the front row of the auction, waving their hands at opportune moments to raise the bidding. Nothing dulled the sharp pain of seeing every last stick of furniture, from the Riesener desk to the servants’ hip baths, knocked down to heritage hunters. The only pieces of inheritance the young Earl retained were a fob watch, a title and some basic knowledge of furniture. As companies still liked a titled person on the board, Beachendon had picked up a few non-executive directorships and a junior position at the auction house. Through hard work and tenacity, he made his way up through the ranks to be appointed chief auctioneer. Though the art business had prospered, the Earl had not. His clients had become richer and richer; his wages barely kept pace with inflation.

  The one good bit of news was that Beachendon had remembered to put his Oyster card in his wallet that morning and that there was just enough credit to get him across London to his office.

  Chapter 17

  Standing in the shadow of the grey façade of an apartment block off Friedrichstadt in Berlin, Rebecca felt foolish. She was at the address listed in her brother’s notebook but did not know why she was there or what she was looking for. In her professional life, Rebecca took pride in being a commander of facts, a marshal of dates and a serious historian whose reputation was built on measured, considered evaluation. In her personal life, she ignored her husband’s peccadillos and concentrated instead on fulfilling the uxorial duties of a good wife and mother. Rebecca found comfort in regular, decent behaviour. To take a plane on a whim, to cancel important meetings and to lie about her whereabouts, was wholly out of character.

  She guessed that number 14 Schwedenstrasse was built in about 1900 and was probably one of the few blocks left standing in that area after Allied bombing campaigns during the Second World War. At the time, the vast concrete edifice punctuated by hundreds of windows must h
ave seemed impressive and modern. Now it was dwarfed on either side by high-rise buildings shooting into the air with monumental steely purpose.

  Rebecca hesitated before entering the building: she knew instinctively that after crossing the threshold, nothing would be quite the same. Her telephone rang; it was Memling. Rebecca felt a rush of relief – her father, with his inimitable sense of timing and intuition, was calling to offer the longed-for, plausible explanation.

  ‘It’s a foreign ring tone. Where are you?’ Memling asked. He never bothered with pleasantries or any introduction.

  Rebecca hesitated, wondering whether to tell her father the truth.

  ‘I’m in Paris looking at what was supposed to be a Corot but is actually a clever copy.’ Rebecca was surprised by both the lie and the ease with which she delivered it.

  ‘Any news of the picture?’ Memling asked.

  ‘A dead end. Everywhere.’ Summoning up her courage, Rebecca asked, ‘What is so important about this picture? If I am to help, you need to tell me.’

  Memling hung up.

  Though his employees and family were expected to comment on any subject proffered, Memling answered questions selectively. He rarely explained or extrapolated. His instructions were well defined and precise, and most were grateful for this clarity and sense of purpose. His organisation was run as a hierarchical empire with a long gap between the leader and the next rung of management. In theory, Rebecca shared top billing and equal responsibility; in practice, she was just another employee. Memling maintained absolute control through a combination of natural authority and bullying enforced by an iron fist on all financial levers. Every bill, whether it was for a multi-million-dollar painting or a paper clip, had to be sanctioned by him.