The Bernini Bust (3 page)

“Even aesthetes must eat. In fact, we spend a fortune on food, because we’re so fussy. That’s why we’re such expensive friends. Come now, this is your big chance.”

“But I’ve just sold a Titian…’ Argyll protested, feeling his professional acumen was being called into question a little.

Di Souza looked unconvinced. “Many a slip,” he said supportively, and Argyll glared at him. The last thing he needed at the moment was something else to worry about. “After all, you’ve not cashed the cheque yet.”

“I haven’t even got the cheque yet.”

“There you are. It’s amazing the things that can go wrong. Take Moresby, now. I remember, just after the war…’

Argyll did not want to hear. “That Titian is as sold as you can get,” he said firmly. “Don’t go around putting ideas into people’s heads.”

“Oh, very well,” di Souza replied, annoyed to be interrupted in mid-anecdote. “If you restrain yourself over my sculpture. All I was trying to say is that the good dealer never misses an opportunity. Think how much your stock will rise with Byrnes if you unload something else while you’re here.”

“My stock is quite high already, thank you,” Argyll said primly. “I’ve been asked to go back to London. Perhaps become a partner.”

Di Souza was impressed, as well he might be. Argyll, after all, left out the bit that it was more of an order than a request, and the result of a cutback rather than a promotion.

“You’re leaving Rome? I thought you were settled permanently.” That, of course, was the rub. Argyll had also thought he was settled permanently. But it seemed that, in reality, he had no real ties to the place at all. Not when it came to the test.

He shrugged miserably. Like Thanet, he was not in a confiding mood at the moment. Di Souza, ever insensitive, assumed he was thinking about money.

Chapter Two

For all Argyll’s misgivings, the party was an impressive affair, especially for a scratch effort. However nasty an employer Moresby might be, clearly parties were an area where blank cheques ruled. And whatever the inadequacies of the museum itself at least its entrance lobby was a good place for a bash. Centre stage was a vast table covered in ice and half an ocean full of miscellaneous shellfish; nibbles there were aplenty; a jazz band blasted away in one corner, a string quintet in another, to emphasise the museum’s mission to unify high and popular culture. No one paid much attention to either. The drink situation, while not generous, was adequate if you worked at it.

In short supply, however, were all those multi-millionaires slavering at the chops to buy up Argyll’s small (but select) stock of goods. Perhaps they were there and he just didn’t know how to spot them. You couldn’t, after all, just sidle up to someone and ask for a quick peek at their bank statement, though some people did seem to have a sixth sense for this sort of thing: Edward Byrnes instinctively headed towards people with excess cash burning a hole in their pockets. Argyll had never worked out how he did it. Nor had he ever grasped how to manipulate a conversation so that it imperceptibly came round to the question of, say, nineteenth-century French landscapes. Of which, by chance, you happened to have a fine example…

On his own little ventures into this complicated territory he generally found himself trying to sell Flemish genre pieces to waiters. When he did manage to latch on to the right person, he ended up demonstrating at length how his pictures weren’t really that good, and recommending something currently owned by a rival.

So it was this evening. Almost subliminally, he managed to convey the notion that he found the idea of selling something faintly distasteful. While he had the distinct impression that Hector di Souza was unloading his fakes on every wealthy woman in the area, Argyll scarcely even managed to tell anyone he had anything to sell. His one substantial conversation was with the architect, a flamboyantly casual man with a pronounced tendency to middle-age spread, who lectured him on the synthesis of modernist utilitarianism and the classicist aesthetic as expressed in his own
oeuvre.
To put it another way, he talked about himself non-stop for twenty minutes. The fact that he was one of those people who constantly look over your right shoulder for someone more interesting didn’t make him any more endearing.

But the conversation was not entirely without interest: in a fit of self-satisfaction, the architect confided that this was a big evening for him. Old man Moresby had finally committed himself to the Big Museum (known to all staff as the BM), and was going to announce it tonight. Hence the panic, hence the sudden visit, hence Thanet’s vague air of smugness to counter the more general worry, and hence, presumably, Anne Moresby’s pre-emptive strike a few hours earlier.

“The biggest private museum commission for decades,” he said with excusable satisfaction. “It’s going to cost a bomb.”

“How much is a bomb?” asked Argyll, who loved hearing of other people’s folly.

“The fabric alone will be about 300 million.”

“Dollars?” Argyll squeaked, appalled at the very thought.

“Of course. What do you think? Lire?”

“Dear God. He must be crazy.”

The architect looked upset that anyone might query the idea of entrusting him with so much money. “Museums are the temples of the modern age,” he intoned sonorously. “They enshrine all that’s beautiful and worth preserving in our culture.”

Argyll gazed at him quizzically, trying to discern whether he was joking. He came to the depressing conclusion that the man was serious. “Bit pricey, though,” he objected.

“You have to pay for the best,” the architect insisted.

“And that’s you?”

“Of course. I am by far the most significant architect of my generation. Perhaps of any generation,” he added modestly.

“But doesn’t he have anything better to spend it on?”

Evidently for the first time, the architect considered the possibility for a moment. “No,” he said firmly after a while. “If he abandoned the museum, everything would go to his godawful son. Or his godawful wife. If they weren’t so dreadful, I doubt this project would ever have got off the ground.”

Then he saw a more important person on the other side of the room and whisked himself off. Argyll, offended at being abandoned but relieved he was left alone, shot like a bullet in the direction of the drinks section to recover himself.

Business was not brisk; the waiter had a slight air of underemployment. One person, however - and Argyll warmed to him the moment he saw him pointing a shaky finger at the whisky — seemed to be doing his best to make the poor soul feel wanted.

“Great,” said this stranger, a man in his late thirties with long fair hair of an antique cut. “Thought I was the only person here drinking something other than Perrier. What you having?”

This wasn’t so generous, considering all the drinks were free, but as an invitation to conversation it was adequate. Argyll refilled and they leant back on the table, companionably side-by-side, and watched the world go by.

“Who’re you?” the man asked. Argyll explained. “Thought I’d not seen you around before,” he said. “You here to unload fakes and curios on my old man?”

Argyll was both affronted and intrigued in equal measure. This, it seemed, was Arthur M. Moresby III, known as Jack, although he did not know why. So he asked. Jack Moresby looked pained.

“To distinguish me from my father. My middle name, I hate to say, is Melisser.”

“Melissa?”

“Melisser. My mother’s maiden name. Father reckoned that being his son gave me too many advantages, so he thought he’d give me something to struggle against. You know, he sort of thought that being beaten up at school for having a cissy name would give me an edge.”

“Goodness.”

“Yeah. I can’t be called Arthur, as I refuse to be mistaken for him, and being someone who drinks a pint of whisky a day, I naturally can’t accept being called Melisser. Jack seems more writerish, I reckon.”

“You write books?”

“Just said so, didn’t I?”

A direct manner, just this side of being rude. Argyll began to understand why he was not held in high esteem by architects and people like that. To change the subject he assured him that he did not sell fakes. He was here to deliver a small but exquisite piece of unquestioned value.

Jack was not convinced, but seemed content to let it pass. Argyll asked if he spent much time at the museum. He nearly choked on his whisky and said he would ordinarily not be seen dead in the place.

“Look at this bunch,” he exclaimed, sweeping his arm across to include the entire room. “Have you ever seen such a collection of creeps gathered into a room before? Eh? What you think?”

Legally, this is known as a leading question and was one which required a careful answer. Besides, as Argyll could assure him, in his line of business a whole room full of creeps was nothing unusual. Who else was he meant to sell his pictures to?

Jack conceded the point, and refilled. Argyll proffered a bowl of peanuts by way of return. Jack shook his head. Never touched them. The salt made his ankles swell up. Argyll regarded the peanuts with new respect. Which creeps did he have in mind, in particular? he asked, pointing out that, being new to the country, he was not so good at spotting them yet.

So junior gave a quick guided tour. He was surprisingly knowledgeable, considering that he said he avoided his family and its associates as much as possible.

Samuel Thanet, he said, pointing ostentatiously to the director, who had been cruising around the room being hospitable ever since they got there. He had a very definite party technique: regulation one minute of conversation then on to the next person. Some people do this well, but not Thanet; he managed to make everything seem an unwelcome chore. Not surprising, really, Jack commented. Thanet didn’t really care about people; he was wedded to the idea of going down as founder of the greatest private museum in North America. Using other people’s money, of course. Mousy, quiet, nervous, but utterly poisonous. A man who would never do a mean trick - as long as he could get someone else to do it for him.

“Look at him there,” he said. “All tweedily a-twitter, waiting for my father to turn up so he can give his boots a good lick.”

The characterisation seemed a little unfair. Argyll was prepared to agree about the mousy and nervous side, but so far at least had seen nothing resembling venom. On the other hand, he was prepared to admit he did not know the man very well. In any case, his technique clearly worked, whatever it was, if Moresby was on the verge of shelling out over $300 million on a new museum.

Jack didn’t seem very impressed. “You don’t know my father,” he said. “I’ll believe in this new museum when I’m invited to the opening ceremony.”

He got tired of contemplating the director and moved on. “James Langton,” he said, pointing at the white-linen-clad man in his late fifties who had been so gratifyingly keen on Titian. “English slimebag.”

Argyll raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry. But you know what I mean. Supercilious, disdainful, mocking, dishonest. Wouldn’t you say those are national characteristics?”

“Not really,” Argyll said, a host of English people fitting that description swarming into his mind.

“Well, I do. Used to be chief leech, until Thanet came along. Since then he’s become an international parasite. Paris, Rome, London, New York, as they say on the perfume bottles. Devoted himself to searching out every overpriced fake in the world for my father’s collection, buying it and taking a hefty cut for his services.”

Argyll felt aggrieved, and mentioned his Titian once more. He was beginning to develop a complex about it.

“So we all make mistakes,” Jack said with no discernible interest. “Even a man of Langton’s huge talent couldn’t get a hundred per cent success rate. He must slip occasionally and buy something genuine.”

On he went. “Mummy dearest,” he said, pointing at the petite, expertly dressed woman Argyll had encountered earlier that afternoon. She had arrived twenty minutes earlier. “She’s my stepmother, but she doesn’t like to be called that. On the make. Quite assiduous about it. She has a vague southern accent but in fact comes from Nebraska. Do you know where Nebraska is?”

Argyll confessed he didn’t. Jack nodded as though this proved it.

“Nor does anybody else. She hit the jackpot with my old man, and will stick with him until he croaks and she can get her hands on his money. Unless the museum gets it first.” He regarded the woman with apparent indulgence, then dismissed her abruptly from his mind and switched to another target.

“David Barclay,” he said firmly, pointing to an excessively groomed personage talking to Anne Moresby. “His signature will be on your cheque - if you ever get it. My father’s lawyer and personal factotum, on permanent secondment from some law firm. The
eminence grise
of the family. Handsome little bastard, don’t you think? The sort that works out before going to the office. So many designer labels on him he resembles the advertising section of
Vogue.
Drop him in a sewage plant and shit would become fashionable. My father,” he went on in a loud stage-whisper, breathing a whisky fragrance into Argyll’s face from close range, “is a bit of a sucker for up-and-coming professional types. That’s why I’m such a disappointment to him. He can’t resist someone like Barclay. Nor can my beloved stepmother.”

“I beg your pardon?” Argyll said, caught a little by surprise.

“Little David is connected to my family most intimately,” Jack said, speaking ever more loudly. “All services, legal and otherwise, rendered with equal skill.”

He sniggered, and Argyll regarded the lawyer with increased interest. He expressed surprise that the man kept his job.

“Discretion is a wonderful thing. The trouble is, it’s not that easy to keep up. Even the best-kept secret is apt to leak out eventually. Given a helping hand, anyway. That’s why I’m here, in fact,” Jack went on elliptically. “I love firework displays, and are we going to have one tonight.”

“Are we, indeed?” Argyll said, thinking that perhaps this party might turn out to be more fun than he’d anticipated. “You don’t seem to rate your father’s judgement of character very highly.”