Saturn Over the Water (6 page)

‘I’ll tell you, Mitchell. But it’s all I’ll tell you. There were some names on it, not in any kind of order, just jotted down anyhow. Most of them didn’t mean anything to me.’

‘Then a few of them did. Can you remember them, Bedford? It’s important.’

‘Well, one or two places – the Blue Mountains, for instance. They’re in Australia, aren’t they? And then something about Brisbane. Yes –
high back Brisbane
, which I suppose could mean some place high up and behind Brisbane. And among the names were three bunched together. Two of them looked foreign and I’ve forgotten them, but I remember the other – Semple.’

‘What do you know about Semple?’

‘I know one thing, Mitchell. Dr Magorious, who was treating him, prefers not to talk about him. At least, to me. But Dr Magorious and I, though we were fellow guests at Sir Reginald’s, didn’t take to each other.’

‘How did you know Semple was one of Dr Magorious’s patients, Bedford?’

‘Semple’s brother is a member of my club.’

Mitchell nodded, looked as if he was about to say something, then apparently changed his mind. He got up, so I got up. Then he pulled out a notebook and pencil, found a blank page and drew something on it. ‘I’d be very grateful if you’d answer one last question. Did you see this – or anything like it – on that sheet of paper?’ And he showed me what he’d drawn – a wavy line with a figure eight above it.

‘No, I didn’t, Mitchell.’ This was true, but I might have added that something had been written on that sheet about a figure eight.

‘I promised to give you another tip, remember?’ He stopped to give me a hard look. ‘If you’re going to New York just to sell some pictures there – okay! If you’re
not
– if you have other ideas – be very careful, that’s all.’ Then he did an odd thing. He didn’t speak but simply held up, so that I could see it again, his drawing of the wavy line with the figure eight above it. Then, with a last hard look at me, he put the notebook away. ‘Nice to have met you, Bedford. I might be seeing you, though I hope not – for your sake. Now don’t bother – I can let myself out.’

But I did bother, and, although it was still a nasty morning, I followed him along the passage that goes from our three studios to the main road. There was a big car waiting for him. It was exactly like the car that had brought me back from Sir Reginald’s house, not twelve hours before. I don’t say it was the same car, probably it wasn’t, but it did suggest the same stable. Mitchell didn’t look back. Probably he was already deciding to pick up another stranger in a railway refreshment room.

When the express letter came from Sturge’s office, I saw that all the names and phrases I’d deciphered were on the copy, right from
Gen
.
Giddings
down to
Why Sat
.
?
, but that his secretary was rather better at reading scribbles than I was. What I’d dismissed as
Something
-
Smith
she’d turned into
Reg
.
Merlan
-
Smith
. And between him and the name in front of his on my list,
Steglitz
, she’d had a few shots at squiggles I’d given up as a bad job, trying
Magorus?
and
Megrious?
and
Stetins?
and
Sletime?
I felt inclined to ring her up, to tell her I’d now sat opposite Dr Magorious and Countess Slatina at dinner. But I didn’t, just as I didn’t go round to Hill Street to ask Sir Reginald why he and his two friends were on Joe Farne’s list and what they thought they were doing. Though I now had the list again, I was still angry at losing the original the way I did, and this anger, hardening into a sort of determination, made me feel different about the whole enterprise. Through all the fuss of clearing up and getting away I never stopped asking myself questions. I took the whole lot of them with me on the Comet to New York, every one still unanswered.

4

One of the things that have cut me off from the British Raj, now out of India but settling down nicely in England, is that I’m prejudiced about Jews – I like them. They don’t, as so many of the English do, quietly die while still moving around and talking. Jewish zombies are hard to find. While they’re living, they’re alive. I don’t mind people being tough and aggressive if at the same time they’re intelligent and warm-hearted. This was Sam Harnberg, who was a noisy fat New York Jew who’d start shouting when better bred types would merely raise an eyebrow, and if you were dead against him and acted hard he would try to hammer you into the ground. Sam and I were friends, and had taken to each other from the time we first met, at my dealer’s in London. He loved good painting, really loved it, even more than he did good food and drink and honest men’s talk. Up to the age of about forty-five he’d worked all out in some family dress-goods business, and then, having no wife and family, he’d walked out of it to buy and sell pictures. We didn’t always agree about painting of course, but I had respect for his judgment and a growing affection for him. He met me at Idlewild Airport – and going there and waiting aren’t most people’s idea of a Saturday afternoon – and told me he hadn’t booked me an hotel room because he’d a spare bed in his apartment, above his gallery on East
57
th Street. ‘The plumbing’s guesswork, it still has steamheat, and stinks of something – hot varnish, I guess – but it’s human. And when a man first comes to this town, he needs to be reminded that all the human race hasn’t gone.’

We must have spent nearly an hour, in a big car he’d hired, travelling in a maze of roads. The afternoon seemed to be cold and dry, with occasional flurries of snowflakes. I didn’t feel particularly tired after the trip, but I didn’t feel quite right in my mind, I wasn’t firmly anchored to reality, and I might have been drinking too much for days and nights on end.

‘What the hell’s the idea, Tim,’ said Sam in his deep harsh voice, ‘arriving today and leaving Monday? Who do you think you are – Foreign Secretary?’

‘I can’t help it, Sam. I have to look for the husband of a cousin of mine, who’s dying.’ Then I explained about Isabel and Joe Farne, but I left out the fancier speculations, not because I didn’t trust Sam – I’d have trusted him with anything – but because I didn’t know what to think of them myself. If this car, these roads, the desperate darkening landscape of Long Island, didn’t seem real, I simply couldn’t start talking about Mrs Semple, Sir Reginald and Company, and Mitchell. As for Joe Farne’s list of names and places, which I’d brooded over again on the plane and now kept securely in my wallet, it didn’t make sense to me and Sam would have thought I was barmy to take it seriously.

‘Arnaldos Institute? I know old Arnaldos. And don’t let that surprise you, Tim. These South American collectors are always coming up here, and mostly go back loaded with fake Utrillos and factory-fresh Renoirs. Not old Arnaldos, though. You couldn’t fool him with that junk. He’s a real collector and of course he’s got all the money in the world. I got him an early Monet, a Pissarro and a Sisley. All fresh as daisies, not that I’ve seen a goddam daisy for years. Now wait,’ Sam shouted, as if I’d been silly enough to try to interrupt, ‘if I didn’t sell him a picture of yours, when he came round in the fall, then I nearly did. I know we were talking about it.’

‘Is he there now – I mean, at the Institute?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Sam said. ‘But it’s summer down there, don’t forget. And I remember him telling me he’s on the coast, with desert behind him – wonderful climate, he told me – and he’s into his eighties now – I’ll bet he doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds – he might well be there. Why? You want to get acquainted with him?’

‘I was wondering how to do it,’ I said. ‘And this is just what I need. Sam, do me a favour. Write him an airmail letter, getting it off today, to tell him I’m on my way there. Make it clear I’m not trying to sell any pictures, but tell him I might like to do some sketches of the Institute as well as of the coast round there. Not oils of course – the gear’s too heavy – but I’ve brought a
gouache
outfit with me, light and easy to carry.’

‘What for?’ Sam snorted with disgust. ‘This is New York, son. We’ve everything you have in London – only more so. We sell
gouache
setups here.’

‘Not on Saturday nights and Sundays, I’ll bet you don’t.’

Sam banged me on the knee. ‘You win, you Limey dauber! And to prove there’s no ill-feeling, I’ll write and mail that letter about you as soon as we’re home. And now – look at that, Timmy boy – just take your first look at it.’ The towers of Manhattan were shining through the snowflakes and the wintry gloom. After I had marvelled at them, he went on: ‘Half the time I think it’s all running down like a clock that nobody knows how to wind up. When it isn’t sour, it’s hysterical, just waiting for the biggest goddam bomb in the world – might be ours and not theirs – to bring it all down for ever. There’s hardly any sense, civility, or service, any more. But what a city for a lot of mongrel bastards and misfits to have put up in under fifty years! Look at the midtown section coming up now! By God – there’s been nothing like it since the Tower of Babel. And I wouldn’t live anywhere else, not if you offered me free gratis and for nothing Buckingham Palace and all the châteaux on the Loire.’

After he’d shown me where I was sleeping and I’d shown him the two canvases I’d brought over with me and we’d arranged to have them stretched and framed, he gave me a bourbon on the rocks, left me to unpack, and went down to his office on the floor below to write that letter to Arnaldos. But he came back to ask me where I was staying in Lima, so that the old man would know where to find me.

‘I don’t know, Sam,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to the British Embassy and tell ’em I’m around, and he can send me a message there.’

‘You’ll have to call for it at the tradesmen’s entrance. And say – listen – after I’ve mailed this letter, I’m doing the dinner. Steak, the best – big baked potatoes, a green salad, a piece of Roquefort – and a bottle of Chambertin – how’s that,
cher maître?
’

‘It sounds wonderful, Sam.’ And if it wasn’t quite that, it was certainly very good, for Sam, like most people who enjoy good painting, could enjoy good food too. Then when we’d had a touch of Armagnac, and he’d lit a cigar and I’d started my pipe, he said: ‘We can stay here and talk about pictures, Tim, or we can go out. Not on the town, not on Saturday night. But I’ve a niece – she’s called Jill Dayson now – and she’s married into the Madison Avenue agency racket. They’re throwing a party tonight – no dressing up – and we’re both invited. It’s up to you, fella. But if you want to find out what kind of people we have around here, I’d say let’s go. Okay? Fine! I’ll even give you a latchkey so that if you get entangled with one of these gorgeous Madison Avenue women – or it might be Fifth or Park, there’ll be a wide selection – you needn’t leave her too soon.’

‘I’ll take it, Sam. Just in case you’re the one and I want to come home.’

‘Not any more, boy. Not at my age and weight – sixty-three and two hundred and twelve pounds. But I still like to look them over. And as for you, you’ll be drooling, boy. We have the best-looking women the world’s ever seen –
and
the most expensive –
and
the most dissatisfied. They’re the better-looking half of what’s the matter with us. Okay then – let’s go.’

His niece, a sumptuous Old Testament brunette, seemed genuinely glad to see us, though their apartment, a large one, all modern Swedish furniture and phoney abstract art, was already fairly crowded. Her husband, Bill Dayson, was a fair and fattish chap, who’d had plenty of drink but was now sweating it out, bashing around and shouting remarks that nobody seemed to bother about. Sam and I were separated almost at once, and soon I was in a corner with a husband and wife called Pearson, who must have arrived at the party in the middle of a quarrel, and a delicate but damp-looking blonde, Angel Somebody, who was a bit sozzled and droopy, a jonquil in the rain. Some poor devil was probably half out of his mind about her, but not T. Bedford. Even so, though I’m no portrait painter, I couldn’t help looking at her as if she was sitting for me. I began sorting her out into a splendid range of yellows, some warm greys and washed-out blues. All three were in an argument, hotted up by the mutual hostility of the Pearsons, about whether anti-conformists conformed just as much as conformists. It didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere, except to the bottom of tall glasses of Scotch and ice. The
dears
and
darlings
of the Pearsons, as they contradicted each other, dripped vitriol.

Then Angel suddenly changed the subject. ‘Now see here – yes, you, Mr Man from London – why do you keep looking at me like that? If something’s come unstuck, tell me, and I’ll try to do a repair job for you. Tell me, that’s all – don’t just look – like that – ’

‘Angel – honey,’ said Mrs Pearson, a streamlined and highly-finished type, rather like a carving knife bursting out at the end into blue-steel curls. ‘Nobody’s looking at you.’

‘He is then. And he knows he is. As if I wasn’t really here – or something’s showing.’

‘You’re dead right,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I was wondering how to paint you.’

‘Don’t you remember, Angel, Jill told us he was an artist?’ said Mrs Pearson.

‘No, I don’t. Well, for God’s sake!’ Angel stared at me, her eyes a brighter blue now. ‘I thought you ran an ironworks over there or something. You don’t look aware and sensitive.’

‘Then probably I’m not. I just try to paint – for a living and as well as I can.’

‘I think you’re cute. Isn’t he – Mildred – George? Well, you can start painting me Monday – I’ll be out of town tomorrow – ’

‘And I’m flying to Lima on Monday – ’

‘No, we won’t go there. I’ve been and I hated it. We’ll go to Acapulco – and you can paint me there – ’

Pearson had had enough of this – and I don’t blame him – and his space was more than taken by a character called Nicky, a hard-working funny man, who claimed the women’s attention, though Angel still kept her arm around mine, as if I was a possession she might otherwise forget. Not long afterwards, though I wouldn’t like to say how long because I didn’t feel really there at the party, I heard voices loud and angry in argument. One of them was Sam Harnberg’s. ‘I want to know what my friend Sam has got into, Angel,’ I said to her, trying to disentangle myself. ‘So if you’ll excuse me – ’

‘Certainly not,’ she told me, still clinging.
‘
’Bye now, Mildred – Nicky! Have fun!’ And I had to take her with me, a flowering creeper after the rain, through the crowd, to where Sam was roaring away. ‘Darling, I think you’re crazy,’ Angel screamed in my ear. ‘They’re only arguing. The same old thing. Some men can’t help it when they’re high. Let’s go someplace.’

‘No, Angel honey. This is my friend. He brought me here.’

‘For God’s sake! Don’t tell me you’re – ’

‘No, I’m not. Now, let’s listen.’