‘Oh, no. But my grandmother talked
about it often.’
‘Is she still alive?’
‘No. I said so in the
letter.’
‘Forgive me. What was your
grandfather’s name?’
‘Anton Perovsky.’ She spells out
his surname, pointing at his notes as she does so.
‘Any surviving members of the family
who might know about it?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know if the work has ever been
exhibited?’
‘No.’
He’d known it would be a mistake to
start advertising, that it would lead to flaky cases like this. But Janey had insisted.
‘We need to be proactive,’ she had said, her vocabulary skewed by
management-speak. ‘We need to stabilize our market share, consolidate our
reputation. We need to be all over this market like a bad suit.’ She had
compiled a list of all the other tracing and recovery companies and
suggested they send Miriam to their competitors as a fake client, to see their methods.
She had appeared completely unmoved when he had told her this was crazy.
‘You’ve done any basic searches
on its history? Google? Art books?’
‘No. I assumed that was what I’d
be paying you for. You’re the best in the business, yes? You found this
Lefèvre painting.’ She crosses her legs, glances at her watch. ‘How
long do these cases take?’
‘Well, it’s a piece-of-string
question. Some we can resolve fairly swiftly, if we have the documented history and
provenance. Others can take years. I’m sure you’ve heard that the legal
process itself can be quite expensive. It’s not something I would urge you to
embark upon lightly.’
‘And you work on
commission?’
‘It varies, but we take a small
percentage of the final settlement, yes. And we have an in-house legal department
here.’ He flicks through the folder. There is nothing in it other than a few
pictures of the painting, a signed affidavit from Anton Perovsky saying that Kandinsky
had given him a painting in 1938. They were driven from their home in 1941 and never saw
it again. There is a letter from the German government acknowledging the claim. There is
a letter from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam gently denying that it’s in its
possession. It’s a pretty thin skeleton to hang a claim on.
He is trying to calculate whether it has any
merit at all when she speaks again: ‘I went to see the new firm. Brigg and
Sawston’s? They said they’d charge one per cent less than you.’
Paul’s hand stills on the paper.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Commission. They said they’d
charge one per cent less than you to recover the painting.’
Paul waits a moment before he speaks.
‘Miss Harcourt, we operate a reputable business. If you want us to use our years
of skill, experience and contacts to trace and potentially recover your family’s
beloved work of art, I will certainly consider that and give you my best advice as to
whether it will be possible. But I’m not going to sit here and haggle with
you.’
‘Well, it’s a lot of money. If
this Kandinsky is worth millions, it’s in our interests to get the best deal
possible.’
Paul feels a tightening in his jaw. ‘I
think, given that you didn’t even know you had a link to this painting eighteen
months ago, if we do recover it, you’re likely to get a very good deal
indeed.’
‘Is this your way of saying you
won’t consider a more … competitive fee?’ She looks at him
blankly. Her face is immobile, but her legs cross elegantly, a slingback dangling from
her foot. A woman used to getting what she wants, and doing so without engaging a shred
of feeling or emotion.
Paul puts down his pen. He closes the file
and pushes it towards her. ‘Miss Harcourt. It was nice to meet you. But I think
we’re done here.’
There is a pause. She blinks.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I don’t think you and I have
anything more to say to each other.’
Janey is crossing the office, holding up a
box of Christmas chocolates when she stops at the commotion.
‘You are the rudest man I have ever
met,’ Miss Harcourt is hissing at him. Her expensive handbag is tucked under her
left arm, and he is thrusting her folder of letters at her as he shepherds her towards
the door.
‘I very much doubt that.’
‘If you think this is any way to run a
business then you’re more of a fool than I thought you were.’
‘Then it’s just as well
you’re not entrusting me with the epic search for the painting you clearly love so
much,’ he says tonelessly. He pulls open the door, and in a cloud of expensive
perfume, Miss Harcourt is gone, shouting something unintelligible as she reaches the
stairs.
‘What the hell was that?’ says
Janey, as he strides past her on his way back to his office.
‘Don’t. Just don’t,
okay?’ he says. He slams his door behind him and sits down at his desk. When he
finally lifts his head from his hands, the first thing he sees is the portrait of
The Girl You Left Behind.
He dials her number standing on the corner
of Goodge Street, outside the Underground station. He has walked all the way up
Marylebone Road thinking about what he will say, and when she answers, it all falls
away.
‘Liv?’
The faint pause before she answers tells him
she knows who it is. ‘What do you want, Paul?’ Her tone is clipped, wary.
‘Because if this is about Sophie –’
‘No. It’s nothing to do
with … I just –’ He lifts a hand to his head, gazes around him at the
bustling street. ‘I just wanted to know … if you were okay.’
Another long pause. ‘Well. I’m
still here.’
‘I was thinking … maybe when
this is over, that we … could meet …’ He hears his voice, tepid and
feeble, unlike himself. His words, he realizes suddenly, are inadequate, no match for
the chaos he has unleashed in her life. What had she done to deserve this, after
all?
So her answer, when it finally comes, is not
really a surprise.
‘I – I can’t really think beyond
the next court date right now. This is just … too complicated.’
There is another silence. A bus roars past,
squealing and accelerating in an impotent rage, drowning sound, and he presses the phone
to his ear. He closes his eyes. She does not attempt to fill the silence.
‘So … are you going away for Christmas?’
‘No.’
Because this court case has eaten all my
money,
he hears her silent response
. Because you did this to me.
‘Me neither. Well, I’ll go over
to Greg’s. But it’s –’
‘Like you said before, Paul, we
probably shouldn’t even be speaking to each other.’
‘Right. Well, I’m – I’m
glad you’re okay. I guess that’s all I wanted to say.’
‘I’m fine.’
This time the silence is excruciating.
‘’Bye, then.’
‘Goodbye, Paul.’ She hangs
up.
Paul stands at the junction of Tottenham
Court Road, the phone limp in his hand, the tinny sound of Christmas carols in his ears,
then shoves it into his pocket and walks slowly back towards the office.
‘So this is the kitchen. As you can
see, there are spectacular views on three sides over the river and the city itself. To
the right you can see Tower Bridge, down there is the London Eye, and on sunny days you
can press a button here – is that right, Mrs Halston? – and simply open the
roof.’
Liv watches as the couple gaze upwards. The
man, a businessman in his fifties, wears the kind of spectacles that broadcast his
designer individuality. Poker-faced since he arrived, it’s possible he assumes
that any faint expression of enthusiasm might disadvantage him should he decide to make
an offer.
But even he cannot hide his surprise at the
receding glass ceiling. With a barely audible hum the roof slides back and they gaze up
into the infinite blue. Wintry air sinks gently into the kitchen, lifting the top sheets
from the pile of paperwork on the table.
‘Don’t think we’ll leave
it open too long, eh?’ The young estate agent, who has not tired of this mechanism
in the three viewings so far this morning, shivers theatrically, then watches with
barely concealed satisfaction as the roof closes neatly. The woman, petite and Japanese,
her neck secured by an intricately knotted scarf, nudges her husband and murmurs
something into his ear. He nods and looks up again.
‘And the roof, as with much of the
house, is made of special glass, which retains heat to the same degree as your average
insulated wall. It’s actually more eco-friendly than a normal terraced
house.’
These two don’t look as if they have
ever set foot in a normal terraced house. The Japanese woman walks around the kitchen,
opening and closing the drawers and cupboards, studying the interiors with the intensity
of a surgeon about to dive into an open wound.
Liv, standing mute by the fridge, finds she
is chewing the inside of her cheek. She had known this would never be easy, but she had
not realized she would feel quite so uncomfortable, so guilty about these people
trailing through, inspecting her belongings with unfeeling, acquisitive eyes. She
watches them touching the glass surfaces, running their fingers along the shelving,
talking in low voices about putting pictures up and ‘softening it all a
bit’, and wants to push them out of the front door.
‘All the appliances are top of the
range and included with the sale,’ the estate agent says, opening her fridge
door.
‘The oven, in particular, is almost
unused,’ a voice adds, from the doorway. Mo is wearing glittery purple eye-shadow,
and her parka over the Comfort Lodge Care Home tunic.
The estate agent is a little startled.
‘I’m Mrs Halston’s
personal assistant,’ she says. ‘You’ll have to excuse us. It’s
almost time for her meds.’
The estate agent smiles awkwardly, and
hurries the couple towards the atrium. Mo pulls Liv to one side. ‘Let’s get
a coffee,’ she says.
‘I need to be here.’
‘No, you don’t. This is
masochism. Come on, grab your coat.’
It’s the first time she has seen Mo
in days. Liv feels unexpected relief at her presence. She realizes she has craved the
vague impression of normality that now comes with a five-foot Goth in purple eye-shadow
and a wipe-clean tunic. Her life has become strange and dislocated, fixated on a
courtroom with its two duelling barristers, its suggestions and refutations, its wars
and looting
Kommandant
s. Her old life and her own routines have been replaced
by a kind of house arrest, her new world centred around the water fountain on the second
floor of the High Court, the unforgiving bench seats, the judge’s peculiar habit
of stroking his nose before he speaks. The image of her portrait on its stand.
Paul. A million miles away on the
claimants’ bench.
‘You really okay about selling
up?’ Mo nods in the direction of the house.
Liv opens her mouth to speak, then decides
that if she begins to talk about how she really feels she’ll never stop.
She’ll be here, burbling and railing, until next Christmas. She wants to tell Mo
that there are pieces about the case in the newspapers every day, her name bandied about
within them until it has become almost meaningless to see it. The words
theft
and
fairness
and
crime
appear in them all. She wants to tell her that
she no longer runs: a man had waited outside the block just to spit at her. She wants to
tell her the doctor has given her sleeping pills that she’s afraid to use. When
she explained her situation in his
consultation room she wondered if
she saw disapproval in his expression too.
‘I’m fine,’ she says.
Mo’s eyes narrow.
‘Really. It’s just bricks and
mortar, after all. Well, glass and concrete.’
‘I had a flat once,’ Mo says,
still stirring her coffee. ‘The day I sold it, I sat on the floor and cried like a
baby.’
Liv’s mug stills halfway to her
lips.
‘I was married. It didn’t work
out.’ Mo shrugs. And begins to talk about the weather.
There is something different about Mo.
It’s not that her manner is evasive exactly, but there is some kind of invisible
barrier, a glass wall, between them. Perhaps it’s my fault, Liv thinks. I’ve
been so preoccupied with money and the court case that I’ve hardly asked anything
about Mo’s life.
‘You know, I was thinking about
Christmas,’ she begins, after a pause. ‘I was wondering if Ranic wanted to
stay over the night before. Selfish reasons, really.’ She smiles. ‘I thought
you two might help me with the food. I’ve never actually cooked a Christmas dinner
before, and Dad and Caroline are actually pretty good cooks so I don’t want to
mess it up.’ She hears herself babbling.
I just need something to look forward
to,
she wants to say.
I just want to smile without having to think about
which muscles to use.
Mo looks down at her hand. A telephone
number in blue biro trawls its way along her left thumb. ‘Yeah. About
that …’
‘I know what you said about it being
crowded at his place. So if he wants to stay Christmas night too it’s totally
fine. It’ll be a nightmare trying to get a taxi home.’ She
forces a bright smile. ‘I think it’ll be fun. I think … I think
we all could do with some fun.’
‘Liv, he’s not
coming.’
‘What?’
‘He’s not coming.’ Mo
purses her lips.
‘I don’t understand.’
When Mo speaks, the words emerge carefully,
as if she’s considering the ramifications of each one. ‘Ranic is Bosnian.
His parents lost everything in the Balkans. Your court case – this shit is real to him.
He – he doesn’t want to come and celebrate in your house. I’m
sorry.’
Liv stares at her, then snorts, and pushes
the sugar bowl across the table. ‘Yeah. Right. You forget, Mo. I’ve lived
with you too long.’
‘What?’
‘Mrs Gullible. Well, you’re not
getting me this time.’
But Mo doesn’t laugh. She
doesn’t even meet her eyes. As Liv waits, she adds, ‘Okay, well, if
we’re doing this …’ she takes a breath ‘… I’m not
saying I agree with Ranic but I do sort of think you should hand the painting back
too.’