Too Clever By Half, page 3
The coffee made, she poured it into the silver coffee jug which had come from their mother’s family, searched for the matching milk jug before she remembered that recently he had dropped and damaged it. Naturally, the son had inherited all the silver. But if the milk jug had been hers and it had been damaged, she would never have just put it into a drawer and forgotten it, not caring enough to find out if it could be mended locally.
CHAPTER 4
When Gerald Heal had bought the property, it had been called Son Temor; having little time for history and none for modesty, he had renamed it Ca’n Heal. It was a manor house, imposingly large, set at the head of a long, wide valley. Originally, all the valley had been owned, but now the holding was reduced to just over two hectares. Close to the range of outbuildings was a large well with an almost limitless capacity even in midsummer, so that there was far more water than was needed; the farmers who now owned the surrounding land had wanted Heal to sell them the surplus water, but he had refused. What was his, was his.
The square house, four floors high, was built around an inner courtyard. In this, he had had built a stone fountain and now no matter how stifling the heat, the courtyard was a place of musical coolness. The house had been unreformed, so he had engaged an architect from Madrid to modernize it. The architect had been a man of vision and taste, very generous with other people’s money. When Heal had added up what the reformation had cost, he had been shocked and ever afterwards referred to ‘that swindler of an architect’. But since the work was of a quality rarely met on the island and there was extra envy to be gained from being so rich that one could be that handsomely cheated (he hadn’t been; on the whole, Madrileno architects, unlike many local ones, were both conscientious and honest), his resentment wasn’t as great as his words suggested.
He had filled the house with valuable possessions. Most had been bought on the open market but some, like the Mytens painting, he had acquired at a fraction of their true value because of his gift of being able to discern the beauty of genius. Those possessions bought in the open market were often so ostentatiously impressive as to be ugly, but all his ‘finds’ were truly beautiful. There was here a dichotomy of character almost impossible to understand until one knew and understood his past.
He had been born into bastardy and considerable hardship, if not quite poverty. That bastardy was an unfortunate condition was first truly brought home to him after two older boys had enjoyed themselves immensely, beating him up on the grounds that as a bastard he was a polluting influence. The tears he had shed had been tears of humiliation as much as of pain and this humiliation, which he never learned to forget, had been responsible for firing him with a burning ambition to prove himself a lot smarter and tougher than all those lucky enough to have been born with two parents and in some comfort.
He’d made his first million by his twenty-fifth birthday, nine years after starting full-time work in a builder’s yard in Camberwell. By the time he was forty he was worth, on a conservative estimate, ten million. Unlike most other rich people, he saw money not as power, but as a means of buying admiration and envy and so he retired rather than continue to work at making still more money which he’d never have the time, or eventually the ability, to spend with profit to himself.
He’d naturally had no intention of allowing any government to tax him and then waste his money on half-baked social schemes, so he’d moved all his capital out of England and into a bank in Jersey and from there to a company in Switzerland which invested it through a company in Liechtenstein. His Liechtenstein company bought the house and he was their tenant. Since the Spanish government had made the mistake of introducing a modern system of taxation which caught anyone who lived in the country for more than five months and thirty days, he made certain it could not be proved that he did. He paid most bills on credit cards whose accounts were settled in the States in dollars and he drew cash through cashpoints since their records of withdrawals were not kept locally; no snooping Spaniard was ever going to find it easy to prove that he was liable to pay Spanish income tax. As a Rothschild had once said, a rich man didn’t necessarily have to be a fool.
The company employed five servants, three in the house and two in the garden; the house was always spick and span, the garden a blaze of colour. He treated them fairly, but did not allow them the slightest familiarity, as did so many expatriates. All men weren’t equal, not by many bank balances.
He was tall, well built, had broad shoulders and a slim waist; many women thought him handsome. He was quickwitted, intelligent, and possessed a humour which could match itself to his listeners. Introduced to three strangers at a cocktail party, within minutes they would be listening to him rather than to each other. Most people liked him on first acquaintance and it was only the confirmed snobs, or the very perspicacious, who saw in his moustache an accurate indication of character. One of his many women, locked out of his ‘love’ flat for no reason other than boredom with her, had labelled him a barrow-boy made good. It was difficult to think of an apter description.
Alma stepped from the vast entrance hall into the snuggery—the small sitting-room which he used when not entertaining and impressing, in which were television, video and hi-fi, naturally all of the highest quality. “Evening, Gerry.’ She treated him as a friend (or enemy), not a father, and he preferred this because sentiment made him uneasy.
He looked up. ‘Your mother rang earlier and wants you to phone her back immediately.’
‘Is something the matter?’
‘If there is, it can’t be serious because she didn’t complain.’
She hated him for this open contempt. It had been his blatant infidelities which had finally brought about the separation. ‘D’you mind if I phone her?’
‘For God’s sake, you don’t have to ask.’
If she hadn’t, she thought, he might well have complained. There was a phone in the snuggery, but this was a call she did not want overheard. She returned to the entrance hall and crossed to the library. The shelves were filled with leather-bound books and any man who’d read them all could count himself educated. She doubted he’d read any of them. She sat on the edge of the large partner’s desk, lifted the receiver, and dialled 07. When the connection with International was made, she dialled 33 for France and then the number. As she waited, she nervously wondered what had happened to make her mother ring through and face having to speak to her husband.
‘Who is it?’
Her mother’s words sounded slightly slurred; it could be distortion or it could be drink. ‘It’s Alma. I’m sorry I was out when you rang. Gerry says you want a word?’
‘I’m surprised the bastard remembered to tell you.’
She’d never been able to decide in her own mind whether her mother had believed the marriage could last, despite the difference in characters, or whether it had been a simple case of being dazzled by wealth. ‘Is something wrong, Mother?’
‘I’ve just had a letter from the bastard’s solicitors. And d’you know what they’ve written . . .’
She listened patiently to a long and involved story, the gist of which she had guessed immediately. Her mother had run out of money, had written to her father’s solicitors to ask for more, and had been refused. Her mother spent money with an abandon that was at times breathtaking; for her, financially there was no tomorrow. If she saw a dress that attracted her, she bought it no matter what the cost and even though the cupboards in her house were filled with clothes; another gold bracelet was a necessity for a well-dressed lady; one never ever drank vin ordinaire, only chateau-bottled wine . . .
‘You have to tell him.’
Tell him what?’
‘Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? Tell the bastard that I must have my allowance increased. I can’t go on like this while he’s wallowing in luxury. When I think of what he should be giving me . . .’
Alma leaned across the desk and opened a silver-gilt cigarette box, brought out a cigarette, lit this with a gold Dunhill lighter. Drink always exacerbated her mother’s bitterness, resentment, and envy.
‘. . . so tell him he must agree to let me have more money.’
‘I don’t think that that would be a very good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘You know how his mind works. Tackle him head on and he’ll refuse. If you really think it’s worth your while asking him, write him a letter and very quietly explain how the cost of everything keeps going up. And don’t be definite unless you’re absolutely certain you’re right—you know how he checks up on things. At the end, just ask him to let you have a bigger allowance if he can afford to be generous —he won’t want to appear to be unable to afford. Don’t complain, don’t moan, and be pleasant.’
‘Pleasant to that bastard?’
‘Yes, Mother, pleasant. That is, if you really want any hope of getting your allowance raised . . .’
‘Why d’you keep saying “allowance”? It’s money he owes me.’
‘I know how you feel about it, but remember what those solicitors in London said. The marriage has irretrievably broken down and if you both lived in the UK you’d have a legal right to a proper share of his assets that could be enforced. But neither of you lives at home and it’s certain that Gerry’s transferred all his assets overseas. In such circumstances, it’s almost impossible to make certain your rights are enforced. In fact, if he decided to cut you off without another penny, in practical terms there’s probably very little you could do about it. And if you annoy him too much, he will cut you off.’
‘He’s a bastard.’
‘So you mentioned.’
‘He doesn’t care that I’m living in penury.’
‘Mother, there are a hell of a lot of people who would like to live in your “penury”. If you could cut back on some of your extravagances . . .’
‘Extravagances! If I’m so depressed I buy myself a little something to try to cheer myself up, I suppose that’s being hopelessly extravagant? Maybe even continuing to live is a hopeless extravagance . . .’
She flicked ash from the cigarette into the silver ashtray that was shaped as a dolphin. She was a go-between. Her mother vented her anger, and Gerry his resentful contempt, through her . . .
‘All right, Mother, I’ll see how things go and speak to him if the right moment turns up.’ It was not a promise that she intended to keep. It was usually safe never to prophesy how Gerald would react, since he delighted in being contrary, but in this instance it was—he would do whatever was likely to hurt his wife the most.
She said goodbye, replaced the receiver, slid off the desk, stubbed out the cigarette and returned to the snuggery. On one of the small coffee tables there was now an ice bucket in which was an opened bottle. ‘Champers or something else?’ he asked.
‘That’ll do.’
He smiled. Since she was his daughter, he didn’t mind her occasionally mocking his lifestyle. He lifted a tulip-shaped glass from the silver salver and filled it, passed it across.
The champagne was vintage Heidsieck Monopole and must have cost a fortune, she thought. Even the better Spanish cavas were far cheaper, but he never drank them; probably he’d read somewhere that a man with any pretensions to a palate would rather enjoy one glassful of champagne than suffer ten glassfuls of sparkling white.
‘Well, is there a crisis in France?’ he asked.
‘She wanted a chat, that’s all.’
‘Something at which she’s always been proficient.’
‘Among a great number of other things, as you’d have discovered if ever you’d taken the trouble to find out.’
He shrugged his shoulders. He understood Alma’s desire to stick up for her mother, without ever accepting that it was justified. ‘What kind of a day did you have?’
‘Painful. I kept being threatened by cramp, starvation, and death by dehydration, but sympathy was there none. When he’s working, Guy’s a lesson in selfishness.’
‘What kind of painting is it?’
‘A full-length study.’
‘Yes, but . . .’ He refilled his glass. ‘Decent?’
‘It’s certainly not pornographic’
‘Then you are dressed?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Why not?’ he demanded sharply.
‘Because the object of the exercise is for him to have practice in painting the human form, warts and all.’
‘Why doesn’t he hire a model?’
‘Mallorquin women aren’t into nude modelling.’
‘I should bloody well think not.’
‘Gerry, you’re being delightfully Victorian.’
‘Because I don’t like the thought of my daughter appearing in the nude?’
‘A painter sees his model as something to paint, not screw.’ She was amused by the hypocrisy not only of her last statement, but also of the whole conversation; Guy’s thoughts were often of a non-artistic nature and a moral attitude sat uneasily on her father’s shoulders.
‘I don’t like the idea.’
‘Will it make you any happier if I tell you that I won’t indulge in a Bohemian life just for the hell of it.’
‘I disapprove.’
‘Why be a parent if one doesn’t disapprove of one’s offspring’s activities? . . . Gerry, the art critic on La Vanguardia saw two or three of Guy’s paintings and said they showed tremendous talent.’
‘For pleasing dirty old men?’
‘He didn’t see the Mallorquin Venus. He mentioned a very influential art gallery in Barcelona which is always on the lookout for new talent and he reckoned that the owner would probably give Guy an exhibition. That would really be something, because Barcelona has become a very important centre.’
‘Presumably you’re telling me this because you want something?’
‘You don’t think that that’s being horribly cynical?’
‘You tell me.’
She did not accept the challenge. ‘I didn’t realize this before, but art’s rather like car racing.’
‘Surely one of the more recherche comparisons?’
‘Not really. If you want to succeed, you have to be known, but in order to be known, you have to succeed. The only short cut through that Catch 22 situation is to find a sponsor who’ll make you financially attractive to a team manager. In the same way, if an artist wants to succeed . . .’
‘Cutting things short, you’re trying to say that Guy wants a sponsor.’
‘Who’ll put up a relatively small sum of money in the certainty of making a good profit.’
‘The certainty being, no doubt, of the same order as that of a Derby favourite?’
‘You don’t quite understand. I’ve been checking and the way the galleries in Barcelona work is that either they stage an exhibition entirely at their own cost and take fifty per cent of all sales, or they charge a flat sum which covers all overheads plus, and take either a much lower or no percentage on sales. Obviously, if a painter probably won’t make more than a couple of sales, it’s in his best interests to work under the first scheme; if he’s likely to do well, the second. But to be able to choose the latter, he has to put down the full payment in advance.’
‘Which no artist can?’
‘Very few, certainly.’
‘Guy’s not one of the very few.’ It was a flat statement of fact, not a question.
‘Unfortunately, no.’
‘So he thinks I might play the sucker?’
‘I’ve no idea. I naturally haven’t discussed the idea with him.’
‘Naturally?’
‘He has to paddle his own canoe.’
He was perplexed. ‘Then why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because by my calculations, if Guy had an exhibition where he paid the flat sum and the gallery took either no or very little commission on each sale, the backer would make a handsome profit if half the paintings sold and would double his money if three-quarters did.’
‘Where would all this profit come from?’
‘In the agreement the backer would be given a percentage on all sales over and above repayment in full.’
‘If it’s so certain he’ll sell well, why doesn’t the gallery owner insist on a percentage rather than a flat sum?’
‘Because every gallery owner can remember exhibitions which have failed dismally.’
‘So now the story returns to earth!’
‘Failed because the owner misjudged the value of the work. The history of art is full of people who’ve misjudged paintings because they didn’t have that special something which says whether a painting really is, or is not, truly great. Let’s face it, very few people have. But you’re one of those very few. And you said that Guy’s work is really good. Which means that there has to be a strong chance it will sell well. So you could stand to make a handsome profit for doing nothing more than relying on your own judgement.’
He drained his glass, refilled it. ‘Does he have enough paintings?’
‘It would take some time to set up an exhibition and by then he would have, yes. Of course, he’d need a loan for framing, transport, catalogues, and the party on the opening night. Like you, he’s a cynic and he reckons that an artist’s reviews bear a direct relationship to the quality and quantity of the champagne he serves on his opening night.’
‘Any additional loan would have to have the same priority of repayment as the main one.’
‘Of course.’
He drank. After a while he said forcefully: ‘I’m not subsidizing him to show a painting of you in the nude that grubby little men in raincoats leer at.’
