Ken Follett - The Modigliani Scandal (1976)

″Take the Virgin of the Rocks . There′s one in the Louvre, one in the National Gallery. Everybody agrees that one of them is a fake—but which? The Louvre′s, say the London experts. The National Gallery′s, say the French. We′ll never know—but who cares? You just have to look at them to see their greatness. Yet if somebody found out for certain that one was a fake, nobody would go to see it anymore. Bullshit.″

He drank from his glass, and poured more whisky. Anne said: ″I don′t believe you. It would take almost as much genius to copy a great painting, and get it right, as it would to paint it in the first place.″

″Rubbish!″ Mitch exploded. Iʹll prove it. Gimme a canvas, and I′ll paint you a van Gogh in twenty minutes.″

″He′s right,″ Peter said. ″I could do it, too.″

″But not as fast as me,″ said Mitch.

″Faster.″

″Right,″ said Mitch. He got to his feet. ʺWeʹll have a Masterpiece Race.″

Peter jumped up. ″You′re on. Now—two sheets of paper-we can′t waste canvas.″

Anne laughed. ″You′re both mad.″

Mitch pinned the two bits of paper on the wall while Peter got two palettes out.

Mitch said: ″Name a painter, Anne.″

″All right—van Gogh.″

″Give us a name for the picture.″

″Umm— The Gravedigger .″

″Now say ready, steady, go.″

″Ready, steady, go.″

The two began painting furiously. Peter outlined a man leaning on a shovel, dabbed in some grass at his feet, and started to give the man overalls. Mitch began with a face: the lined, weary face of an old peasant. Anne watched with amazement as the two pictures took shape.

They both took longer than twenty minutes. They became absorbed in their work, and at one point Peter walked to the bookshelf and opened a book at a color plate.

Mitch′s gravedigger was exerting himself, pressing the shovel into the hard earth with his foot, his bulky, graceless body bent over. He spent several minutes looking at the paper, adding touches, and looking again.

Peter began to paint something small in black at the bottom of his sheet. Suddenly Mitch yelled: ″Finished!″

Peter looked at Mitch′s work. ″Swine,″ he said. Then he looked again. ″No, you haven′t—no signature. Ha-hah!″

″Balls!″ Mitch bent over the picture and started to sign it. Peter finished his signature. Anne laughed at the pair of them.

They both stepped back at once. ″I won!″ they shouted in unison, and both burst out laughing.

Anne clapped her hands. ″Well,″ she said. ″If we ever hit the breadline, that′s one way you could make a crust.″

Peter was still laughing. ″That′s an idea,″ he roared. He and Mitch looked at one another. Their smiles slowly, comically, collapsed, and they stared at the paintings on the wall.

Peter′s voice was low, cold, and serious. ″Jesus Christ Almighty,″ he said. ″That′s an idea.″

IV

JULIAN BLACK WAS A little nervous as he walked into the entrance of the newspaper office. He got nervous a lot these days: over the gallery, the money, Sarah, and his in-laws. Which were really one and the same problem.

The marbled hall was rather grand, with a high ceiling, polished brass here and there, and frescoed walls. Somehow he had expected a newspaper office to be scruffy and busy, but this place looked like the lobby of a period brothel.

A gold-lettered signboard beside the ironwork elevator shaft told visitors what was to be found on each floor. The building housed a morning and evening paper as well as a clutch of magazines and journals.

″Can I help you, sir?″ Julian turned to see a uniformed commissionaire at his shoulder.

″Perhaps,″ Julian said. ″I′d like to see Mr. Jack Best.″

″Would you fill in one of our forms, please?″

Puzzled, Julian followed the man to a desk on one side of the foyer. He was handed a little green slip of paper with spaces for his name, the person he wanted to see, and his business. This kind of screening process was probably necessary, he thought charitably as he filled out the form with the gold Parker in his pocket. They must get a lot of screwballs coming along to a newspaper office.

It also made you feel rather privileged to be allowed to speak to the journalists, he thought. While he waited for the message to be taken to Best, he wondered about the wisdom of coming in person. It might have been as well just to send out press releases. He smoothed his hair and straightened his jacket nervously.

There had been a time when nothing made him nervous. That was many years ago. He had been a champion schoolboy distance runner, head prefect, leader of the debating team. It seemed he could do nothing but win. Then he had taken up art. For the umpteenth time, he traced his troubles back to that crazy, irrational decision. Since then he had done nothing but lose. The only prize he had won was Sarah, and she had turned out to be a phony kind of victory. Her and her gold Parkers, he thought. He realized he was clicking the button of the ballpoint compulsively, and stuffed it back into his jacket pocket with an exasperated sigh. Her gold everything, and her Mercedes, and her gowns, and her bloody father.

A pair of scuffed, worn-down Hush Puppies appeared on the marble steps and began to shuffle down. Creaseless brown cavalry twills followed, and a nicotine-stained hand slid along the brass banister. The man who came into sight was thin and looked rather impatient. He glanced at a green slip in his hand as he approached Julian.

″Mr. Black?″ he said.

Julian stuck out his hand. ″How do you do, Mr. Best.″

Best put a hand to his face and brushed a long lock of black hair off his face. ″What can I do for you?″ he said.

Julian looked around. Clearly he was not going to be invited up to Best′s office, or even asked to sit down. He plowed on determinedly.

″I′m opening a new gallery on the King′s Road shortly,″ he said. ″Naturally, as art critic of the London Magazine you′ll be invited to the reception, but I wondered if I might have a chat with you about the aims of the gallery.″

Best nodded noncommittally. Julian paused, to give the man a chance to ask him up to the office. Best remained silent.

″Well,″ Julian went on, ″the idea is not to get involved with a particular school or artistic group, but to keep the walls free for all kinds of fringe movements—the kind of thing that′s too way-out for the existing galleries. Young artists, with radical new ideas.″ Julian could see that Best was already getting bored.

″Look, let me buy you a drink, would you?″

Best looked at his watch. ″They′re closed,″ he said.

″Well, um, how about a cup of coffee?″

He looked at his watch again. ″Actually, I think the best plan would be for us to have a chat when you actually open. Why don′t you send me that invitation, and a press release about yourself, and then well see if we can′t get together later on.″

″Oh. Well, all right then,″ Julian said. He was nonplussed.

Best shook hands. ″Thanks for coming in,″ he said.

″Sure.″ Julian turned away and left.

He walked along the narrow street toward Fleet Street, wondering what he had done wrong. Clearly he would have to think again about his plan of calling on all the London art critics personally. He would write, perhaps, and send a little essay on the thinking behind the Black Gallery. They would all come to the reception—there was free booze at that, and they would know their pals would be there.

God, he hoped they would come to the reception. What a disaster it would be if they did not turn up.

He could not understand how Best could be so blase. It wasn′t every week, or even every month, that a new art gallery opened in London. Of course, the critics had to go to a lot of shows, and most of them only had a few inches of space every week. Still, you would think they would at least give the place a once-over. Maybe Best was a bad one. The worst, hopefully. He grinned, then shuddered, at his unconscious pun.