Iain Pears - The Bernini Bust

‘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 éminence 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.’

‘Me? The grateful son, not respect one of the richest men in the world? I have the highest opinion of his judgement. After all, he spotted me immediately as a drunken, ill-disciplined bum who’d never make a go of anything. And I can assure you, he was right. I have never disappointed him in the slightest.’

There were distinct signs by this stage that Jack was teetering on the brink of self-indulgence. The last thing Argyll wanted was a detailed account of life with father, so he caught di Souza’s eye as the Spaniard wafted past. He barely had time for introductions when there came the sound of Samuel Thanet trying to get the attention of the assembled gathering. Silence gradually fell, and Thanet’s high-pitched, reedy voice eventually began to be heard. As everybody knew, he said, this party was in honour of Mr Moresby’s visit to the museum.

A respectful silence greeted this news, with the museum staff pondering their sins as though Thanet had suddenly upped and announced the second coming. It was a rather soupy speech, to Argyll’s way of thinking, a bit over-reverential in the almost hushed way in which he referred to the Great Man. Had the said Great Man been there, this would have been almost understandable. But Moresby hadn’t even arrived yet. Being nice to people behind their backs was going too far.

Apart from dropping heavy hints about what Moresby was going to say when he arrived, the speech did little except satisfy one small item of curiosity, which was the contents of the box which di Souza had brought over with him for Langton. In fact Argyll had been too busy pondering the implications of the proposed move back to London to wonder very much about this, but he listened with due care and attention as Thanet said he had a preliminary announcement to make about the museum’s latest acquisition.

As he was sure everybody knew, he said, the Moresby’s growth strategy – detestable term for a museum, thought Argyll, but let it pass – was to target specific areas of western art, and become world leaders in them. Impressionism, neo-classical, and baroque were high on the agenda, and much progress had been made to date.

Argyll shifted from foot to foot and leant over to di Souza.

‘So what are they doing buying twelve priceless works of Roman sculpture?’ he asked sarcastically. Di Souza gave him a nasty look.

‘And what are they doing buying a Titian?’ he countered.

Then the Spaniard held up his hand for silence. Thanet was at last getting to the interesting bit. Particularly, he was saying, they had decided to give new emphasis to baroque sculpture, and he was proud to announce that, in accordance with the Moresby’s tradition of excellence – di Souza snorted – their latest acquisition in this field was a piece of unsurpassed importance. Although it was still in a packing case in Thanet’s office, he was happy to announce that the museum would shortly be putting on display a masterpiece by that superlative artist of the Roman Baroque, Gianlorenzo Bernini. The museum now had in its possession the master’s long-lost portrait bust of Pope Pius V.

Both Argyll and Jack were standing next to di Souza, glass in hand, when this announcement was made, and were thus in a position to hear the sharp intake of breath and gargling sound which erupted from the Spaniard’s throat as he choked in mid-martini. They also witnessed the rapid change of expression – from surprise, to alarm and on to anger – which flitted across his face as he digested this announcement.