Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

‘I’m sure Elspeth can stand to hear an opinion,’ Dulcie said. ‘Even an ignorant one.’

They both looked at me.

‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind knowing what he thought,’ I said.

‘Then I suggest we move our discussion elsewhere,’ Wilfredson replied. ‘I refuse to discuss art in a place like this. Let’s go and have a cocktail.’

Dulcie quaffed her wine. ‘You had me fooled for a moment there. If all you wanted was a quiet drink with Elspeth, you should’ve just said so.’

‘Can’t bear the sight of oysters, that’s all.’

‘I’m not really much of a drinker,’ I said.

Wilfredson paused. ‘Thing is, people tend to resent me for having an opinion, even when they’ve asked for it. So if I buy them the best daiquiri in London first — well, who could possibly resent a man after that? I take it you’ve never had cocktails at the Connaught.’

‘No.’

‘There you are then. A whole new world of happiness awaits.’ He stood up and threw on his coat. ‘I’ll be outside.’

‘Stay where you are,’ Dulcie said. ‘He isn’t worth the trouble.’

Wilfredson turned up his collar. ‘So she’s heard, anyway.’

When he was gone, there was a momentary hush. Max stroked breadcrumbs from the tablecloth. ‘Phew, he’s a bold fellow, isn’t he? What’s his name again?’

‘Wilfred Searle,’ Dulcie said.

‘Searle. He wouldn’t be related to Lord Searle by any chance?’

‘Nephew.’

‘Blimey.’

‘They just gave him Phil Leonard’s column at the Statesman .’

‘Blimey.’

‘Yes, do keep saying that, Max. It’s helping.’

‘But — wait a minute. What happened to Phil Leonard?’

‘Early retirement.’

‘Damn. Poor bugger. Always liked Phil.’ He tossed his napkin to the table. ‘That’s a fair readership, you know. More than a drop in a bucket.’

‘Which is why I invited him to join us tonight. I was told that he loved oysters.’

‘Remarkably poor research on someone’s part.’

‘Quite.’ Dulcie did not glare at her assistants, but they slumped into their chairs at the mere implication.

Then one of them said, ‘It’s not right what he was saying, though. About the diptych. We had some firm enquiries.’

‘Yes, the Levins asked me if the panels could be sold separately,’ Max added. ‘Just the mountains, not the baby. I told them, “How much would I have to pay to separate the two of you?” They seemed to think I was joking. .’

Dulcie ignored him. She reached across the table to pat the back of my hand. ‘On reflection, darling, there’s never a bad time for a daiquiri. And you might enjoy hearing his views. Couldn’t hurt to keep him company.’

‘Is he really that important?’ I said.

‘Not right now. But he will be eventually.’ She patted my hand again, as though we were sisters in church. ‘I was watching him all night — he kept sneaking glimpses at you through the crowd. They’re all the same. Critics. Men. Can’t ever separate the woman from the art.’ She nodded to the glass façade of the restaurant where he was waiting. ‘They don’t make very good friends, I’m afraid, but we wouldn’t want them as enemies. I don’t think he knows which one he wants to be yet.’

My mother had raised me to be wary of good-looking men. But even she — a woman so disheartened by the chores of marriage that she was impervious to romance — would have softened in the presence of Wilfred Searle. He was refreshingly decisive about life’s small details: instructing the cabbie to drive us to the Connaught and directing him as to the fastest route to Mayfair, taking my coat in the lobby and delivering it to the cloakroom, ordering our drinks as he escorted me to a table: ‘Two daiquiris, please. And stick to the recipe. We’ll have that table in the corner.’ He was just as commanding on the subject of art, and somehow made his disapproval of my work sound charming, as though he felt I was capable of greatness but was allowing my potential to be squandered by other people. When he talked, I had to look across the room, at the bar, at the monograms on the carpet. I hoped my aloofness would help me seem invulnerable to criticism.

‘There’s an undertone of something in the rest of them,’ Wilfred said, ‘but it’s hard to say what — you’ve buried the meaning too deeply in the paint. Your approach to abstraction is rather cumbrous. I don’t know if that’s what you’ve been encouraged towards in art school, but it’s all so oddly constrained. You make one or two leaps of expression here and there — not enough for my liking. I don’t blame you. It’s a symptom of the bad advice you’re getting. You have considerable talent — there’s no doubt about that. But your show tonight was so competent it bored me. I mean, it was perfectly — oh, here we are. Thank you.’ The barman arrived with our cocktails. He lifted them from a silver tray and set each one down on a crisp paper coaster. ‘Look, if you want the absolute truth, I know there’s a lot more to come from you. They’re not awful paintings, on the whole, they’re just painfully unmoving. But then you pull that diptych out of your sleeve, that completely spectacular diptych — come on now, dig in.’ He handed me a glass and clinked it with his own. ‘If it had been the only piece in the show, I would’ve gone home and written my review right away, the kind that’d make old Dulcie’s knees knock together. But then I suppose we wouldn’t be having this little moment together, would we? How’s that daiquiri treating you?’

I sipped at the dainty drink and made the favourable noises I thought he was waiting for.

‘Not very hard to make one of these, you know,’ he said. ‘Just white rum and lime, a bit of crushed ice, that’s all there is to it. Staggering how often people mess it up.’

‘It’ll do,’ I said, and turned to look at the night. There was a row of stately red-brick houses across the street from the hotel. Under the lamplight at the side of the road, a man was unfurling the tarpaulin on his sports car. For a moment, I felt an urge to be out there with him. I imagined going with him all the way to Southampton.

‘The thing about Dulcie, as much as I detest her company,’ Wilfred went on, ‘is that her instincts are usually sound. She can tell when an artist has longevity. That’s why she let you show the diptych. She’s no fool.’

‘She didn’t let me. I insisted.’

‘If you say so.’

‘That’s how it was.’

‘In any case, her style of management isn’t for everyone. It’s too early to say how you’re going to fare with her, but you shouldn’t get complacent. I know she didn’t think much of your friend Culvers, or his work for that matter. I always thought he had some promise.’

‘You know Jim?’ I asked.

‘Only by reputation.’

‘That’s how most people know him. He’s a good man, really.’

‘I don’t doubt it. Someone told me he’d dropped off the map.’

‘Well, Jim was never really on the same map as the rest of us.’

‘Yes, I could tell that from his paintings.’ Wilfred smiled. ‘It’s a shame he lost his way. I liked his early stuff. Before he started with those Hopper pastiches.’

There was a time when I might have taken exception to this remark, but I had come to view Jim’s old ‘absence portraits’ as nothing more than portents of his disappearance — great flashing signs that I had failed to see. ‘I don’t want to talk about Jim tonight,’ I said.

‘Good, because I don’t have much else to say on that score.’

The daiquiri was strong and, after a few long sips, the rum began to bite the back of my throat. Outside, the man turned the ignition of his sports car and it gave a rusty, disappointing sound underneath the bar’s piano music. ‘He’s been trying to start that bloody thing for ages,’ Wilfred said. ‘There’s a point at which perseverance becomes denial. I think we’re about four weeks past it with this chap.’