William Boyd - Sweet Caress

There was a good crowd, as it turned out, sixty or seventy people, we calculated, and there was a constant supply of hock so the noise-level in the gallery steadily increased, the atmosphere becoming more like that of a cocktail party than a serious vernissage. When everyone seemed to have arrived, Greville and I stood in one corner scrutinising our guests.

‘Well they seem quite rich and bourgeois,’ I said. ‘The right sort of person, I suppose. Are there any journalists?’

‘No one was prepared to admit to it.’

‘But we need the publicity, don’t we?’

‘Word of mouth, darling. There’s nothing better. Good God, look at that.’

I turned slightly to see a young balding man in a grey coat with a musquash collar.

‘Look at the spats,’ Greville said, trying not to laugh, then added, ‘Insecure, wealthy, ugly, vain.’

I responded. ‘Talentless, self-conscious, myopic, stupid.’

Greville had this theory that it only took four adjectives to describe absolutely anyone, anyone in the entire world. The notion had evolved into a private parlour-game that we would play at parties to while away the hours of boredom as we waited for people to come and be photographed.

‘There’s a good one,’ I said, pointing with my chin at a stout older man peering at a picture of half-naked Berlin prostitutes. ‘Overweight, rich, lecherous, hypocritical.’

‘Sex-starved, boring, pompous, frightened.’

‘Let’s go for a wander,’ I said, beginning to relax and enjoy myself. I picked up another glass of hock from a passing waiter as we strolled around the gallery trying to establish who might be a member of the press. Greville was constantly stopped by people he knew but pointedly didn’t introduce me.

‘People will assume you’re my secretary,’ he said, in an aside, as we moved on.

‘Perfect. Now, look at him, I think I’ve seen him before. .’

We contemplated a lanky young man with a hooked nose and long hair over the back of his collar. He was wearing a well-cut charcoal-grey suit with dull scarlet shoes and an oriental silk scarf draped loosely round his neck.

‘Ah. Sir Max Gartside. I think he writes for a newspaper — sometimes.’

‘Narcissistic, elegant, moneyed, pretentious,’ I said.

‘Shall I sound him out?’

Greville sauntered over and I watched the two of them chat for a while, laughing at some joke as Gartside pointed at one of my photographs and I thought: I hope they’re not making fun of me. Greville returned, making a moue of disappointment.

‘He loves them. And he does write for the Gazette , but he’s not been assigned.’

‘Loves them? Damn.’

‘He wants to buy Volker but I told him Volker was mine — not for sale.’

‘Isn’t he even a little bit shocked?’ I asked, hopefully.

‘Nothing shocks our Max, I’m afraid.’ He looked around. ‘Now, here’s an interesting candidate.’

I turned to see a smart-looking slim man coming into the gallery and picking up a catalogue. He was wearing a tawny cashmere coat that was almost the colour of his hair. Wet sand, I thought, or sandstone — not blond, not brown. His hair was thick and was swept back from his forehead. I could see the fine grooves set in its oiled density from the teeth of his comb. A big nose, very straight, light blue eyes, I saw as he passed near us. I felt that shiver go through me, that split-second weakening of the spinal column.

‘Bland, rich, bored, arrogant,’ Greville said out of the side of his mouth.

‘Handsome, assured, clever, foreign.’

‘Listen to you, Miss Smitten. He’s a journalist, I bet you. I have a sixth sense.’

I watched the man — he was in his thirties, I guessed — move carefully along the line of photographs, peering at them, then checking the reference in the catalogue. He looked more like a dealer or a collector, I thought, as I saw him really studying some of the photographs, stepping back and moving in again. At one stage he put on a pair of spectacles, rimless, and moved very close to a photo as if looking for signs of retouching or verifying the grain of the paper. French, I thought, or Middle European: a Hungarian aristocrat, an Esterházy or a Cseszneky — certainly not English.

Greville tapped me on the shoulder. ‘I think that might be the Daily Express. ’

Another thin man, middle-aged, was moving quickly round the room, bald, with a prominent Adam’s apple held in the cleft of his wing collar like a bud between two sepals.

‘Humourless, religiose, hate-filled, necrophiliac.’

‘Sexless, ulcerated, embittered, dying.’

We helped ourselves to two more glasses of hock and toasted each other.

‘I suppose I should be careful about what I’m wishing for,’ I said, ‘But I wouldn’t mind just a little furore.’

‘We just want your name mentioned in the newspapers. Perhaps even a photograph or two in some magazine. That’s not much to ask.’ Greville looked round the room again. ‘I thought your German girlfriend was coming.’

‘She is, but she couldn’t make the opening night.’

‘Longing to meet her.’

He wandered off and I went into the back room to chase up the final trays of canapés, feeling a sudden exhaustion overcome me and with it a new apprehension about our great schemes for notoriety. I sat down on a wooden chair and gulped at my hock. It was my work, after all, I was the only begetter and I would be in the line of fire, not Greville. I smoked a cigarette trying not to think further and heard the chatter of conversation diminish as the guests drifted off into the Soho night. I told myself to buck up, stood, stubbed out my cigarette, smoothed the skirt of my sensible frock and headed back into the gallery. There were about half a dozen people left, still chatting to each other, enjoying the occasion. Greville and Bruno Desjardins were saying goodbye to departing invitees. Someone cleared his throat close behind me and I turned. It was my Hungarian aristocrat.

‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘These are very interesting photographs.’

American, I realised, a little disappointed, for some reason.

‘How do you know I’m the photographer?’

‘I have my ways and means, Miss Clay. I needed to find out, so I did.’ He smiled, one of those strange broad smiles where the teeth don’t show. He was holding his hand out to shake mine. His grip was light, just a formality, a clench of fingers.

‘I’m Cleveland Finzi.’

‘Well, you know who I am.’

‘I’d like to buy you a drink, if I may.’

‘I’m terribly busy—’

‘Oh, not now. I’m in London for a couple of weeks. Do you have a telephone?’

‘What? Yes.’

‘May I call you?’

I went off in a state of silly confusion to find my handbag where I’d left it in the back room. I searched — no cards. Idiot! I scribbled my number down on a sheet of paper torn from my unfilled appointments diary of 1931 and brought it back to him. Very impressive. He tucked the scrap of paper away in an inside pocket and handed me his card. I glanced at it: CLEVELAND FINZI. GLOBAL-PHOTO-WATCH.

‘Oh. You’re a journalist.’

‘Was. I’m an editor, now.’ He smiled politely. ‘It’s a magazine in America. You may have heard of it.’

I hadn’t, but said, as one does, ‘Yes, now you come to mention it. Definitely.’

‘I’ll call you in a couple of days,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to talking to you.’

‘I’ll look forward to talking to you,’ I repeated like a simpleton. I manned the admissions desk at the Grösze and Greene Gallery for the next three days. It was never busy, I’m sorry to say. Greville had decided, prudently, to impose an admission charge of one shilling, a sum that made you a member of the Grösze and Greene Photographic Club for twenty-four hours. It was a pre-emptive attempt to evade any prosecution for obscenity — he’d become worried about the graphic nature of some of the photographs — as the exhibition would open only to ‘club members’ not the general public. I happily went along with the ploy, having no idea of whether it would work or not. Its manifest disadvantage was that it put off passers-by from dropping in out of curiosity or on the off-chance. During the three days I was there our takings only broke £1 once. One day we took in a meagre five shillings.