‘Oh, Peter’s on some freebie in Barbados. Won’t be back until Tuesday.’
‘Didn’t you want to go with him?’
‘I wasn’t asked, dear. He’s gone with that bitch of a Features Editor.’
Roddy smiled. ‘Well, you always said you wanted an open marriage.’
‘Interesting little phrase, isn’t it, though: “open” marriage? Makes it sound like a drain, or a sewer. Quite appropriate in our case, really.’ Absently, she wiped the lipstick traces from the rim of her wineglass. ‘Actually he’s not such a bad old sod. He got me that Matisse for my birthday.’
Phoebe could not contain her astonishment. ‘You own a Matisse?’
Hilary looked up sharply, and said, ‘Good God, she talks.’ Then, turning back to her brother: ‘The trouble is that it clashes horribly with the green in the music room. We’re going to have to redecorate the whole bloody thing again.’
‘On the subject of presents,’ said Roddy, ‘you realize it was father’s birthday two weeks ago?’
‘Oh, shit. I forgot all about it. How about you?’
‘Slipped my mind completely.’
‘Why isn’t he eating with us, anyway?’
‘Had a bit of an accident this afternoon, it seems. His wheelchair got out of control.’
‘Pyles again?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Oh well.’ She giggled. ‘Perhaps we should slip him a few quid and make sure he does the job properly next time. I suppose I’d better go up and see the old misery at some point tomorrow.’ She pushed aside her plate of half-eaten food and noticed that Conrad was still struggling with his. ‘You don’t have to finish it, darling. We won’t be offended.’
‘It’s delicious,’ said Conrad.
‘No, it isn’t delicious,’ she said, like a grown-up talking to a retarded child. ‘It’s shit.’
‘Oh.’ He put down his fork. ‘I don’t know much about food,’ he confessed, to the company in general.
‘Conrad’s American,’ said Hilary, as if this explained everything.
‘Do you own many famous paintings?’ Phoebe asked.
‘She has something of a one-track mind, doesn’t she?’ Hilary aimed this remark at no one in particular, and then put a finger to her chin, affecting an attempt at recollection. ‘Well, let me see … There’s that Klee, and one or two Picassos, and some Turner drawings … Plus a few hideous eyesores by protégés of my brother …’
‘Why did you buy them,’ Phoebe asked, ‘if you think they’re hideous?’
‘Well, I’m an innocent in these matters, you see. Roddy tells me that they’re good, and I believe him. We’re all at his mercy.’ She thought about this for a moment and leaned forward. ‘Except for you, of course. After all, you’re a professional. You must have an opinion about the artists he represents.’
‘All I know is what I saw in the gallery last week.’
‘And?’
‘And …’ Phoebe glanced at Roddy, then plunged on. ‘I thought it was dreadful. Elementary stuff that wouldn’t even have been given a pass at any decent art school. Wispy pastels and those terrible would-be naïve landscapes – except that they weren’t even … clean enough to be called naïve – which looked as though they’d been knocked off by some pampered socialite’s daughter to pass the time between garden parties. The photographs of the artist were nice, though. I’m sure she went down a storm at the private view.’
‘Hermione happens to be very talented,’ said Roddy indignantly. ‘And yes, it’s true that I did know her brother at Trinity, but not everybody that I represent comes from that kind of background, or has to be introduced to me personally. I do go round all the art schools, you know, looking for new work. I’ve just taken this chap on, and he lives in Brixton. Thoroughly working class. It’s pretty dangerous stuff, too: pretty groundbreaking. He takes these enormous canvases and holds them at a sort of angle and then he tips these big cans of paint over them so that it all runs –’
Phoebe tutted impatiently. ‘That sort of stunt was interesting for about five minutes in the sixties. You’re so easily taken in, you people.’
‘Forthright little thing, isn’t she?’ said Hilary.
‘Well, it matters, you see. Because this is how reputations get inflated and mediocre work gets promoted, and then even when a good painter does manage to slip through the net you’ve already pushed the prices up so high that the smaller galleries can’t afford to buy them and it all ends up going into private collections. So what you’re doing, in effect, is robbing the country of its own culture. It’s as simple as that.’ She sipped her wine, somewhat abashed.
‘I wonder how long she’s been working on that little speech?’ Hilary asked.
‘Well, it’s a point of view,’ said Roddy, ‘and she’s entitled to it.’ He turned to Conrad, hoping to lighten the atmosphere. ‘What do you make of all this?’
‘I don’t know much about art.’
‘Have another drink, dear,’ said Hilary, refilling his glass. ‘You’re doing just fine.’
‘I’m not trying to start an argument, or anything,’ said Phoebe, who was growing more wary of Hilary by the minute, ‘but I always had the impression that you agreed with me on this. I thought you dismissed the whole business of collecting modern art as so much snobbery.’
Hilary’s eyes widened, and for several seconds she didn’t answer. Her left hand groped towards a bowl of fruit between the two silver candelabra, and she broke off a small cluster of grapes, one of which she then began to peel slowly, sliding her long fingernail between the skin and the purple flesh.
‘Have we met before?’ she asked suddenly.
‘No,’ said Phoebe. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’
‘I’d just like to know,’ she said, finishing one grape and starting on another, ‘what makes you think you have any kind of insight into my personal opinions.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Roddy, keeping a close watch on his sister’s fingers. ‘Why don’t we all go into the smoking room and make ourselves comfortable, if we’re going to chat away like this?’
‘I’m only going by what I read in your column once,’ said Phoebe. ‘I remember when somebody – some businessman or other – had just paid hundreds and thousands of pounds for a Rothko to go in his private collection, and you went on about what a waste of money it was and how it could all have gone into building schools and hospitals.’
There was a pause, before Hilary said, ‘She really does come out with the most remarkable things,’ in a slightly strangled voice. Then, turning back to Phoebe: ‘It’s only a bit of junk for the newspapers, you know. I don’t write it on tablets of stone. Besides, that column has literally millions of readers. You don’t think I’d share my beliefs – anything that was actually mine – with all those people, do you?’
‘I thought that was the whole point.’
‘There’s this thing called the real world,’ said Hilary. ‘Have you heard of it?’ She didn’t wait for the answer. ‘You see, we can’t all decide that we want to be artists, sitting up in some lofty enclosure, knocking off the occasional painting whenever the fancy takes us. Some of us have to work to order, and meet deadlines, and little, unimportant things like that. Perhaps what you really need is a lesson in how it feels to be stuck in front of a keyboard with five hundred words to write and the subs expecting it in thirty minutes.’