Playing the Game

‘My name is Marie Antoinette, and I’m the Queen of France. Please won’t you come and join me in my dance? I’m the Queen of France. Come and waltz around the room, around and around we’ll go, playing your favourite tune. Look at my beautiful golden gown; it comes from the very best shop in town. Isn’t it grand, and here I stand. My name is Marie Antoinette and I’m the Queen of France.’

The girls held hands and danced around the room, laughing, and happy to be with each other, their eyes sparkling brightly, the tapping of their little shoes echoing on the bare wood floor.

Now another voice, lilting and sweet, came floating on the air. ‘I am Josephine, Empress of France. Come and dance. My husband’s name is Bonaparte, and he’s definitely stolen my heart. He’s a general, strong and bold, and we’re a legend, so I’m told. I have a crown, it shines very bright, and I wear it every night. I’m married to Napoleon. He’s my man so come to see us as fast as you can. And we’ll dance the whole night through, until the dawn breaks softly blue. My name is Josephine, an empress new and true. Come and dance and dance and dance, with an empress of La belle France.’

There was the sound of feet running up the stairs and a loving voice calling, ‘Girls, girls, come on, let’s go out to play, let’s have some fun.’ And she was there then, the tall, sweet cousin they loved with devotion, who looked after them, protected them. They ran to her and they left together, racing outside into the golden sunlight of this summer day.

They ran through meadows filled with wild flowers, the tall grass undulating under the light breeze blowing down from the hills. Their long hair flew out behind them and their summer frocks billowed around their legs. It was a clear bright afternoon and they ran together holding hands and laughing … golden girls on a golden day …

The memory stopped as abruptly as it had started. Annette sat up, got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Turning on the light, she saw that her face was damp with tears, and she was filled with a terrible longing, a yearning really, for that tall, willowy girl who had loved them so much, and whom they had loved in return. Will the yearning for her never go away? she wondered, and then she splashed her face with cold water, patted it dry. A few minutes later, back in bed, her thoughts were jumbled, sorrowful; as she struggled to sort them out, she fell into a deep sleep that was dreamless.

Although Marius had phoned twice over the weekend, Annette had not told him about the extraordinary find at Knowle Court. It had proved difficult for her to hold back, not to share with him her delight about the discovery of the bronze, but her desire to surprise him had won out in the end. She wanted to witness the expression on his face when he saw the famous Degas sculpture standing on the glass coffee table in the sitting room of their flat in Eaton Square.

As she sat at her desk in her Bond Street office on Monday morning, she began to make plans for her next big auction, which she fully intended to hold in New York. She was setting her sights high, but that was the way she was.

Because of her extensive knowledge of art, she knew that the Cézanne could not be cleaned as quickly as she would like. She also knew the job had to be done by a great restorer. And the only really great one was Carlton Fraser. He had been abroad and not available to clean the Rembrandt for her, but hopefully he would be able to take on the job of restoring the Cézanne.

Having always been a pragmatist, quick to make decisions, and expedient by nature, Annette was not one to waste time now. She picked up the phone and dialled Carlton Fraser’s studio in Hampstead.

His phone rang and rang, and the voicemail did not come on. Growing impatient, she was about to hang up when he finally answered with a faint, ‘Hello?', sounding far away.

‘Carlton, it’s Annette Remmington. How are you?’

‘Hello, darling!’ he exclaimed, his voice instantly stronger, convivial. ‘Lovely to hear you. And I’m grand. So sorry to have missed your gorgeous big bash. I hear it was spectacular, and look, I couldn’t come because I was in Rome. But you knew that.’

‘Doing some work for the Vatican, I suspect.’ He chuckled. ‘No flies on you, are there, my dear? And yes, I am.’

‘Congratulations. Listen, Carlton, I have a job for you, a painting to clean and restore, and I do hope you’re free to do it, at least to start it. You see, in my opinion, you’re the only one who can bring it back to life.’

‘Thank you for the compliment. I can only say I do the best I can, and I am free. The new Vatican job is planned for the autumn; I’ll be in Rome for a month. Cleaning some ancient frescoes. So, what’s the painting you want me to work on?’

‘It’s a Cézanne, and I’m fairly certain it was covered in soot which fell from a chimney, and also that somebody did attempt to clean it, or, let’s say, dust it.’

‘Good God, no!’ He let out a long groan, and cursed.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Annette responded quietly, alarmed by the intensity of the groan, his expletives. He had just underscored the feeling she had had about the painting right from the beginning. It was a mess, and it would need meticulous work.

There was a silence, and then Carlton muttered, ‘It could take me months. Soot’s the worst.’

‘I know. But can you take it on? Now? Or are you fulfilling other commitments?’

‘I’m working on an Old Master for a client, but I’ve just about finished it. I can start on yours this weekend, if that’s all right.’

‘It’s not all right, it’s fantastic! What a relief. I wouldn’t trust anyone but you with this job. I’ll have the owner deliver it to you tomorrow, if you can accept it then?’

‘I can, but in any case, Marguerite is always here. And who’s the owner?’

‘Christopher Delaware, my Rembrandt client. His uncle left him quite a collection, some really good paintings and a couple of fantastic sculptures. A Giacometti and a Degas. A bronze. A little dancer.’

‘Lucky blighter! And if I remember correctly from the massive publicity you so shrewdly engineered, his uncle was Sir Alec Delaware.’

‘Yes, that’s right. Did you know him?’

‘No, but I vaguely remember he was engaged to a painter I had been slightly acquainted with, very many years ago. I knew her in her student days, when she was still at the Royal College of Art … wait a minute … now what was her name? Oh, yes, I recall it now. It was Clarissa Normandy. I think there was something rather strange about that engagement, though. Or was it the marriage?’

‘Not the latter.’ Annette cleared her throat and plunged in. ‘She killed herself. I think it was only a few days before the wedding. Actually she was wearing her wedding dress. Just imagine that. It was something quite awful, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Oh, God, yes! I heard about it on the grapevine. But actually, Annette, there was a weird aspect to their relationship, a scandal of some kind. Unfortunately, it just slips my mind right now. Not unusual. Getting old, I suppose.’

‘The only thing I found out the other day was about the suicide,’ Annette remarked. ‘I don’t know anything else.’

‘Mmmm. However, there was another element. Something not quite right or, as my darling wife would say, not quite kosher. I think it was about stolen paintings … paintings going missing. And I do believe it was Marguerite who told me that at the time. Clarissa’s not quite kosher, she said to me. And there was the suggestion of some impending scandal.’

Always quick on the draw, Annette exclaimed, ‘Are you suggesting that by killing herself, Clarissa Normandy averted a scandal?’

‘I think “avoided” might be a better word.’

‘I see. Well, I didn’t know her, nor does any of that matter now. But I admit I am riddled with curiosity and I’d love to know more, just out of interest, if Marguerite can shed any light on it.’

‘So would I.’ There was a pause, before he added, ‘As I recall, Clarissa was controversial, and prone to drag trouble in her wake.’

Annette sat at her desk for a few minutes, after hanging up the phone. She was thinking about Clarissa Normandy. She had heard about her some years ago … about her being a painter of promise, one of those young artists everyone predicted would become famous but never did. Nothing much had happened to Clarissa’s career, and she had fallen by the wayside eventually. And yet now, after the conversation with Carlton, she, too, recalled gossip about a scandal. What kind of scandal it was she couldn’t remember. A flicker of a thought hovered at the back of her mind and was instantly gone. And she realized that the discussion had made her forget to invite Carlton to come over to see the dancer.

Sighing under her breath, and moving on in her head, Annette walked over to the cardboard blow-up of the Rembrandt, lifted it down.

Tonight she would take a picture of the Degas bronze, have a blow-up made, and within days her new piece of art would be propped up against the far wall.

A big, brilliant campaign, she said under her breath, and her eyes sparkled. She was about to start promoting The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, and within days the whole world would know about the Degas sculpture again.

She glanced at her watch. It was only ten o’clock; too early to call her New York office, but she would be in touch with them later this morning, would share her thoughts with them about the impending auction.

Bigger and better. I must make it bigger and better. And there was no doubt in her mind that she would succeed. She sat staring into space, her mind racing, and after a while she began to make notes, jotting down the ideas that had begun to flow so freely. The thought of the auction, of holding it in New York, excited her, made the adrenaline rush through her. Quite aside from the Degas bronze, and the Degas horse painting, there was the Giacometti, and the Mary Cassatt painting of a mother and child. It was beautiful, but she had known from the start that Christopher would surely put this up for auction. It did not appeal to him, nor did he understand about Mary Cassatt and what an important Impressionist painter she had been, one of the original group working in Paris in the 1800s, a close friend of Degas, as well as his colleague, rival and benefactor.

After an hour, Annette stood up, walked across her office, stretching. Her eyes fell on the blow-up of the Rembrandt, and she went over to it, picked it up, carried it to the back of her office, and put it in the large cupboard where she kept such things. Closing the door, she turned around, her eyes sweeping over the room, liking what she saw: a huge space with two large windows, cream walls, a dark blue carpet and a paucity of furniture. The only pieces were her desk, an antique French bureau plat, resembling a large table with drawers, two chairs, one on each side of it, and the credenza along the end wall facing the desk.

She smiled to herself as she sat down at the desk, thinking of the clients who took one look around when they first came here, and asked where the art was. Her answer was always the same, ‘I’m waiting for it,’ she would say. ‘The art you are going to sell. Or buy.’

There was a knock on the door, and her assistant, Esther Oliver, came in, carrying a folder. ‘You asked for this the other day, Annette,’ she said, handing it to her. ‘Requests for interviews from every newspaper and magazine you can think of.’ She grinned at Annette as she took the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘You’ll be busy for months if you decide to do them all.’

‘Marius said he would go through them with me when he gets back from Barcelona later this week. I think he intends to pick out only a couple. We know I can’t do them all.’

‘There are quite a few top-notch journalists asking to meet you,’ Esther pointed out.

‘Marius will make the decision,’ Annette murmured.

Doesn’t he always?, Esther thought, but said, ‘In the meantime, you haven’t forgotten your appointment at noon with Mrs Clarke-Collingwood, have you? About her two Landseers.’

‘Oh, bother, I had.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But I’m all right, she won’t be here for half an hour.’ Shaking her head, Annette explained, ‘I just got carried away with thoughts of the new auction I’m planning.’