The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst [162]
"Penny!" said Catherine. "Why? I mean, she wouldn't have a clue," and then laughed submissively, since it wasn't her day.
"Well," said Gerald, beaming and blustering, "well, her father's a painter." And he turned away to see to the champagne; he had a fresh glass in his hand when Penny came into the room.
"Hello, Penny," said Rachel, in her coolly maternal way.
"Congratulations to you both," said Penny, coming forward with her curious bossy diffidence, her air, that was almost maternal in itself, of putting her duty to forgetful, forgivable Gerald before any thought of her own pleasure. "I really came to do the diary."
"The diary can wait," said Gerald, with a note of reckless permissiveness, passing her the glass. "Have a look at what Lord Kessler's just given us." It struck Nick that he was avoiding any chance of a kiss. "It's by Gauguin," said Gerald, "he Rencontre aux Champs"—giving it already his own, more anecdotal title. They all peered at it politely again. "I can't help thinking of our lovely walks in France," Gerald said, looking round for agreement.
"Oh . . . I see," said Rachel.
"It's nothing like that," said Catherine.
"I don't know," said Gerald. "That could be your mother going down to Podier, and bumping into . . . ooh . . . Nick on the way."
Nick, pleased to have been put in the picture, said, "I seem to have borrowed Sally Tipper's hat."
Catherine smiled impatiently. "Yeah, but the point is, they're peasants, isn't it, Uncle Lionel. You know, this was when he went to Brittany, what was it called, to get as far away as possible from the city and the corruption of bourgeois life. It's about hardship and poverty."
"You're absolutely right, darling," said Lionel, who never stood for cant about money. "Though I expect he sent it to bourgeois old Paris to be sold."
"Exactly," said Gerald.
"It's funny, it looks like a Hereford cow," said Toby. "Though I don't suppose it can be."
"Probably a Charolais," said Gerald.
"Charolais are a completely different colour," said Toby.
"Anyway, it's very nice," said Penny, for whom being the daughter of Norman Kent had worked as a perfect inoculation against art.
"We were wondering where to hang it," said Rachel.
They spent five minutes trying the picture in different places, Toby holding it up while the others pursed their lips and said, "You see, /think it needs to go there . . . " Toby became a boy again, in a family game, pulling faces and then clearly thinking about something else. "Over 'ere, guv'nor?" he kept saying, in a "hopeless cockney accent which he found funny. He took down one or two things and replaced them with the Gauguin. The trouble was that the shapes of the other pictures showed on the wallpaper behind.
Rachel didn't seem to mind too much, but Gerald said, "We can't have the Lady seeing that."
"Oh . . ." said Rachel, with a little tut.
"No, I'm serious," said Gerald. "She's finally agreed to honour us with her company, and everything must be perfect."
"I'd be highly surprised if the Lady noticed," Lionel said candidly. But Gerald shot back, "Believe me, she notices everything," and gave a rather grim laugh.
"We'll decide later," said Rachel. "We just might be awfully selfish and have it in our bedroom."
"Though he'll probably get the Lady in there," said Catherine under her breath.
After lunch two men from Special Branch came, to check on matters of security for the PM's visit. They passed through the house like a pair of unusually discreet bailiffs, noting and evaluating. Nick heard them coming up the top stairs and sat smiling at his desk with his heart pounding and ten grams of coke in the top drawer while they peered out onto the leads. Their main concern was with the back gate and they told him a policeman would be on duty all night in the communal gardens. This made everything look a bit more risky, and when they'd gone down again he had a small line just to steady his nerves.
Later he went downstairs and when he looked out at the front of the house he saw Gerald and Geoffrey Titchfield talking