A Coffin For Two

31

Davidoff had never been to our apartment, so I promised that I would be waiting for him at the church at eight o’clock that evening.

I had never seen his car, but when it came chugging round the bend I didn’t have to look to see who was inside. It was an ancient Seat 500, rear-engined, and revving away like a sewing machine in distress. Once its paint had been silver, but time and the Tramuntana, the cold north wind which drives the sand like rain, had turned it into a shade beyond conventional description.

It was a Noddy car with a roof on, one of those machines which you either love or want to deliver straight to the nearest crusher. I loved it, and so did Davidoff. He beamed with pride as he eased it from its flat out crawl to a dead stop, and as he climbed out and locked the door, I noticed that he had left it in gear. A wise precaution, I thought.

If the ancient had been spruced up for our morning outing, for the evening he was resplendent. He wore a black silk shirt, with a black cravat tied high at the neck, black leather trousers and black patent shoes which shone with a light of their own. His skin shone like oiled olive wood and his close-cut hair was slicked with dressing. To top it all off his eye patch was satin with sparkles set in it.

As he stepped up to me, hand outstretched, I caught a whiff of Bay Rum.

‘Well met again, my young friend,’ he said. ‘May you rue the day when you permitted me to be the suitor of Primavera.’

I laughed. ‘Strut your stuff, old man,’ I said, probably a little more brashly than I had really intended. ‘The lady is waiting for us upstairs.’

Davidoff had brought with him a bottle of really good Cava, straight from the fridge. Not one of your Freixenets, which are all right in themselves, but a Mas Caro, vintage brut, which was better than most champagnes.

We did it justice on our terrace as a large sea bass steamed gently in a kettle on the stove, as the guacamole salad chilled in the fridge and as the candles in their sconces gradually took more and more effect in the darkening evening.

‘You are very private here,’ said Davidoff, oozing his snakelike charm at Prim and treating me to a show of tolerant disdain. It came to me that maybe I liked him so much because he reminded me of my old iguana flatmate.The only difference was that Wallace never tried to seduce any of my girlfriends.

‘Yes, we are,’ she replied, showing a leg through the split in her yellow skirt. ‘It’s very good for the tan.’

‘You must be careful of your skin, my dear,’ he cautioned. ‘It is the most sensitive organ of your body … save one, of course … and you must treat it with respect. Use the finest creams and moisturisers, or the sun will age it before its time. I see on the beach the old ladies who were foolish in their youth. Now their skin hangs on them like ill-fitting sacks. Cara mia, I would shoot you now before I would see you become like them.’

We ate on the terrace, too, but in consideration of Davidoff’s age, I lit one of our butane gas heaters and set it near him in the open doorway. He frowned at me as I positioned it, as if he thought I was reminding Prim of his years … which of course I was … but he didn’t ask me to take it away.

My guacamole salad hit the spot, and Prim’s sea bass was done to perfection. Our guest attacked them with an enjoyment that would have gladdened any cook’s heart, and polished off his poached fresh figs in marsala by wiping the dish clean with his last piece of bread.

During the meal I tried to lure him back to the subject of Dali, but he refused the bait. Instead he spoke seriously of the Franco years, of the oppression of Catalunya, and of the brutality of the Civil War.

‘I lost many friends,’ he said sadly. ‘I lost the sight of my eye too. A piece of shrapnel.’

I looked at him in surprise, at his first admission of his years. Wounded in a war sixty years earlier.

‘You fought against Franco?’

‘Yes. In vain as it turned out.’ He looked at Prim with a flashing, gleaming smile. ‘I was only a boy, you understand. But it was for my freedom as a man.’

‘And did you stay here, afterwards?’ She was staring at him, captivated as far as I could see.

‘No. I could not bear it. My friends and I went to America. We worked there for most of the forties. That was when I learned most of my English, and picked up this goddamn strange accent.

‘Eventually, Franco felt secure enough to let the exiles come back, although he still kept Catalunya under his boot. We were the only Spanish with the cojones to stand up to him.’ He smiled at Prim, almost coyly. ‘I hope your Spanish is not so good, Senora.’

She grinned, and I could have sworn she was flirting with him. ‘Good enough, Senor. But Franco’s balls must have been bigger than yours, because he died an old man, in his bed.’

Davidoff acknowledged her point with a nod. ‘Maybe so. But remember, he had the military, and the garrotte. They were strong deterrents.’

He must have sensed that he had taken his courtship as far as he could for the night, for without warning he turned to me. ‘Oz, my young friend. Earlier, you said you had something to show me.’

‘Yes, but first, let’s clear the table.’

When Prim and I had removed the last of the dishes, I switched on the twin spots which lit up the terrace at night, and picked up Gavin Scott’s tube which lay in the corner to my right. I took out the colour photocopy, unrolled it, and spread it on the table in front of Davidoff.

‘What d’you think of this?’ I asked.

The old boy gasped. A great hissing gasp. His mouth dropped open. Until that moment, I hadn’t thought it possible that anything could take him by surprise.

He put his hands on the picture, and I saw that they were shaking slightly. ‘Where did you get this?’ he whispered.

‘The original belongs to a client of ours, in Scotland. It was sold to him at a private auction in Peretellada in June of this year, and offered as an unknown work by Dali. Look, in the corner. It’s signed, but undated. Blackstone Spanish Investigations has been hired to authenticate it, if we can.’

‘Who was the owner of this original before your client?’ Davidoff asked, beginning to recover from his surprise.

‘We don’t know. Our client was visiting a pal of his, a bloke called David Foy, an ex-pat who lives down in Bagur. They were invited to the auction by a guy they met at Pals golf club, another Englishman, Trevor Eames, who lives around here. The auction was run by a man calling himself Ronald Starr, who said he was an agent for the owner.’

‘Yes?’ said Davidoff, intense, captivated.

‘The only thing is, we believe that the real Ronnie Starr was dead by then, murdered, and buried in a grave not far from here. The real Starr was a talented artist, and an expert on Dali. Our theory is that he forged the picture, showed it to someone, and that that person killed him and stole it, knowing that there’s always some fool out there ready to part with his money. Our client paid four hundred thousand US for it.’

‘Jesus!’ The word shot from Davidoff’s narrowed lips as if it had escaped. His face was tense and his eye was blazing.

‘We’ve heard a story,’ I began, ‘that before he died Dali signed some blank canvasses, backwashes and the like.’

‘No!’ The little man sat bolt upright. ‘I know the people who looked after Dali before he died. He didn’t sign no blank anythings. Towards the end he couldn’t even wipe his own ass, let alone autograph canvases. The man buried in Figueras didn’t sign anything from the day that Gala died. That I can tell you.’

I leaned over the picture again. ‘Could it be older than that? Could it possibly be genuine?’

Davidoff’s face creased into a smile. ‘No, boy. This is a recent work. And the man buried in Figueras had nothing to do with it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because the vision is not the same. This is not his vision. He would not have seen something like this; it is too, too … sympathetic. That’s the best that I can explain to you.’

‘But it could have been Ronnie Starr who painted it?’

He shrugged. ‘Or another artist.There are others, you know. Why don’t you ask around?’

I nodded. ‘That’s what we plan to do.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you go on with it.’

He rose to his feet and drew Prim with him, to kiss her on both cheeks, his lips just brushing the corners of her mouth.

‘Now I got to go.You have given me a day I won’t forget in a hurry, Senor Oz, but it is over. It is late and I must go. Before the sun comes up and catches me unawares!’