Angelica's Grotto

42 Lot 37

Surrounded by crimson walls, Klein whispered to himself,

‘He did not wear his scarlet coat,

For blood and wine are red,

And blood and wine were on his hands

When they found him with the dead,

The poor dead woman whom he loved,

And murdered in her bed.’

‘Really,’ said Melissa, ‘aren’t you over-reacting? All you’re doing is selling a painting.’

‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ said Klein.

There were breaks in the crimson: the auctioneer’s podium was in front of an eight-foot-wide white panel that went up to the ceiling; the enclosures for the telephone staff were also white. Above the auctioneer’s head on the white panel an electronic conversion board waited to show the current lot number and the accumulating sales total in sterling, US dollars, Deutschmarks, Swiss francs, French francs, and Japanese yen.

Mr Duclos had left passes for Klein and Melissa at Reception and Melissa had also registered and received a numbered paddle. ‘Are you expecting to bid?’ said Klein.

‘Who knows? I like to be part of the action.’ Klein wanted to see the whole room so they stood by the back wall. Mr Duclos came over to them as the room filled up.

‘There’s very strong interest,’ he said. ‘We have the curator of an American museum here who came especially for the Redon; we’ve got a private collector who saw it in New York and wants to buy it and we’ve got two or three Europeans. Now it’s time for me to take up my phone station.’ He left them to join the other staff at the telephones as the auctioneer stepped up to the podium.

‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Welcome to this sale of French Impressionist and Nineteenth-Century paintings. Please note that Lots Seventeen, Twenty-one, and Forty-six have been withdrawn. Lot One is a river view by Boudin, 1889. Let’s begin at £35,000.’

Someone bald raised his paddle. ‘I have thirty-five thousand,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Thirty-five thousand …’

The auctioneer was young, well-groomed, inexorable. He went smoothly through his litany of lot numbers, titles, and attributions, appealing for ever larger numbers as the bidders variably responded and his hammer rose and fell. The sale moved swiftly from landscape to seascape, from summer to winter, calm to storm, exterior to interior, portrait to still life to floral to nude. Painting after painting leapt on to the viewing stand and back into the hands of the crimson-aproned, crimson-necktied porter as the conversion board flickered its digits and the room sloped like a slide towards the moment when the Redon’s number would be called.

When Pegase Noir was put up in front of all those people Klein was shocked. There came to mind The Slave Market, the Gerome painting in which a naked girl is displayed by her vendor to a prospective buyer who puts two fingers into her mouth, examining her teeth.

‘Lot Thirty-seven!’ said the auctioneer. ‘Pegase Noir, Black Pegasus by Odilon Redon, 1910, unique. Shall we start the bidding at four hundred thousand pounds?’

Someone had evidently nodded or raised a finger. ‘I have four hundred thousand,’ said the auctioneer. ‘It’s like our marriage,’ said Hannelore as Klein whispered her words, ‘full of darkness but it flies.’ He closed his eyes and tried to see her face but recalled only the gesture of her hand as she spoke.

‘I have four twenty,’ said the auctioneer in response to another unseen signal. Klein spotted Mr Las Vegas and his wife or consort; they seemed reluctant to show early foot. ‘Four thirty,’ said the apparently telepathic auctioneer. The air in the room was stretched taut, filling the available space precisely. Klein breathed in the scent of Melissa, heard the faint rustling of her skirt and stockings as she changed position. ‘This is exciting,’ she whispered, and squeezed his hand.

‘Four fifty,’ said the auctioneer. The winged horse in the painting seemed very far away, seemed to be moving ever more into the distance, soaring into the oranges, the reds, the crimson walls and the roses of time past and love long gone.

‘What is it?’ Klein whispered into his hand.

‘What’s what?’ whispered Melissa, her lips brushing his ear, her breath warm.

‘Everything. We come into the world, we do our little dance, then we’re gone, and what did it all matter?’

‘Six hundred thousand,’ said Melissa, and raised her paddle.

‘What are you doing?’ said Klein as Mr Duclos, looking in their direction, raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s going to go a lot higher,’ said Melissa, ‘I can feel it — I’m just speeding things up a bit.’ Her face was flushed, her eyes bright.

‘Six hundred fifty,’ said the auctioneer as Mr Las Vegas nodded. ‘Seven hundred thousand on the telephone. And fifty, seven hundred and fifty,’ as Las Vegas responded. ‘Eight,’ as a paddle went up from a Japanese not yet heard from.

Klein was paying such close attention that by now he felt that he alone was holding the reality of the whole thing together; if he relaxed his grip it might tear loose and blow away like a sail in a storm.

The telephones sprang to life as the distant bidders, sensing the end of the chase, moved in for the kill. ‘Eight fifty,’ said the auctioneer. The bidding was now between two telephones, Las Vegas, and the Japanese.

‘This horse is really taking off,’ said Melissa as one of the telephones bid £950,000. ‘Nine hundred and fifty thousand,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Any advance on nine hundred and fifty thousand?’

Up went Melissa’s paddle. ‘One million!’ she said as Mr Duclos frowned at his telephone.

‘“Où sont les neiges d’antan?”’ said Klein as his left arm went leaden and an ache declared itself at the back of his throat. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Melissa, ‘I’ll just pop into Casualty and see you later.’

‘I have one million,’ said the auctioneer.

‘Harold, what’s the matter?’ said Melissa.

‘It’s only the usual thing — I’ll be fine. You stay with it.’

‘One million,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Any advance on one million?’

‘Casualty where?’ said Melissa.

‘Chelsea & Westminster, they’re my local.’ He made his way past the others standing between him and the doorway, reached the stairs, descended without collapsing, achieved the Reception desk, and said quietly to the handsome young woman there, smiling and attentive, ‘Please call an ambulance.’