Corduroy Mansions

64. Requin Trouvé

At the same time as William and Marcia were agonising, or William, at least, was agonising, over what to do about their awkward discovery in Eddie’s wardrobe - their damnosa hereditas, as Roman lawyers might put it - Caroline and James, feeling the need for a late lunch, were peering into the window of a small bistro behind the British Museum. It was on a street of book and antique shops; to one side was a dusty dealership in antiquarian maps, and to the other a shop that specialised in Greek and Roman antiquities.

‘That’s what I really like about this area,’ mused James. ‘If somebody from the past slipped through a time warp and ended up standing on this street, he would not feel lost. Not at all. He’d look into that window next door and think: oh, a new lamp shop. Of course, the lamps are several thousand years old. And if he didn’t know where he was, he could pop into that map shop and pick up a map of the Roman Empire. Or a map of Londinium.’

Caroline gazed at the menu displayed in the bistro window. Her mind was on quiche. Quiche could be dodgy: it was often soggy and very unappetising. Was she in a pasta mood? she asked herself. Perhaps. ‘What are you talking about, James?’

‘I’m talking about people who might find themselves in the wrong time. Through some quirk of physics.’

‘Oh. Is pizziccata hot? I don’t like those really hot chillies. I never have.’

‘Not sure,’ said James. ‘Of course, nobody ever does, you know. Nobody wakes up and finds themselves in the wrong century. Mind you, some people just seem to have been in the wrong century from the beginning. Young fogeys, for instance. Do you know any young fogeys?’

Caroline kept her eyes on the menu. Reading menus always made her hungry and she heard her stomach growl softly. ‘Young fogeys?’ she said. ‘You?’

‘Very funny, Caroline,’ said James. ‘You don’t listen to me, do you?’

Caroline prodded him playfully. ‘Sometimes. But look, I’m really hungry and we can get quite a good lunch in here for . . . Well, look at the menu.’

‘Poor dears,’ said James. ‘Restaurants are really struggling, aren’t they?’

They went in. The restaurant was busy enough - what with the special promotions - but a table was just being vacated by another customer and they got that.

‘Well then,’ said James after they had given their order. ‘Caravaggio.’

They had just attended a lecture on the artist given by a passionate lecturer whom James had described as ‘a bit like Caravaggio himself, except, one assumes, for the violence’.

‘One can hardly imagine,’ he said, ‘that a shrinking violet would be drawn to lecture on Caravaggio.’ He paused. ‘What do you think of Caravaggio, Caroline?’

‘Too dramatic for me,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine that people of the time writhed quite as much as they do in his paintings.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said James. ‘They were very expressive. It’s just that we’ve become so cool. They would probably consider us very stiff.’

Caroline knew what he meant. ‘It’s very sad that people feel they have to be cool,’ she said. ‘They have to suppress all sense of joy and excitement.’

‘Precisely,’ said James. ‘And colours too. All those blacks and greys. Everything is toned down - muted really. Imagine finding a Caravaggio. Imagine how the Queen felt when she discovered that what she thought was a copy was the real thing.’

‘I suppose she’s used to it,’ said Caroline. ‘But what about those Jesuits in Dublin who discovered a Caravaggio in their sitting room . . . ?’

‘Their parlour,’ corrected James. ‘Jesuits have parlours, not sitting rooms. There’s a difference, you know.’

‘Which is?’

‘A parlour is more formal. It’s the place where you receive people. You don’t sit around in a parlour; you do that in a sitting room or a living room - a drawing room if you’re a bit grander.’

‘Well, whatever. Just imagine it, though. You have a rather dark old picture in your parlour, a picture that you think is a mere Honthorst.’

James corrected her again. ‘Honthorst is not mere. He was a very important painter, one of the major Caravaggisti of his time. He was—’

‘But he was not Caravaggio,’ interrupted Caroline. ‘And if you had a choice: Honthorst or Caravaggio? If the chips were really down and you had to choose.’

It was not a difficult choice. ‘Caravaggio out of sheer avarice,’ said James. ‘Well, one has to eat, you know, and a Caravaggio would bring in millions. And he was a better painter too. That’s always convenient. Choose somebody on aesthetic grounds but make sure that he’s also the most expensive.’

‘Yet value isn’t the sole consideration,’ argued Caroline. ‘You can have artists fetching stratospheric prices and yet their work may be trite, banal even. Those people who do installations, for example. They fetch millions, but what are the people who buy such things actually getting?’

‘A take on the world,’ offered James. ‘A fresh perspective on things. A new understanding of the everyday world. Visual surprise.’

Caroline was doubtful. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘But it’s not real value we’re talking about here. It’s an inflated sense of value - like tulips in the Dutch tulip frenzy. Everybody thought they were worth millions until somebody said, “Aren’t those just common-or-garden tulip bulbs?” And that was the end of that.’

James toyed with his fork. ‘You think contemporary art will go the same way?’

‘I do. Of course it will. When people wake up.’

‘So if I said, “This fork is by you know who,” you might say, “It’s just a fork.” Right?’

Caroline said that she would.

‘And the shark?’ James asked.

‘It’s just a shark,’ said Caroline. ‘And whoever bought it must surely be sweating over the day that somebody stands up and says, “It’s just a shark, for heaven’s sake!”’

James smiled. ‘I think they’ve already said it. And yet people still pay those prices at auction for that stuff.’

‘They have to,’ said Caroline. ‘If they didn’t, then what they already had would be worthless. You can’t really sell sharks, you know. Particularly dead ones.’

‘But I think you can,’ said James, ‘as long as you get people to believe it’s an important dead shark.’ He paused. ‘That shark, you see, has been canonised.’