LITMIR.BIZ

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Fen. Apart from Otter who was transfixed by the male sculpture. And by a rather athletic-looking tourist a few yards away.

      ‘This work is called Hunger,’ Fen said, standing back from it though it meant her all but pressing herself against two young women listening. She gazed at the stone and then faced her audience. She made eye contact with all of them, with Otter and Matt and James and Judith. But she did not glance away, or give a blink of discomfort or recognition. Fen McCabe, art historian, was rather different from Fen McCabe, archivist. Or was this merely the spell of Fetherstone’s works? ‘It’s called Hunger,’ she repeated, standing much closer to her audience than to the sculpture, ‘but the couple themselves seem quite sated, don’t you think?’ The audience bar James was staring at the sculpture. ‘Don’t you think?’ It was a question. James wanted to answer but could not establish eye contact and didn’t really want to raise his hand. Anyway, the lecturer was staring directly, almost at point-blank range, at the two young women near to her. ‘Don’t you think?’

      ‘Definitely,’ one whispered. The other could only nod. They were both flushed. Not from humiliation or embarrassment. But from the effect the mass of copulatory stone had on them.

      ‘Fetherstone worked on the theme of sexual abandon from 1889. His great treatise – titled Abandon – now exists in four supreme bronzes. Though the whereabouts of the marble Abandon – staggering even in the few photos we have of it – remains a mystery. Just look at them,’ Fen implored, turning back to the sculpture, ‘just look at them.’ She gave her audience a tantalizing few seconds of silence. ‘Now, this portrait bust of Jacques Lemond,’ she said, moving to a plinth nearby, ‘is not just conventional in conception, it was staid and boring even for the time in which it was executed.’ Fen McCabe had cast the spell and then broken it. The audience had to follow her dutifully to another work, a rather uninspiring, if well executed, head and shoulders. But Fen was manipulating her audience. Her talk ended ten minutes later, having utilized a cross-reference with Maillol and a look at the two oil sketches by Fetherstone (which James was most pleased to deduce were inferior to his in execution and subject matter). She’d answered the obligatory questions (having anticipated, by the look of her audience, what they were to be) and then she’d left the gallery. Briskly. Perhaps to have a sandwich or something. Buy an Evening Standard. Cosmo, maybe. She knew well what would be going on in the sculpture hall. Most of the audience would remain. She’d observed their reaction to her lecture, to Hunger, to sculpture, on several occasions. They’d potter about half glancing at other works. Some would linger at Rodin’s The Kiss. But all would gravitate back to Hunger, however long it took. To circumnavigate. For a deeper look. To feed their hunger.

      Judith had left noisily midway through the Q&A. Matt left the gallery unseen, leaving Otter to chat up the athletic young tourist. Matt’s semi hard-on disconcerted him.

       It’s not just the look of her. Not the sculptures, for Christ’s sake. I think it’s that she’s so damned passionate. I don’t know!

      James took a taxi to New Bond Street. There was a stirring in his trousers too. But he rationalized that he was turned on by the thought of the money his own Fetherstones might generate. Or by art, of course. Not by F. McCabe. No no no. He peered into his rucksack. Adam and Eve were still at it. Again. Leave them to it. Recall the content of the lecture so he was well armed to rebuff any bluff from the auctioneers. What did she say? That F. McCabe? She called him Julius. What does F stand for? Fiona? Frederika? Frederika probably. Freddie to her friends. Something like that. What had she spoken of? James couldn’t remember. He chastised his age as the culprit. But how come he could remember everything about her? Down to her having just the one dimple when she smiled which increased to two when she laughed.

      Whilst James sat on a rather hard but aesthetically fine mahogany bench outside the Nineteenth Century European department, he wondered if the higher up you were at Calthrop’s was directly proportionate to the number of hyphens in your surname. And whether the number of hyphens to the surname might equate with the number of noughts such an expert might achieve on the sale of works. And how long they were entitled to keep a visitor waiting. Ten minutes and counting. He concentrated hard on two seascapes and thought how he’d really much rather have the Fetherstone oil sketches on his wall than those. Why was he selling them then? Money? Yes. But not because he was greedy. Because he needed to.

      ‘Mr Caulfield? Margot Fitzpatrick-Montague-Laine – good afternoon,’ an immaculate woman with a warm smile and affably outstretched hand, who looked too ordinary to have hyphens in her name and too young to hold a job of such stature, greeted James and ushered him through to her office, her eyes wide and expectant at the sight of his rucksack. ‘I think it most honest that my colleagues in Nineteenth Century British passed you to me,’ she said. ‘I mean, Fetherstone was British by birth – but he is so quintessentially European.’ She looked at James earnestly. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’

      ‘Quintessentially,’ James responded, stressing a different part of the word to imply it was a conclusion he had himself made already, whilst racking his brains to recall anything F. McCabe had said along those lines in her lecture. He couldn’t remember if she had. She’d talked about moisture. And sex. And carnal delirium. And this Nineteenth Century European woman was very attractive and she was talking money and was thus all the more attractive because of it. And because she could enunciate words like ‘quintessentially’ in a most sonorous way.

      ‘So,’ she was saying with an eyebrow raised almost coquettishly, ‘what do you have for me?’

      ‘Adam and Eve having a fuck,’ said James without thinking, because he was thinking how much he’d like to have a fuck. With F. McCabe. Or Margot F-M-L. Whoever. It had been a while. He wondered whether to apologize. Or to bite his lip. Or make light of it. Or just ignore it. But seeing her eyes light up, he decided that to show her Adam and Eve having a fuck was a good start.

      ‘1892,’ he said, by way of introduction to the sculpture. He gave her a few moments to feast her gaze upon it and then brought out the sketch of Eve. ‘1894,’ he said, watching Ms F-M-L hone in on the painting. Then he brought out Adam. ‘1895,’ he said, titillated by seeing how excited Miss Margot was. He didn’t really care whether this was over their monetary or aesthetic value, or a mixture of both. She looked hungry. And it turned him on. ‘What am I bid?’ he jested. She stared at him.

      ‘We offer the paintings as a pair,’ she suggested in a most conspiratorial voice, as if hatching an illicit plan, leaning close to him with an almost clichéd amount of cleavage on view. ‘It would be a travesty to split them. We put the reserve at around thirty thousand.’ James worked hard not to gulp because he felt she was scrutinizing him to see if he would. Or to see whether he’d noticed her bust. He had. He didn’t gulp. He nodded sagely. ‘The bronze,’ she said, musing, ‘forty thousand is realistic.’ James was sure to tip his head to one side and look out of the window as if considering whether this was the most financially viable route for him to take. ‘I propose we offer them in the July sale. It’s a biggie. Lots of Americans. Fetherstone is growing in popularity over the pond.’

      ‘Would you care to have lunch with me?’ James asked.

      ‘I’m hungry,’ Ms M. F-M-L said, licking her lips.

      She chose two starters. Asparagus. Predictably. And oysters. Ditto. James tried to tuck into a Caesar salad but anticipated it would all be gone in two mouthfuls. Actually, it was five. He was still hungry. Watching Margot do what she was doing to the asparagus, he didn’t know what he longed for more – her or one of Mrs Brakespeare’s substantial platters of ham and eggs.

      ‘Will you let me have them?’ she asked, leaning across the table and exhibiting her cleavage again to great effect.

      ‘No,’ said James.

      ‘Or, let me just keep them in the department for a while?’ she compromised, her pupils as dark as the espresso in front of her.

      ‘No,’ said James.

      ‘Oh go on,’ she purred, ‘just come back to my office – I’m sure I can persuade you somehow.’

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