Sidney had been reading a book about the presentation of the self in everyday life; how we behave differently depending on who we are talking to and how sometimes we can be several people at the same time, all contained in the one body, just as so many different people could all be housed in the same Christian Church. How could so many constituent parts be reduced to a single definition of faith and identity; and what was the authentic self? How can we ever find out who we truly are?
It was one of those mornings when he couldn’t quite work out what he wanted to say in his next sermon and, at the same time, he was troubled by the nagging feeling that he had forgotten something. He knew that he was having lunch with his old friend Amanda, that his former housekeeper, Mrs Maguire, needed a visit and that he still had to find a priest for a vacant parish in the north of the diocese, but none of these things were particularly troubling. Then, as he was shaving and a shaft of sunlight hit the edge of the tin mirror, Sidney remembered. It was his wedding anniversary.
Ten years. That was why Hildegard had kept saying the word ‘tin’ recently; and Anna had kept pointing out tin toys – frogs, elephants, fish, cars and carousels – laughing when they were reading their Tintin stories as if they contained some great secret. His wife and daughter had dropped so many hints it was a wonder he had forgotten.
Even though he rather disapproved of spurious commercialism, he decided to research the significance of tin as a symbol of marital wellbeing. He discovered that its flexibility was supposed to represent the tractability of a good relationship; the give and take that makes a marriage strong. Perhaps he could preach about that?
Tin. What on earth was he going to buy? A tray? A bangle? He couldn’t give Hildegard earrings again. He remembered Amanda talking to him recently about Goya’s series of fantasy and invention painted on tin (perhaps she was even in on the joke): bullfighting scenes, strolling players, a marionette seller, a yard filled with lunatics. She had just returned from a short holiday in Madrid and was excited about one of his other paintings, but Sidney hadn’t been concentrating because he was still thinking about the Goddard murders and Linda Clarke’s obsessive love. Wasn’t there also a paint called ‘tin yellow’? Perhaps he could get an artist to undertake Hildegard’s portrait? If he did so, he reminded himself, he wouldn’t forget a former friend’s bid to do the same, telling his wife that he wanted the painting done ‘before you lose your looks’.
He couldn’t imagine Hildegard ever desiring such a thing. It was bad enough attempting to take her photograph, an activity that was now forbidden in bright sunlight lest it illuminate the telltale signs of her middle age. Some kind of tin picture frame would not be the answer either. Her present would have to be jewellery, carefully chosen, something that didn’t look too cheap or tinny but represented the authentic heart of their marriage.
It was at moments like this, wondering what on earth he could get that might please her, that Sidney began to question how well he knew his wife. Hildegard certainly still liked to retain an air of mystery and keep part of her personality private. This, she insisted, was a deliberate attempt to retain Sidney’s interest because he was, apparently, ‘so easily distracted’.
As he finished shaving, scraped the last of the lather and splashed his face in all-too-bracing cold water, he thought about the ideal marriage and what it might mean. Did Sidney and Hildegard really need to know everything about each other to be complete as a couple?
He wondered if a lack of self-knowledge was sometimes not a bad thing; that if we acted instinctively and almost without awareness it could perhaps be a better way of thinking than being self-conscious all the time. And were there some things that were best kept hidden, even from our own selves? Was it dangerous to have an all-consuming marriage in which both members were overly dependent upon the other? What if we gave away so much of ourselves to our partner that we were no longer defined individually but by our married state? Did Hildegard now own a part of him that he would never get back; and did he own a part of her?
He could hear her voice. It is not a question of ownership.
Now, in thinking about such things and in remembering that he had forgotten to buy his wife anything at all, not even a card, he was filled with fear, particularly as he could hear Hildegard’s footsteps on the stairs and knew she would wonder why he was shaving so late in the morning and what was keeping him in the bathroom.
‘How much longer are you going to be?’ she asked.
‘I’m just coming, my darling.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Shaving.’
‘It can’t take that much time. Are you all right?’
Sidney opened the door. ‘I do love you,’ he said.
‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’
‘Our wedding anniversary? Of course not.’
‘Have you booked a restaurant for tonight?’
‘I’ll get us a table at the Old Fire Station.’
‘Won’t they be full?’
‘Not if I ask them nicely.’
‘You’re very sure of yourself for a man who has forgotten all about it.’
‘I haven’t forgotten.’
‘For a man who has only just remembered, then. It’s just as well you’re getting a new secretary. Next year she can remind you.’
‘I won’t need reminding, my darling. I promise.’
‘I did put it in your diary; just as it tells me that you are supposed to be meeting her at the Deanery before your lunch with Amanda.’
‘Now?’
‘Five minutes ago. I thought you’d gone.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘She’s called Miss Morgan. I hope you like her. Perhaps she can babysit?’
‘I very much doubt it.’
‘Then I’d better find someone who can. You still want to go out?’
‘There’s nothing I’d like more.’
‘You haven’t forgotten anything else?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And Geordie won’t telephone with another crisis?’
‘When has that ever happened?’
‘You do know that you’re impossible, Sidney?’
‘I do. And I hope it’s why you love me.’
‘You’d better get on. You’re late already.’
Hildegard turned to go back downstairs but Sidney just managed to stop her. ‘What about a little anniversary kiss?’ he asked.
His wife closed her eyes and opened out her arms. Their lips touched softly.
‘I love you,’ he said.
‘You’re still impossible.’
A few weeks beforehand Sidney had complained, quite gently, to the dean about the amount of paperwork that he had to deal with, and they had come to the decision that the new diocesan secretary would be able to help out on a part-time basis. He was therefore due to meet the most likely candidate for coffee and biscuits in order to see how the arrangement might work in practice.
Vanessa Morgan was a petite and precise woman, who might have passed for a French assistante at a local school, with fine features and long dark hair that had been tied up in an Audrey Hepburn bun. Sidney imagined that she must be used to rejecting flirtatious advances from unsuitable men, and that such attentions probably irritated her a great deal, but, having attempted to disguise his initial intrigue and met his future secretary’s challenging stare with what he hoped was a graceful politeness, he told himself that he really must try and stop judging people, particularly women, by their appearance alone.
Miss Morgan had been recommended by an accountancy firm where she had worked for the last five years, only leaving because, it was rumoured, she had plans to enter the Church as a deaconess. Part of the attraction of her new employment, therefore, was to get a feel for the Church of England at first hand and understand the ways in which it worked. At the same time she could bring some of her financial training to bear on the Diocesan Board of Finance, as the firm she had come from was well known for its attempts to cure ‘the British disease’ of industrial malaise by streamlining management and implementing efficiencies.
If she was to be truly effective, she told Sidney, she would have to know his every movement: where he was, who he was talking to and how long he planned to spend at each meeting. A proper schedule was essential, with routine consultations, daily catch-ups, and access to Hildegard’s diary. She would need the telephone numbers both of his family and of all the people he met regularly, and she would also like to know his attitude to key theological issues so that she could help prepare his response to any general enquiry. Meetings would run to set lengths. Coffee, lunch and tea would be at the same time each day and she would be available in the evening for emergencies. Nothing would be left to chance.
Since chance was Sidney’s main modus operandi, this seemed an ambition too far, but he reluctantly agreed to try out a suggested new regime in which he was assured that he would be able to ‘worry less and get more done’.
He thought that he was ‘doing’ quite enough already, but Miss Morgan was particularly firm on this point. ‘A great many priests waste so much time that they have none left for prayer. We need to make sure that the monastic tradition of religious discipline is preserved.’
‘I don’t think anyone would argue with that.’
‘I should hope not, Mr Archdeacon. It is, of course, a paradox.’
‘Is it, Miss Morgan?’
‘It is. In order to discover the regular rhythms of medieval life we have to embrace modern management techniques. The Church has been stuck in the Victorian era for too long.’
Each day that someone told Sidney about the need to move with the times, he thought of a church in London that had recently installed a lavatory next to the chancel. Members of the congregation were given pieces of toilet paper on which they were told to write down their sins. Then, after a moment of prayer and penitence, and through the mercy of Christ’s forgiveness, the vicar would push down the handle and flush those sins away.
It seemed extreme but now, perhaps, was not the moment to engage in a debate about the tension between tradition and modernity.
After they had established that Miss Morgan would run Sidney’s diary from her office, take dictation and organise his correspondence (letters would need to be signed by 4.30 p.m. ready for the last post), the conversation turned to the cathedral itself.
Her first suggestion was that the vergers take on more cleaning duties. Sidney had anticipated something altogether different; that she might question the number of clergy or raise the possibility of charging admission for entry. There was a precedent for this. In the nineteenth century many cathedrals kept their Naves free to visit but charged sixpence for admission to the Choir, Lady Chapel, Chapter House and Tower.
Instead, Miss Morgan seemed to be picking on the vergers.
‘Why can’t they take on the cleaning as well?’ she asked. ‘You know that they are already doing this at Winchester. We need younger, fresher staff who can get more done and in a tighter time frame. The Church has to embrace the modern age.’
‘But some of the men have been here for years. Loyalty and tradition are important.’
‘Not if the finances are impractical and the size of the congregation is on the decline.’
‘It’s not that bad.’
‘We have to act before it’s too late.’
‘What do you mean by that, Miss Morgan?’
‘Bankruptcy.’
‘I don’t think the Church is in any danger of that.’
‘And yet without radical new ideas it may wither on the vine.’
‘But what other radical new ideas do you have in mind?’
‘As you can no doubt imagine, I am in favour of a contemporary, inclusive ministry.’
‘I had heard that you plan to enter the Church yourself.’
‘As a deaconess, yes. To begin with.’
‘You have further ambitions?’
‘I do hope that one day there will be women priests. I would have thought that a modern man like you might approve of such a thing.’
Sidney tried to follow the current liberal Anglican line that although he didn’t disapprove of women in principle, unlike some of his colleagues who argued that Christ’s choice of twelve men as his apostles should be preserved in the priesthood, he did not feel that the Anglican communion was ready for such an historic change.
Miss Morgan was not convinced. ‘The Church of England has to take a lead. If Jesus were living in an age with a greater appreciation of women’s dignity and gifts, he would have chosen female disciples and ordained women priests.’
‘That may well be the case, but he didn’t. Although he lives now.’
‘And we should reflect his life in us by ordaining women.’
‘We don’t all have to do the same job. Even if they are not priests, women still have a unique role in the ministry, Miss Morgan. The fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that they are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as a discrimination against them.’
‘But it is discrimination against them, Archdeacon. Tradition preserves the misogyny of exclusion.’
‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that.’
‘Remember St Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 14:33–35? He states: “As in all the churches of the holy one, women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak, but should be subordinate even as the law says.”’
‘But Paul also wrote to Phoebe as a deaconess, Priscilla as a missionary partner, and Junia as an apostle. It was another age, and we all have different ways of following Christ’s example. Everyone can’t do everything.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not possible, Miss Morgan. I can’t give birth to a child. I may want to, but I can’t.’
‘That is a biological rather than a theological problem. If it were physically possible, you should not be excluded from childbirth solely on the grounds of gender.’
‘That is quite an extreme position, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
Miss Morgan was almost amused. ‘I do mind you saying so, as a matter of fact.’
‘Then I apologise. I can see we are going to have a lively old time together.’
‘Even more so if I become a priest myself.’
‘I don’t think we’re likely to see that, however much you may want it,’ Sidney replied. ‘At least not in our lifetime.’
‘You know,’ Miss Morgan countered, ‘the Edwardians probably thought the same thing about votes for women.’
Bloody hell, Sidney thought, after the conversation had been interrupted by Amanda’s fortuitous arrival. Hildegard sent her round to the Deanery to fetch her husband for lunch and after a brief introduction the two friends found themselves walking home alone.
‘Well, there’s a surprise,’ Amanda began. She was wearing a dark-purple trouser suit that was more King’s Road than King’s School, Ely.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your “secretary”?’
‘Why do you stress the word? That’s what she is.’
‘I hope you don’t find her distracting. I presume you have spotted that she is rather beautiful.’
‘She’s not attractive at all. She’s terrifying. She might even be ghastly. She wants to be a priest.’
‘I don’t think you need to worry about that. There aren’t any women priests.’
‘I think her plan is to make sure that there are.’
‘It’ll never catch on. I can’t imagine a woman giving me communion.’
‘When was the last time you went to church, Amanda?’
‘Now then, Sidney, don’t be a bully.’
‘I’m not.’
‘All I will say is that Miss Morgan doesn’t have much return of serve.’
‘She does with me, I can tell you. She has made it perfectly clear she has no time for triviality.’
‘Seems a bit of a waste.’
‘What are you saying, Amanda?’
‘For God to make a woman who wants to be a priest so attractive . . .’
‘Her personality is decidedly spiky.’
Sidney had an involuntary flashback to their conversation and remembered another thing that had irritated him: the way Miss Morgan nodded at the end of sentences she thought significant, as if impressed by the precision of her own intelligence.
‘I think that’s deliberate,’ Amanda replied. ‘Protection. She won’t want unnecessary attention.’
‘I thought you were all in favour of attention?’
‘Not the wolf-whistling; although at my age things have certainly calmed down. I can’t turn heads as much as I used to. You remember when the balls started up again after the war?’
‘You were radiant. Always the belle. You could have married any man you wanted.’
Sidney had already fixed one of his earliest memories of his friend: dancing the foxtrot in a deep-emerald-green silk taffeta gown that had been extremely fitted to her tiny waist. She was wearing long white gloves, her dark hair was swept up, her shoulders were bare, her eyes bright, her face flushed, her smile never faded.
‘What a mess I made of everything.’
‘You’re still radiant. When I look at you now, I can picture you at twenty-five.’
‘You’re too kind. But I have to acknowledge that I am entering my more dignified years.’
‘I wouldn’t call them that. How’s your work?’
‘Rather exciting, if you must know. I’ve brought you a catalogue to have a look at: a country-house auction at West Riding Hall, just outside Leeds. Have you ever been to one? I thought we could all go together and make a day of it. You might pick up something nice; something made out of tin, perhaps?’
‘Don’t you start. I don’t think Hildegard and I can afford anything antique at the moment. Why are you going? Do they have something you can’t find in London?’
‘There’s a very interesting painting in the sale; easy to miss, not particularly attractive, but quite extraordinary. It’s advertised as a Spanish, early-nineteenth-century picture by José de Madrazo y Agudo, but I think it’s a Goya.’
‘And that would make a difference?’
‘You could say that.’
‘And what makes you so sure?’
Amanda hesitated, assessing whether or not to convey doubt, reluctant to give her friend ammunition. ‘I’m not, but part of the iconography matches an engraving we have in the British Museum. The provenance is uncanny. The painting has been in the Fairley family at West Riding for over a hundred years.’
‘Do you know them?’
‘Unfortunately not. The grandfather bought it from the Marquess of Worcester, who had been Wellington’s aide-de-camp in the Peninsular War. The marquess married the duke’s favourite niece, Georgina. After she died there was a bit of a hoo-ha, as he then married his former wife’s half-sister. Wellington threw a hissy fit, cut off relations and, so the story goes, asked for the painting back. Unfortunately, the marquess had already sold it to the Fairleys to raise cash. You know that Goya painted Wellington?’
‘Wasn’t that the portrait that was stolen from the National Gallery a few years ago?’
‘Very good, Sidney. A man called Kempton Bunton left the window of the Gents open and came back later and climbed through it . . .’
‘It was as easy as that?’
‘There were some building works at the back.’
‘But shouldn’t the security guards have checked from the inside?’
‘Well, they didn’t and Bunton then asked for a ransom of £140,000 to set up a charity to provide free television licences to the elderly and the poor.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, Sidney, really. He said that the affluent society neglected their needs.’
‘Television licences?’
‘The BBC inflicts a tax on everyone regardless of income, as you know. The case gives you an idea of how much a Goya might be worth these days – £140,000 was the same amount the National Gallery had paid for it in 1965.’
‘So this could be another of your “sleepers”?’
‘I am pretty sure it’s a Goya. During the Peninsular War, in August 1812, Wellington was in Madrid following the Battle of Salamanca. Goya painted at least two portraits of him – one just of his bust with all his most recent medals . . .’
‘The one in the National Gallery?’
‘Correct, and an equestrian portrait that was put on display in September in the galleries of the Academia.’
‘Quick work.’
‘Well, originally, it wasn’t Wellington on the horse. Goya just changed the head and a bit of drapery on the body of a Spanish commander he’d already been working on. You have to think fast in wartime . . .’
‘To the victor, the spoils.’
‘Exactly. Wellington left Madrid in March 1813 with more than two hundred paintings seized from the palaces, convents and churches of Spain. He also brought several canvases of his own back to England: two portraits of himself, one of which he gave away to the Duchess of Leeds, and another two that remained rolled and unhung until the middle of the last century. One of these was of the Marquesa de Santa Cruz, but the authenticity of that painting has been disputed, so could he not have brought the one I’ve just found instead? Might the painting have been kept rolled up in Stratfield Saye and then sent on to West Riding Hall by a subsequent duke who found the subject matter too gloomy?’
‘And is it gloomy?’
‘The image is of a female nude looking at herself in the mirror. But instead of her reflection she sees the head of a donkey. Through a window to the right is a battlefield scene reminiscent of one of the Disasters of War, Infame Provecho: Infamous Gain. Behind, and to her left, an artist with an easel is painting her. I think this must be a self-portrait, because the pose is similar to one found in an earlier Goya painting, the family of the Infante Don Luis. The title, written on the back, is Nadie se Canoce: nobody knows himself. This is a reference to each part of the image; that the lack of self-knowledge applies to every subject: the female model, the painter, and the war. That same inscription, in similar handwriting, is found on one of Goya’s engravings.’
‘You’ve done your homework.’
‘The engraving is one of the Caprichos and it’s perfectly possible that the duke was given a set, because the series the family owns comes with explanations in Goya’s handwriting.’
Sidney tried to stick to the key facts as he remembered them. ‘Is the painting signed?’ he asked.
A fleeting look that managed to contain anger, disappointment and the fear of being caught out ran across Amanda’s eyes and forehead. ‘Unfortunately not. But I think the paperwork backs up my theory.’
Sidney persisted. He was determined to retain interest without being annoying. ‘It doesn’t mention the painting by name?’
‘It doesn’t, but I think there’s enough to go on. We also have to make sure this isn’t a pastiche or a later copy.’
‘And you are doing that?’
‘I’m going half and half with a friend of Daddy’s: Charles Beauvoir. He works in fine art and he’s already got one of his men on to it; X-rays and everything. I’ve been seeing him a bit and he’s on his uppers.’
‘“Seeing him a bit”?’
‘Nothing you need to worry about, Sidney. He may adore me, but you’re still top dog.’
‘On his uppers?’
‘Debt. He might even lose his estate. But he knows West Riding Hall and has had a bit of a sniff around, so he’s asked me to take a look. If they know Charles is interested they might cotton on to the fact that something’s up and revise their estimate. That would be a disaster. So I’m going to check up for him.’
‘Won’t they recognise you?’
‘In Leeds? I don’t think so. Besides, Charles is a bit short of the readies. So I’m going to buy the painting and we’ll split the proceeds later.’
Sidney never quite trusted his friend when she talked at speed. It was her way of heading off any alternative point of view. Perhaps she thought that the faster she spoke the more difficult it would be to contradict her. Sidney’s simplest tactic was therefore to wait until she exhausted herself.
‘So you’re taking the financial risk. Does your boss have anything to say about this, Amanda?’
‘Roland Russell? Why should he?’
‘Have you told him what you’re planning to do?’
‘Not specifically.’
‘But will he find out that you have been offering your services to art dealers? And what will he say if he does?’
‘I don’t think he’ll mind. He does it all the time. I’m only buying a painting. I don’t have to seek his permission.’
‘But you are using your reputation to increase its value.’
‘That’s true.’
‘By how much?’
‘If it’s a real Goya then it will sell for thirty or forty times as much as a painting by José de Madrazo y Agudo. At the moment, minor paintings by Florentine and Spanish School artists are going for two or three thousand pounds. If you can reattribute and add a distinguished name then you can resell for over £100,000.’
‘And a Goya?’
‘I’ve checked. Between 1951 and 1969 his prices have increased nineteenfold. The last set of La Touromaquia, his thirty-three bullfighting scenes, went for £11,000 last year, and those were prints. An undiscovered Goya painting could solve all of Charles’s problems at a stroke. The estimate is only £1,500.’
‘So it’s in his interest to buy it and get it reauthenticated. Would that be by you, by any chance?’
‘And one other.’
‘And who might that be?’
‘Xavier Morata. He’s the world expert on Goya.’
‘Does he know about any of this?’
‘Don’t be daft, Sidney. If he knew he’d be on to it and want to buy it too. This whole business depends on the utmost secrecy.’
‘But what if this Morata fellow refuses to help you or doesn’t agree with the reauthentication?’
‘He won’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Never you mind, Sidney. There are ways and means. The art world is sometimes quite complicated.’
‘You mean that every man has his price. It sounds dubious. I don’t understand how you can reauthenticate your own painting.’
‘It’s not illegal. People do it all the time.’
‘Then why can’t you keep all the money? Why do you have to have this Charles person?’
‘Because he spotted the painting first and I am a decent woman.’
‘And why does he need you? Why can’t your man just go straight to Morata?’
‘Because he can’t trust Morata, he doesn’t have the cash and I’ve already done half the detective work for him.’
‘I wish we could make sure that you are not taking any undue risk . . .’
‘I’m not.’
‘. . . with both your money and your reputation. I can see that it’s in your interest to make the authentication stick; but can you trust yourself to behave objectively as an art historian?’
‘I think, Sidney, you’d be just as squeamish if I asked you to behave equally objectively as a priest. I stand to make a mint on this.’
That Sunday it was Sidney’s turn to take the Harvest Festival service, a celebration of East Anglian bounty where apples, plums and pears, marrows, pumpkins, kale and cabbage were brought forward to be blessed along with tinned ham, salmon, baked beans, bottles of cider and home-made carrot wine. Sprinkled around the main display were harvest loaves, jam and treacle tarts, and unwanted cans of peaches, pineapple chunks and condensed milk.
Anna joined a parade of Brownies and Girl Guides, each carrying a corn dolly as they processed around the Nave of Ely Cathedral to a heartfelt rendition of ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’. Sidney preached on a text by Robert Louis Stevenson – ‘Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but the seeds you plant’ – offered prayers of gratitude and compassion, celebrated communion and sent the congregation on its way with the admonition to ‘Let All the World in Every Corner Sing’.
Sidney’s good mood after the service was lowered when the dean asked him for a quiet word over a pre-lunch drink. He had told his archdeacon to be particularly vigilant in counting the money donated during the offertory hymn, because several of the clergy had recently noticed discrepancies between the total entered into the account book and the amount subsequently banked by the head verger.
‘It’s like the Mrs Price Ridley situation in Murder at the Vicarage.’ (Felix Carpenter was an Agatha Christie aficionado.)
‘I don’t know if I recall it.’
‘She was convinced that she had put a pound in the collection, but when the total amount was posted she was pained to observe that one ten-shilling note was the highest amount mentioned. The vicar brushes it off, she complains to Colonel Protheroe, he creates a stink, the vicar wishes he was dead and the next thing we know the colonel is murdered.’
‘I think that’s where fiction departs from fact, Felix.’
‘And the vicar is a suspect! It’s a tricky situation. These things can get out of hand, Sidney. We all know Ted’s never been that good with numbers, so we have to establish whether this is a series of mistakes or if he really has been cooking the books.’
‘Or if it’s not him at all.’
The dean was not impressed by such a suggestion. ‘That would make one of the clergy culpable.’
‘I know that.’
The dean poured out Sidney’s glass of white wine, remembering, at last, that his guest couldn’t stand sherry. ‘I don’t think it’s likely. The recent decimalisation has, of course, confused matters. We are used to setting aside the old currency and people pretending they are still contributing by throwing in their old pennies and threepenny bits, but this has been going on for over a year now. The amount deposited in the bank is never quite what anyone remembers it being and because we do the vestry accounts in pencil, it’s easy enough to amend.’
‘So I imagine Miss Morgan is now suggesting we change to ink?’
‘Then, if you make a mistake you can Tipp-Ex over it, but an auditor can still spot if there have been alterations.’
‘How much has gone missing?’
The dean sank into his armchair and crossed his long legs. ‘None of us can be sure. It’s half a crown one week, but it might be as much as ten bob the next.’
‘I think we’re supposed to say fifty pence these days.’
‘Out of a total of twenty pounds it soon mounts up. Why do you think he’s doing it?’
‘We don’t know that he is, Felix. His sister’s been ill. And he does the pools. But Ted doesn’t look like a spendthrift.’
‘Although we probably don’t pay him very well. We need to be more vigilant, Sidney, that’s the thing.’
‘If we don’t suspect Ted then it has to be one of the canons, or the precentor.’
‘Anyone who celebrates and has time in the vestry.’
The dean put down his wine glass and leant forward in his chair. ‘I’ve delegated the investigation to Miss Morgan. She’s going over the accounts for the last three years and is planning to put a new system in place.’
‘Envelopes. Everyone on the electoral roll will have them, and then they can put the money inside every Sunday. No one else can see how much other people give and there will be no more cash temptingly out in the open to steal. She’s also going to set up regular donations by standing order so the congregation can pay from their bank accounts.’
Sidney thought momentarily about the economics of the situation. The whole process of collecting money on open platters was a delicate exercise that alternated between the pride of the generous and the humiliation of the poor. Perhaps anonymity might help, and a standing order from the bank might make contributions more regular, particularly during the holiday season. But there were also disadvantages.
‘Do you think people will agree?’ he asked. ‘It means that during the offertory they will have to pass the plate on as if they aren’t giving anything at all.’
‘No. They put in their envelopes.’
‘Not if they are paying by standing order. They won’t want the embarrassment of seeming to give nothing.’
‘We could provide them with special badges.’
‘I don’t think so, Felix.’
‘Well, Miss Morgan is convinced that we need a new system and she will set it all up so we don’t have to worry. Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘Providing we can trust her.’
‘We do. And it’s one less thing for us. You know we’ve never been very good at all this.’
‘We like to imagine we have our minds on higher things, but sometimes I think it’s just that none of us can be bothered,’ the dean admitted.
‘I suppose it is because the money is not our own.’
‘Perhaps if our salaries were dependent on the amount the congregation gave we’d be a bit more beady about it.’
‘They are.’
‘But not directly.’ Felix Carpenter stood up and made his way back to the bottle of white wine on the side-table. All this talk was giving him a headache. Like many clergy, he left the tedious business of domestic finance to his wife. ‘Anyway. Thank goodness for Miss Morgan. You know her last job was with an accountancy firm?’
‘That doesn’t make her an accountant.’
‘It gives her a start. And I don’t want the police involved just yet.’
‘The police?’
‘You know what I mean.’
Now Sidney realised why he was being drawn into the drama. There was no such thing as a free secretary. ‘So that’s why you are telling me all this?’
‘I am sure we can clear the matter up on our own, Sidney; especially if I let on at the next meeting of the Chapter that you might be involved.’
‘Please don’t do that.’
The dean pointed a finger at his archdeacon in mock suspicion. ‘Unless you are the culprit yourself?’
‘Felix . . .’
‘I have learned to be wary of any jokes involving crime. The situation always comes back to bite you . . .’
‘Very well. But you will keep an eye out, won’t you? Are you sure you won’t stay for lunch? Cordelia is experimenting with a new dish: Veal sine nomine.’
‘That could be anything.’
‘I think it’s a type of lucky-dip casserole with cheese on top. I haven’t dared enquire too closely. One can’t have one’s fingers in every pie.’
Sidney was intrigued. ‘I wonder about the origins of that expression, Felix. How many people eat with their hands these days? And what if the pie is hot?’
‘Doesn’t Shakespeare use the phrase? He seems to say most things. Isn’t it about people going secretly into kitchens and tasting all the pies before they are served? I think it’s Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII. “The devil speed him! No man’s pie is freed from his ambitious finger!” You will need to be careful, Sidney.’
‘Wasn’t Cardinal Wolsey beheaded?’
‘Exactly. We don’t want people saying the same thing about you.’
Sidney wondered whether to tell Geordie about the problem with the collection money the next time they met in the Prince Albert but decided that police attention would only exacerbate the situation. Instead, he asked how much his friend knew of fraud in the art world.
‘Is this about Amanda?’
‘It might be.’
‘You mean you won’t tell me until I have given you a general answer to a hypothetical question?’
After a well-edited briefing, Geordie did not seem to think that Amanda was guilty of any wrongdoing. ‘It’s like getting good information on the horses and refusing to share it so the odds don’t drop. She’s betting on her own expertise.’
‘She says she’s also unearthed the documentation that proves it.’
‘As long as that hasn’t been faked or stolen then she should be all right. But I don’t know that much about it, Sidney. The art world has its own rules, just like the university.’
‘And the Church.’
‘Why don’t you ask that friend of your old curate – Simon Hackford? He knows a thing or two about the business.’
‘He’s more of a furniture man.’
‘But he deals in art. He’ll know. Then you could see Leonard at the same time. I’ve always thought it’s a pity he’s not a priest any more.’
‘He was better in the parish than he thought he was. You know, he was the kindest man I’ve ever worked with.’
‘Those who think they are good “people persons” are often the worst. His successor, for example . . .’
‘Malcolm? He’s not too bad.’
‘The thing is, Sidney, I never trust people who are relentlessly cheerful. They’ve always got something to hide.’
‘Or they’re heading for a deep depression in old age. But Malcolm means well. He has a good, honest faith.’
‘It’s a difficult business, sincerity. People go on about it as if it’s a good thing, but murderers are sincere when you think about it. Even Hitler was sincere. It didn’t do Germany much good. Not that I’d say any such thing to Hildegard.’
‘Please don’t. You know she doesn’t have much of a sense of humour.’
‘German.’
‘Stop it, Geordie. You know that sets her off.’
‘She’s stronger than you think.’
Sidney resisted the temptation to say that he probably knew his wife better than his friend did, and returned to the subject. ‘I’m still worried about Amanda.’
‘The art malarkey? Some of it doesn’t sound right, I’ll give you that. I don’t understand why the aristocracy would be so careless about a masterpiece. If it is a Goya, and they got it direct from the artist, they wouldn’t just give it away to a relative.’
‘Amanda says his paintings weren’t fashionable in the nineteenth century. His work took a while to catch on.’
‘Didn’t I read somewhere that the last time they had an exhibition in London they had to hide all the pictures in a container lorry filled with tomatoes? You wouldn’t want that crashing.’
‘It’s remarkable how often lost masterpieces turn up, though, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Sidney. But it’s not so extraordinary when a family needs a lot of cash at the same time. You’re sure they haven’t hinted at all this to Amanda so that she overbids on a painting that’s not a Goya at all? I don’t want her to be the victim of a sting.’
‘You think she could be being set up?’
‘If something seems too good to be true, Sidney, then it generally is.’
‘So do I, but when money’s involved, trust and judgement tend to go out the window.’
Sidney had wanted to ask Leonard and Simon Hackford over for lunch for a few months now and Amanda’s intrigue provided a useful excuse. Hildegard prepared a golden harvest casserole, with chicken marinated in cider, honey and soy sauce with sliced peaches added towards the end.
‘You wouldn’t think it would work, but it does,’ she said. ‘A bit like our relationship, my darling.’
‘Careful,’ Leonard warned as Sidney opened his mouth to reply.
Hildegard smiled. ‘My husband has been on very shaky ground recently.’
‘Another case?’
‘Not yet,’ said Sidney. ‘It’s Amanda. She thinks she has discovered a masterpiece that no one else knows about.’
‘Didn’t she once uncover a Holbein?’
‘This time it’s a Goya.’
‘Not her period,’ Simon warned. ‘She’ll have to be careful who to trust.’
‘I suppose it’s best not to trust anyone at all. But that’s not very Christian.’
‘What’s Beauvoir like?’
‘Almost bankrupt.’
‘And therefore desperate. Has Amanda told you much about the painting itself? Has it ever been restored or “improved”? How much of the original is intact?’
Sidney thought for a moment. ‘I’ve always wondered if, once they start retouching, you can still refer to the painting as having been executed by the hand of the master; especially if we can no longer tell what is original and what has been restored. When does restoration become an act of deception? Is the subsequent appreciation of the art any less real?’
‘When a woman wears make-up is she still the same woman?’ Hildegard asked. ‘Or is she, perhaps, even more of herself – herself perfected?’
‘It is a complex area,’ Leonard began, ‘the question of originality in an age of reproduction. A photograph has less value than an engraving and an engraving has less than a painting. But if the engraving was done first . . .’
‘Amanda says that is unlikely.’
‘But if it was, then the block for the engraving would be the original work of art and should therefore be worth more than the painting.’
‘The first work is not always the most valuable,’ said Simon. ‘Think of studies for paintings, preparatory drawings. You could argue that those works were the true originals, the beginning of the act of creation.’
‘But the finished work requires so much more effort,’ Sidney observed. ‘Surely labour, skill, time and application have their price?’
‘Isn’t the question of apprentices and assistants relevant?’ Hildegard asked. ‘If other people have helped, can the work of art still be called original?’
‘It depends on the execution,’ said Simon.
‘What if it is a great painting in its own right but doesn’t happen to be by Goya? How much does the name “Goya” add value, even though the painting without its attribution should already be valuable and might even be better?’
Sidney took up his wife’s argument. ‘How much does the context within an artist’s oeuvre add value? Can a work of art have an independent value, freed of its original setting and outside the biography of the creator?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then why do people concern themselves so much with authenticity?’
‘I think it is all to do with the hand of the master,’ said Simon. ‘You are one step away from the flick of the artist’s brush. If you touch the surface of the painting it is as close as you can get to the indefinable spirit of the creator. It’s almost religious.’
‘And that’s just how the priesthood works,’ said Sidney. ‘You could argue, Leonard, that even though you have resigned the priesthood, you still retain your status because you have been ordained. You took part in a ceremony of blessing that goes back to Christ himself. Hands were laid upon you. That cannot be reversed. Other people may be able to dress up as priests, they may even be able to behave as priests, but they are not priests, just as a Goya painting by another artist is not a Goya.’
Driving up towards Yorkshire, Sidney wondered what else he might have been doing instead of gallivanting off to an auction with Charles Beauvoir and his oldest friend. A couple of years ago he could have gone with Hildegard to hear Radu Lupu win the Leeds Piano Competition; in Lent he could have attended a retreat with the monks at Mirfield; or that very Saturday he could have taken his father to see Don Revie’s mighty Leeds United play Everton.
It was a glorious day for a trip on the road. The leaves on the trees were at that brittle yellow stage before they transformed themselves into the full autumn glory of russet, gold and burnt toffee. A gentle wind pushed the clouds so steadily that the flow of light across the hills was in constant flux. A murder of crows started up out of the fields.
Amanda explained how vital it was to retain an air of detachment during the auction. She didn’t want people to guess that they were going to target the one painting. ‘You’re my cover, Sidney. No one will think that a priest can afford any of this stuff.’
‘But once the bidding starts it’ll be obvious you’re interested.’
‘Never forget the art of surprise. I’ll come in as late as I dare. We should watch for the competition.’
‘I’ll be keeping a very low profile,’ said Charles, although Sidney found it hard to see how a tall, bulky aristocrat in a windowpane-checked coat and trilby could carry that off.
Charles explained about family tradition and the fear of forfeiting a country estate that had been theirs for generations. It made him who he was to such an extent that if he lost his home he would lose all sense of himself.
Sidney was about to ask how he had managed to accumulate such debts, if it was through gambling or incompetence, but Amanda headed off any further questions. ‘Death duties are so terrible,’ she said. ‘It’s almost impossible to pay them.’
‘I should have kept all my investments in property and antiques. But I’d always been taught to diversify,’ said Charles.
‘Have you had to sell up?’ Sidney asked.
‘I should say so.’
‘Only I once heard a man say that you should never convert a paper loss into a real loss. You wait for the market to come right.’
‘I’d expect a Christian to say that,’ Charles replied. ‘It’s your whole philosophy: waiting. Some people can’t and if you are forced to sell and unable to choose the moment then you are as stuffed as the proverbial turkey.’
West Riding Hall was a smaller version of Harewood House, built in the eighteenth century by the same architect, with a large Italianate terrace, a series of cottage, rose and fruit gardens and a ha-ha that separated the grounds from the nearby farmland, stables and tenanted houses. The Fairley family were selling off as many of their possessions as they could. They too had been hit by death duties.
The auction was divided into the contents of the rooms – hall, drawing room, study, gun-room, stairs, bedrooms and library – with plenty of furniture, carpets, stags’ heads and curios. Selling alongside the Old Master paintings was a series of fine French and Continental silver, extensive sets of porcelain dinner plates, Japanese bronze vases, model ships, barographs, barometers, clocks, guns, and the head of a water buffalo that had been shot in East Africa. There was a random assortment of Persian rugs, antique books and furniture; a Louis XV tulipwood and marquetry commode, three Italian cassones, a collection of taxidermy (including a bizarre display of frogs at a boxing match) and some Dutch blue-and-white delftware. There were also lacquer cabinets, walnut hall chairs, an Etruscan satyr, two fine Egyptian cats and an ancient terracotta figure of a woman playing knucklebones.
Sidney was intrigued to see one of his old sparring partners, the journalist Helena Mitchell (née Randall), in attendance. ‘I thought you normally covered crime?’ he asked.
‘I could say the same about you, my old friend. Perhaps it’s both of our days off?’
‘Do you think if the two of us are here then the chances of anything going wrong are doubled?’
‘I’m writing a special “state-of-the-nation” piece. It’s with a photographer. We’re going to show contrasting Britain. You know the kind of thing: a stately-home auction and a struggling coal mine slap bang next to each other.’
‘Not exactly subtle.’
‘There’s not much about contemporary journalism that is.’
‘And the photographer?’
‘Frank Downing. I’ve known him for years. He’s mainly done war stuff – you’ll have seen his Biafran photos – but he wants a rest from being shot at. He’s doing a book: England Through the Lens.’
Downing was on the other side of the room framing up an image; a handsome man with ‘colourful past’ written all over him. He carried a Billingham bag and wore a gilet packed full of lenses, filters and light meters. Sidney remembered another photographer, Daniel Morden, planning a similar venture over ten years previously. It was odd to think how the old ideas came round again.
‘He doesn’t like me going away, especially at weekends, but it’s overtime and we need the money. You know how it is.’
‘Hildegard is often telling me how we need to economise.’
‘No one joins the Church of England for the money, Sidney. But now you’re here I feel right at home. Something unusual is bound to happen. You must have been out of trouble for, what is it, weeks? It would probably be easier if the paper made me their Sidney Chambers correspondent. It would save so much time.’
‘You’d soon get bored of me.’
‘That’s one thing I know for sure will never happen. I will never tire of you, Sidney. I’m just amazed how you’ve got away with it all for so long. But we should take a good look at what’s on sale before the bidding starts. God knows who all these people are and what will turn up.’
Plump women with sharp elbows and an advanced air of entitlement were shown to their chairs by weary men who would probably rather have been on a Mediterranean cruise than stuck in a damp environment that smelled of dying lilies and old school dinners.
Sidney, Charles and Amanda sat next to a few young would-be connoisseurs who dressed like their parents. Also in attendance was the owner of a group of Chinese restaurants, a tweedy hotelier after some ‘classy tat’, and an aristocratic couple who would never buy anything but were there simply to check the prices and revalue their possessions accordingly. There were journalists from the Yorkshire Post and the West Riding Gazette, a local estate agent, a woman Amanda recognised from the Courtauld Institute speaking in Spanish to a friend with a notebook (how much did they know? she wondered) and a mustachioed man in a sheepskin coat who had just won the pools and was looking for ‘some proper swank’ for his new country house outside Ripon.
The auctioneer was a suave, thin, silver-haired man with a slight stutter that might have been an affectation in order to prolong the bidding. He was wearing a three-piece brown tweed suit and a yellow polka-dot bow-tie. His quiet demeanour was perhaps a counter-intuitive attempt to persuade people that it was perfectly natural to spend vast sums of money on objects that might not merit the financial outlay.
Sidney was surprised how deceptively low some of the estimates were and was informed that the ‘punchy prices’ had been set to lure people into bidding. It was easy to get carried away by thinking ‘it’s only another twenty pounds’, as if the amount people had already offered no longer counted.
The heavy old furniture, some of it in poor condition, sold cheaply while the porcelain, the paintings and the taxidermy exceeded expectations. The bidding for the José de Madrazo y Agudo, Amanda’s alleged Goya, started at £1,000, with the auctioneer announcing that it was a handsome curio that ‘should clean up nicely’. There appeared to be two rival bidders and the price reached Amanda’s intended price of £4,000 in under a minute.
Sidney wondered whether she would continue, but every time he tried to give her one of his quizzical ‘Are you sure?’ looks she brushed him aside to concentrate as the auctioneer kept up the interest.
‘I’m at £5,000. Do I have £5,100? Thank you, sir. £5,200. Madam? £5,300, £5,400, £5,600, £5,700. Was that a nod or a bid? Thank you. £5,800, £5,900, SIX THOUSAND POUNDS. It’s with YOU at the back, sir . . .’
Who were these rival bidders and did they suspect as much as Amanda? Might one of them be a plant to push the other two up? Sidney knew that as long as there were three people bidding, the price was likely to rise, but he didn’t expect them to reach £10,000 in the next minute and a half. This was double the amount that Amanda had said she would bid and the battle showed no sign of abating. By the time the price hit £15,000, one of the bidders dropped out but that still left what appeared to be an American gentleman in the race to acquisition.
‘Now at £16,800, £16,900, SEVENTEEN THOUSAND POUNDS. It’s with you, madam. Seventeen thousand pounds. £17,100, £17,200, £17,300, £17,400, £17,500, £17,600, £17,700, £17,800, £17,900. EIGHTEEN THOUSAND POUNDS. At eighteen thousand pounds, do I hear £18,100? Thank you, sir. £18,100, £18,200, £18,300, £18,400, £18,500 – with you now, madam. £18,500. Sir?’
The rival bidder shook his head.
‘Last chance at £18,500. All done? No more? No one? Going once, going twice, at £18,500 . . .’
The hammer came down.
‘Sold to the lady in the red coat at £18,500.’
There was applause. Charles Beauvoir asked Amanda what the hell she thought she had been doing. With the auction house adding their charges to the hammer price and the cost of transport, insurance, cleaning and restoration, the total was likely to touch £25,000.
‘I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t go above £4,000; £5,000 in an emergency: how are you going to cover it?’
‘With the profit.’
‘But what if you’re wrong?’
‘I’m not.’
‘It’s £25,000, Amanda,’ said Sidney. ‘Isn’t that the cost of your house?’
‘How did you know?’
‘You told me.’
‘Well, risk is exciting, don’t you think? Provided all goes well after the reauthentication, we are still going to make around £180,000 profit at the next sale.’
‘And if you’ve made an error of judgement?’ Sidney asked.
‘I haven’t.’
‘But if you have?’
‘Then I’m ruined.’
Back in Ely, Sidney’s mind turned to lesser expenditure and the curious case of the offertory collection. Vanessa Morgan had tightened her net of suspicion.
‘It’s either Ted Burgess or Canon Jocelyn Smith.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because they were the only two people present when the money banked does not match the money raised.’
‘I find it hard to imagine either of them stealing from the cathedral. Why would Jocelyn want to do such a thing? Doesn’t he have everything he needs?’
‘That may be the case, Archdeacon. But does he have everything he wants? Perhaps there’s a bit of devilry in him?’
It was true that Jocelyn had recently read a newspaper article which argued that men became more attractive as they get older, and he had been vain enough to think this applied to him, but that, as far as Sidney was concerned, was the limit of his sin.
Miss Morgan was not so sure. ‘What about the lure of disobedience and the thrill of the theft? Canon Smith may be compensating for the mundanity of his surname. As for Ted, well, you just have to look at him.’
‘You cannot judge people by appearances, Miss Morgan. I know that you wouldn’t approve of that.’
‘But it’s obvious he has very little money. Have you seen his shoes?’
‘Perhaps we should buy him a new pair?’
‘Not until we get to the bottom of this, Archdeacon. Charity has to be earned.’
‘I’m not sure the quality of mercy should ever be strained.’
‘There’s a difference between drama on a stage and the reality of life itself. We can’t all be in a Shakespeare play and, before you say anything more, I would ask you not to tell me which character I most remind you of.’
‘I wouldn’t dare do such a thing,’ said Sidney. ‘You are beyond comparison: quite unique.’
‘I’m not sure you intend that as a compliment, Archdeacon, but I’ll take it all the same.’
A week later Amanda travelled with Charles Beauvoir to have their painting examined by the appropriate Goya expert. Under a swooping black seventeenth-century cloak Xavier Morata was dressed entirely in red. He was a thin but fit man with long dark hair streaked with grey, a waxed moustache and a pointed beard that made him look like a cross between Salvador Dalí and a Manchester United footballer.
He shone a light across the surface of the painting, took out his magnifying glass and scraped a tiny sample of paint from the edge of the canvas where it would have been hidden under the frame. He then asked to see the paperwork and pointed out that the picture was not named specifically and the inventory could refer to almost any painting.
‘The watermark on the documentation is genuine; D and C BLAUW, which occurs in at least two of Goya’s drawings, dated 1810, and now in the Prado,’ said Amanda.
‘And you think the handwriting is Goya’s?’
‘It is a fair match with other documents in Wellington’s possession.’
‘People were taught to write very similarly in those days. It is not necessarily Goya’s handwriting . . .’
‘The title also matches one of his Caprichos.’
Xavier Morata completed his examination, took off his glasses and, after an overdramatic pause, announced: ‘I think this is a pastiche at best; and a contemporary forgery at worst. Goya wouldn’t reuse his subject matter three times like this. The composition is too crowded. He preferred the simple strong image rather than a portmanteau. The lack of a signature is also a problem. He liked to sign. I need only remind you of the 1797 portrait of the Duchess of Alba, pointing to his autograph on the ground beneath her feet: Solo Goya.’
‘Are you suggesting the reclining figure here could also be her?’
‘No,’ said Amanda. ‘I think it is Pepita Tudó, the Spanish Prime Minister’s lover; the same woman that is in the celebrated Maja paintings.’
‘Why would he want to ridicule her with an ass’s head in the mirror?’
‘This is a vanity painting. Goya is the young immortal painter; any model, no matter how beautiful, will grow old and die.’
‘And the war in the background?’
‘A sign of the times in which they live. The painting is a nude, a memento mori and a vanity painting all in one.’
‘Goya always tells one story; never three. I cannot authenticate on this evidence.’
‘Could you say that it is possibly by Goya?’
‘No. You should have come to me before you bought the picture.’
‘But then you would have bought it for yourself.’
‘You think I can afford that kind of money, Mrs Richmond?’
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Then you should have thought about that before you bid.’
‘But if it is a Goya . . .’ said Charles.
‘It is not.’
Charles had begun to sweat around the neck. ‘And what if we made it worth your while to say that it was?’ he asked.
‘That would be most improper. I have my reputation to consider.’
‘You might have enough to convince an auction house to take it on. But without my word, I don’t think you will get very far. Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s will ask me.’
‘We’ll give you £10,000,’ said Charles.
‘Please do not insult me.’
Amanda was surprised by such resistance. ‘You want more than that?’
‘I can’t be bought. If anyone found out, I’d never work again. Thirty years of ignominy? You can’t put a price on that.’
‘Try me,’ said Charles.
At Canonry House, Anna was watching Look: Mike Yarwood on television with her mother. They were laughing at the impressions of Harold Wilson, Denis Healey and Edward Heath. Sidney wondered how much Anna understood and how much the joke fell flat if you didn’t know whom he was impersonating. The entertainer ended his show with a song prefaced by the words ‘And this is me . . .’ but, Sidney thought, was it really Mike Yarwood or was he performing a showbiz version of himself? When was ‘Mike Yarwood’ really Mike Yarwood? When are we ever ourselves?
Amanda telephoned and attempted a breezy tone to assure her friend that the situation was under control, but Sidney knew her well enough to recognise that she feared she had made a colossal mistake.
Later that night he raised the question of authenticity in literature, art and music and the differences between an original, a fake and a pastiche. He asked Hildegard what, for example, made a Bach piece better than anything by his pupils or his imitators?
‘I think there has to be an authority of expression; a sense of control that is also combined with effortlessness – what the Italians call sprezzatura. It never shows how hard it is. It seems easy, right, natural, even if it is hard to play.’
‘With music it needs interpretation and performance. It cannot just exist on the page.’
‘It can. But it is meant for more than that. It also needs an audience to become itself; just as we always need other people to help us realise who we are.’
‘Perhaps, then, there is no such thing as the authentic self? We are defined by our parents, our children, our friends and those we love. We are dependent on how other people see us and change us; and how we change them.’
There was, however, no alteration in the formal authentication of the Goya painting and, in a second telephone call, Amanda confessed that she was starting to panic. The auction house was requesting immediate payment (bailiffs had been mentioned) and Roland Russell, her boss at the British Museum, had heard what he referred to as ‘unsavoury stories’. If it were true that she and Charles Beauvoir had tried to bribe Xavier Morata to say that a certain painting was a Goya when it plainly was not, then she would have to look elsewhere for employment.
‘Bribery, Amanda! Whatever possessed you?’
‘It wasn’t me. It was Charles.’
‘Were you in the room at the time?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t stop him or retract?’
‘It’s only Morata’s word against ours. Nothing happened. He said no and then reported us.’
‘And you’re denying it.’
‘I can’t really admit it, can I?’
‘But you could be ruined. Morata might try to do that.’
‘But if he does then that will prove the painting is a Goya.’
‘Has he offered to buy it from you?’
‘Not yet. But I think he is waiting until we are desperate.’
‘And the Fairley family won’t take it back?’
‘The deal is binding.’
‘Why can’t you put it up for sale? What about the underbidder? The man who stopped at £18,400? Can you find out who he is?’
‘The auctioneer won’t say, but I suspect Morata knows. He may even have been in on it. This is jealousy and envy. It is his revenge on us for preventing his own little adventure.’
‘It was your adventure too.’
‘I will not let him beat me.’
‘Can’t your parents help?’
‘I don’t want to tell them too much. They’ve hardly recovered from my divorce. And then if I lose my job as well . . .’
‘There’s no chance of that, surely?’
‘There’s every chance, Sidney.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’m taking the painting to Spain. There’s a man in the Prado. He’ll authenticate it for me.’
‘I’m going to make him do it by any means I know how.’
Vanessa Morgan’s investigations into clergy finances settled on the head verger and she insisted that Sidney question him. This was straightforward but awkward; Ted Burgess was an uncomplicated character without guile or malice who had served Sidney well ever since he had arrived in Ely.
‘Am I in trouble?’ the verger asked.
‘That depends on your answers,’ Miss Morgan replied.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You need to tell us if you feel you’ve done anything wrong,’ said Sidney, ‘even if you didn’t intend to do so. It may be a misunderstanding.’
He mentioned the discrepancies in the accounting of collection money. In many cases there had been shortfalls between the money they thought had been donated and the amount that was finally banked. But in one case, rather surprisingly, there had been a surplus. Did Ted know anything about that?
‘I’ve always been honest.’
‘We’re not saying that you’re not. Have you, yourself, been short recently?’
‘It’s always tight, Archdeacon.’
‘So you’ve been taking money from us?’ Miss Morgan asked.
Sidney placed a restraining hand on her arm. It was the first time he had touched her and he was sure she flinched at the intimacy. ‘Let’s not call it that,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should see it in terms of borrowing. Is that what you’ve been doing, Ted? Taking a little money to tide you over and then paying it back when you can. Is that what accounts for that surplus payment?’
‘It’s not stealing. I haven’t done that.’
‘We’re not saying it is, Ted, because I know you. You always planned to give the money back. Perhaps it was easier than borrowing money from the bank?’
‘They wouldn’t give me a loan.’
‘So you thought of this as some kind of informal loan system that you were too embarrassed to tell anyone about?’
‘Or rather,’ Miss Morgan cut in, ‘it was one that you felt you could get away with.’
Ted was on the verge of tears. It appalled Sidney that this decent, slightly lost man on the verge of retirement, who had fought bravely in France at the end of the First World War, should be subjected to unnecessary humiliation.
‘I just needed the cash to help out,’ he said. ‘I’m going to pay it all back, I promise. It will work out about even in the end.’
Miss Morgan resisted the need for compassion. ‘About?’
‘I didn’t keep accounts. I was more “back of a fag packet” in my calculations.’
‘Perhaps if you gave up smoking you’d be better off?’
‘We all have our weaknesses, Miss Morgan.’
‘Tell us what’s been troubling you,’ said Sidney.
‘I don’t like to talk about it. It’s a frightening thing, debt. There’s only so much you can do on twenty-seven pounds a week and with retirement only a few years away. I got a bit scared, I suppose. I don’t have savings and the thought of living on a pension that’s less than a tenner, well, I don’t really know what that’s about. Nine pounds and seventy pence for a married couple? I can’t work out how we’re going to live on that, what with inflation and the cost of electric and the dogs.’
‘We all have to make sacrifices,’ said Vanessa.
‘But some of these things are necessities.’
‘If you can’t afford to keep your dogs . . .’
‘You think I’m supposed to give up their company?’
‘You have to cut your cloth.’
‘It depends on how much cloth you’ve got in the first place. It’s like the politicians telling the people to tighten their belts. Some of us are down to the last notch.’
Vanessa turned to Sidney as if she wanted nothing more to do with this man. He wondered whether she had been in a situation like this, or ever known poverty. ‘What were you spending the money on, Ted?’ he asked.
‘Nothing fancy. The vet, mainly.’
‘You mean the dogs have been ill?’
‘I love them so much. I won’t see them harmed.’
‘No one’s asking you to let them suffer.’
‘She was.’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ Miss Morgan replied. ‘But you could give up smoking.’
‘I suppose you want me to give up eating and drinking as well. It would probably be better for you all if I just got on with it and died.’
‘Now you’re being dramatic.’
‘What do you expect me to be?’
‘Look, Ted,’ said Sidney. ‘I am sure we can help if you are on the breadline.’
‘It’s not that. I’m just above it. I’m not skint. I’m poor. There’s a difference. Being broke and being poor are different things, Archdeacon. I can’t see how I will ever have enough. It’s going to be cold this winter.’
‘We will make sure you have enough blankets. I will talk to the dean about a pay rise.’
‘The vergers in Winchester are about to be sacked.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘Yes, we do, unless they agree to do the cleaning too, which puts those cleaners, who are already employed, out of a job. Why can’t people treat others properly? Even in a cathedral things go wrong.’
‘It’s an expensive place to run. The Church isn’t as well-off as it used to be.’
‘You can’t put a price on people, Archdeacon.’
‘That’s very true.’
‘But,’ Miss Morgan interrupted, ‘neither can you run a deficit for ever.’
Sidney tried to calm the situation down. It seemed ridiculous that in the same month Amanda had paid nearly £25,000 for a painting, a cathedral verger was worried about a pint of beer and a packet of cigarettes that cost twenty-one pence.
‘You know we have a charitable foundation for the needy, Ted. Almshouses. Perhaps you could move in there?’
‘I’m not old enough for them.’
‘Better to go too early than too late.’
‘I don’t know about that. Some people say that about life. Besides, I didn’t like to ask.’
‘I don’t like to depend on charity. I just needed a bit of help to see me through. I’ll stop now. Honest.’
‘I will help you make an application to the charity.’
‘There’s no need for that.’
‘There is, Ted. You’ve been here thirty years. Let us help you.’
‘What’s going to happen to me?’
‘There may well be consequences,’ Miss Morgan warned, before picking up her files and heading off to her next meeting.
Sidney stayed on. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll talk to the dean. And I promise you, Ted, I’ll make sure there are no consequences. Come and have a drink.’
While Amanda was away in Spain, Sidney returned to his duties, his wife and his child. He was so grateful for the latitude Hildegard allowed him in their marriage but wondered why she did it. Was she granting him the freedom to be himself or was she happier to be rid of him so that she could get on with her own life? He couldn’t work it out and decided not to spend too much time thinking about it lest it make him feel even more guilty or selfish than he already did.
It was easiest to feel most himself when he could tick off what he knew was right: preaching a good sermon, visiting the sick, walking Byron, giving people the time they needed. What he had to do now, he decided, even if she might not properly appreciate it, was visit Mrs Maguire, his former housekeeper, who was now in a Cambridge care home and suffering from dementia.
As he bicycled from the station he wondered how much of her identity was dependent on self-awareness. Was she still ‘Sylvia Maguire’ even if she was no longer aware of who she was?
She was sitting in an armchair with her feet up and a rug over her legs. She was trying to pin her favourite brooch back on her blouse but could not remember how to do it.
‘Have we met before?’ she asked.
‘It’s Sidney. Let me help you . . .’
‘I can manage, thank you. Are you my father? Did you let me have this brooch?’
It was eleven cultured pearls on a sprig of silver leaves. Her husband Ronnie had given it to her before he went off to fight in the First World War.
‘No, that was from your husband.’
‘I’m too young to have a husband.’
‘I’m your priest. We are friends.’
‘Am I dying?’
‘Not yet.’
‘It feels like I am. Or I’ve already done it. Am I dead? Is this heaven? Where is everyone? They told me it would be different. Did you tell me? Who was it? It’s so hard to think. Is this a dream? Who am I?’
‘You’re Sylvia.’
‘That’s a nice name.’
‘Sylvia Maguire.’
‘I don’t think that’s right.’
‘You used to be Sylvia Reynolds. Then you married Ronnie.’
‘He died.’
‘How did he die? Did they tell me?’
‘I took his funeral. We were there together.’
‘I don’t think I was. I don’t even know who he is. Why would I go to the funeral of someone I don’t know?’
‘You were very good to him.’
‘Was he good to me?’
‘In the end he was.’
‘Are you good to me?’
‘I hope so. I try my best.’
‘Can’t you do any better?’
‘I’ll try, Sylvia.’
‘Who is Sylvia? And who are you?’
‘I’m Sidney.’
‘And we are friends. Did you say that? Does it mean I have to be kind to you?’
‘No, the other way round.’
‘What other way round? I don’t know any other way round. Don’t you know the right way round? Do you know right from wrong? Why don’t you tell me? Who are you again?’
‘I’m Sidney.’
He bumped into the dean on the way home, who said that he had let Ted off with a warning. Vanessa Morgan had been ‘unimpressed’ by the behaviour of the clergy. ‘I think she expected us to take a tougher line on petty theft.’
‘I’m not sure she’s in the right job, Felix.’
‘That is what I have suggested. I think she’s going to come and have a word with you in the pub.’
‘How does she know I’m going to be there?’
‘Thursdays. That’s your night with Inspector Keating. Everyone knows that.’
‘As long as she doesn’t get him involved.’
‘She may have a go.’
‘I think he’s not in the mood for petty theft. He has bigger fish to fry.’
‘Our Miss Morgan doesn’t consider herself one of life’s minnows.’
‘Indeed not, Felix. I must confess to being rather scared of her.’
‘She’s quite harmless when you get to know her.’
‘I’d rather not take the risk.’
That night, having told the men that she had expected to find them in the pub, her tone managing to combine the disappointed, the patronising and the aggressive, Miss Morgan announced she was leaving.
‘Already?’ Sidney asked.
‘I haven’t enjoyed working here.’
‘Oh, really?’ Geordie answered. He was already on his third pint. ‘And why is that?’
‘If you have to ask, Inspector . . .’
‘Is it the fact that they are all men?’
‘It is not only that.’
‘Or is it their complacency, absent-mindedness, vanity, disguised selfishness, laziness – do any of those questionable virtues spring to mind?’
‘You think you are being amusing, Inspector Keating, when, in point of fact, you are just being rude.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sidney. ‘I know how you disapprove and I’m sure you don’t like any of us very much.’
‘It’s not that I don’t like you, Archdeacon,’ Miss Morgan replied. ‘I just think you are a long way from Jesus. As is the Church of England.’
‘And what do you intend to do about that?’ Geordie asked.
‘Mr Chambers knows perfectly well. You may not think it likely, but the day will come. They are ordaining Joyce Bennett in Hong Kong at Christmas. Once you accept women into the Church everything will change.’
‘Women are already in the Church.’
‘But not as priests.’
‘Then I must wish you good luck. I am sorry if we have let you down.’
‘On the contrary, Archdeacon. You have made me more determined than ever.’
Mrs Maguire died on All Saints’ Day. She had not always been popular in the community and had had her battles with people who found her too judgemental. As far as she was concerned, it was no accident that she had been born on the day that Queen Victoria died, and some of the Grantchester villagers liked to joke that, when she got on her high horse, she probably thought she was the dead monarch’s reincarnation. And yet, despite the pronounced lack of a sense of humour, Sidney’s former housekeeper had served God well throughout her life, expected the best of people and kept her standards up to the end.
Sidney remembered how she had helped him set up home when he had first arrived in Grantchester, and seen him right about food and routine and the demands of his parishioners. Despite her strong traditional views, she was capable of recovering from an often over-hasty first impression, changing her mind when encouraged to do so and then lovably convincing herself that this new second opinion was how she had felt from the start. There had been no malice in her, and Sidney was convinced that she had lived as well as anyone. She had put up with Dickens and Byron, grown used to Amanda, welcomed Hildegard, understood Leonard and forgiven the husband who had deserted her. It wasn’t a complicated life, she hadn’t had the luxury of too much introspection, but she liked to think that everyone knew where they stood when she spoke to them, and they couldn’t ask for any more than that.
Sidney thought of those who might accompany her on her final journey: St Honoratus, the patron saint of bakers; St Gertrude of Nivelles, the patron saint of the fear of mice; St Eligius, the patron saint of jewellery; St Ambrose, the patron saint of argument; St Monica for the victims of adultery and St Thomas of Villanova for memory loss.
Given a healthful eternal life, Sylvia Maguire would have quite a few things to say for herself, he decided. She wouldn’t care what anyone else thought. She could be herself again.
The following day, Amanda was back from Madrid, and Sidney went down to see her in London. ‘I stayed in a little hotel off the Plaza de Santa Ana,’ she announced. ‘I lived almost entirely on garlic soup and suckling pig. The waiters at Botín, which is the oldest restaurant in the world, took pity on me. I ate every day at a table just next to the kitchens while I waited for the Prado to make up its mind. It was humiliating but necessary.’
‘And you were on your own?’
‘Absolutely. The trip had to be a secret. I didn’t want Xavier Morata ruining it all over again. It turns out he didn’t need to bother. I spent most of my time looking at paintings and trying to understand what it must have been like for Goya; to have been so much part of society, a life filled with colour and light, and then, at the end of his life, to be confined to deafness and blackness, making paintings of the living damned.’
‘They refused to accredit it?’
‘They believe it is, as stated in the catalogue, a painting by José de Madrazo y Agudo.’
‘But what about your documentation?’
‘Not specific enough, and, as Morata said, they thought it was “too crowded a composition”. He might just as well have briefed them.’
‘Perhaps he did?’
‘They also said it didn’t feel like a Goya – whatever that means. And so the painting is currently worth the estimate that was originally given in the first sale. Exactly £1,500.’
‘What about the other bidder?’
‘I think someone might have been trying to ruin me.’
‘You mean they knew your tactics? But how could they tell when to stop? You went far beyond any upper limit you told anyone about. They could have ended up with the painting and been in the same situation.’
‘I don’t think so. You know, Sidney, I’m pretty sure that Charles was behind it all.’
‘Charles? Why on earth would he do that?’
‘Because I cannot love him. I told him it was hopeless.’
‘You rejected him?’
‘I told him I was content to be his friend, but he was expecting more.’
‘It seems an extravagant and vengeful way of going about things. Why do you think it’s him?’
‘He was covering himself with two different options so he could get the painting without any financial outlay himself.’
‘You mean that you still think it’s a Goya . . .’
‘Of course I do . . .’
‘ . . . and that this whole affair has been some kind of conspiracy?’
‘Yes. It’s been run by a cartel of men who wanted to take advantage of a little rich girl who got just a bit too greedy and thought that she was rather better than she was. They wanted to teach me a lesson.’
‘Are you sure you’re not being paranoid?’
‘I don’t think so, Sidney. Charles knew about the house in Chester Row. He guessed my upper limit. He was sure I wouldn’t risk more than my home, but he put another bidder into the auction both to cover himself and to punish me. If the other bidder acquired the painting then presumably he had a separate deal. If I got it then he would still win either way: whether I shared the painting after the resale at a far higher price or if I was forced to give it directly to him because I couldn’t pay the auction house. Charles is in it with Morata.’
‘So you are saying that he’ll share the final profit with Morata rather than you; that you have been betrayed?’
‘The bribe was a bluff to throw me off the scent. They’ve done all this together and the Prado is in on it too. Now all they have to do is wait until I am desperate to sell.’
‘Have you challenged any of them about all this?’
‘I can’t. Charles has disappeared. His family say he’s gone abroad.’
‘Leaving you to pick up the pieces?’
‘There aren’t very many pieces to pick up.’
‘But you still have the painting.’
‘I do, but if I want to sell now, without accreditation, I’ll get £1,000 at best. I think I may be ruined. I had some savings and raised the money against my home, but if everything falls apart I’ll be left with pennies. I can’t imagine what I’m going to do or where on earth I’m going to live.’
‘Will you go back to your parents’?’
‘Can you imagine what that’s going to be like?’
‘You can always stay with us.’
‘I don’t think so, Sidney.’
‘It need only be for a little while, until this all blows over. You’re still holding the ace. You have the picture. Those men can’t make any profit without it. Can you not find a way of holding out?’
‘I’m already on the floor, Sidney. I never imagined how quickly I could lose not only my confidence, but every sense of who I am. I thought divorce was bad enough, but I could cope with that and with my brother dying in the war and my father becoming frail. I mean, I know people get old. Mummy’s hoping that if she pretends nothing is going to go wrong and refuses to acknowledge Daddy’s ill then he’ll somehow get better, but I know he won’t. He’s mortal. We’re all mortal. But when you think you’re going to lose your job you don’t know who you are any more. It defines me more than being the vacuous socialite everyone used to think I was.’
‘No one thought that.’
‘You remember we used to joke about each other, Sidney? I used to say that because you could be amusing it didn’t mean you were not serious.’
‘And I used to say that just because you were rich it didn’t make you stupid.’
‘Well I’ve proved it now. I’m not so rich any more. And perhaps I am even more foolish.’
‘You have made a mistake, that’s all. And you can rectify it.’
‘Perhaps. I could possibly make amends for the mistake but I can’t undo the professional damage. People will abandon me. They will worry that any association with me will sully their reputation. I had forgotten how fickle friendship can be. You’re the only one I can trust, Sidney.’
‘And Hildegard.’
‘Sometimes I am still not sure whether she likes me.’
‘She loves you, Amanda. She doesn’t have to prove it. She’s only amused to think what it would have been like . . .’
‘If we had married each other? Don’t.’
‘Those days are gone.’
‘Everything’s gone. I don’t know how much is left of me. I don’t know anything at all any more. I wish you’d stopped me getting into all this.’
‘I’ve never been able to prevent you doing anything, Amanda.’
‘But you know me best. And now I’m ruined.’
Sidney did not like to point out that Amanda could not be ‘ruined’ if she was still able to fall back on her parents and she had only been suspended from her job at the British Museum; he was sure that her boss liked her enough to restore her position once she had acknowledged both that Charles Beauvoir had ‘led her astray’ and that ‘lessons had been learned’. Amanda still had her beauty, her charm and her connections. She was hardly likely to starve.
He remembered Ted the verger’s point that there was a difference between being broke and being poor, and he had always rather despised people from rich families when they told him they ‘had no money’. Amanda had been chastened by an experience that was fuelled, in part, by greed; just as he, too, had been humbled recently by meetings with Miss Morgan and Mrs Maguire. Still, it didn’t take much to throw a life off balance. We just had to hold on tight to what made the best of us, he decided. Perhaps he would preach about that next Sunday: the illusion, or at least the confining limitations, of the self.
‘Will you be able to keep the painting?’ he asked.
‘As you say, it’s the only card I hold. I know a thousand pounds is still a lot of money, but I’m going to have to find a way of waiting until either the others come back and make me a proper offer or I can make a stronger case. Perhaps Xavier Morata will die and a new Goya expert will emerge from the shadows?’
‘You’re still sure you’re right?’
‘I’m certainly not going to let them defeat me, Sidney.’
‘You’re sounding better already.’
‘It’s a question of money and pride.’
‘And vanity.’
‘That too; and we both know what impostors they all are. You’ve taught me that, and I hope you will go on teaching me even if it takes a lifetime. I’ve still got so much to learn.’
‘And so have I. But don’t worry. I’ve no plans to abandon you, Amanda. We will always learn from each other. In fact, I don’t think our lessons will ever stop.’
Just before catching the train back to Ely, Sidney paused to look in the window of an antiques shop near the British Museum. He had noticed a rather expensive-looking mirror (if he had raided the Sunday collection himself he would have been able to afford it easily) but, after talking to the shopkeeper, he discovered that it was cheaper than he feared because it was actually made from tin. This was perfect. He was only a month late for his wedding anniversary and Hildegard was used to the somewhat erratic timing of family celebrations. He just hoped she didn’t think that he was trying to buy his way back into her good books.
She had just finished teaching and was preparing the supper when he arrived home, kissed her and presented his gift.
‘This is very beautiful, mein Lieber. Will it tarnish?’ As soon as she had spoken, Hildegard held up her hand to prevent interruption. ‘Don’t draw any moral conclusions from the question. Just answer it.’
‘We will need to keep it in good repair. Like . . .’
‘Our marriage? Yes, I know, Sidney, but I fear I am getting too old for mirrors. I do not like to look at myself too much. I do not want to turn into my mother.’
‘There is little chance of that, I promise.’
‘There is every chance. But I like to make an effort.’
She gave her husband a spontaneous hug and they held on to each other in front of the cooker as the potatoes bubbled away. ‘I hope you are still proud of me, Sidney. I know I can be difficult.’
‘We can all be difficult.’
Hildegard stepped back. ‘You are not supposed to agree with me. You have to say that I am the easiest and most tolerant person in the world.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, my darling.’
‘Fortunately, you do not have to think about that.’
‘Shall I put the mirror up?’
‘As long as you don’t bang your thumb.’
‘I think I can hammer in a nail.’
Hildegard smiled. ‘What is the eleventh-anniversary material?’
‘Steel. I think.’
‘That is good. I think there is something called “mild steel”. That describes you perfectly: tough when you want to be, but responsive to pressure.’
Sidney hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose I could be stainless.’
‘No, mein Lieber,’ said Hildegard. ‘That is my job.’