Earl Beachendon had been waiting eleven years to visit the studio of Ergon Janáček, the reclusive Czech painter whose work was the first to break through the £1 million barrier in the 1970s and smash the £10 million record the following decade. Janáček lived and worked in Crouch End, in a Georgian coach house, and painted the same seven models at exactly the same time on the same day of the week. The longest sitter had been coming for nearly fifty years and the ingénue for over seventeen. They were expected to pose for up to four hours at a time, sitting in a wooden chair under the large north-facing skylight. Janáček never spoke to them; he was far too absorbed in painting. Attacking the canvas with his hands, with large badger brushes, slapping, daubing, smearing and dolloping paint, Janáček would grunt and scream in frustration as he wrestled with his creative demons. Each portrait took at least seven years to complete; one had taken seventeen. At the end of each session, when a thick impasto of gloopy oil paint had been layered on to the canvas, Janáček scraped the whole mass to the floor. Only the faintest traces of the day’s endeavours were left. Turning the canvas to the wall, he opened the studio door and waited silently for his sitter to leave.
This process was repeated week in and week out, year in, year out, until one day, Janáček realised the work was complete. Only a few cognoscenti could discern a person within the heavy impasto, the swirling mass of paint and colour. Asked why they made such a long and exhausting commitment, the sitters seemed nonplussed by the question, as if a motive were irrelevant. Most had been there long before Janáček became a world-renowned figure; they had started when the wooden chair was an old orange crate and there had been no money even for a small blow heater. Those small luxuries arrived later. The sitters were never paid, though all could have used some extra cash. Occasionally they were given presents or paintings. Pressed harder, one or two admitted that it gave them pleasure to be involved in the creative process, even if vicariously. One or two said that the hours spent posing represented a glorious private meditative interlude in their otherwise humdrum, dull lives. Reports of his insular, intimate world, his devoted band of models, mesmerised critics and collectors alike.
Tucked down a side street in an insalubrious part of town, bounded by a railway track, a busy high street and a former brick factory, stood Janáček’s small coach house. Apart from the odd weed, the concrete passageway was clean and free of dustbins and other detritus. The noise of a couple shouting, heavy dub music, and a car backfiring suggested a certain kind of neighbourhood. Beachendon sniffed as he walked down the alley leading to Janáček’s studio. The closer he got, the more pungent the smell of oil paint. By the time he reached the door, the smell of turps and paint was so strong that the Earl wanted to place a silk handkerchief over his nose. He knocked loudly and moments later Janáček flung open the door. He was wearing a pair of ripped shorts, no shirt and, waving a paint-smeared hand in a theatrical gesture, stood to one side so that Beachendon could enter. Taking a gulp of London air, Beachendon stepped over the threshold and into the studio. His last pair of beautiful leather Lobb shoes stuck slightly to the floor and, looking down, Beachendon saw that the whole surface was covered in layers of old paint—indeed, it was hard to find any part of the room that was not splattered or smeared in some colour. The studio measured about twenty by twenty-four feet, and each wall was lined with canvases turned to the wall. Beachendon counted at least thirty and his head went dizzy as he translated their collective worth. All his problems would be solved by just ten of these works. He envisaged the sale: “The Great Janáček Auction.”
“Would you like some tea?” Janáček asked. He had a gravelly voice and although he had lived in England for nearly sixty years had kept a thick middle-European accent.
“That would be very nice,” Beachendon said, wondering if the bright yellow blob of paint on his right toe would respond to a quick rub of turps.
Janáček went over to a small kitchenette and filled the kettle from a single tap.
“There is a cup somewhere,” he said, absently looking around the room.
Beachendon was feeling more than a little dizzy—possibly the effect of the paint but more probably the prospect of finally being able to solve his financial problems and save the auction house from bankruptcy.
“Where do you live?” he asked Janáček.
“Here, of course! I wouldn’t want to waste any time commuting.”
Beachendon looked around the room for a door.
“Do you have the flat or a house next door?”
“This is all I need. My kingdom!” Janáček waved his arms around.
“Your bed?” Beachendon’s head was beginning to spin slightly.
“In the corner.”
Looking around Beachendon saw a mound of rags covering a camp bed.
Janáček passed him a cup. Beachendon took it gingerly and smiled.
“So what can I do for you?” Janáček asked pleasantly.
“I was hoping I could do something for you,” Beachendon replied. “As you probably know I work at Monachorum, the auction house.”
Janáček smiled vaguely.
“We pride ourselves on working closely with artists, restoring their financial independence, cutting them loose from the shackles imposed by unscrupulous art dealers, helping them realise their full financial independence.” Beachendon rather liked his turn of phrase and wished that he had a notebook in which to record these fine words. “You will no doubt remember the Hirst, Janáček?”
Janáček shook his head.
“Damien Hirst?”
Janáček shook his head again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t get out much.”
“The artist Damien Hirst?” Beachendon wondered if Janáček was teasing. The whole world surely knew about Damien Hirst, the David Beckham of art.
“I am afraid that I don’t. My tastes rather stopped with Rembrandt and my true love is reserved for Titian. They had all the references I needed and I didn’t bother to look further.”
“What about Cézanne or Corot, Corbet or Manet?” Beachendon asked.
“We studied them at art school and they are good—yes, very good. But my interest peters out in 1669.”
“Van Gogh?”
“No, as I said, Rembrandt is where it stops.”
“I have sold rather a lot of Rembrandts during my career,” Beachendon said weakly.
Janáček looked at the clock on the wall. “Sir, I don’t want to sound rude, but I have a sitter coming in half an hour and I need to do some preparations. Please could you tell me why you have come?”
“I would like to create a spectacular auction around some of your paintings,” Beachendon said, looking at the canvases propped up against the walls. “Perhaps we could choose ten together?”
“Why would I want to do that?” Janáček said in a rather bemused tone.
“To make money! You wouldn’t have to pay your dealer a commission; you would get sixty per cent of all the proceeds. That would be millions more for each canvas than you get now.”
Janáček looked kindly at the auctioneer. “And what would I do with that extra money?”
Beachendon looked around the room, at the chaos, the dripping tap, the damp stains, the layers of paint, the 1950s cooker, the camp bed, the old kettle, the crooked wooden chair and the torn clothes hung on nails.
“You see, Mr. Beachendon, I really have everything I need here. I am very happy in my room with my things. Having possessions is a distraction. Now if you could offer me millions of extra hours in my day I would jump at the chance of an auction. If one of my paintings could buy me an extra year of working, I would shake on your proposal this second.”
“Do you mind me asking what happens to the money you make now?”
“I take out what I need per year and the rest goes into an account. On my death it will go to help the National Gallery stay open without admission charges. If I had had to pay to visit my beloved Titians, I would never have been able to paint.”
“But the more money you make in your lifetime, the more you have to leave.” It was Beachendon’s final shot, the last card in his pack.
“That is a specious argument, based on far too many probabilities. Your auction might make money but it would also inflame curiosity. As it is I have far too many people wanting to visit me here, wasting my time with letters and requests. Two Japanese art students knocked on the door last week—how they found me I will never understand. Your auction will come with a blaze of publicity, reams of column inches, discussions and debate. Janáček, is he worth it? Janáček, who is he? Why Janáček? Though I might never hear about or read this stuff, this prurient interest will permeate my life, will encroach in some nasty unpredictable way. The man at the newsagent will put two and two together. The lady in the greengrocer’s might realise that the Janáček in the papers and the Janáček in the store is one and the same. My sitters, who for the most part manage to separate the act of sitting from the process of selling, might begin to think of the process in monetary terms. So you see, sir, this auction is not for me.”
“If there was a fire and all this was destroyed?” Beachendon looked at the canvases stacked around the room.
“For me, art is about the process and about the making. If this goes up in flames I can only pray that it takes me with it.” Janáček clapped his hands together and strode purposefully to the door. He turned the handle and opened it. “Goodbye, Mr. Beachendon. I hope you find an artist to promote. I have nothing against those who want to make money, you know.”
Beachendon squelched across the floor. His last pair of Lobb shoes were now covered in a multitude of different colours and he could see a small red streak on his left trouser leg.
As he left he paused. “Why did you agree to see me, Mr. Janáček?”
“I was very intrigued by the way you form the letter S in your handwriting. I once had a friend whose Ss slanted backwards and I wanted to see if there was any similarity between you and him.”
“Was there?” Beachendon asked, stepping out of the door into the narrow alley beyond.
“No, none,” Janáček said and closed the door firmly in the auctioneer’s face.
Two schoolkids walked towards him. In the old days, he thought, they would have parted to let him pass but today they walked on and Beachendon stepped to the right. To block their way was to face ridicule or even a knife in the back. Beachendon thought about Janáček and his ascetic way of life. Perhaps he and the Countess could adapt to a simpler life, give up the fancy butcher, the skiing holidays, the villas in Tuscany. Perhaps they could find a one-room apartment and put the children into state schools. The problem was that Beachendon, unlike Janáček, didn’t have any kind of passion, any desire to do anything really beyond getting through the day. For him, the only thing he really enjoyed was falling into a deep sleep. That was all he wanted. Waking up, taking breakfast, making a deal, having lunch, even seeing friends involved effort.
Reaching his car, Beachendon saw that someone had keyed the left flank, leaving an ugly white jagged scar on the pristine blue paint. He looked back at the two boys; one turned around and gave him the finger. For a moment Beachendon was tempted to run after them, catch them and beat their heads on the pavement till their brains spilled like red bloody sausages all over the ground. Instead, he unlocked the car, slipped into the driving seat and headed back to the office.