Regular readers will know that I occasionally use artwork to inspire stories. There is no shortage of inspiring curations of art on
Take with ‘Art Every Day’ or who guides us ‘Beyond Bloomsbury’.
In this instance, Victoria shared ‘Pauline Waiting’, a piece by Sir James Gunn RA (1893 - 1964). Gunn studied at the Glasgow School of Art and Edinburgh College of Art before moving to Paris in 1911 where he entered the Académie Julian. By 1929 (the year he married his second wife, Pauline), he had established himself as a portrait painter and worked successfully in this field, receiving commissions from prime ministers, leading literary figures, and royalty. His wife was the model for some of his most successful works, including this enigmatic painting.
It is an intriguing setting that suggests all manner of storylines. Victoria challenged me to create a fiction based on the painting.
Why do people speak in whispers in grand spaces?
Perhaps they want to listen to other people’s conversations. Why not? Think of the gossip. Imagine the secrets. Take the couple over my left shoulder. What beautiful wedding rings they wear but I know they only met twenty minutes ago. That blush could be because she doesn’t know whether he takes sugar in his tea and the waiter is looking at her quizzically. I imagine the real reason has more to do with what her gentleman friend whispered when he leaned closer for the briefest of moments. I watched his mouth move, the dangerous curl of those seductive lips contrasting with the gentleness of his words. Maybe he danced around the subject of how they would spend their afternoon. She desperately wants the waiter to move on but impeccable service is non-negotiable in this grand venue where scandal is veiled in discretion. In this place, any egg shells walked upon once belonged to quails not common hens. So this ‘couple’ must suffer the excruciating attentiveness their situation would rather avoid.
Who am I to judge? Life presents itself to you as a series of opportunities. You take them, or you don’t. Questionable decisions are part of it and I have taken the inadvisable path more often than I care to remember. But these lovers are not why I am here, so I shall leave them to their French Fancies and coded conversation.
There are other details to be weighed. Each one, like a jigsaw piece, makes little sense in isolation. Put them together and a picture forms.
Take that gentleman. If I were to forget my training and glance over my right shoulder, I should be looking directly at him. And his gaze would be fixed on me, unwaveringly. How can I tell, you might ask? I was a most attentive student and I have chosen my table carefully. That mirror affords me the best seat in the house from which to take in the performance of the star of the show. His reputation as a lady’s man is reflected back at me. But we’ll discuss that in the debrief, I am sure. For now, we need to consider the details.
A well-cut suit is easy to spot but not everyone can discern Saville Row from the work of backstreet Hong Kong tailors. Spend enough time in the lobby of the Peninsula and you’ll be offered cigarettes and a good deal more by locally-tailored gentlemen. In the moments before being summoned by your maiden aunt to admire her bridge hand, you can learn a good deal about the human condition that might prove useful in a world where subterfuge is a puzzle to solve, where the clues keep a young woman safe but keep the door ajar in case opportunity knocks.
His suit is Saville Row, sharply cut to reflect an outlay way beyond the means of a mid-ranking bureaucrat in His Majesty’s Foreign Office. The dirt on his otherwise highly polished shoes confirms the diversion he took in St James’s Park this morning. He strolled past me, touching the brim of his fedora, crossing the damp grass to the bench where he would leave his copy of The Times. He paid little attention to me as I was but a lowly nanny pushing her mistress’s infant in its perambulator. He moved with the confidence of a man whose conscience was untroubled by his actions. My colleague is an even more convincing gardener than I am a nanny, and it was he who witnessed the sleight of hand, a slim Manila envelope being removed from between the folds of a newspaper, to be replaced with the previously-agreed sum.
You would have had to be particularly close at hand to hear an incautious ’danke’ as he lit the cigarette proffered by his paymaster. Our ‘gardener’ relayed that detail as I brushed past him a little later on my way to change for this assignation.
The distinctive aroma of Turkish cigarettes speaks to me of the long summer I spent in Istanbul learning fieldcraft. As the bureaucrat ostentatiously blows smoke rings, his cigarettes reek of treachery. He is impatient to spend the crisp fifty pound notes he exchanged for secrets he is sworn to protect. Arrangements were made by telephone, in a call traced to a desk in the Foreign Office. His preference is for refined escorts, so that is the part I shall play in this charade. His particular preference is to apply the palm mostly recently crossed with silver to their bare flesh. Shortly, I shall retire to a room on the fourth floor where he will join me, all too eager to slide a fifty pound note into my stocking top. The prearranged knock on the door will coincide with a moment when my state of undress makes it most appropriate that he answers, and before - I have been assured - the question of his ‘preference’ has arisen. Our friend from the Foreign Office will be in a Scotland Yard cell before I finish running the bath. I intend to spend a significant part of the afternoon soaking off the stench of betrayal and the aroma of Turkish cigarettes.
Inside the leopard skin muff, my fingers close comfortingly around the Service-issue Webley. My particular preference is to be certain this girl can take care of herself.
Beautifully (un)woven, Barrie. A great read.
I love the low-key, almost slow-motion feel of this tricky little story. And I love this "a slim Manila envelope being removed from between the folds of a newspaper, to be replaced with the previously-agreed sum." I am sitting on the nearby bench! And this really popped off the page: "I intend to spend a significant part of the afternoon soaking off the stench of betrayal and the aroma of Turkish cigarettes." You found a terrific picture to work with, Barrie. This one was a real cracker!