so Victorian.’
‘Stop saying that, it’s just that there are certain modern habits of which I disapprove. Wet liberals, stealth taxes, the seduction of married women, telephone sales and hamburger outlets spring to mind.’
They remained in the coffee shop as it grew dark, watching the raindrops meandering down the window panes like a million silver comets.
36
* * *
BLOWBACK
The passageway was lined with small dun-coloured paintings. May had noticed them on his last visit, but the light had been too low to discern any detail. The wall sconces had no lightbulbs in them. ‘We never replace them,’ explained Monica.
‘But you can’t see the pictures.’
‘Exactly so. There’s a light here somewhere.’ She struck a match to a candle and held it aloft. ‘Now do you see?’
May found himself looking at several studies, roughs and pencil sketches for Pre-Raphaelite paintings. ‘I don’t understand,’ he murmured, watching as the coppery lines wavered in the candlelight. ‘These are beautiful.’
‘My husband thinks they’re worthless. He has an old-school attitude to Pre-Raphaelites that won’t allow him to see beyond the detailed textures to the beauty of intent. So, as a mark of rebuke, to those artists and to me, for having too much materialism, too much sentiment and so little taste, he insists that we leave them hanging here in the basement. The walls are getting damp, and many of the sketches have started to stain. The house isn’t alarmed, of course—we refuse to become prisoners in our own home, apparently—so I compromised by removing all the lightbulbs. That way, if we’re burgled, the thieves will miss the best pieces in the house. And so another small battle is fought and drawn.’
‘Why do you stay with him?’ asked May. ‘He limits your freedom and makes you unhappy.’
‘God knows we certainly like different things. He’s Berlin and Bauhaus and brutalism, I’m Turner and Tate Britain. But nothing’s that simple, is it? The children are in their nightmare years, veering between innocence and arrogance in a way that makes me fear daily for their lives. Gareth’s colleagues virtually dictate how to spend our finances. The paths of our lives seem set in concrete. Do you remember before you had to be grown-up every second of the day, John? How it always felt like morning?’ She lowered the candle, and light faded from the gilt frames. Tiny lines appeared on her face, like the craquelure on a painted heroine. ‘Now it always feels late in the day. Shadows are gathering, and the best pleasures feel far behind me. Gareth is looking for something he can never have and will never find: respect. I can’t help him, so instead I am a hindrance, or an embarrassment. He’ll make a fool of himself—or worse, break the law and be disgraced, his expertise ridiculed, his judgement dismissed. And it will kill him, because he has nothing else left.’
Back in her studio, she turned on the radiator and poured tall whiskies. ‘He’s become indiscreet of late, leaves books and maps lying all over the lounge. But I still have no idea what this ridiculous quest is all about, and nothing I say can change his mind.’
‘I can tell you what we know,’ said May, ‘because I hope tonight will see the end of it. There’s something called The Vessel of All Counted Sorrows—an Egyptian alabaster vase like a death urn, intended to represent the woes of the world. It occupies a key place in pre-Christian mythology, but is as likely to exist in a tangible form as the Holy Grail.’
‘Gareth is the kind of man who’d prefer to believe in such a thing. He’s always been a huge fan of Atlantis. A reasoned intellectual with a fatal idealistic flaw—you see them all the time in our little circle.’
‘Ubeda believes the vessel ended up in this country, brought over by the Romans and thrown into one of the rivers, where it became silted up and concreted over, waiting to be rediscovered. The least of your husband’s problems is his loss of credibility. Ubeda’s past collaborators have shown a tendency to vanish when they’ve outlived their usefulness; at least, we’ve had no luck contacting any of them.’
‘And he’s in this mess because of something that doesn’t exist?’
‘It’s a little more complicated than that. Imagine for a moment that the vessel is real. This isn’t some impenetrable search for the true pieces of the cross. You can carbon-date a piece of wood, but you won’t prove it came from the crucifixion. Ceramics are hard to copy, because you