see. Well, I didn’t know her, nor does any of that matter now. But I admit I am riddled with curiosity and I’d love to know more, just out of interest, if Marguerite can shed any light on it.’
‘So would I.’ There was a pause, before he added, ‘As I recall, Clarissa was controversial, and prone to drag trouble in her wake.’
Annette sat at her desk for a few minutes, after hanging up the phone. She was thinking about Clarissa Normandy. She had heard about her some years ago … about her being a painter of promise, one of those young artists everyone predicted would become famous but never did. Nothing much had happened to Clarissa’s career, and she had fallen by the wayside eventually. And yet now, after the conversation with Carlton, she, too, recalled gossip about a scandal. What kind of scandal it was she couldn’t remember. A flicker of a thought hovered at the back of her mind and was instantly gone. And she realized that the discussion had made her forget to invite Carlton to come over to see the dancer.
Sighing under her breath, and moving on in her head, Annette walked over to the cardboard blow-up of the Rembrandt, lifted it down.
Tonight she would take a picture of the Degas bronze, have a blow-up made, and within days her new piece of art would be propped up against the far wall.
A big, brilliant campaign, she said under her breath, and her eyes sparkled. She was about to start promoting The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, and within days the whole world would know about the Degas sculpture again.
She glanced at her watch. It was only ten o’clock; too early to call her New York office, but she would be in touch with them later this morning, would share her thoughts with them about the impending auction.
Bigger and better. I must make it bigger and better. And there was no doubt in her mind that she would succeed. She sat staring into space, her mind racing, and after a while she began to make notes, jotting down the ideas that had begun to flow so freely. The thought of the auction, of holding it in New York, excited her, made the adrenaline rush through her. Quite aside from the Degas bronze, and the Degas horse painting, there was the Giacometti, and the Mary Cassatt painting of a mother and child. It was beautiful, but she had known from the start that Christopher would surely put this up for auction. It did not appeal to him, nor did he understand about Mary Cassatt and what an important Impressionist painter she had been, one of the original group working in Paris in the 1800s, a close friend of Degas, as well as his colleague, rival and benefactor.
After an hour, Annette stood up, walked across her office, stretching. Her eyes fell on the blow-up of the Rembrandt, and she went over to it, picked it up, carried it to the back of her office, and put it in the large cupboard where she kept such things. Closing the door, she turned around, her eyes sweeping over the room, liking what she saw: a huge space with two large windows, cream walls, a dark blue carpet and a paucity of furniture. The only pieces were her desk, an antique French bureau plat, resembling a large table with drawers, two chairs, one on each side of it, and the credenza along the end wall facing the desk.
She smiled to herself as she sat down at the desk, thinking of the clients who took one look around when they first came here, and asked where the art was. Her answer was always the same, ‘I’m waiting for it,’ she would say. ‘The art you are going to sell. Or buy.’
There was a knock on the door, and her assistant, Esther Oliver, came in, carrying a folder. ‘You asked for this the other day, Annette,’ she said, handing it to her. ‘Requests for interviews from every newspaper and magazine you can think of.’ She grinned at Annette as she took the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘You’ll be busy for months if you decide to do them all.’
‘Marius said he would go through them with me when he gets back from Barcelona later this week. I think he intends to pick out only a couple. We know I can’t do them all.’
‘There are quite a few top-notch journalists asking to meet you,’ Esther pointed out.
‘Marius will make the decision,’ Annette murmured.
Doesn’t he always?, Esther thought, but said, ‘In the meantime, you haven’t forgotten your appointment at noon with Mrs Clarke-Collingwood, have you? About her two Landseers.’
‘Oh, bother, I had.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But I’m all right, she won’t be here for half an hour.’ Shaking her head, Annette explained, ‘I just got carried away with thoughts of the new auction I’m planning.’
‘It’s going to be exciting. You can certainly generate a great deal of publicity in the next few months. Where will you hold it? Sotheby’s or Christie’s?’
‘Sotheby’s. In New York.’ Esther stared at her, for a moment lost for words. ‘Fantastic,’ she responded finally, and wondered what the controlling Marius Remmington would have to say about that.
The Degas bronze was standing exactly where she had left it that morning … in the middle of the glass coffee table in the living room of their Eaton Square flat. Annette stood gazing at it, admiring it, almost gloating over it before she went to the storage room and got out two spotlights and various cameras.
Carrying the equipment back to the other room, she quickly set up, and was soon shooting the statue from various angles. She was an excellent photographer, especially when it came to inanimate objects, and after two hours she was satisfied she had a series of great photographs. Among them would be the one that would make a perfect blow-up.
Leaving everything where it was, in case she decided to take a series of pictures the following morning in daylight, Annette went into the kitchen. She found a note from Elaine telling her there was a cottage pie in the fridge that only needed heating up. Not feeling hungry, she poured herself a glass of sparkling water, and carried it to her small office at the back of the apartment, sat down on the sofa and dialled her sister.
‘It’s me, darling,’ she said when the phone was picked up.
‘Hi!’ Laurie exclaimed. ‘How did it go today?’
‘Really very well,’ Annette answered, and went on to explain, ‘I had several conversations with my New York office, and Penelope and Bryan were instantly geared up. Within minutes.’
‘I can well imagine. It’s your enthusiasm. It ignites everyone else’s.’
Annette laughed. ‘I hope so. Anyway, they’re one thousand per cent behind me and my plan to hold the auction in New York. They were bubbling over with ideas, quickly pulled up lists of their clients who would be potential buyers, were suggesting various dates, and even focusing on the design of the invitation.’
‘When do they want you to have the auction?’
‘September. After Labor Day weekend, obviously, and we finally did settle on a tentative date in the middle of the month. Tuesday the eighteenth of September. Or the next day, Wednesday, but not any later that week. I think I will settle on the Tuesday, since they seemed to think this was best. But they will have to check that out with Sotheby’s, to be certain that the date is still available.’
‘What thoughts did they have about the invitation?’ Laurie now asked, very curious, because she herself had been working on ideas for the invitation and a
