you’ll have to go on the course at Roehampton.’ She raised her finger again to stop me interrupting. ‘I know you think you don’t need to but there’s a whole world of craft skills behind the art – which flight feathers are the best and why, how to cure the quills with hot sand, layout grids, organic pigments, not to mention gilding or mixing gesso …’ She shook her head. ‘You don’t know any of that. And then there’s the history too, and the theory behind the scripts. Also, I imagine the teachers will help you understand what’s going on right now – on the commercial side of things. You might make some good gallery contacts there. And, apart from anything else, there’s no harm in having a qualification that everybody can recognize.’
I nodded. ‘Right. I accept I will probably have to go on the course.’
‘Not probably. Definitely.’
‘But surely it can’t be all hand-to-mouth nightmares – trying to sell stuff at exhibitions? I thought your friends all worked on commissions. What about Susan or that man who’s doing the Bible thing? Surely there must be some way of getting a salary.’
‘I’m not saying that it is all hand to mouth. There are commissions to be had, and good ones. Of course there are. But you should look at the facts.’ She took another sip of wine, pausing to taste it. ‘There are two hundred or so professionals already working in England – all ahead of you in the queue. Not to mention all the locally celebrated amateurs.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Of that two hundred probably fewer than fifty actually earn a living with quill and ink. Most of them are doing wedding invitations or the menus of pseudo-Bavarian restaurant chains.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Of that fifty I would say fewer than twenty are regularly commissioned to produce formal manuscripts and even then, most do a bit of parliamentary or legal work whenever they have to. And of that last twenty, there are fewer than half a dozen artists who can afford to keep themselves in mozzarella di bufala.’
I broke some bread and dipped it in the olive oil. ‘OK. So how much do they get for a commission?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Lots of things: on talent, of course, but also on reputation, contacts and – most of all – who their clients are.’ Grandmother raised her eyebrows. ‘Granted, you are considerably better than any other professional I have seen in the last few years, and certainly there cannot be many people in the world with your repertoire of hands, but that’s not enough on its own. You need to get a few good clients – and for that you need to get a reputation – and for that we need just a little more than me saying “my grandson is a genius with a quill”.’
‘Perhaps I should enter the church.’ I helped myself to more bread.
‘No, you’re too handsome for that. Besides, I didn’t say I couldn’t help you. Calligraphy is about the only thing in the world that I can help you with. You have the talent, Jasper, and I have the contacts. If you promise to go to Roehampton, then I will fix you up a meeting with my friend Saul – he works out of New York. America is –’ Grandmother broke off. A warm breeze, that seemed to come from the Gianicolo hill, had suddenly disturbed her white hair. She adjusted her ancient sunglasses on her head. ‘America is the only place to make any sort of money these days. If we are to get you to the front of that queue, you really need a big New York agent with a serious client list. Saul was a friend of your grandfather’s. In fact he was your father’s godfather. I think you’ve met him once.’
I must have looked blank.
‘He started off in rare books years ago and he has hung on to that side of things, even after he moved into paintings and traditional art. He’s become a bit of a dealer in his old age but he is respected and there is nothing that he cannot sell.’ She finished her wine. ‘He is definitely our man. In the meantime, you must begin by doing some speculative pieces – let’s say three or four of the famous Shakespeare sonnets in a few different hands – so that we have something to send him when the time comes.’
I pretended injury. ‘Why didn’t you suggest this when I was twenty-one? I’ve wasted five years labotomizing myself in offices.’
‘Because you wouldn’t have listened to me when you were twenty-one.’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. You only listen to me when you have already decided something for yourself.’ She picked up her battered clutch bag. ‘Shall we go to Babington’s for afternoon tea?’
‘I thought you had to go back to work.’
‘Oh bugger that. I am seventy-five – I can do what I like. And anyway this is work. I am a consultant. You are consulting me.’
I stayed in Rome all that summer courtesy of the Vatican and the remains of the money left to me by my mother. I practised and I learnt, studying more intently than ever before and seeking constant advice and criticism from Grandmother. I returned to London in September, rented a threadbare room and enrolled on the course. By December, she finally gave the all-clear (never was quality control so merciless) and we sent six Shakespeares to Saul, each done in a different hand.
Two weeks later I received notice that one of them had already been sold as a Christmas gift – for $200. While this was by no means a great deal of money, I felt that at least I was on my way.
My first real commission came the following spring (just as I was preparing for my exams): twelve ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds’ at $750 a shot. That was more like it. In all they took four months to complete. But I was reasonably certain that they were well done. And Saul – to whom I spoke more and more on the telephone – was confident that if I could stand doing ‘True Minds’ for the rest of my life, then I would be able to survive.
I walked the exams and was one of only three to sell my work at the end-of-term exhibition. I received a second commission on the back of the first, and then a third. I became a little faster and the money got better every time. Then, in the autumn of that year, I flew to New York and met up with Saul himself – a man of such significant girth that you might journey for several seasons to encircle his waist once.
And it is Saul who saves me still. Since then, my commissions have come from the heart of art-loving America, where he is thick as thieves with that little band of insightful millionaires, who consider that the best gift they can give their satiated friends is an original manuscript copy of something beautiful. For these people, I am truly grateful. But I owe Saul the most. He was responsible for securing me my current work – the most interesting and extended job to date: thirty poems taken from the Songs and Sonnets of John Donne.
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
‘So, what is for my breakfast?’
‘What would you like?’
‘Something nice.’
‘OK. Something nice it is.’
I
