My Uncle Oswald

15

Within half an hour we had packed our bags and checked out of the hotel and were heading for the railway station. Paris next stop.

And so it was. We went to Paris on the night sleeper and arrived there on a sparkling June morning. We took rooms at the Ritz. 'Wherever you are,' my father used to say, 'when in doubt, stay at the Ritz.' Wise words. Yasmin came into my room to discuss strategy over an early lunch - a cold lobster for each of us and a bottle of Chablis. I had the list of priority candidates in front of me on the table.

'Whatever happens, Renoir and Monet come first,' I said. 'In that order.'

'Where do we find them?' Yasmin asked.

It is never difficult to discover the whereabouts of famous men. 'Renoir is at Essoyes,' I said. 'That's a small town about 120 miles south-west of Paris, between Champagne and Burgundy. He is now seventy-eight and I'm told he's in a wheelchair.'

'Jesus Christ, Oswald, I'm not going to feed Blister Beetle to some poor old bastard in a wheelchair!' Yasmin said.

'He'll love it,' I told her. 'There's nothing wrong with him except a bit of arthritis. He's still painting. He is easily the most celebrated painter alive today and I'll tell you another thing. No living painter in the history of art has ever received such high prices for his pictures during his lifetime as Renoir. He's a giant. In ten years' time we'll be selling his straws for a fortune.'

'Where's his wife?'

'Dead. He's a lonely old man. You'll cheer him up no end. When he sees you, he'll probably want to paint you in the nude on the spot.'

'I'd like that.'

'On the other hand, he has a model called Dedee he's absolutely mad about.'

'I'll soon fix her,' Yasmin said.

'Play your cards right and he might even give you a picture.'

'Hey, I'd like that, too.'

'Work on it,' I said.

'What about Monet?' she asked.

'He is also a lonely old man. He's seventy-nine, a year older than Renoir, and he's living the life of a recluse at Giverny. That's not far from here. Just outside Paris. Very few people visit him now. Clemenceau drops in occasionally, so I'm told, but almost no one else. You'll be a little sunbeam in his life. And another canvas perhaps? A Monet landscape? Those things are going to be worth hundreds of thousands later on. They're worth thousands already.'

The possibility of getting a picture from one or both of these great artists excited Yasmin a good deal. 'You'll be visiting lots of other painters before we're finished,' I said. 'You could form a collection.'

'That's a pretty good idea,' she said. 'Renoir, Monet, Matisse, Bonnard, Munch, Braque and all the rest of them. Yes, it's a very good idea. I must remember that.'

The lobsters were huge and delicious, with enormous claws. The Chablis was good, too - a Grand Cru Bougros. I have a passion for fine Chablis, not only for the steely-dry Grands Crus but also for some of the Premiers Crus where the fruit is a little closer to the surface. This particular Bougros was as steely as any I had ever tasted. Yasmin and I discussed strategy while we ate and dr

ank. It was my contention that no man was going to turn away a young lady who possessed the charm and the devastating beauty of Yasmin. No male, however ancient, was capable of treating her with indifference. Wherever we went I kept seeing evidence of this. Even the suave marble-faced receptionist downstairs had gone all over queer when he caught sight of Yasmin standing before him. I had been watching him closely and I had seen that famous old spark start flashing in the very centre of the pupil of each of his jet-black eyes, and then his tongue had poked out and had begun sliding over his upper lip, and his fingers had fumbled inanely with our registration forms, and at the end of it all he had given us the wrong keys. A scintillating and sex-soaked creature our Yasmin was, a kind of human Blister Beetle all on her own, and as I say, no man on earth was going to send her packing.

But none of this sexual chemistry was going to help us one bit unless the girl was able actually to present herself to the customer. Formidable housekeepers and equally formidable wives could well be a problem. My optimism, however, was based on the fact that the fellows we were after were nearly all painters or musicians or writers. They were artists. And artists are probably the most approachable people you can find. Even the very great ones are never guarded, as businessmen are, by iron-mouthed secretaries and amateur gangsters in black suits. Big businessmen and their like live in caves that can be reached only by passing through long tunnels and many rooms, with a Cerberus around every corner. Artists are loners, and more often than not they open the front door themselves when you ring the bell.

But why would Yasmin be ringing the bell in the first place?

Ah well, she was a young English girl, a student of art (or music or literature, whichever was applicable) who had such a massive admiration for the work of Monsieur Renoir or Monet or Stravinsky or whoever, that she had come all the way from England to pay homage to the great man, to say hello to him, to give him a little present and then to go away again. Nunc dimittis.

'That,' I said to Yasmin as I polished off the last succulent lobster claw - and by the way, don't you love it when you are able to draw the flesh of the claw out of the shell whole and pinky-red in one piece? There is some kind of tiny personal triumph in that. I may be childish, but I experience a similar triumph when I succeed in getting a walnut out of its shell without breaking it in two. As a matter of fact, I never approach a walnut without this particular ambition in mind. Life is more fun if you play games. But back to Yasmin. 'That,' I said to her, 'will get you invited right into the house or the studio ninety-nine times out of a hundred. With your smile and your lascivious looks, I cannot see any of these lads turning you away.'

'What about their watchdogs or their wives?'

'I think you'll get past them, too. Occasionally they may tell you the man's busy painting or writing and to come back at six o'clock. But you're always going to win in the end. Don't forget, you've travelled a long way just to pay homage. And make a point of saying you won't stay more than a few minutes.'

'Nine,' Yasmin said, grinning. 'Just nine minutes. When do we start?'

'Tomorrow,' I said. 'I shall buy a motor car this afternoon. We're going to need it for our French and European operations. And tomorrow we will drive to Essoyes and you will meet Monsieur Renoir.'