Finzi saw me enter and stood and waved. He was wearing a dark charcoal suit, very well cut, and his Americanness was advertised only by a strange silver device that shaped his collar round the knot of his tie. And he also wore a tiepin.
‘I assume you’re not interested in a cup of tea,’ he said.
‘I’ll have a brandy and soda, thank you.’
He ordered our drinks from a waiter — he had a Scotch and water — and we began to talk at once about the exhibition. He was full of praise and as he talked I rather marvelled at the astonishing calm self-assurance he exhibited. In fact he was so self-assured I began to wonder if it was an act. I’ve known certain people where the most adamantine confidence is just a mask for terrified insecurity but I quickly realised there was nothing bogus about Cleveland Finzi. I thought that perhaps it was his American accent that contributed to the overall savoir faire, so—
‘You’re not listening to me, Miss Clay,’ he said, reasonably.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘I just asked you a question.’
‘And I answered it.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
I sipped at my brandy, playing for time.
‘I’m so sorry if I seem distracted but I’ve just had a perplexing meeting with my sister. She’s changed her name.’
‘I can see how that might throw you.’
‘She’s always been Peggy but now she insists on being called Dido.’
He thought about this. ‘Dido. . I prefer it to Peggy. Nice name, Dido.’
‘Talking of names,’ I said, ‘is your family Italian?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Finzi.’
‘Oh. Finzi is a Jewish name,’ he said.
‘Is it?’
‘Sephardi Jewish name. I think we were from Italy, originally. Then originally from Spain, of course.’
‘Of course, yes. . How interesting.’
He carried on asking me precise questions about my photographs — how had I managed to gain access to these places in Berlin? Had I been obliged to pay money to take the photographs? Were they posed or candid? — and so on. He was very impressed with my secret handbag-camera when I explained it to him and when he asked me about printing I was glad to be able to throw in a few authoritative remarks about dodging and burning.
We ordered a second round of drinks and smoked a cigarette. I think I managed to stay relatively composed as we talked and tried not to stare at him too intently. However, had Cleveland Finzi invited me up to his room to dance naked round his bed I would have said yes in a second.
He walked me back through to the lobby, apologising for cutting our conversation short as he had another appointment. We shook hands at the main entrance. He wasn’t a tall man — taller than me, of course — but there was something spry and limber about him, as if the body beneath the smart tailoring was muscled, fit.
‘What happens next, Miss Clay?’
‘What? Sorry, what do you mean?’
‘Your work. Your photographs.’
‘Oh. I’m not thinking beyond the exhibition,’ I said, then lied. ‘I’ve already had some intriguing job offers.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ he said, smiling. ‘Your photographs are very. . intriguing. You have a real eye for capturing people. Please do let me know if you ever come to New York. I can promise you an excellent dinner.’
Out on the Strand the night had turned wet and squally with sharp bursts of rain stinging like hail. The street lamps shone with a watery nimbus as I made my way to the Underground in something of a brandy-and-soda daze.
6. THE WAGES OF SIN
THE TELEPHONE RINGING IN my sitting room woke me at seven. I stumbled through in my nightdress and snatched it up.
‘It’s happened,’ Greville said. ‘The Daily Express. I think we might be in a spot of trouble.’
I quickly pulled on some clothes, grabbed my coat, jammed a hat on my head and ran to the newsagent at Walham Green Tube station and bought a copy of the Daily Express. There was a tea room near the entrance of the Underground so I went in, ordered a pot of tea and a currant bun (lightly toasted) and, slowly collecting myself, sipping and munching, began to leaf carefully through the newspaper. I found the article on page 11. The headline ran: ‘A Vile and Obscene Display of Photographs’. The secondary headline below it was: ‘Outrageous exhibitionism masquerading as art’. I read on in a curious numbed way as if I were reading about a war in a distant country. ‘Miss Clay dips her camera in the most putrid and decadent slime she could find. . Leering men consort with barely clothed women. . It is hard to imagine visions of a more bestial and degrading nature.’ My numbness deepened. However, it became clear to me as I read of my utter viciousness that what had really offended this man — the man with the prominent Adam’s apple — or, more to the point, excited him, were the photos of half-naked women unconcerned to be in the presence of other half-naked women. He went on and on about it and yet there were only three photographs in the entire exhibition that showed this juxtaposition. Not a word of Volker and his candid nudity or the girls fooling around in bed or sunbathing on the balcony in their underwear. There was a shrillness in his condemnation that in its near-hysteria was too revealing — as if, having mounted this exhibition, I should be stoned to death or taken to the ducking stool and be tried as a witch. ‘This repulsive display of photographs in the heart of our great city, in the heart of our great empire, is an affront to every God-loving, decent-thinking British citizen.’
I sipped at my cooling tea, coming out of my daze, feeling a corresponding new chill beginning to overwhelm me, as I realised what trouble I might be in. I had my notoriety now, all right.
Back in my flat I telephoned Greville — no reply. I telephoned the gallery. He answered with a discernible tremor in his voice, keeping it low as if he might be overheard.
‘The police are here. The photographs have all been seized. They’re being taken away in a van—’
‘Seized? Taken away?’
‘And there are three hundred people queuing to get in.’
‘Should I come?’
‘You might as well. But there’s nothing we can do.’
He sounded frightened — and that wasn’t like the Greville I knew. I took a taxi to Brewer Street and when I arrived I found the queue of photography-lovers had dispersed and there was a solitary, smiling police constable standing on guard outside the gallery. Greville opened the door to me and, as I stepped in, I experienced a visceral shock — seeing the walls now rudely bare.
‘Where have they been taken to?’ I asked, beginning to understand Greville’s untypical fear. The ‘authorities’, the guardians of public decency, the state, having been affronted, had acted, and had had their decree fulfilled.
‘Savile Row police station.’
‘What next?’
‘The unpleasant-looking but perfectly civil police inspector informed me that the gallery is going to be prosecuted for obscenity.’
‘The gallery? You mean me.’
‘Well, you are the leaseholder, darling.’
In a new and more unpleasant form of daze I wandered back into the rear room and made us both a cup of strong tea. When you’ve got a problem to solve always do something practical, my mother used to say. Suddenly I was seeing the sense in the bland adage. We sipped our tea and discussed our predicament.
‘I thought that because we were a club we were more or less safe,’ I said.
‘So did I,’ Greville said. ‘Or so I’d been advised.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘The problem was, it seems, that the photos were for sale. If they hadn’t been for sale we might have been fine. Possibly. But now they can prosecute you for exhibiting obscene pictures for “sale or gain”. That’s the issue.’