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ALL HIGH TALK AND LOW FROLICS:

Part I ("My Other Secret Life")

I first encountered the Judge, professionally, in Court.

Early in my career, I appeared in the Family Court 400 times over two years. 50 or so appearances would have been before him.

He was a precise and impatient judge. He had little tolerance for fools or the lazy or the unprepared. My reputation, some of which he would have contributed to, was that I anticipated what a judge wanted and I gave it to him. I use the masculine pronoun, because although the Chief Justice was a woman, all of the local judges with whom I dealt were men.

At the same time, I was the Deputy Chairman of the Institute of Modern Art. The Judge's wife, Nancy, was a lecturer in Art at the University, and frequently attended our monthly openings. On one occasion, she introduced me to her guest, an academic and writer from New York called Lucy, whose specialty was Pop Art. They invited me to Lucy's lecture later that week, and I duely attended.

Afterwards, at drinks, Nancy made to introduce me to her husband, but he stopped her suddenly, saying, "I'm well acquainted with Mr Graye's other side. He's one of the few I can rely on to do his job."

I replied that he was one of the few judges who made it a pleasure and a privilege. I had never lost a case in front of him, even though it wasn't meant to be an adversarial jurisdiction.

Later, Lucy mentioned that, if I was ever in New York, I should feel free to visit her. As it turned out, I was planning a visit to San Francisco, New York and London the following March, in 1982.

At this point, the Judge offered to give me a letter of introduction to a friend of his, who was the director of an art institute in London.

He also hinted that he might ask a reciprocal favour of me. As it turned out, his friend, Victor Maskell wished to give him a much treasured work of art, and the Judge was hoping I would deliver it back to him at the end of my trip. I was, in effect, to be an art courier for the Judge and his friend.

"The Admirable Detachment of the Scholar"

Victor Maskell was sitting at the desk in his study. He was a well-known art historian, Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, and Director of the highest profile art institute in Britain.

However, outside, the turbulence of life continued. A writer (a contemporary historian, "whatever that is") had exposed his long-term spying activities in a book that was about to be published, and the newspapers had got onto the story. What would he do? Defect? Commit suicide? Confess? Make a fool of himself? Disgrace himself?

No, he sat down at his desk to write a version of the events. He doesn't necessarily seek to make himself look good or to add "yet another burnished mask" to the collection he has already assembled.

Instead, he adopts a metaphor from the world of art:

"Attribution, verification, restoration. I shall strip away layer after layer of grime - the toffee-coloured varnish and caked soot left by a lifetime of dissembling - until I come to the very thing itself and know it for what it is. My soul. My self."

Inevitably, he laughs at his pretence, so that, as beautifully written as this work is, we don't know whether it is genuine or whether it is the product of a truly unreliable narrator.

He's more than capable of misleading us. He has been interrogated for years and never broken down. A journalist (or is she a writer or a spy?) (Serena Vandeleur) approaches him to obtain his cooperation in writing a biography, so, ironically, this work is his bid to pre-empt hers. He wants to define himself his way, rather than simply supply answers to someone else's probing questions. He wants to paint his own picture, make his own self-portrait, rather than sit for someone else's version.

Like everybody else, Miss Vandeleur just wants to know "Why did you do it?"

To which Maskell responds:

"Why? Oh, cowboys and indians, my dear. Cowboys and indians."

Then he adds: "It was true, in a way. The need for amusement, the fear of boredom: was the whole thing much more than that, really, despite all the grand theorising? And hatred of America, of course...The defence of European culture."

Describing him as a spy underestimates him:

"I was a connoisseur, you know, before I was anything else."

Maskell thinks of his work as an edifice that he is building. Though, it's hard to tell whether it's a construction or a fabrication or a realisation of something hidden from view:

"We were latterday Gnostics, keepers of a secret knowledge, for whom the world of appearances was only a gross manifestation of an infinitely subtler, more real reality known only to the chosen few, but the iron, ineluctable laws of which were everywhere at work. This gnosis was, on the material level, the equivalent of the Freudian conception of the unconscious, that unacknowledged and irresistible legislator, that spy in the heart...

"At our lightest we seemed to ourselves possessed of a seriousness far more deep, partly because it was hidden, than anything our parents could manage, with their vagueness and lack of any certainty, any rigour, above all, their contemptibly feeble efforts at being good. Let the whole sham fortress fall, we said, and if we can give it a good hard shove, we will. 'Destruam et aedificabo', as Proudhon was wont to cry."

I destroy in order to build. This is the rationale behind support of a revolutionary cause. Though Maskell himself is more of a theorist than an activist. Even then he refers to the "crassness" of "trying to turn theory into action, in the same way that I despised the Cambridge physicists of my day for translating pure mathematics into applied science."

Still, Maskell confesses that even the theory was sketchy at best. He was no philosopher-spy:

"'There must be action,' I said, with the doggedness of the dogmatist. 'We must act, or perish.'

"That is, I'm afraid, the way we talked.

"'Oh, action!' Nick said, and this time he did laugh. 'Words, for you, are action. That's all you do - jaw jaw jaw.'"

"It was all selfishness, of course; we did not care a damn about the world, much as we might shout about freedom and justice and the plight of the masses. All selfishness...Time for a gin, I think."

What Maskell most cared about was art, even more so than gin:

"Here [in Russia] was being built a society which would apply to its own workings the rules of order and harmony by which art works; a society in which the artist would no longer be dilettante or romantic rebel, pariah or parasite; a society whose art would be more deeply rooted in ordinary life than since medieval times. What a prospect, for a sensibility as hungry for certainties as mine was!"

Eventually, Maskell starts to see himself as an actor, a character in a play (if not a novel). His friends are an ensemble, to whom he is more loyal than his country or even his ostensible cause.

Together they indulge in "some glorious transgressive moments."

Part II ("We'll Have Some Fun with this Courier Lark, Won't We?")

I phoned Maskell when I arrived in London. I anticipated that he might be reluctant to see me, but it was clear that the Judge had already written or spoken to him, and he greeted me enthusiastically, as he did when I arrived at the door of his apartment a week later.

I handed him the letter of introduction and he smiled after he read it.

His apartment was sparse, if elegantly furnished. He led me into the lounge room, where a gas heater was radiating warmth in the fireplace.

We sat opposite each other in comfortable chairs.

He asked me about my taste in art. When it appeared that it was more modern and modernist than his, he simply remarked, "Never mind." He didn't ask me about my relationship with the Judge. He seemed to know enough from the letter or their previous communications.

After that, conversation flowed easily, without either of us overtly directing it. After an hour or so, he looked at his watch and asked whether I'd like a cup of tea, or was it too early for a gin and tonic? The latter had become my favourite summer drink, and I eagerly accepted, despite the time of year in the northern hemisphere.

As was my habit, I drank the G&T fairly quickly, then noticed that Maskell had too. Without being asked, he took my empty glass and filled both of our glasses at the bar.



Nicolas Poussin - "Eliezer And Rebecca At The Well"

Part III ("The Fizz and Swirl of the Queer Life")

Though I was familiar with his past according to the newspaper accounts in the last couple of years, I didn't raise it, not wanting to undo the rapport we seemed to have built.

Instead, Maskell finally asked me into his study, because he wanted to "show me something".

When we entered, I noticed a desk with an old typewriter. Against the opposite wall was a couch. Above the desk was a painting that I could imagine Maskell scrutinising from the comfort of the couch opposite it.

He took a position at the far end of the couch and patted the cushion next to him. "Here," he suggested. "Come and share the view with me."

The painting was a work by his obsession, Nicolas Poussin. It was the one he wanted the Judge to have. "The Death of Seneca" (in truth, "Eliezer And Rebecca At The Well"). I observed it in silence. Perhaps it was expected of me that I would make some kind of assessment. However, I suspect that Maskell realised that my opinions would be both uninformed and impressionistic. Nevertheless, by the end of our meeting, it would be understood that I was to take it with me.

Maskell continued to talk of his teaching days at the Institute, then placed his hand on my inner thigh. It came as a surprise, even though it shouldn't have, given what I knew about his sexuality. I noticed that, for some reason, I had an erection. Was I reacting to some sense of imminent danger? Had he discovered or prompted some kind of repressed tendency?

It was then, dear reader, that he undressed me, and used me as he would his catamite.

Afterwards, he removed the picture from its hanger, wrapped it in brown paper and plastic, and handed it to me.

We shook hands, then as I turned to go, I noticed his smile again. There was a sense of accomplishment in it. He was coming to the end of his journey, while mine had just begun.