The Fear Index

professional body of work: at least as impressive as most openings she had attended in her time. No one had laughed. People had looked carefully and made thoughtful comments, mostly complimentary. The earnest young reporter from the Geneva Tribune had even compared her emphasis on the simplicity of the line with Giacometti’s topography of the head. Her only remaining anxiety was that nothing had yet sold, which she blamed on the high prices Bertrand had insisted on charging, from 4,500 Swiss francs – about $5,000 – for the CAT scans of the smallest animal heads up to 18,000 for the big MRI portrait, The Invisible Man . If nothing had gone by the end of the day, it would be a humiliation.
    She tried to forget about it and pay attention to what the man opposite her was saying. It was difficult to hear over the noise. She had to interrupt him. She put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?’
    ‘Bob Walton. I used to work with Alex at CERN. I was just saying that I think you two first met at a party in my house.’
    ‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘that’s quite right. How are you?’ She shook his hand and looked at him properly for the first time: thin, tall, neat, grey – ascetic, she decided; either that or just plain severe. He could have been a monk – no, more senior than that, he had authority: an abbot. She said, ‘It’s funny – I just tagged along to that party with friends. I’m not sure we’ve ever been formally introduced, have we?’
    ‘I believe not.’
    ‘Well – thank you, belatedly. You changed my life.’
    He didn’t smile. ‘I haven’t seen Alex for years. He is coming, I assume?’
    ‘I certainly hope so.’ Once again her eyes flickered to the door in the hope that Alex would walk through it. So far all her husband had done was to send her the taciturn bodyguard, who had now stationed himself at the entrance like a nightclub bouncer and occasionally seemed to speak into his sleeve. ‘So what brings you here? Are you a gallery regular or just a passer-by?’
    ‘Neither. Alex invited me.’
    ‘ Alex? ’ She did a double-take. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know Alex sent out any invitations. It’s not the kind of thing he does.’
    ‘I was a little surprised myself. Especially as the last time we met we had something of a disagreement. And now I have come to make amends and he isn’t here. Never mind. I like your work.’
    ‘Thank you.’ She was still trying to assimilate the idea that Alex might have invited a guest of his own, and without telling her. ‘Perhaps you’ll buy something.’
    ‘I fear the prices are somewhat beyond the means of a CERN salary.’ And for the first time he gave her a smile – all the warmer for being so rare, like a flash of sun on a grey landscape. He put his hand into his breast pocket. ‘If you ever feel like making art out of particle physics, give me a call.’ He gave her his card. She read:

    Professor Robert WALTON

    Computing Centre Department Head

    CERN – European Organisation for Nuclear Research

    1211 Geneva 23 – Switzerland

    ‘That sounds very grand.’ She slipped the card into her pocket. ‘Thank you. I might well do that. So tell me about you and Alex—’
    ‘Darling, you are clever,’ said a woman’s voice behind her. She felt someone squeeze her elbow and turned to find herself confronted by the wide pale face and large grey eyes of Jenny Brinkerhof, another Englishwoman in her mid-thirties married to a hedge-fund manager. (Geneva had started to teem with them, Gabrielle had noticed: economic migrants from London, fleeing the UK’s new fifty per cent tax rate. All they seemed to talk about was how hard it was to find decent schools.)
    She said, ‘Jen, how lovely of you to come.’
    ‘How lovely of you to invite me.’
    They kissed and Gabrielle swung round to introduce her to Walton, but he had moved on and was talking to the man from the Tribune . This was the trouble with drinks parties: getting stuck with a person you didn’t want to talk to while someone you did was tantalisingly in view. She wondered how long it would be before Jen mentioned her children.
    ‘I do so envy you just having the sheer space in your life to do something like this. I mean, if there’s one thing that having three kids just absolutely kills , it’s the creative spark …’
    Over her shoulder Gabrielle saw an incongruous figure, strange yet familiar, enter the gallery. ‘Excuse me a