"The Prime Minister has the same one…"

The Collector
of Art

Kept waiting. Of course. Even if they were ready on time, they wouldn’t have been ready. Of course not, their time is money, your time is just...empty hours, minutes and seconds. And in a sense, they're right: on this day they can spend my time as they see fit.

But no matter what, you must always be kept waiting and just that little bit longer than you’d think it has to be. It's always pushed until the sharp point digs in, shows you who's in charge. The better to control the situation. This is a constant, just like death and taxes. It’s nothing personal. They would probably keep Annie Leibowitz waiting, too, if it were her and not little old me. Though surely she has an assistant or two who will proxy wait on her behalf. In the back of your mind, you’re deducting the long waiting minutes from the far shorter shoot minutes. You try not to panic. Stay calm, don’t let it get to you; take out a book. Years have taught you that a book is essential and so space is always found, although you hate to add to the weight of the equipment you’re dragging around. Not a book to read, but a prop book; the better to listen undetected. Little pitchers have big ears. The bodyguards, the Personal Assistants, the Heads of Communication, the PR, the handler, all shushshush about the mood of the day. The tight schedule, the sighing, the certainty that carefully planned meetings will be jettisoned today, like every other. There will always be a crisis, real or manufactured—there is always a situation, somewhere, that needs urgent attention and always more important. Try to glance at your watch, sliding up a cuff, eyes forward to check no one’s looking, then a glance, no more. Try not to panic. Stay calm, don’t let it get to you. 10 past already? If they say you have fifteen minutes with him, they’ll deduct any lost minutes from the front; the back end is unmovable. Set in stone. Unless you can amuse your subject, charm them into overstaying and ignoring the fidgeting minder shifting from foot to foot behind you, tapping your upper arm from time to time, whispering into your ear. They you must learn to ignore, for it this a game where the mouse chases the cat and little more.

He tells you, conspiratorially, how much he hates having his photograph taken. That’s what the men always say. Women, by and large, don’t bother with such chit chat, they just get on with it. You want to respond, to say indeed, this is normal, the correct way to act in a culture where we are taught to deny seeing beauty in our own self, even if we only glimpse it briefly in the shaving mirror in the morning. Without our glasses on. Anyway, they tell you this and smile past you, so you can only answer with a forced twinkle, smiling mildly, as though this is the very first time you’ve heard it said and it's as clever and amusante as the first 20 times you heard it. In a sense it’s true, it’s the first time you’ve heard them say it. But many others have been here before. Tempted, to tell them that over the years, only one person has said they liked having theirs taken, and that if that person wasn't already the subject of police attention, then it could be a matter of time measured in milliseconds before they were. “He’s ready.” He greets you at the door, in person. Instructs you to take your shoes off, leave everything outside. Hard to work with no tools, but harder still to argue. We trail him as he leads us on a tour of his apartment-cum-art gallery. “My Picasso. 1963,” he points to a painting in a scrubbed white frame. 10 years older than him, I think. Our millionaire tour guide walks on. “My Monet.” Waves a hand casually. We are now in a room overlooking Hyde Park. The bridleway leading to the Household Cavalry stables lies below, the Serpentine just behind. The entire wall is double height floor-to-ceiling glass.

“Bullet-proof,” he says, noticing my eyes travelling up and down. I am gauging the light, while he meters the sort of threats known only to oligarchs and dictators. And perhaps property developers, too. Perhaps. “Damian Hirst,” he nods at a crystal skull on a shelf under a bronze cast of Rodin’s The Kiss. Not The Kiss as such, but A Kiss, one of 150 editions officially sanctioned. But still. Past more sundry masterpieces to a new room: Marilyn, by Eve Arnold "The Prime Minister has the same one," he says, with perhaps too much pride in his voice, about Tracy Emin's Neon. Into a third room, a study wallpapered with giant Helmut Newton prints: we are in the innermost sanctum, his wife's private study, where she is hard at work on her correspondence. All trophies on display, a package deal leveraged and lawyered, complete and symbiotic. So pleased to meet you. And you. Sweep through one room after another. To the bar, overlooking Harvey Nichols. Swarovski crystal encrusted drums in the centre of the room, a gift for her musical side from last birthday… “Nadja’s a great friend, she thought it would be fun…” We are down to the last few minutes allotted. Retrieve the equipment, rush, rush, rush. The journalist in his own world, still chatting as though we are all old friends and time is elastic; it may be for him, but my time here is not. Two minute warning, the PA is whispering. The driver is waiting. Places to go, people to see. This is the shoot, finally. Click, click, clickety click. Look-left-could-you-look-right. Try not to knock over the Monet on its freestanding easel, try to get an angle that avoids the phallus-like sculpture that seems to impossible to avoid. Time, the PA murmurs, tugging on your elbow. Must go. Nice to meet you. And you.