His house was built on a tree-covered hillside not far from the place where the ancient Roman highway of Stane Street surmounted the Downs. It was a Jacobean mansion, so restored over the ages that very little of the original sixteenth-century building remained. But priority had been given to the corporeal things of life, so that the roof never leaked and the plumbing, the heating and the electricity supply always provided a level of comfort rarely encountered in English country houses.

Sometimes I wondered how much money went through his hands for him to be able to run this place with its desirable living accommodation for the servants, a self-contained wing for his guests and heated stabling for his horses. I parked my battered Ford between Kimber-Hutchinson's silver Rolls and his wife's Jaguar. The Kimber-Hutchinsons wouldn't have a foreign car. It wasn't simply a matter of patriotism, the old man once told me; it would upset some of his customers. Poor fellow, he needed handmade shoes because of his 'awkward feet' and Savile Row suits because he wasn't lucky enough to have the figure for ready-made ones. Cheap wine played havoc with his stomach so he drank expensive ones, and because he couldn't fit into economy-size airline seats he was forced to go everywhere first class. Poor David, he envied people like me, he was always telling me so.

David – he liked me to call him David; 'father-in-law' being too specific, 'father' too inaccurate, 'Mr Kimber-Hutchinson' too cumbersome and 'Kimber' a form of address reserved for his intimates – was waiting for me in the studio. The studio was a luxuriously converted barn. At one end there was a huge north-facing window and an easel where he liked to stand and paint water-colours that were snapped up at good prices by executives of the companies with which he did business. Under the skylight there was a large wooden rostrum that was said to have come from the Paris studio of Maillol, a sculptor who'd devoted his life to loving portrayals of the female nude. I'd once asked David what he used it for but got only the vaguest of answers.

'Come in and sit down, Bernard old chap.' He was working on a painting when I got there, but he was not at the easel. He was seated at a small table, a drawing board resting on his knees, while he pencilled in the outlines of a landscape with horses. On the table there were half a dozen enlarged photos of the same view, photos of horses and a sheet of tracing paper from which he'd worked. 'You've discovered my little secret,' he said without looking up from his sketch. 'I always start off from photographs. No sense in not using all the help you can get. Michelangelo would have used a camera when doing die Sistine Chapel ceiling had he got the chance.'

Since David Kimber-Hutchinson showed no sign of revealing more about Michelangelo's frustrated technological aspirations, I grunted and sat down while he finished drawing the horse. Although it was a faithful reproduction of the horse in the photo, David's traced drawing of it looked wooden and stunted. He was obviously aware of this, for he was redrawing the outline to extend its legs, but that didn't seem to improve it.

He was wearing a dark-blue artist's smock over his yellow cashmere rollneck and riding breeches. His face was flushed. I guessed he'd just got back from a canter over the Downs. It was rather as if he'd arranged things so that I would see him tracing his pictures. Perhaps he thought I would admire such acquired trickery more than mere talent. A man could not take credit for talent in the way he could for cunning.

Eventually he abandoned his attempt and put the pencil down on the table in front of him. 'I can never draw horses,' he said. 'It's just not fair. No artist loved horses as I do, or knew as much about them. But even when I use photos I can't damn well draw them. It's not fair.'

I'd never heard him appeal to equity before. Usually he upheld the ultimate justice of market forces and even the survival of the fittest. 'Perhaps it's because you trace photos,' I said. 'Maybe you should trace paintings.'

He looked at me, trying to decide whether to take offence, but my face was blank and he said, 'I might try that. Trace a Stubbs or something, just to get some idea of the trade secrets. Ummm. It's all tricks, you know. A Royal Academy painter admitted that to me once. Painting is just learning a set of tricks, just like playing the stock exchange.'

'They are tricks I will never master,' I admitted.

'Easy enough to do, Bernard. Easy enough to do.' He took off his artist's smock and smiled. He liked to hear that his achievements were beyond other men; especially he liked to be praised about his skills with horses. He was up every morning grooming his horses and he endured the long drive to his London office for the sake of seeing his horses. More than once he'd told me that he liked horses better than he liked people. They never lie to you, horses,' he said. They never try to swindle you.'

He spoke without looking up from his board. 'So you're still driving that old Ford,' he said. 'I thought you were going to get a Volvo.'

'I cancelled the order,' I said. 'I don't need a big car now.'

'And a big car costs money, more than you can afford,' he said with that directness that you could always count upon. 'You should see the bills I pay on that Rolls. I had to replace the fire-extinguisher last month and that cost me seventy-eight pounds.'

'It might be worth that if you are on fire,' I said.

'Have a drink, Bernard. It's a tiring drive from London. How did you come, Kingston bypass? Full of weekend drivers, was it? "Murder mile" they call it, that bit south of Kingston Vale. I've seen a dozen cars crunched together on that stretch of road. The lights change at Robin Hood Gate and they go mad.'

'Coming in this direction it wasn't too bad,' I said.

He went over to an old cupboard that contained jars full of brushes and tubes of paint and bottles of turpentine and linseed oil for the times when he worked in oils. From a compartment in the cupboard he got a glass and a bottle of drink. 'You're a whisky and soda man, as I remember. Lots of soda and lots of whisky.' He laughed and poured a huge Scotch. He had me summed up nicely. 'Teacher's all right?' He handed it to me without waiting for a reply. 'No ice over here.'

'Thanks.' It was a cheap tumbler, not the Waterford he used at his dinner table. This David who painted here in his studio was a different David – an artist, a plain man with earthy pleasures and simple tastes.

'Yes,' he said. 'A big car is no use to you now that you're on your own. The big house will be a burden too. I've scribbled out some figures to show you.'

'Have you?' I said.

He got a piece of paper from the table and sank down on the sofa, studying the piece of paper as if he'd never seen it before. 'You bought the house four years ago, and property has been sticky ever since then. I warned you about that at the time, as I remember. The way the market is now, you'll be lucky to get your money back.' He looked at me.

'Really,' I said.

'And when you take into account inflation and loss of earnings on capital it's been a bad investment. But you'll have to grin and bear it, I'm afraid. The important thing is to reduce your outgoings. Get on to a house agent first thing in the morning, Bernard. Get that house on the market. And find yourself a small service flat; bedroom, sitting room and a kitchen, that's all you need. In fact, I wonder if you really need a kitchen.' When I didn't respond, he said, 'I've jotted down the phone numbers of a couple of house agents I do business with. You don't want to go to the first people you happen upon. Too many Jews in that line of business.' A smile. 'Oh, I forgot, you like Jews, don't you?'

'No more than I like Scotsmen or Saudi Arabians. But I always suspect that whatever is being done to Jews this week is likely to be done to me next week. In any case, I have decided to hang on to the house. At least for the time being.'