Lizzie sighed. “Why? Why can’t we just go by ourselves?”
Sasha leaned forward conspiratorially. “Because there’s hardly anybody going,” she whispered. “Nobody has bought a ticket – or virtually nobody.”
Lizzie looked at her mother in frank astonishment. “Nobody?”
“Yes,” said Sasha. “Even the people on the committee have found some excuse or other. It’s appalling.”
“Well, then, why don’t you cancel it? Surely that would be simplest?”
Sasha shook her head. “No, it’s not going to be cancelled. Imagine if people heard about that. We’d be the laughing stock. The ball is going ahead. Your father has made up his mind.”
Lizzie thought for a moment. “And Bruce? What about him?”
Sasha answered quickly. “Very charming. A good-looking young man too. He lives down in the New Town somewhere.” She paused, and then added: “Unattached.”
For a moment there was a silence. Then Lizzie laughed. “So,” she said. “So.”
“Yes,” said Sasha. “So. And it’s about time, if I may say so, that you started to think of finding a suitable man. It’s all very well enjoying yourself, but you can’t leave it too late.”
Lizzie closed her eyes. “I’m on the shelf, am I?”
Sasha picked up her coffee and took a sip. She would remain calm in this conversation; she was determined about that. “You know very well what I’m talking about. There are some people who just miss the bus. You may think that you’ve got plenty of time, but you haven’t. The years go by. Then you suddenly realise that you’re thirty-something and the men who are interested in getting married aren’t interested in you any more – they’re interested in girls in their mid-twenties. Oh yes, you may laugh, but that’s the truth of the matter. If you want a husband, don’t drag your feet – just don’t drag your feet.”
Lizzie waited until her mother had finished. Then: “But you’re assuming that I want a husband.”
Sasha stared at her daughter. “Of course you want a husband.”
Lizzie shook her head. “Actually, I don’t have much of a view on that. I’m quite happy as I am. There’s nothing wrong with being single.”
Sasha put down her coffee cup. She would have to choose her words carefully. “All right. You’re single. Where does the money come from? You tell me that. Where does the money come from?”
Lizzie did not respond, and after a few moments Sasha provided the answer herself.
“Money comes from men,” she said.
40. In Nets of Golden Wires
Carried down on the Jenners escalator, mother and daughter, one step apart, but separated by a continent of difference. I must be patient with her, thought Sasha; and Lizzie, for her part, thought exactly the same. She’ll come round to our way of thinking – it’s just a question of time&xfc; thought Sasha; and Lizzie said to herself: God help me from ever, ever becoming like her. She actually said it. She said: money comes from men! She felt herself blush at the thought, a warm feeling of shame, mixed with embarrassment, for Sasha. If her mother thought this, then what did her parents’ marriage amount to? An agreement as to property? That would make her the by-product of an arrangement of convenience; no more than that.
They descended from the first floor in silence. Then, halfway down, Lizzie turned to the left and saw, standing on the ascending escalator, a young man, perhaps her age, perhaps a year or two older; a young man who was wearing a dark-olive shirt and a grey windcheater, and whose face reminded her, more than anything else, of one of those youths who stood as models for Renaissance painters. Had he been naked, and pierced by arrows, then he was Saint Sebastian in full martyrdom; but his expression was not one of agony, or even of anxiety; he had something to do in Jenners, and was going about his business calmly. Look at me! willed Lizzie. Look! But he did not seem to notice her, and his gaze remained fixed ahead.
They passed one another in seconds, and Lizzie, transfixed, turned round to watch him disappear behind her. She noticed the shape of the shoulders, and the neck, so vulnerable, so perfect, and the colour of his hair, and she was filled at that moment with a sudden sense of longing. The vision of male beauty which had been vouchsafed her struck her with sudden and great force, and she knew that she had to see this young man again; she had to speak to him.
She had been standing in front of her mother, and so she got off the escalator first when they reached the bottom and turned to face Sasha.
“We might try some perfumes,” said Sasha. “My bottle of Estée Lauder is almost empty and I thought I might try something else. You could help me choose.”
Lizzie thought quickly. “You go,” she said. “There’s something I want to look for upstairs. Sorry, I forgot.”
“What is it?” asked Sasha.
Lizzie thought for a moment. She was tempted to reply: a man, but did not, saying instead: “Oh, I just wanted to look around. But don’t you worry about it, you go ahead.”
She moved forward to give Sasha a quick peck on the cheek, and then, without waiting for her mother to protest, she stepped back onto the ascending escalator. Looking up, she saw that the young man had disappeared, but presumably he had taken the next escalator up; there was nothing for men on the mezzanine floor. So she strode up the steps, turning quickly to wave to Sasha, who was still standing, in puzzlement, staring up at her.
She knew that what she was doing was ridiculous. It was ridiculous to see somebody – on an escalator, too – and fall in love with him. People did not do that sort of thing. And yet she had. She had seen this man and she ached to see him again. Why? Because of the beauty of his expression? Because she knew, just to look at him, that he would be kind to her? How absurd, utterly absurd. And yet that is exactly how she felt. I am caught by love in nets of golden wires.
When she reached the first floor, she looked about her quickly. There was no sign of the young man, and she decided, again, that he must have gone further up. The food hall; that was it; that was where a young man would be going. He would be planning a dinner party for some friends and needed something special. He was used to Jenners, having been taken there with his mother – one of those matrons in the tea-room – and now he was coming back to do his own shopping.
Lizzie rushed to change escalators and arrived, slightly breathless, on the second floor. She made her way to the food hall and looked down the aisles. There were rows of shortbread tins and traditional oatcakes; lines of marmalade jars; nests of pickles and spices. A be-aproned woman came up to her with a tray and offered her a small piece of cheese on a stick. Lizzie took it, almost automatically, and thanked her.
“I’m looking for a man,” she said.
“Aren’t we all?” said the woman, offering her another piece of cheese.
Lizzie smiled. “He came up the escalator, and he seems to have disappeared. A young man in a grey windcheater. Tall. Good-looking.”
The woman sighed. “Sounds ideal. He’d suit me fine.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
Lizzie wandered off. The store was too big. The world was empty. She had lost him.
41. Your Cupboard or Mine?
“I’m not sure,” said Pat. “I’m not sure if that’s a very good idea.”
Matthew looked surprised. It seemed obvious to him, but then sometimes he discovered that others found it hard to grasp the self-evident. This had given rise to difficulties during his business career, such as it was. He had assumed that staff would understand the reasons for doing things in a particular way, only to discover that they had no idea. This meant that he had to spell things out to them, and this, in turn, seemed to irritate them. He had wondered whether he was going about it in the right way, and had discussed the issue with his father, but even his father had not seemed to grasp the point that he was trying to make.
“It really is the best thing to do,” he assured her. “We talked about it over coffee. Everybody agreed that it would be better for
the Peploe? to be looked after somewhere else. It was Pete’s idea, actually, but Ronnie and Lou liked the idea too.”
“But why? Why can’t you take it back to your place and put it in a cupboard? Why put it in my cupboard?”
They were sitting at Matthew’s desk in the gallery, and Matthew had his feet up on the surface of the desk while he leaned back in his leather captain’s chair. Pat noticed his shoes, which were an elegant pair of brogues, leather-soled. Matthew noticed her looking at his shoes and smiled. “Church’s,” he said. “They make very good shoes for men. They last. But they’re pricey.”
Pat nodded. “They’re very smart. I don’t like big clumping shoes, like some of the shoes that you see men wearing. I like thin shoes, like those. I always look at men’s shoes.”
“But do you know how much these shoes cost?” Matthew asked. “Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Two hundred and fifty pounds,” he said, adding: “That’s for two.”
He waited for Pat to laugh, but she did not. She was looking at his shoes again. “What sort of shoes do you think the First Minister wears?” she asked.
Matthew shrugged. It was a curious question to ask. He had no interest in politicians, and he would have had some difficulty in remembering the name of the First Minister. Come to think of it, who was he? Or was that the previous one? “We never see his feet, do we? Are they keeping them from us?”
“Maybe.”
Matthew, slightly self-consciously, now lifted his feet off the desk. “I expect he buys his shoes in Glasgow,” he said. “Not Edinburgh.”
They sat in silence for a moment, while this remark was digested. Then Pat returned to the issue of the cupboard. “But why can’t you keep the Peploe? in your cupboard … along with your Church’s shoes?”
Matthew sighed. “Because it will be obvious to whoever is trying to steal it that it could be at my place. I’m in the phone book. They could look me up and then do my place over. Whereas you … well, you’re not exactly in the phone book, I take it. They won’t know who you are.”
I’m anonymous, thought Pat. I’m not even in the phone book. I’m just the girl who works in the gallery. A girl with a room in a flat in Scotland Street. A girl on her second gap year …
“All right,” she said. “I’ll take it back to Scotland Street and put it in a cupboard down there. If that’s what you want.”
Matthew stood up and rubbed his hands together. “Good,” he said. “I’ll wrap it up and you can take it back with you this evening.”
He walked across to the place where the Peploe? was hanging and lifted it off its hook. Then, bringing it back to the desk, he turned it over and they both examined the back of the painting. The stretcher, across which the canvas had been placed, had cracked in several places and was covered with dust. A label had been stuck on the top wooden strut, and Matthew now extracted a clean white handkerchief and rubbed the dust off this.
“You can tell a lot from labels,” he said knowingly. “These things tell you a great deal about a painting.”
Pat glanced at him. His pronouncement sounded confident, and for a moment she thought that he perhaps knew something about art after all. But it was all very well knowing that labels told you something, the real skill would lie in knowing what it was that they told you.
“There’s something written on it,” said Matthew, dabbing at the dust again. “Look.”
Pat peered at the faded surface of the label. Something had been written on it in pencil. As Matthew removed more grime, the writing became more legible, and he read it out.
“It says: Three pounds two and sixpence.”
They looked at one another.
“That was a long time ago, of course,” said Matthew.
42. Gallery Matters
Matthew’s problem, thought Pat, was that he very quickly became bored with what he was doing. That day was an example. After they had finished their discussion about what to do with the Peploe?, he had turned to a number of tasks, but had completed none. He had started a crossword, but failed to fill in more than a few clues and had abandoned it. He had then written a letter, but had stopped halfway through and announced that he would finish it the following day. Then he had begun to tidy his desk, but had suddenly decided that it was time for lunch and had disappeared to the Café St Honoré for a couple of hours. Pat wondered whether he had finished his meal, or only eaten half of it. Had he finished his coffee at Big Lou’s, or had he left his cup half-drained? She would have to watch next time.
Of course, part of the reason for Matthew’s behaviour, she thought, was that he was bored. The gallery did virtually no business and what else was there to do but sit and wait for customers?
“Perhaps we should hold an exhibition,” she said to him when he returned from lunch.
Matthew looked at her quizzically. “Haven’t we got one on at the moment?” he said, gesturing to the walls.
“This is just a random collection of paintings,” Pat explained. “An exhibition involves a particular sort of painting. Or work by a particular artist. It gives people something to think about. It would draw them in.”
Matthew looked thoughtful. “But where would we get all these paintings from?” he asked.
“You’d contact an artist and ask him to give you a whole lot of paintings,” she said. “Artists like that. It’s called a show.”
“But I don’t know any artists,” said Matthew.
Pat looked at him. She wanted to ask him why he was running a gallery, but she did not. Bruce had been right, she told herself. He is useless. He hasn’t got a clue.
“I know some artists,” she said. “We had an artist in residence at school. He’s very good. He’s called Tim Cockburn, and he lives in Fife. There are a lot of artists in Pittenweem. There’s Tim Cockburn, and then there’s somebody called Reinhard Behrens, who puts a little submarine into all his paintings. He’s good too. We could ask them to do a show.”
Matthew was interested, but then he looked at his watch. “My God! Look at the time. And I’m meant to be playing golf with the old man. I’m going to have to shoot.”
Left by herself for the rest of the afternoon, Pat dealt with the few customers who came in. She sold a D.Y. Cameron print and dealt with an enquiry from a woman who wanted to buy a Vettriano for her husband.
“I went into another gallery and asked them the same question,” she said to Pat. “And they told me that they had no Vettrianos but that I could paint one myself if I wanted. What do you think they meant by that?”
Pat thought for a moment. There was an endemic snobbery in the art world, and here was an example.
“Some people are sniffy about him,” she said. “Some people don’t like his work at all.”
“But my husband does,” protested the woman. “And he knows all about art. He even went to a lecture by Timothy Clifford once.”
“About Vettriano?” asked Pat.
“Perhaps,” said the woman, vaguely. “It was about the Renaissance. That sort of thing.”
Pat looked at the floor. “Vettriano is not a Renaissance painter. In fact, he’s still alive, you know.”
“Oh,” said the woman. “Well, there you are.”
“And I’m sorry, but we do not have any Vettriani in stock. But how about a D.Y. Cameron print? We have one over there of Ben Lawers.”
Pat almost sold a second D.Y. Cameron print, but eventually did not. She was pleased, though, with the other sale, and when she left the gallery at five that evening, the Peploe? wrapped in brown paper and tucked under her arm, she was in a cheerful mood. She had agreed to meet Chris that evening, of course, and she had her misgivings about that, but at least she was going out and would not have to endure Bruce’s company in the flat. And it would do him no harm, she thought, to know that she had been asked out by a man. He condescended to her, and probably thought that his own invitation to the pub was the only social invitation she was likely to receive. Well, he cou
ld reflect on the fact that she was going out that evening to a wine bar, and at the invitation of a man.
Back in the flat, Pat opened the hall cupboard and inspected its contents. There were a couple of battered suitcases, some empty cardboard boxes, and a bicycle saddle. Everything looked abandoned, which it probably was. This was a perfect place to hide a painting, and Pat tucked it away, leaning against a wall, hidden by one of the cardboard boxes. It would be safe there, as safe, perhaps, as one of those missing masterpieces secreted in the hidden collections of South American drug barons. Except that this was Edinburgh, not Ascuncion or Bogota. That was the difference.
43. The Sort of People You See in
Edinburgh Wine Bars
She was due to meet Chris at seven, in the Hot Cool Wine Bar halfway along Thistle Street. She arrived at ten-past, which was just when she happened to arrive, but which was also exactly the right time to arrive in the circumstances. Quarter past the hour would have made her late, and any closer to seven would have made her seem too keen. And she was not keen – definitely not – although he was presentable enough and had been polite to her. The problem was the way he had said hah, hah; that had been a bad sign. So now she was there out of duty; having agreed to meet him she would do so, but would leave early.
She looked around the bar. It was a long, narrow room, decorated in the obligatory Danish minimalist style, which meant that there was no furniture. She had always thought that Danish minimalism should have been the cheapest style available, because it involved nothing, but in fact it was the most expensive. The empty spaces in Danish minimalism were what cost the money.
In true minimalist style, everybody was obliged to stand, and they were doing so around a long, stainless-steel covered bar. Above the bar, suspended on almost invisible wires, minimalist lights cast descending cones of brightness onto those standing below. This made everybody look somewhat stark, an impression that was furthered by the fact that so many of them were wearing black.
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