Corduroy Mansions

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “The pool was fed by a stream that entered it at one end—it was really rather long. Then, at the other end, the water tumbled over rocks and became a small rivulet that disappeared into the shrubbery. Apollo explained that it was wise to walk round the perimeter of the pool before diving in, because of snakes. They often became trapped, the smaller ones finding it difficult to surmount the obstacle presented by the six inches or so of sheer stone between the water and the top of the wall. There was a net on a long pole, which could be used to extract the snakes from the water and deposit them in a large urn that the gardeners had placed at the edge of the shrubbery.

  “I asked him if the snakes were poisonous and he replied that many were. ‘Everything is dangerous in this country,’ he said. ‘Snakes, plants, mountain roads … mothers.’”

  83. Freddie de la Hay Forgiven

  WILLIAM HAD LOVED his Belgian Shoes, even if he had only had them for a very brief time. They had been so comfortable, with their lightness and their soft, horsehair-filled soles. And now, holding the piece of mangled leather he had taken from Freddie de la Hay’s jaws, he reflected on how foolish, indeed how vain it was to be proud of something like an item of clothing or a pair of shoes. But that was how we were—the pride we felt in childhood when we got something new to wear never really went away. When he was six he had been given a pair of red Wellington boots that had filled his heart to bursting point with pride and pleasure; he had been reminded, years later, by his mother how he had refused for weeks to take the boots off, wearing them to bed, to church, everywhere.

  Marcia looked at Freddie de la Hay with horror when she realised what he had done. “You wicked, wicked dog!” she shouted. “Bad dog!”

  Freddie de la Hay hung his head. A small drop of saliva fell from his mouth to the floor; it could have been a tear.

  “Smack him,” Marcia urged. “William, you can’t let him get away with it! Your lovely Belgian Shoes. Bad, bad dog!”

  “I can’t smack him,” said William. “He’s already suffering remorse. Look at him. He’s saying sorry.”

  “Rubbish,” snapped Marcia. “He’s just bad.”

  William shook his head. “He’s not bad. He’s had a bit of a lapse, that’s all.”

  He crouched down on his haunches and gently lifted up Freddie’s snout so that man and dog were looking at one another eye to eye. “Freddie, I’m very disappointed,” he said. “Those shoes … well, they were very special shoes. Do you promise never to do that again?”

  Freddie stared at William. He knew that he had done something terrible and that he was in disgrace. He was not quite sure what it was, but he knew that there had been a sudden interruption of the current of love and affection that existed between him and William, which was, for him as it was for all dogs, the entire rationale of his existence. His theology was simple: William existed, and he, Freddie, existed to do William’s bidding and to please him. William’s displeasure was terrible unto him, and he could not bear it. But now his owner was patting his head and that brief, awful period of being cut off was over. He licked William’s hand, grateful for the restoration, the forgiveness.

  Marcia turned away. Seeing William forgive Freddie de la Hay in this way, she had become conscious of how vindictive she sounded when she had urged him to smack the dog. How mean she must have seemed in William’s eyes; how cruel. William was a good man, a gentle and kind man, and she had behaved like one of those women, strangers to the case, who hammer on the side of the police van as it takes some unpopular criminal away from court and off to prison, the contemporary equivalent of the tricoteuses who knitted as the guillotine did its terrible revolutionary work.

  This realisation amounted to more than a mere dawning of self-understanding; it made her see, too, how different they were. William was a sensitive, thoughtful man, and she admired him for that. But was she worthy of such a man? The problem was that there were depths to him that she simply could not match in herself. He was more perceptive than she was; he had read more; knew more about the world; saw things in a different, more subtly nuanced light. And while she appreciated this, her appreciation was that of the amateur who gazes upon a work of beauty, a great painting perhaps: the work of art is admired, but the observer knows that it belongs to a realm of understanding that will be for ever beyond him. He may look on, but that does not mean he can converse with the artist.

  All of this made her conscious that her decision to renounce her claim on him was the right one. And although Marcia did not know it, that very decision, in its unselfishness and realism, made her something of a great person too. She was unlikely ever to say anything profound; she would never change the way the world was; but she had taken a step in the direction of living rightly. That made Marcia great—in a tiny way.

  She turned back to face William and Freddie de la Hay. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re not a bad dog, Freddie de la Hay. We all fall into temptation from time to time.”

  “Hear that, Freddie?” said William. “Marcia says that you’re not so bad after all.”

  Freddie looked at Marcia and made to lick her from a distance—a token, virtual lick, but an important gesture nonetheless.

  “I’ll buy you a new pair of Belgian Shoes,” Marcia said to William. “Tomorrow.”

  “Oh, you can’t do that,” protested William. “They’re very expensive.”

  “How much?” asked Marcia.

  “One hundred and seventy pounds,” said William.

  Marcia laughed. “That wouldn’t be expensive by the standard of women’s shoes. Men’s shoes are obviously much cheaper.”

  “Maybe,” said William. He was remembering the pair of handmade shoes he had bought from John Lobb in St. James’s Street. “Unless you get a pair of made-to-measure from Lobb. They’re rather expensive.”

  Marcia repeated her direct question. “How much?”

  William looked embarrassed. “Two and a half thousand pounds,” he said. “But they last a long time.”

  Marcia let out a whistle. “Imelda Marcos! You didn’t, did you …” It was meant to be a question but it came out as an accusation.

  William sighed. “I’m afraid so. But they’re extremely comfortable. At least Freddie didn’t choose to chew them …” He stopped. A terrible possibility had occurred. And if the worst came to the worst, would he be able to forgive two and a half thousand in the same way he had forgiven one hundred and seventy?

  Marcia had reached the same conclusion as William. “You’d better go and check,” she said. “Or would you like me to do it for you?”

  William shook his head. “I’ll go.”

  He went out of the kitchen. While he was away, Marcia looked down at Freddie de la Hay, who looked back at her, uncertain as to what this latest development meant. Was he in renewed disgrace? he wondered. And if so, why?

  84. James Reveals His Good Eye

  WILLIAM RETURNED, smiling; Freddie de la Hay’s aberration had been confined to his Belgian Shoes and nothing else had been eaten. So while Marcia finished preparing the coquilles St. Jacques, he went to the telephone to dial the number of the flat downstairs. Dee answered and confirmed that Caroline was in; she had a friend round, Dee said, but she was sure that she would be happy to speak.

  “My friend Marcia and I need some advice on a painting,” William said to Caroline when she came to the phone. “I wonder if you would be able to come up for a drink, or coffee, later on? Perhaps you would look at it.”

  “You’ve bought a painting?” asked Caroline. “How exciting.”

  “Not quite bought,” said William. “Sort of … sort of found, I suppose.”

  “Even more exciting,” said Caroline. “And of course I’d be happy to come up. May I bring my friend James? He’s doing the course with me but he knows much more than I do. He could be helpful.”

  That, said William, would be perfect, and rang off. Then it was time for the coquilles St. Jacques, which Marcia had cooked to perfection. They ate them in silent m
utual enjoyment. There was no real need to say anything, at least on William’s side, as he felt quite happy and replete. The new arrangement with Marcia, which removed all the threat from an otherwise tricky situation, was an unmitigated relief. Eddie was no longer living in the flat and inflicting his music on him—another cause for relief, if not outright celebration. And although he had lost a Belgian Shoe, his John Lobb shoes had escaped the attentions of Freddie de la Hay. The world, or his very small corner of it, could have been in a far worse state, and he was grateful for it. And for the scallops and Sauvignon Blanc too.

  When Caroline and James arrived half an hour later, William and Marcia were ensconced in the drawing room, Marcia on her sofa and William in his chair. Marcia had made no attempt to persuade William to sit on the sofa with her—a sign, he thought, of her better understanding of the relationship between them. So James was able to sit next to Marcia while Caroline occupied the small tub chair alongside William’s armchair.

  William asked James about his course and where it would lead. “I’d like to work for a gallery or one of the auction houses,” James explained. “I’ve been promised an internship at the end of the course, and that might help. But there are lots of people after those posts. Everybody wants to do that sort of thing. Or everybody who has a degree in the history of art, that is.”

  “Well, it must be wonderful work,” said William. “I sometimes go to the wine auctions at Sotheby’s. I understand the excitement.”

  “I’d like to work in the Old Masters department,” said James. “I wish!”

  “James has a very good eye,” said Caroline. “He really does.”

  “Go on,” said James modestly. “Just because …”

  “No, you do,” Caroline persisted. “Remember when we saw that Brescia-school painting and everybody said that it was something else, and you said, no, it was Brescia. Even Professor Marinelli was wrong about that. And what he doesn’t know …”

  James laughed. “Beginner’s luck.”

  “Well, we won’t be showing you anything special,” said William.

  “What will you be showing us?” asked James.

  William shrugged. “I don’t know. It looks old—or it looks old to me. But I suppose that somebody could paint something today and make it look old.”

  “Of course they could,” said James. “They’d have to make their own paints, of course—you can’t get modern paints to do the trick. Everything painted with modern paints—paint out of a tube—looks far too chalky and white. You need to mix pigments with varnishes and a drop of oil. That enables you to get the light effect that you find in Old Masters. You put on layer after layer and the light shines through.”

  “James knows how to do it,” said Caroline. “James could have been a great painter if he had wanted.”

  James blushed. “You’re really flattering me tonight, Caroline. I couldn’t.”

  As they spoke, Marcia looked on, bemused. She was wondering about the nature of the relationship between the two students—were they just friends or was there something more between them? It was difficult to tell. He was obviously the sensitive type, which meant that he might not be interested, but one could never tell. It was quite wrong to assume that just because a man tucked his legs underneath him, as James was doing on the sofa next to her, and lowered his eyelids when he spoke—it was wrong to assume just because he did those things that he would not be interested in Caroline. And even if he was not interested in her, it was clear to Marcia that Caroline was interested in James. Any woman could tell that.

  For his part, William was wondering what Caroline saw in James. That was a very peculiar way to perch on the sofa, but then everybody was so peculiar these days, in William’s view, one could not read anything into anything. Caroline was really very attractive, but William wondered whether James was even aware of it. He rather thought James was not, and he felt a momentary pang of regret. Here was an attractive, physical girl, obviously in desperate need of a boyfriend, and here was he, William—too old even to be considered by her—while this boy seemed to take her completely for granted. It was all very depressing. He thought of Eliot’s poem, and of wearing the bottoms of one’s trousers rolled. Prufrock, was it? Am I Mr. Prufrock in the flat above? Is that what I am to her?

  “Shall I get the painting?” he said.

  James clapped his hands together. “Yes, let’s see it. I can’t wait. Ooh!”

  William smiled at the ooh.

  “Before you get it,” said Caroline, “tell us where you found it.”

  “In a wardrobe,” said Marcia.

  The two students looked at her in astonishment, while William went out of the room to fetch the painting from his study. When he came back, he held it turned away from them. “Close your eyes,” he said.

  They did, and he turned the painting round. They’ll say something disparaging, he thought; a cheap nineteenth-century souvenir of the Grand Tour—something like that.

  “Open your eyes now.”

  James let out a gasp. Then he muttered, “Caspita!”

  “Who was he?”

  James looked up at William. “Sorry. He wasn’t an artist—caspita is an Italian exclamation. It expresses how I feel looking at … looking at this painting.”

  And you? thought William, turning to gauge Caroline’s reaction.

  Caroline said nothing at first. Then, glancing at James, she frowned. A shadow came over her and it was as obvious to William as a thundercloud in the sky. He looked again at James, who had reached out to take the small painting from William’s hands and was holding it out in front of him. There was no shadow there—just astonishment, and unmistakable, spontaneous delight.

  85. A Poussin in Pimlico

  WILLIAM GAZED INTENTLY at James as he studied the painting in front of him. Marcia watched him too, and even Freddie de la Hay, his disgrace forgotten, looked on with interest.

  “First impressions,” said James, “are so important. You look at a good painting and bang, it’s there. You just feel it.”

  “It’s the same with wine,” William said. “You know when you first experience it when it’s a great wine. It can change in the glass, of course, but that first encounter leaves you in no doubt. I tasted a 1961 Médoc the other day. The balance!” He paused. “But I’m distracting you.”

  James looked up and smiled. “Not at all. I like talking about wine too. It all involves aesthetics. And isn’t it amazing how things survive? There’s your wine, in its fragile bottle, surviving almost fifty years, and here’s this painting, in pretty much the condition it was when it left Poussin’s studio … Except the colours in just about all Poussins have faded rather badly.”

  “Poussin!” exclaimed Caroline.

  James turned to her and smiled triumphantly. “Yes, Poussin. Nicolas Poussin.”

  Caroline, who had leapt to her feet in her excitement, now sat down again. “I don’t believe it,” she muttered.

  “You don’t?” asked Marcia. She wondered whether she should have been incredulous too. The problem, though, was that she was not sure who Poussin was. Picasso, yes. But Poussin?

  It was as if James sensed Marcia’s embarrassment. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Lots of people aren’t all that familiar with Poussin. There are so many painters!”

  That helped. “Is he important?” Marcia asked.

  James nodded. “Immensely. He was a great classical painter. He disapproved of other French painters of his time and went off to Rome. He did some wonderful paintings.”

  William was frowning. “Do you really think that this is by him? And how can you tell?”

  James placed the painting on the table in front of him. “It’s a question of style—principally. When you get to know an artist’s work, you’ll always recognise it—in much the same way as you’ll recognise a face. It’s just there, the flow and feel, the way of looking at the world—everything. It’s like a signature.” He turned to William. “It’s the same with your wine, surely? Y
ou know where a wine comes from when you first taste it. You may not be able to put your finger on the exact reason, but you know, don’t you?”

  William agreed. But how could one tell, he wondered, whether something was the real thing, as opposed to an imitation or a copy? He raised this doubt now. “What about that chap who did the Vermeers during the war? If he could churn out Vermeers, then surely there could be somebody doing Poussins—in the same convincing way?”

  James reached out and touched the picture lightly with his fingertips. “Of course you’re right,” he said. “This could be a copy by a follower of Poussin. A very good follower. It could be of the period, or it could be by a modern forger. It could be anything. But to me it looks like a Poussin—a very small Poussin. Mind you, I’m no expert …”

  “James is only a student,” Caroline pointed out. “Nobody will listen to a student.”

  “We’re listening,” said Marcia.

  James smiled. “Thank you. But Caroline’s right. My opinion counts for nothing. We need to show it to somebody whose attribution will stand for something. We need to find an authority on Poussin.”

  “Can you do that?” asked Marcia. “Can you just approach somebody out of the blue like that?”

  “Of course,” replied James. “That’s what these people are there for. And there’s bound to be a Poussin expert in London. There was Anthony Blunt, of course, at the Courtauld …”

  William looked up sharply. “The Fourth Man?”