The Revolving Door of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Pat nodded. “Thanks,” she said.

  He went into the small kitchen at the back of the gallery, filled the kettle and plugged it into the wall. Immediately he felt calmer.

  33. The Czechess

  Pat looked at Matthew over the top of her mug of tea. “I feel so disloyal,” she said.

  “Talking about your father? Is that what makes you feel disloyal?”

  She nodded. “We don’t like to criticise our parents to others; somehow it seems so wrong.”

  Matthew thought about this. He knew a number of people who found fault in their parents—on occasion, serious fault. There were others, of course, who would never do this—who elevated their parents to some sort of pedestal and who would never face up even to the most obvious defects in character. Presumably, as in all human affairs there would be a via media—an attitude of charity that was not blind to parental shortcomings but that was discreet about them, and understanding too.

  “I don’t think you should reproach yourself,” Matthew reassured her. “And if you can’t talk about your parents reasonably objectively, then you may not be able to help them.”

  Pat seemed to take comfort from this. “I do want to help him,” she said. “It’s probably too late, but I really would like to help him.”

  “Why not tell me?” said Matthew.

  Pat was silent for a few moments. Then she said, “That woman is after his money. It’s glaringly obvious and the only person who can’t see it is my father.”

  Matthew frowned. “Are you sure? Just because she may be younger than he is doesn’t mean that she’s a gold digger. There are plenty of people who fall in love with older people who…”

  “…Who have more money than they have.”

  “Not just that,” said Matthew. “Some of them may not be interested in money at all.”

  Pat made a face. “Highly unlikely.”

  Matthew shrugged. “You’re being very cynical.”

  “I’m being realistic,” said Pat. “Look at those ads you see in the lonely hearts columns.”

  “Which ones?”

  “The ones that make it crystal clear,” answered Pat. “Inadvertently, of course. Young woman (27) seeks male friend. Age not an issue. Well, you know what responses that’ll get: late middle-aged men who don’t see the trap they’re walking into.” She paused. “I saw one the other day placed by a young man of twenty-two looking for a male friend over sixty, preferably with a house abroad and a yacht. How transparent can you get? And if I were that guy with the yacht I’d be careful about falling into the sea. And careful about signing a new will.”

  Matthew looked incredulous. “Surely not.”

  “Well, why else would he put in an ad like that?”

  Matthew shrugged again. “People are looking for different things. Emotional security. A substitute parent. All sorts of things.”

  “Including money,” said Pat.

  “Maybe.” He paused. “Have you got any evidence that this women…”

  “She’s called Anichka,” said Pat. “Although I can hardly bring myself to utter the name.”

  “Have you got any evidence that Anichka’s interested in your father’s money? The fact that she’s Eastern European doesn’t automatically mean that she’s out to improve her financial situation. A lot of these marriages to foreign women work very well because people love one another. It happens, you know.”

  Pat was dismissive. “I know what she’s like because that’s all she talks about. Money. What things cost. All the time.”

  She gave Matthew some examples. “She reads The Scotsman property supplement every Thursday. I’ve seen her. And I’ve picked the paper up afterwards and she will have circled the ads for any houses that are at all like my father’s. And she underlines the price. That’s so that she knows what ours will be worth—she’s watching the price.”

  “Perhaps she’s thinking of moving.”

  “No, they aren’t thinking of that. My father told me that she loves his place and is looking forward to living there. And here’s another example. She had his pictures valued, and some of the furniture too. I came across the valuation report.”

  “Perhaps it was for insurance. People do that, you know. You have to make sure you’re not underinsured.”

  She brushed this off. “No, it wasn’t for insurance. And there’s another thing. My father goes to a bank where you still have a bank manager who looks after you. I happen to know his manager, because he’s also my godfather. And he came to see me. He was very embarrassed, and a bit furtive too. He said that he really shouldn’t talk to me about it, but he felt that he had to. He said my father had given Anichka signing rights on his deposit account and money was being transferred out of it and sent to the Czech Republic and to some account in Toronto. He said that quite a bit of money had gone.”

  Matthew winced. “Oh,” he said. “That doesn’t sound very good.”

  “No,” said Pat.

  “Have you talked to him?”

  This seemed to trigger a painful memory. “Yes, I did. And he said that he was very disappointed in me for being so suspicious. He said that Anichka was not at all materialistic. I said then why did she take such an interest in the price of everything. And he said that he thought this was because she was trying to get used to this country and it was important to know what things cost if you were to understand a place.”

  “Oh really!”

  “Exactly.”

  Matthew sighed. “I don’t think there’s much you can do. Unless…”

  “Yes?”

  “Unless you set some sort of trap.”

  The possibility appealed to Pat. “A financial trap?”

  Matthew shook his head. “No, a honey trap.”

  Pat was hesitant. “A honey trap?”

  Matthew looked a bit sheepish. “I feel a bit embarrassed to suggest this,” he said. “But it has to be considered. What if he were to find that she had a thing for another man. Would the scales fall from his eyes?”

  Pat considered this. “I suppose it would show that she wasn’t really interested in him.”

  “Yes.”

  “But how do you arrange a honey trap?”

  “You bait it with the most irresistible man you can find. The man tries to tempt her. She falls for him and you make sure you get the evidence. Bingo!”

  Matthew could hardly believe that he was actually suggesting this, and neither could Pat—at first. It was reckless; it was absurd; it was dangerous. But as they thought about it, they realised that it was exactly what they needed to do. And they both realised, almost at the same time, who was the obvious bait.

  “Bruce?” said Matthew tentatively.

  “I was just thinking of him,” said Pat.

  “Synchronicity,” said Matthew. “It happens all the time.” He paused. “Of course, it’s neutral. Bad ideas no doubt occur together in much the same way as good.”

  “Have you changed your mind?”

  “No. Bruce is ideal. He’ll love it. It’s just the assignment for somebody like him.”

  Pat looked doubtful. “I don’t think we should do it.”

  “No, we probably shouldn’t,” said Matthew. “But shouldn’t doesn’t mean shan’t. And…” He was looking at her intently. “And come on, Pat, this is a…this is a rescue.”

  34. Verbalisation Precedes Resolution

  Verbalisation precedes resolution, said Dr. Parry in his Principles of Psychotherapy—and he was right. Now that Pat had expressed her fears over her father’s engagement to the mercenary Czechess, Anichka, her agitation seemed to abate. Matthew thought too that her mind had been taken off her troubles by their hatching of the plan to use Bruce Anderson as bait in a honey trap. Bruce was Matthew’s occasional drinking companion in the Cumberland Bar, a surveyor, echt narcissist, proponent of clove-scented hair gel, and former pupil of Morrison’s Academy in Crieff. He was not to everybody’s taste, but there was little doubt as to his attractiveness to women, who flo
cked to him as moths to light, fascinated by his aura of seething sexuality, his chin, his en brosse hairstyle, and his smooth, moisturised skin. Pat, like everybody else, had fallen for all that, although she had woken from the trance in time to avoid the eventual distress felt by most of Bruce’s conquests once he moved on—“Actually they’re not really conquests,” Bruce said suavely. “They surrender without firing a shot. Unconditional surrender. Odd, but there it is.”

  But with their plan conceived in principle, Matthew did not wish to dwell on Bruce or on the other problem barely adumbrated by Pat. He suspected what that other problem was, but, rather than get tied up in her emotional affairs, he was keen to show her his new pictures, the first of which was leaning against his desk, still wrapped in brown paper with a protective layer of bubble-wrap within.

  “I’ve got hold of a few new pictures,” he said, taking a sip of his tea. “Some rather nice things, actually.”

  “The Bonhams’ auction?” asked Pat. There had been an auction in Queen Street at the end of the previous week and Matthew had left a few successful bids with the auction house.

  “No, Miranda Grant’s holding on to those for me,” he said. “These ones I…”

  Pat looked at him expectantly.

  I can’t say I found them, thought Matthew. You didn’t find pictures like that, unless of course you used find in a metaphorical sense.

  “Yes?” said Pat. “A private sale?” People were always coming into the gallery keen to negotiate the private sale of pictures they did not wish to sell publicly. In some cases they had the pictures copied before they consigned the originals for sale, thus allowing their friends to think they still possessed them. These newly minted copies were hung in the originals’ exact position and in most cases nobody was any the wiser—except sometimes. Matthew remembered going to dinner at a house in Heriot Row and inadvertently touching the surface of a small Cadell only to find that the paint was still slightly wet. He had gasped, and the host had caught his eye, guilt and embarrassment writ large on his face.

  Matthew almost said, “Obviously a very late Cadell,” but stopped himself in time, thus allowing the host the opportunity to say, “We had a leak. It’s attended to now, but one or two of the pictures got a bit wet.”

  “Cadell’s the sort of artist who can take a spot of rain,” said Matthew charitably.

  A friend had later told him the full story. “The poor chap invested a lot in expensive clarets just before the market collapsed. People stopped using them for bribes in China, and nobody wanted Chateau N’importe Quoi at however many thousand pounds a case. He had to sell his Cadell to recoup. So he very understandably had a copy made by one of those firms that will reproduce anything for a couple of hundred quid and pop it in the post from Shanghai. Amazing. He put the copy on the wall and sold the original rather well.”

  “Such a sad tale,” said Matthew.

  “Edinburgh is full of such stories,” said his friend. “Hidden suffering…”

  Pat repeated her question. “You bought them?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Not quite. I’ll come to that later…Let me show you first.”

  He unwrapped the painting and held it up so that the light from the large window fell squarely upon it. Pat leaned forward to examine it.

  “But it’s lovely,” she said. “Absolutely charming.”

  Matthew beamed. “Yes, isn’t it?”

  Pat leaned further forward to scrutinise a corner of the picture. “Those lovely reds,” she said. “They’re…”

  “So rich?” supplied Matthew.

  “Yes. Exactly that.”

  “Let me guess who it is,” said Pat. “Don’t tell me—let me guess.”

  “Of course.”

  Pat sat back in her chair. “It’s not Moira what’s her name?…”

  “Moira Beaty? No, it’s not her.”

  “Could it be Sarah Longley? Remember those rather nice paintings of hers we showed a little while ago? She did something quite like that.”

  “It’s not Sarah Longley,” said Matthew.

  “Adam Bruce Thomson? He painted the occasional kitchen.”

  Matthew shook his head. “Nyet. Don’t think Scottish. Think…well, maybe think French.”

  Pat’s eyes widened. “French? Well, it can’t be Vuillard, although it definitely looks like him. Follower of Vuillard, shall we say?”

  Matthew lowered the painting, his arms beginning to ache from holding it up. He smiled widely. “Vuillard,” he said. “It is Vuillard.”

  Pat let out a shriek of delight. “But Matthew,” she exclaimed. “How do you know?”

  “I looked it up in the catalogue raisonné,” he said. “It’s there. There’s a picture of it. It gives the date he painted it and there’s a note on the subject. Then it says: current whereabouts unknown.”

  Pat frowned. “It could be a copy.”

  Matthew hesitated. “Yes…” he began tentatively. “It could be, but no, I think it’s the real thing. It’s got that…that feel.”

  Pat knew what he meant. There were people who could sense the genuine, and she had always thought that Matthew was one. It was a sixth sense that enabled those who had it to raise the alarm well before anybody else had started to doubt.

  “Can you get confirmation?”

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “I’ve already spoken to Belinda Thomson. She’s agreed to look at it.”

  Pat seemed satisfied with that. She had been a student of Belinda’s at the University and she knew of her interest in Vuillard. But then she said, “But tell me how you got hold of it. Do you actually own it or are you going to sell it on commission?”

  “It’s mine,” said Matthew.

  He spoke so quickly, and so firmly, that Pat immediately doubted him.

  “You’re hiding something,” she said. “I can tell.”

  Matthew sighed. “I think it’s mine,” he said.

  Pat groaned. “That means it’s not. If you only think you own something, then you probably don’t.” She paused. “I think you need to tell me about it.”

  It was a moment or two before Matthew began. “You see,” he said, “our new house has a concealed room…”

  It was not a good beginning. “Oh come on, Matthew. Spare me the Famous Five stuff.”

  “I always liked the Famous Five,” said Matthew.

  “They were very middle class,” said Pat.

  “So are you,” snapped Matthew. “And so are most of the people who sneer at others for being middle class.”

  35. The Conversation of Men

  “Now, Angus,” said Matthew as he sat down in Big Lou’s coffee bar with Angus Lordie and, rather exceptionally, Domenica Macdonald.

  Angus waited for more to be said, but that, it seemed, was the extent of Matthew’s greeting. Not that its brevity made it insignificant: a whole and satisfying conversation, Angus thought, could consist of very few words, provided the words were well chosen and had behind them sufficient richness of association. In this respect he recalled a conversation he had once overheard on the Black Isle, in which one man, coming upon another in the street, said, in long drawn-out tones, “Aye,” to be answered with “Aye” from the other—a slightly different aye, of course, and one accompanied by a slight movement of the head. This was followed by “Aye, well” from the instigator of the exchange, to which the reply was a further “Aye.” The conversation was brought to a meaningful end with “Aye, then” from one, followed by a conclusive “Aye, aye” from the other.

  Dr. Johnson might have been scathing about such dialogue, but to view it as meaningless or banal is to misread it. That exchange, monosyllabic though it was, said a great deal about the burdens of this life, about the Sisyphean nature of our existence; it said something about resilience and stoicism; it said something about the state of Scotland, about local issues of which an outsider could be quite ignorant; it said something about Scottish history, about Bannockburn, Flodden and Culloden; it said something about the who
le pageant of life—its glory, its sadness, its ineffable mystery. No lengthy exchange in the grandest of literary salons or in the halls of the most prolix philosophers could have said more than those few words.

  Few words are needed—that, thought Angus, is the insight that a loquacious culture of television windbags persistently fails to grasp. A reference to the chattering classes may be an unduly dismissive put-down of a certain sector of society—but underneath that pejorative expression lies an important truth: most ideas can be expressed succinctly and in a fraction of the words usually devoted to them.

  Domenica, who rarely joined Angus and Matthew for coffee, was concerned that her presence might have inhibited the conversation, resulting in this apparently taciturn beginning. “I hope you don’t mind my being here,” she said.

  Matthew looked surprised. “Why should we?”

  Domenica shrugged. “It’s just that men like to talk among themselves, so that we women have no idea what you talk about.”

  “Nonsense,” said Angus. “You know perfectly well what we talk about.”

  Domenica looked doubtful. “Do I? I’ve always thought that women don’t really know what men talk about among themselves because they’re inevitably excluded from all-male conversations—by definition, so to speak.” She paused. “And vice versa, of course. Men don’t really know what women say when only other women are present. They can’t know, can they?”

  Matthew frowned. “Unless women and men talk about the same thing. Then it doesn’t matter whether it’s just men or just women. The conversation will be the same—in both groups.”

  Domenica’s expression made her disagreement plain. “No,” she said, firmly. “There is female conversation and there is male conversation. I’m convinced of that.”

  “Aren’t you in danger of stereotyping?” asked Matthew.

  “No,” said Domenica. “To suggest otherwise is merely to impose a new stereotype—the androgyne.”