Matthew looked into his glass. He did not like to talk about financial matters, but he was very curious to know what value Angus Lordie might put on his painting. “You wouldn’t have any idea,” he began.
“Of what it’s worth?” said Angus Lordie.
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Angus Lordie. “Let’s think. I think that this is a very early Vettriano, but it’s an important one in terms of his development as a popular painter. It’s his beach period, I would have thought – with touches of his umbrella period. So that 324
makes it very interesting. And the value would be . . . Let’s think.
Perhaps, a hundred thousand. Something like that?”
Pat glanced at Matthew and noticed that his hands were shaking. She reached across and touched him gently on the shoulder. “Well done!” she whispered. “Well done!”
Matthew smiled back at her. He liked this girl, and he wondered if there was still a chance that she might like him too.
Perhaps she had overcome her ridiculous attachment to that ghastly Bruce. Perhaps she would want somebody more settled, like me. That is what he thought, but he knew, even as he thought it, that he was hoping for too much. Nobody liked him in that way; they just didn’t.
Angus Lordie put down his glass. “I’ll go and fetch it,” he said. “The light is slightly better through here at this time of the evening. We can take a close look at it.”
He left them, and a short time later he returned, holding the painting out before him. He cleared his throat and started to say something, but no words came and they knew immediately that something was wrong.
Angus Lordie held the painting out to Matthew. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “The paint-stripper appears to have continued to act. The Vettriano seems to have gone.”
Matthew looked at the painting in dismay. The beach, the umbrella, the butler, the dancing couple – all had merged into a set of curiously-coloured streaks and puddles of paint. Matthew looked at Angus Lordie, and then he laughed. It was a laugh that surprised them all – except Pat. “I was never really too keen on Vettriano,” he said. “Don’t feel too bad about it.” With that comment, that simple forgiving comment, Pat realised the depth of Matthew’s goodness. She would not forget that.
Angus Lordie let out a sigh of relief. “That’s very good of you,”
he said. “But I was thinking – you could still try to sell this as an abstract Vettriano. That’s what it’s become, you see. Vettriano put this paint on this canvas, and it certainly looks pretty abstract now.”
Matthew smiled. “Perhaps.”
Angus Lordie placed the abstract Vettriano down on a table and fetched another bottle of champagne from the fridge. Domenica,
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who had been silent since Angus Lordie had returned to the room with the news of the restoration mishap, now said: “Angus, you’ve been a rotten restorer, but you remain, in my view, a rather more competent poet. Cheer us all up with one of your impromptu pieces.”
“Something Chinese?” asked Angus Lordie. “Late Scottish-Tang?”
“No,” said Domenica. “Not that. Something else.”
“Why not?” he said. “How about this?”
He moved to the window and then turned to face his guests.
Document Outline
Preface
1. Stuff Happens
2. A Room with a Smell
3. We See a Bit More of Bruce
4. Fathers and Sons
5. Attributions and Provenances
6. Bruce Takes a Look at a Place
7. A Full Survey
8. Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
