Matthew was becoming impatient. “I don’t think that we should be talking about Arbroath,” he said, irritably. “You two should stop needling Lou. The real question is: what do I do with my Peploe??”
They sat in silence, the three of them at the table, and Lou standing at her counter. Ronnie glanced at Matthew; he might have arranged the break-in to claim insurance. But if he had done that, then why had none of the paintings disappeared? There were several possible answers to that, one of which was that this was just the cover – the real stealing of the painting would come later.
But if the Peploe? were to prove to be a Peploe, then why would he need to have it stolen in the first place? He would get his forty thousand or whatever it was by taking the picture to an auction.
Why go to all the trouble of claiming the insurance, particularly when he would have no evidence of value to back up his claim?
Lou, too, was thinking about the situation. Pete had been right to suggest that the painting should be removed from the gallery.
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But they would have to ensure that it was kept somewhere else.
Should she offer to look after it for him? It would be safe in her flat, tucked away behind a pile of books, but did she want to have something so valuable – and so portable – sitting there?
Forty thousand pounds could buy a perfectly reasonable place to live in Arbroath. No, it would be better for the Peploe? to go elsewhere.
“Pat!” she said abruptly. “Get that girl to take the painting back to her place. She’s the one who identified it. Let her look after it.”
“John won’t know who she is,” said Pete. “She won’t have told him . . .”
Matthew turned to Pete. “Who’s John?” he asked.
Pete looked down at his coffee. “John? I didn’t say John.”
“You did,” said Matthew. “You said something about John not knowing who Pat was. But why did you call him John? Do you know him?”
Pete shook his head. “You misheard me. I didn’t say anything about a John. I don’t know any Johns.”
“Rubbish,” said Lou. “Don’t know any Johns? Rubbish.”
“What I said was that
– whoever he is, and how would I know he’s called John? –
“No idea,” said Matthew.
Pete shrugged. “All right. Tell her to take it back to her place and keep it in a cupboard until you’ve decided what to do with it. It’ll be safe there.”
“Good idea,” said Matthew. “I’ll speak to her about it. I’ll ask her to take it home this evening.”
They finished their coffee in silence. Matthew was the first to go, leaving the other two men at their table.
“I suppose we have to get back,” said Ronnie after a while.
He looked at Lou. “Perhaps I should have been a philosopher instead, Lou. Easier job, I think.”
Lou smiled. “I wouldn’t know. But I suspect that it’s not as easy as you think. They worry a lot. Life’s not simple for them.”
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“Nor for us,” said Pete, rising to his feet.
“Maybe,” said Big Lou. “But then, ignorance can be comfortable, can’t it?”
Irene had an appointment at the Floatarium, but with a good half-hour in hand before she was due to submit to the tank’s womb-like embrace, she had time to enjoy the bright, late spring day. Strolling along Cumberland Street that morning, she noted the changes brought by relentless gentrification. A few years back there had been at least some lace curtains; now the windows with their newly-restored astragals were reassuringly bare, the better to allow, at ground level at least, expensive minimalist or neo-post-Georgian furniture to be admired. Irene paused before the windows of one flat and pondered the colour scheme. No, she would not have chosen that red, which was almost cloying in its richness. Their own flat was painted white throughout, apart from Bertie’s room, which they had chosen to paint pink, to break the sexist mould. Or, rather, she had chosen to paint the walls pink. Stuart, her husband, had been less certain about this and had argued for white, but had been overruled. Irene was not sure about Stuart’s commitment to the project of Bertie’s education, and she had even wondered on occasions whether he fully understood what she was trying to do. The discussion over colour schemes had been a case in point.
“Boys don’t like pink,” he had observed. “I didn’t, when I was a boy.”
Irene had been patient. “That, of course, was some time ago, and your upbringing, as we both know, was not exactly enlightened, was it? Attitudes are different now.”
“Attitudes may be different,” said Stuart, “but are boys? Boys are much the same as they always were, I would have thought.”
Irene was not prepared to let such a patently false argument 88
go unrefuted. “Boys are not the same!” she said. “No! Definitely not! Boys are constructed socially. We make them what they are. A patriarchal society produces patriarchal boys. A civilised society produces civilised
