“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 106
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
“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.”
107
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.
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 Cafe St Honore 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
