There were jeers and more laughter.
“Amazing!” said Jean-Philippe, turning to Bertie in frank admiration. “Bertie-Pierre, you’ve deconstructed Jean- Francois Francois himself! Incredible!”
Bertie did not know what to say, but thought it polite to say thank you, and so he did.
The portrait which Angus Lordie was painting was not going well. It was not a commissioned work – those paintings always seemed to go smoothly, aided, no doubt, by the thought of the fee – but the result of an offer which he had made one day in the Scottish Arts Club. It was one of those rash offers one makes, more or less on impulse, and which are immediately taken up by the recipient. Most people understand that offers of that
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nature are not intended to be taken seriously, or are only half-serious, and do nothing about them. Others – and they are in a small minority – take them literally, largely because they take everything literally.
Ramsey Dunbarton, the retired lawyer and resident of the Braids, now sat in Angus Lordie’s under-heated studio in Drummond Place, gazing at a fixed point on the wall with what he hoped was an expression that combined both dignity and experience. This was his third sitting, the first having taken place very shortly after Angus had made his subsequently regretted offer to paint his portrait.
“It’s very good of you,” said Ramsey, sitting back in the red leather chair in which Angus positioned his sitters, “but I hope that I give you a bit of a challenge. One or two people have said that this old physiognomy is a typical Edinburgh one. Perhaps you’ll be able to catch that. What do you think?”
Angus was non-committal. He would do his best by Ramsey, but there were limits.
“I wondered whether you’d like to paint me in one of my thespian moments,” Ramsey went on. “I played the Duke of Plaza-Toro once, you know. It was at the Church Hill Theatre.”
Angus busied himself with his brushes.
“It’s not an easy character to play,” Ramsey went on. “It requires a certain panache, of course, but the difficulty with parts like that is that one can go over the top. But I hope that I didn’t.
We still sing a bit, you know. One’s voice changes, of course –
like so much else.”
Angus nodded. He tended to listen with only half an ear when Ramsey was talking. It was like having the radio on in the background, he thought. One picked up what was being said from time to time, but for the most part it was just a comfortable drone.
“Yes,” said Ramsey. “The world has certainly changed. And not necessarily for the better. When I compare the world of my youth with the world of today, I have to shake my head. I really do.”
“Please don’t move your head like that,” said Angus. “I’d like you to stay still as far as possible.”
“So sorry,” said Ramsey. “I was getting carried away. But the world really is a different place, isn’t it? And Edinburgh has changed too. There used to be a good number of people who disapproved of things. Now there are hardly any, if you ask me.
Everybody is afraid to disapprove.”
“Yes,” said Angus. “I suppose we’ve become more tolerant.”
“Don’t speak to me about tolerance,” said Ramsey. “Tolerance is just an excuse for letting everything go. Tolerance means that people can get away with anything they choose.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Angus. “I think that we needed a slightly more relaxed view of things.”
Ramsey snorted. “Look at what’s happened to breach of the peace,” he said. “We didn’t do any criminal law work in my firm, of course – we’re not that sort of firm – but I used to take a close interest in the subject and would follow the Sheriff Court reports in the
“A bit murky, surely,” said Angus. “Aren’t the criminal courts full of people who do nasty things to other people?”
“To an extent,” said Ramsey. “But there are some very amusing moments in the criminal courts. I heard some frightfully funny stories, you know.”
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Angus’s brush moved gently against the canvas. “Such as?”
he said.
“Well,” said Ramsey. “Here’s one. It was the Sheriff Court at Lanark, I think, or maybe Airdrie. Anyway, somewhere down there. I don’t really know that part of the world very well, but let’s say that it was Lanark. The sheriff was dealing with the usual business of the court, and I think that this was a speeding matter. A local butcher was caught doing something way over the odds and was hauled up in front of the sheriff. There he was, in his best suit – there are lots of ill-fitting suits in the Sheriff Courts, you know, taken out of mothballs for each court appearance. Anyway, the sheriff looked down at him from the bench and said: ‘How are you pleading?’ And the butcher looked up and said: ’Oh fine, sir. I’m fine. How’s yoursel?’”
When he finished this story, Ramsey burst out laughing.
“Can’t you just hear it, Angus?” he said.
Angus nodded. “Very funny,” he said. “And then what happened?”
“No idea,” said Ramsey. “He was fined, no doubt. But how did we get on to this? Oh, yes, the criminal law. Well, then, breach of the peace: I was always a great supporter of it, because it was so broad. They could deal with
