Street. The spending of a large amount of money within a short space of time had been a strangely liberating experience. In a way which he found difficult to express, the whole process of shopping had made him feel better. The tie, the fine cashmere sweater, the covert coat – all of these had been added to him and had made him bigger. He felt more confident, more assured, and, critically, less vulnerable. Having money, he thought, means that the world cannot hurt you. You can lose things and just replace them. You can protect yourself against disappointment because you can get the best things available. Ordinary shoes might pinch; shoes made for you by John Lobb did not.
He reached Dundas Street and turned down the hill. There, at the end of the street, beyond the roofs of Canonmills, was Fife – a dark green hillside, clouds, a silver strip of sea. Passing Glass and Thompson, he decided to call in for a slice of quiche and a glass of melon juice. Big Lou’s was just a little way down the street, but Big Lou did not make quiche and there was no melon juice to be had there.
Matthew perched on a stool at one of the tables. There were a few other customers in at the time – a woman in a dark trouser suit, engrossed in a file of papers; a thin man paging through an old copy of a design magazine, an architect, as Matthew knew.
He picked up a copy of a newspaper and turned the pages at random. Split trust victims seek compensation, a headline read.
And then another: with-profits policies encounter painful shortfall. Matthew paused, his glass of melon juice half way to his lips.
Outside, he did not have to wait long for a taxi, and he was soon outside the lawyers’ offices again, and then, within minutes, inside, seated opposite the lawyer himself.
“Very wise,” said the lawyer. “Very wise to change your mind.”
And then he added: “You know, I seem to recollect that my boy
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Jamie – he’s quite different these days – was a bit tough on you when you were boys. Sorry about that, you know.”
Matthew nodded. “It’s fine,” he said. And he thought: yes, it is fine, isn’t it? You’re back. Back where you came from. The solid, cautious, Scottish mercantile class; among your own people. But for a moment, a brief moment, you had been about to do something yourself.
That had been a Monday. Now it was Tuesday, and that, under the new arrangement with Pat, was one of the days on which she came into the gallery for three hours to help Matthew. He had hoped to have had more of her time, as he had grown accustomed to her presence, as she sat at her desk, or stacked paintings in the storeroom, and without her the gallery seemed strangely empty. But Pat was now a student and had the require-ments of her course to consider – essays to write, pages of aesthetic theory and art history to plough through, although she skipped, she had to admit, rather than ploughed. With all these things to do, she was unable to get down to the gallery for more than nine hours a week, and these hours were divided between Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
Of course, Matthew could have employed somebody full-time, had he wished to do so. Four million pounds is enough to finance a two-room gallery for which no rent had to be paid and which was not encumbered by any debt. But Matthew did not wish to have anybody else; he wanted Pat, because she knew the business, had a precociously good eye for art, and because
. . . well, if he were to admit it to himself, Matthew wanted to have what one might call a closer relationship with Pat.
On that Tuesday, Matthew left his flat in India Street dressed in the new clothes he had bought from Stewart Christie the previous day. He wore one of the expensive shirts, the spotted silk tie, the crushed-strawberry trousers and the cashmere 30
sweater. The sweater, which was an oatmeal colour (“distressed oatmeal” was the official description of the shade), went well with the trousers and the tie, which had a dark green background (the spots being light green). Over all this he donned the covert coat, then examined himself in the hall mirror and set off into the street.
By the time that Pat arrived in the gallery at ten o’clock, Matthew had dealt with the few letters that he had received that morning and had almost finished paging through a new auction catalogue. There were several paintings in this catalogue that he wanted to discuss with Pat – a Hornel study of a group of Japanese women making tea, a Blackadder of a bunch of peonies in a white vase, and a shockingly expensive Cadell portrait.
Matthew reflected that he could afford any of these – indeed, he could afford them all – but he knew that he would have to be careful. The market had its price, and it was foolish to allow a personal enthusiasm for a painting to encourage one to pay more than the real market figure. What one paid in such circumstances was the market as far as that particular sale was concerned, but not the broader market. The real market was more fickle, and it was all very well having an expensive Cadell on one’s walls, but what if nobody else wanted it? So he ticked the Blackadder and put a question mark next to the listing of the Cadell.
When Pat came in, he showed her the Cadell and she shook her head. “Not for us,” she said. “Remember who comes into this place. Our clients don’t have that sort of money.”
“But if we had that sort of painting,” Matthew objected, “then we’d get that sort of person. Word would get out.”
“Too risky,” said Pat. “Stick to the clients you have.”
Matthew smiled. “But we have the means, Pat,” he said. “We have money. Plenty of it.”
Pat said nothing. She had noticed the new distressed-oatmeal cashmere sweater and the covert coat hung over the back of his chair. Was Matthew dressing for her benefit? And if he was, then had his feelings for her revived – the feelings that she had been so concerned to discourage, even if gently? She glanced at
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Matthew, at the new shirt, the new tie, the crushed-strawberry trousers. These were all signs.
