He moved forward to examine the painting more closely.
“Interesting. I think this is Jura, which is where he died. It’s rather poignant to think of him sitting there painting that bit of sea over there and not knowing that it was more or less where he was going to drown. It’s rather like painting one’s deathbed.”
Isabel thought about this for a moment. How many of us knew the bed in which we would die, or even wanted to know?
Did it help to have that sort of knowledge? She stared at the 4 6
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h painting. In the past she had never worried about her own death—whenever it would be—but now, with Charlie to think about, she felt rather differently about it. She wanted to be there for Charlie; she wanted at least to see him grow up. That must be the hardest thing about having children much later in life—as happened sometimes when a man remarried at, say, sixty-five and fathered a child by a younger wife. He might make it to eighty-five and see his child grow to adulthood, but the odds were rather against it.
“He was quite young when he died, wasn’t he?” she asked.
“McInnes? Yes. Forty, forty-one, I think.”
Just about what I am now, thought Isabel. More or less my age, and then it was over.
“Why is it that it seems particularly tragic when an artist dies young?” Isabel mused. “Think of all those writers who went early. Wilfred Owen. Bruce Chatwin. Rupert Brooke. Byron.
And musicians too. Look at Mozart.”
“It’s because of what we all lose when that happens,” said Guy. “Owen could have written so much more. He’d just started.
Brooke, too, I suppose, although I was never wild about him.”
“He wrote for women,” said Isabel, firmly. “Women like poets who look like Brooke and who go and die on them. It breaks every female heart.” She paused. “But the biggest tragedy of all was Mozart. Think of what we didn’t get. All that beauty stopped in its tracks. Just like that. And the burial in the rain, wasn’t it? In a pauper’s grave?”
Guy shrugged. “Everything comes to an end, Isabel. You.
Me. The Roman Empire. But I’m sorry that McInnes didn’t get more time. I think that he might have developed into somebody really important. In the league of Cadell, perhaps. Everything was pointing that way. Until . . . well, until it all went wrong.”
T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S
4 7
“And he drowned?”
“No,” said Guy. “Before that. Just before that. Everything collapsed for him before he went up to that island for the last time, to Jura. I can tell you, if you like.”
Isabel was intrigued. “There’s a place round the corner,” she said. “We could have sandwiches. I’m hungry. It’s something to do with having a baby. One begins to need feeding at very particular times.”
Guy smiled at the thought. “A good idea.” He leaned forward again and peered at the painting. “Odd,” he said. “Odd.”
Isabel looked at him quizzically. “What’s odd?”
“It’s unvarnished,” Guy said, straightening up. “I seem to remember that McInnes always varnished his paintings. He was obsessive about things like that—framing, varnishing, signatures, and so on. This isn’t varnished at all.”
Isabel frowned. “Does that mean that it might not be—”
Guy cut her short. “No, certainly not. This is a McInnes all right. But it’s just a bit odd that he didn’t varnish this one.
Maybe it’s a very late painting and he died before he got it back for varnishing. Some painters sell their work before they varnish it, you know, and of course they can’t varnish it until the paint is dry. That might mean six months, or even more, depending on how thickly the paint is applied. So they sell it to somebody and suggest that they bring it back for varnishing later on. Sometimes people don’t bother.”
“So that’s all?” said Isabel.
“That’s all,” said Guy. “Nothing very significant. Just a bit odd.”
JA M I E CA M E to Isabel’s house most evenings, round about the time that Charlie was due to have his evening feed and bath.
4 8
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Isabel was pleased that he did this, although she found that he tended to take over, leaving her little, if anything, to do; and what with Grace assuming so much responsibility for him during the day, Isabel sometimes wondered whether she would end up playing no more than a marginal role in the care of her own child. But she was generous about this, and stood back while Jamie performed his fatherly tasks.
“He’ll be ready for solid food any day now,” said Jamie that evening. “Look. If I put this spoon there he seems to want to take it into his mouth.”
“If you put anything there, he’d do that,” said Isabel. “He latched onto the tip of my nose the other day. It was very disconcerting.”
Jamie took the spoon away. “I’ve been reading a book,” he said. “All about feeding babies.”
Isabel said nothing.
“It says, of course, that breast-feeding is by far the best thing to do,” Jamie continued. “Apparently the immune
