The Careful Use of Compliments

The summer profusion of shrubs made shadows on the ground below. There was a fuchsia, laden with red and purple flowers, and beside it a large rhododendron bush, popular with small birds. When they alighted on the foliage of the rhododendron, 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

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these birds made the topmost branches bend almost imperceptibly under their tiny weight. But now the lower branches, those right down by the ground, moved suddenly, and for another reason. And I have a fox, she whispered. I have a fox who watches over my life.

C H A P T E R T W O

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SO,” SAID JAMIE. “Which one is it?”

He asked the question in a way which suggested that he was not really interested in the answer. And the reason for that was in his arms: Charlie, his son, looking up at his father’s face, struggling to focus.

“Over there,” said Isabel, pointing to the other side of the saleroom. “I’ve already had a quick look at it.”

Jamie hardly heard the answer. He had strapped Charlie’s sling onto his front now, and was gently tickling the child under the chin. “He likes that,” he said. “Look, he’s going all cross-eyed.”

Isabel smiled indulgently. “Yes. He’s pleased to see you.

That is, if he can see you properly, which I’m never really sure of. I suppose he can, even if colours are still a bit confusing at that age.”

“He knows me,” said Jamie mock-defensively. “He knows exactly who I am. If he could say Daddy he would.”

Isabel took Jamie by the arm and steered him gently across the room to stand in front of a large painting in a gilded frame.

“What do you think of this?”

Jamie looked at the painting, watched by Isabel. “I 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

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rather like it,” he said. “Look at that man’s face. Look at the expression.”

“Yes,” said Isabel. “It says rather a lot, doesn’t it?”

Jamie glanced away for a moment; Charlie had seized the finger of his right hand and was attempting to put it in his mouth. “You mustn’t,” he said. “Unsanitary.”

“Everything about children is unsanitary,” said Isabel. She turned back to the painting and pointed to its top right-hand corner. “Look over there. He’s really caught that west coast light.”

Jamie leaned forward to peer at the canvas. “The Inner Hebrides?” he said. “Skye?”

“Probably Jura,” said Isabel. “He lived there for a while. Jura scenes became his trademark, rather like Iona and Mull were for Samuel Peploe.”

“Who?” asked Jamie. “Who was he?”

Isabel handed him the catalogue. “Andrew McInnes.

There’s something about him here. Look.”

Jamie took the catalogue and read the few lines of description. Then he handed it back to Isabel and looked at her enquiringly. She noticed his eyes, which were filled with light; that brightness which attracted her so strongly, which spoke of a lambent intelligence.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You must be wondering what I’m going on about.” As she spoke to Jamie, she reached out and touched Charlie, who was gazing intently at her. “Do you know that painting I have on the stairs, halfway up? On the landing? It’s by the same Andrew McInnes. It was one of his earliest works. My father bought it.”

Jamie looked thoughtful. “Kind of,” he said hesitantly. “I think so. On the left as you go up?”

“Yes,” said Isabel. “That’s it.”

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h

“I haven’t really studied it,” said Jamie. “I suppose it’s just one of those things one walks past.”

Isabel gestured towards the painting. “It’s much smaller than this, of course. About one quarter the size. But it’s exactly the same subject. Almost identical. That man and those hills.

The lobster creels. Everything.”

Jamie shrugged. “Artists paint the same thing over and over again, don’t they? The same models. The same scenes. They can be creatures of habit, can’t they?”

Isabel agreed. There was nothing surprising in finding paintings that were very much the same as one another, particularly if one was smaller. Her small painting was evidently a recurrent image in the artist’s mind, and that was nothing unusual. What she wanted from Jamie, though, was encourage-ment to bid for the larger version. Should she?

“It’s up to you,” said Jamie. “But . . . look at the estimate.

Twenty-five thousand. Isn’t that rather a lot?”

“They know what they’re talking about,” said Isabel. “He’s sought after. He’s not cheap.”

Jamie frowned. “But twenty-five thousand . . .” He was trying to recall what he made each year as a part-time teacher of bassoon and an occasional performer. It was not much more than that, if it was any more at all; of