The World According to Bertie

Artaud’s Way Proves to Be an Inspiration

“Maybe,” said Matthew. “And green? A completely green canvas?”

It did not take Angus long. “An Envious Conservationist Sitting on the Grass,” he said. And then he added: Reading Our Man in Havana.”

Matthew looked blank for a moment, but then he laughed.

“Very clever,” he said. He was about to add something, but then he remembered how the conversation had started. “That canvas of yours,” he said. “I could sell it for you. Just sign it, and I’ll sell it.”

Angus looked puzzled. “But I haven’t begun . . .” he said.

“It’s plain white,” said Matthew. “Just sign it. I’ll put a title on it, and we could see if I could sell it. We could follow our late friend, Monsieur Artaud.”

Angus was scornful. “A waste of a perfectly good primed canvas,” he said. “We don’t have a sufficient body of pretentious people . . .”

Matthew interrupted him. “But we do!” he said forcefully.

“Edinburgh is full of pretentious people. There are bags and bags of them. They walk down Dundas Street. All the time.”

At this, they both looked out onto Dundas Street. There were few people about, but just at that moment they saw a man whom they both recognised. Matthew and Angus exchanged glances, and smiled.

“Perhaps,” said Angus.

“Exactly,” said Matthew, producing a small tube of black acrylic paint from a drawer. “Now, where do you want to sign it?”

Once Angus had inscribed his signature, Matthew raised the issue of the painting’s title. He held the white canvas up and invited Angus to suggest something.

“It looks very restful,” Angus mused. “Something like Resolution might be a good title for it. Or perhaps The Colour of Silence?”

“Is silence white?” asked Matthew. “What about White Noise?”

Artaud’s Way Proves to Be an Inspiration 47

Angus thought that was a possibility, but was just not quite right. Then it occurred to him. “Piece Be With You,” he said.

“Perfect,” said Matthew.

Angus nodded in acknowledgement of the compliment. “The subliminal message of such a title is this,” he said. “Buy this piece. That’s what it says. This piece wants to be with you.” He paused. “Of course, we could increase its appeal simply by putting an NFS tag on it – not for sale. That message would fight subconsciously with the encouraging message of the title. And the result would be a very quick sale.”

Matthew reached for one of the sheets of heavy white paper on which he typed labels for his paintings. Inserting this into his manual typewriter, he began to tap on the keys. “Angus Lordie, RSA,” he said and typed. “Born . . .” He looked at Angus expectantly.

“Oh, nineteen something-or-other,” said Angus airily. “Put: Born, Twentieth Century. That will be sufficient. Or, perhaps, floruit MCMLXXX. I was in particularly good form round about then.” For a few moments he looked wistful; MCMLXXX had been such a good year.

Matthew typed as instructed. “And the price?” he asked.

Angus thought for a moment. It did not really matter, he thought, what he asked for the painting, as he did not think it would sell. But it occurred to him that if he was going to expose artistic pretentiousness – and artistic gullibility – he might as well do it convincingly. “Twenty-eight thousand pounds,” he suggested.

Matthew laughed. “Fifty per cent of which will come to me,”

he said.

“In that case,” said Angus, “make it thirty-two thousand.”

The price agreed, Matthew stood up and prepared to hang the plain white canvas in a prominent place on the wall facing his desk. Then, after sticking the label and details below it, he stood back and admired the effect.

“I’m tempted to keep it,” he said. “It’s so resolved!”

“One of my finest works,” said Angus. “Without a shadow of doubt. One of the best. Flawless.”

15. A Small Sherry and a Hint of Synaesthesia Since her return from the Malacca Straits, Domenica Macdonald had not seen a great deal of her friend Antonia Collie to whom she had lent her flat in Scotland Street during her absence. It had been a satisfactory arrangement from both points of view: Domenica had had somebody to water her plants and forward her mail, while Antonia had been afforded a base from which to pursue her researches into the lives of the early Scottish saints.

These saints, both elusive and somewhat shadowy, were the characters in the novel on which she was working, and even if they had failed to leave many material traces of their presence, there were manuscripts and books in the National Library of Scotland which spoke of their trajectory through those dark years.

Domenica’s return came too early for Antonia. She had become accustomed to her life in Scotland Street and to the comfortable routine she had established there. She had no desire to return to Fife, to the parental house in St Andrews, where she had set up home after the collapse of her marriage to a philandering farmer husband; not that he had been a philanderer on any great scale – unfaithfulness with one other woman was hardly philandering, even if that woman was exactly the sort an echt philanderer would choose.

If she could not return to Fife, then Antonia would have to find somewhere else to live in Edinburgh. She would not have far to go – three yards, in fact – as the flat opposite Domenica’s, and on the same landing, came up for rent at exactly the right time. It was the flat previously occupied by Pat, and the one which had been sold by Bruce