44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [10]
Pat smiled encouragingly. “I like paintings,” she said. “I did a Higher Art at school, at Edinburgh Academy.”
“The Academy?” said Matthew.
Attributions and Provenances
17
“Yes.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he said: “I used to go there. You didn’t hear anything about me there, did you?”
Pat was puzzled. “No,” she said hesitantly. “Not that I remember.”
“Good,” said Matthew, with the air of one changing the subject.
“Now, the job. You need to sit here when I go out. If somebody comes in and wants to buy a painting, the prices are all listed on this piece of paper over here. Don’t let a painting out of the gallery until they’ve paid and the cheque has cleared, so tell them that they can collect the painting in four or five days, or we’ll deliver it. If we know them, we can take their cheques.”
Pat listened. Matthew was making it clear enough, but surely there must be something else to the job. He could hardly be expected to pay her just to watch the shop for him when he went out.
“Anything else?” she asked.
Matthew shrugged. “Some bits and pieces.”
“Such as?”
PEPLOE: Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935), Edinburgh-born artist much influenced by French Impressionist painters such as Cézanne. In his later years, his still-life works brought him recognition as a colourist. 18
Bruce Takes a Look at a Place
He looked about him, as if searching for ideas. He looked at the paintings and then turned his gaze back on Pat. “You could do a proper catalogue of stock,” he said, and then, warming to the idea, explained: “I had something like that, but I’m afraid that it got lost somewhere. You could go through everything and find out what we have. Then make a proper catalogue with the correct
. . . correct . . .” What was the word they used? “Attributions. Yes, attribute the paintings. Find out who they’re by.”
Pat glanced at the wall behind her. There was a painting of an island, in bright colours, with strong brush strokes. She could just hear the voice of her art teacher at school, intoning, reverentially:
“That, boys and girls, is a Peploe.”
But it couldn’t be a Peploe. Impossible.
6. Bruce Takes a Look at a Place
Bruce worked in a firm of surveyors called Macaulay Holmes Richardson Black. In spite of the name, which implied at least four partners and a global reach, it was not a large firm. There were in fact only two partners, Gordon Todd and his brother, Raeburn, known to the staff as Gordon and Todd. They were good employers, and both of them were prominent in the affairs of their professional association, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Gordon always wore a tie with the Institute crest on it, and Todd had a gold signet ring on which the same crest had been engraved. Both were strong golfers. Gordon had become a member of Muirfield (after a rather long wait), and Todd was hoping that the same honour would one day befall him.
“I can’t understand why I have to wait longer than he did,”
Todd said to his wife, Sasha.
“Does it matter?” she asked. “What’s so special about that place? Surely one golf course is much the same as another. Fairways, greens, holes. What’s so special about Muirfield?”
Bruce Takes a Look at a Place
19
Todd had looked at her with pity. “Women don’t understand,”
he said. “They just don’t.”
“Oh yes we do,” she said. “We understand very well.”
“Then explain it!” Todd had crowed.
“But that’s what I just asked you to do,” she said. “I asked you what the difference was, and you don’t answer that question by batting it back to me. What’s the difference? You tell me.”
Todd had said nothing. He was confident that Muirfield was special, but he was not sure that he could explain it. Ultimately, it had something to do with the people who played there; special people. But that was not something one could put into words –
without a measure of embarrassment – and it was certainly not something that his wife