44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [108]
“Such lovely hats they wore then! Just look at those feathers!”
Faced with a Peploe? it was perfectly possible that they might have set the painting aside for valuation, and if they had done that it would be impossible to get it back from them. They would have to contact a lawyer, perhaps, and take the matter to court. That would take a long time and she wondered whether Matthew would have the stomach for it. Even if he did, then at the end of the day if the painting turned out not to be a Peploe, they would have wasted a lot of time and money on something quite valueless. Not that Matthew had much to do with his time, of course. His day, Male Uncertainty, Existential Doubts, New Men etc 225
as far as she could make out, consisted of drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, and doing one or two tiny little tasks that could easily be fitted into ten minutes if he really exerted himself. What was it like to be Matthew? This rather interested Pat, who often wondered what it would be like to be somebody else, even if she was not entirely sure what it was like to be herself. That, of course, is something that one is not sure about at twenty, largely because one is not yet sure who one is. Being Matthew must be, well, it must be rather dull. He did not appear to believe in anything with any degree of passion; he did not appear to have any real ambitions; there was no sense of disappointment or loss – it was all rather even.
Matthew did not seem to have a particular girlfriend either. His evenings, as far as she could ascertain, were spent with a group of friends that she once glimpsed in the Cumberland Bar. There were two young women – slightly older than Pat – and three young men. Matthew called them “the crowd” and they seemed to do everything together. The crowd went to dinner; it went to see the occasional film; it sometimes went to a party in Glasgow over the weekend (“One of the crowd comes from Glasgow,” Matthew had explained). And that, as far as Pat could work out, was Matthew’s life.
The taxi arrived and they set off for Morningside Road.
“Holy Corner,” said Matthew, as they traversed the famous crossroads with its four churches.
“Yes,” said Pat. “Holy Corner.” She did not add anything, as it was difficult to see what else one could say. Then they passed the Churchhill Theatre, scene of Ramsey Dunbarton’s triumph all those years ago as the Duke of PlazaToro in The Gondoliers.
“The Churchhill Theatre,” observed Matthew.
Pat did not say anything. There was no point in contradicting the obvious, and equally little point in confirming it. Of course if one did not know that this was the Churchhill Theatre, one might express surprise, or interest. But Pat knew. The taxi crested the hill, and there, dropping down below them was Morningside Road. At the end of the road, beyond the 226
Morningside Ladies
well-set houses, the Pentland Hills could be seen, half wreathed in low cloud. It was a reminder that the city had a hinterland – a landscape of soft hills and fertile fields, of old mining villages, of lochs and burns. She looked away, and saw Matthew staring down at his hands. It occurred to her then that he was nervous.
“You mustn’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get your painting back.”
He looked at her, and smiled weakly. “I’m such a failure,” he said. “I really am. Everything I touch goes wrong. And now there’s this. The one painting of any interest in the gallery, and it ends up in a charity shop in Morningside! I’m just thinking what my old man would say. He’d split his sides laughing.”
Pat reached out and took his hand. “You’re not a failure,” she said. “You’re kind, you’re considerate, you’re . . . .”
The taxi driver was watching.