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By Root 812 0

He had heard what Matthew had said and now he witnessed Pat’s attempt to comfort him. This was not unusual, in his experience. Men were in a mess these days – virtually all of them. Women had destabilised them; made them uncertain about themselves; undermined their confidence. And then, when the men fell to pieces, the women tried to put them together again. But it was too late. The damage was done. The taxi driver sighed. None of this applied to him. He went to his golf club two or three times a week. He was safe there. No women there; a refuge. I am certainly not a new man, he thought – unlike that wimp in the back there. Good God! Look at him! What a wimp!

81. Morningside Ladies

“See,” whispered Matthew as they stood outside the charity shop.

“There they are. Morningside ladies.”

Pat peered in through the large plate-glass window. There were three ladies in the shop – one standing behind the counter, one adjusting a rack of clothing and one stacking a pile of books on a shelf.

Morningside Ladies

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She glanced at the contents of the window. A wally dug, deprived of its mirror-image partner, and lonely; an Indian brass candlestick in the shape of a rearing cobra; several pieces of mock-Wemyss chinaware; an Oor Wullie annual for 1972; and then a painting, but not the Peploe?. Yet the subject of this painting was uncannily similar to that of the painting they sought – a view of a shore and hills behind it. Pat nudged Matthew, who was peering through the window into the depths of the shop.

“Look at that.” She pointed to the painting.

“Not ours,” said Matthew gloomily.

“I know, but it looks so like it,” said Pat.

“Everybody paints Mull from Iona,” said Matthew. “There are hundreds of those paintings. Virtually every house in Edinburgh has one.”

“And in Mull?” asked Pat.

“They have pictures of Edinburgh,” replied Matthew. “It’s rather touching.”

They stood for a few moments more outside the shop before Matthew indicated that they should go in. As he pushed open the door, a bell rang in the back of the shop and the three women turned round and looked at them. The woman who had been stacking the books abandoned her task and came over to them.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” she asked pleasantly. “We’ve just received a new consignment of clothing and there are some rather nice things in it. We could let you have first look if you like.”

Pat glanced at the clothes on the rack. Who could possibly wear that? she thought as her eye was caught by a brown suede fringed jacket. And Matthew, looking in the same direction, noticed a loud red tie and shuddered involuntarily.

The woman intercepted their glances. “Of course they’re not to everybody’s taste,” she said quickly. “But students and people like that often find something they like.”

Pat was quick to reassure her. “Of course they will,” she said.

“I have a friend who gets all her clothes from shops like these. She swears by them.”

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Morningside Ladies

The woman nodded. “And it all goes to a good cause. Every penny we make in this shop is put to good use.”

Matthew cleared his throat. “We’re looking for a painting,”

he began. “We wondered . . .”

“Oh we have several paintings at the moment,” said the woman keenly. “We can certainly find you a painting.”

“Actually, it’s a very specific painting,” said Matthew. “You see, it’s a rather complicated story. A painting that belongs to me was inadvertently given to the South Edinburgh Conservative Association. Then unfortunately . . .”

The woman frowned. “But how can one give a painting to the Conservatives inadvertently?” she interrupted. “Surely one either knows that one is giving a painting to the Conservatives, or one doesn’t.”

Matthew laughed. “Of course. But you see in this case the painting was given by somebody who had no right to give it. He effectively stole the painting – stole it inadvertently, that is.”

The woman pursed her lips. She cast a glance at Pat, as if to seek confirmation from her that there was something strange about the young man with whom she had entered the shop. Pat