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By Root 869 0

’s problem, thought Pat, was that he very quickly became bored with what he was doing. That day was an example. After they had finished their discussion about what to do with the Peploe?, he had turned to a number of tasks, but had completed none. He had started a crossword, but failed to fill in more than a few clues and had abandoned it. He had then written a letter, but had stopped halfway through and announced that he would finish it the following day. Then he had begun to tidy his desk, but had suddenly decided that it was time for lunch and had disappeared to the Café St Honoré for a couple of hours. Pat wondered whether he had finished his meal, or only eaten half of it. Had he finished his coffee at Big Lou’s, or had he left his cup half-drained? She would have to watch next time. Of course, part of the reason for Matthew’s behaviour, she thought, was that he was bored. The gallery did virtually no business and what else was there to do but sit and wait for customers?

“Perhaps we should hold an exhibition,” she said to him when he returned from lunch.

Matthew looked at her quizzically. “Haven’t we got one on at the moment?” he said, gesturing to the walls.

“This is just a random collection of paintings,” Pat explained.

“An exhibition involves a particular sort of painting. Or work by a particular artist. It gives people something to think about. It would draw them in.”

Matthew looked thoughtful. “But where would we get all these paintings from?” he asked.

“You’d contact an artist and ask him to give you a whole lot of paintings,” she said. “Artists like that. It’s called a show.”

“But I don’t know any artists,” said Matthew. Pat looked at him. She wanted to ask him why he was running a gallery, but she did not. Bruce had been right, she told herself. He is useless. He hasn’t got a clue.

“I know some artists,” she said. “We had an artist in residence at school. He’s very good. He’s called Tim Cockburn, and he Gallery Matters

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lives in Fife. There are a lot of artists in Pittenweem. There’s Tim Cockburn, and then there’s somebody called Reinhard Behrens, who puts a little submarine into all his paintings. He’s good too. We could ask them to do a show.”

Matthew was interested, but then he looked at his watch. “My God! Look at the time. And I’m meant to be playing golf with the old man. I’m going to have to shoot.”

Left by herself for the rest of the afternoon, Pat dealt with the few customers who came in. She sold a D.Y. Cameron print and dealt with an enquiry from a woman who wanted to buy a Vettriano for her husband.

“I went into another gallery and asked them the same question,” she said to Pat. “And they told me that they had no Vettrianos but that I could paint one myself if I wanted. What do you think they meant by that?”

Pat thought for a moment. There was an endemic snobbery in the art world, and here was an example.

“Some people are sniffy about him,” she said. “Some people don’t like his work at all.”

“But my husband does,” protested the woman. “And he knows all about art. He even went to a lecture by Timothy Clifford once.”

“About Vettriano?” asked Pat.

“Perhaps,” said the woman, vaguely. “It was about the Renaissance. That sort of thing.”

Pat looked at the floor. “Vettriano is not a Renaissance painter. In fact, he’s still alive, you know.”

“Oh,” said the woman. “Well, there you are.”

“And I’m sorry, but we do not have any Vettriani in stock. But how about a D.Y. Cameron print? We have one over there of Ben Lawers.”

Pat almost sold a second D.Y. Cameron print, but eventually did not. She was pleased, though, with the other sale, and when she left the gallery at five that evening, the Peploe? wrapped in brown paper and tucked under her arm, she was in a cheerful mood. She had agreed to meet Chris that evening, of course, and she had her misgivings about that, but at least she was going out 110

The Sort of People You See in Edinburgh Wine Bars and would not have to endure Bruce’s company in the flat. And it would do him no harm, she thought, to know that she had been asked out by a