44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [96]
“Who do you like doing best?” Pat enquired.
Angus Lordie took a sip of his wine before he answered.
“I can tell you who I don’t particularly like doing,” he said.
“Politicians. They’re so tremendously pushy and self-important for the most part. With some exceptions, of course. I’d like to do John Swinney, because he strikes me as a nice enough man. And David Steel too. I like him. But nobody has asked me to do either of these yet. Mind you, why don’t you ask me who I like doing absolutely least of all?”
“Well?” said Pat. “Who is that?”
“Moderators of the obscure Wee Free churches,” said Angus Lordie, shuddering slightly as he spoke. “They are not my favourite subjects. Oh no!”
“Why?” asked Pat. “What’s wrong with them?”
Angus Lordie cast his eyes up to the ceiling. “Those particular churches take a very, how shall we put it? – a very restricted view of the world. Religion can be full of joy and affirmation, but these characters . . .” He shuddered. “There used to be a wonderful Afrikaans word to describe the position of rigid ideologues in the Dutch Reformed Church – verkrampte. It’s such an expressive term. Rather like crabbit in Scots. All of these words are tailor-made for some of these Wee Free types. Dark suits. Frowns. Disapproval.”
“But why do you paint them, then?” asked Pat.
“Well, I don’t make a habit of painting them,” answered Angus Lordie. “I’ve just finished painting my first one now. I’d love to paint a resolved Buddhist face or a flashy Catholic monsignor with a taste for the pleasures of the table, but no. These people – the Portrait Gallery people – are having an exhibition later in the year of portraits of religious figures. It’s called Figures of Angus Lordie’s Difficult Task
201
Faith, or something like that. And I’ve drawn the short straw. I’ve got the Wee Free Reformed Presbyterian Church (Discontinued).”
Pat laughed. “What a name!”
“Yes,” said Angus Lordie. “These Free Presbyterians are always having rows and schisms. Well, this Discontinued bunch is quite different from the mainstream Free Presbyterians, who are very nice people – nothing to do with them, or with any of the other well-known ones. But they’ve got a couple of hundred members, which isn’t too bad even if it’s the Church Universal.”
Pat smiled. She was enjoying this conversation; there was something appealing about Angus Lordie, something vaguely anarchic. He was fun.
“So I was asked,” continued Angus Lordie, “to paint a portrait of a Reverend Hector MacNichol, who happens to be the Moderator of this particular bunch of Free Presbyterian types. I agreed, of course, and he came down to my studio for the first sitting. And that’s when I found out that he more or less expressed, in the flesh, the theology of his particular church, which takes a pretty dim view of anything which might be regarded as vaguely fun or enjoyable. There he was, a tiny, crabbit-looking, man – minuscule, in fact – who gazed on the world with a very disapproving stare. He noticed an open bottle of whisky in my studio and he muttered something which I didn’t quite catch, but which was probably about sin and alcohol, or maybe about Sunday ferries, for all I know.”
“It can’t have been easy to paint him,” said Pat. Angus Lordie agreed. “It certainly was not. I sat him there in the studio and he said to me in a very severe, very West Highland voice: ‘Mr Lordie, I must make clear that I shall under no circumstances tolerate any work being done on this portrait on a Sunday. Do you understand that?’
“I was astonished, but I made a great effort to keep my professional detachment. I’m sorry to say that the whole thing was destined – or pre-destined, as a Free Presbyterian might say
– to go badly wrong.”
“And did it?” asked Pat.
“Spectacularly,” said Angus Lordie.
73. A Dissident Free Presbyterian Fatwa
Looking at his new twenty-year-old friend, Angus Lordie, member of the