Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [120]
explained to her that he had been given the membership by his father, who was an enthusiast of whisky.
And then she had never seen Matthew reading Scottish Field before, but that is what he liked to do, sitting in a chair in the corner of the drawing room, paging through the glossy magazine. He liked the social pages, he said, with their pictures of people looking into the camera, smiling, happy to be included.
“I’ve never been in,” he said to Pat. “Or never been in properly. My left shoulder was, once, when there was a photograph of a charity ball down in Ayrshire. I was standing just to the side of a group who were being photographed and you could see my shoulder. It was definitely me. I have a green formal kilt jacket, you see, and that was shown. It was quite clear, actually.”
“That was bad luck,” said Pat.
“Yes,” said Matthew. “You have to be somebody like Timothy Clifford to get into Scottish Field. Either that, or you have to know the photographers who take these things. I don’t.”
Pat thought for a moment. “We could have an opening at the gallery. We could have a big event and ask all these people. Then, when they came, the photographers could hardly cut you out of your own party.”
Matthew thought for a moment. “Yes, that’s quite a good idea.” He paused. “I hope that you don’t think I sit here and worry about not being in Scottish Field. I have got better things to think about, you know.”
“Of course you have,” said Pat. “But should we do that?
Should we have an opening?”
“Yes,” said Matthew. “We could call it An Evening of Scottish Art. Let’s start drawing up the guest list soon. Who should we have?”
“Well, we could invite Duncan Macmillan,” said Pat. “He’s written that book on Scottish art. He could come.”
“Good idea,” said Matthew. “He’s very interesting. And then there’s James Holloway from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. He lives near here, you know. And Richard and Francesca Calvocoressi. And Roddy Martine. Are you writing this down, Pat?”
An Evening of Scottish Art 251
They spent the next half hour composing the guest list, which eventually included two hundred names. “They won’t all come,”
said Matthew, surveying the glittering list. “In fact, I bet that hardly anyone comes.”
Pat looked at Matthew. There was a certain defeatism about him, which came out at odd moments. Defeatism can be a frustrating, unattractive quality, but in Matthew she found it to be rather different. The fact that Matthew thought that his ventures were destined to fail made her feel protective of him. He was such a nice person, she thought.
He is never unkind; he never makes sharp comments about others. And there he is trying to be a bit more fashionable in that awful distressed-oatmeal cashmere sweater, and all the time he just misses it. Nobody wears distressed oatmeal, these days; it’s so . . . it’s so yesterday. It’s so golf club. Matthew needed taking in hand, Pat thought. He needed somebody to sit down with him who could tell him not to try so hard, who could tell him that all that was required was a little help with one or two matters and that for the rest he was perfectly all right. But who could do that? Could she?
Pat was thinking of that possibility when Matthew looked at his watch, rose to his feet, and remarked that they only had half an hour to get ready for dinner. Pat had forgotten, but now she remembered.
That night they were due to go out for dinner with Leonie, the architect, and her friend, Babs. She had been invited as well, on the insistence of Leonie, although Matthew seemed a little bit doubtful about this.
“She’s a rather unusual person,” he said hesitantly. “She has all these ideas about knocking down walls and open spaces. You know what architects are like. But I suspect