Did you know that there was something about you written on the wall of the girls’ toilets for two years? Two years. And every time the cleaners rubbed it out, somebody wrote it back, and in the end they just left it there. And do you know what it was?
You would hate what it said, I promise you. You’d just hate it.
But I can’t tell you – I’m too embarrassed.”
“Was it written with one of those marker pens?” asked George. “Those can be quite difficult to rub off.”
Both Bruce and Sharon looked at him. Sharon did not answer.
“You’re a liar,” said Bruce. “I would have heard about it. I never heard anything.”
Sharon arched an eyebrow in amazement. “Do you think that anybody would actually tell you something like that?”
“It depends what it was,” cut in George. “And anyway, I don’t think that it’s very fair not to tell him, Shaz. You’ve got him all upset now. You should tell him.”
“No, Georgie,” said Sharon. “I’m not going to tell him.”
“Would you tell me then?” asked George.
Sharon thought for a moment. Then she leant over and cupped a hand around George’s left ear and whispered to him.
George’s eyes widened. Then he let out a laugh. “Really?” he asked. “Did it really?”
Sharon nodded with satisfaction. “Yes, it did. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Do you think it’s true?” asked George.
Sharon shrugged. “Who knows?” She paused. “So that’s it, Bruce. That’s what we thought of you.”
Bruce looked at George. “You’re marrying this person?” he asked quietly. “You’re actually going to go ahead and marry this person? This . . . this haggis? ”
It was as if George had been given an electric shock. Pulling himself up to his full height – and he was considerably shorter than Bruce, and Sharon – he poked a finger in the direction At the Gallery
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of his erstwhile friend. “You are not to call my fiancée a haggis,” he said. “Don’t ever let me hear you call her a haggis.”
And with that, he turned to Sharon, took her arm, and nodded in the direction of the door.
“Goodbye, Bruce,” he said. “I’m sorry that this has happened.
But you’ve only got yourself to blame. Come, Shaz. We must go.”
Sharon gave Bruce a look of triumph. “Would you really like to know what was written on the wall? Would you?” She paused.
She had spotted a piece of paper and a pencil on the counter and she went over to this and scribbled a few words. Then she folded the paper, passed it to him, and quickly rejoined George at the door.
After they had gone, Bruce sat down. He held the piece of paper in his hands, fingering it for a moment before he opened it and read what she had written. He crumpled up the paper and threw it across the room.
79. At the Gallery
Matthew came back from Big Lou’s eager to tell Pat about what had happened. “Cyril bit somebody,” he said, grinning. “There’s a woman who lives in Scotland Street. One of your neighbours, I believe. She’s got a little boy who looks as if he’s seen a ghost most of the time. He was patting Cyril and Cyril was lapping it up and then this hatchet-faced woman said something to Cyril that he didn’t like, and he bit her in the ankle! Not a serious bite. A nip really. I don’t think he even broke the skin. But she howled and tried to kick him but Cyril backed off. It was the funniest sight. And we had to keep a straight face through all this. And Angus Lordie had to say how sorry he was and gave Cyril a wallop with a rolled-up copy of the Scotsman. Poor Cyril.”
“I know her,” said Pat. “Domenica can’t stand her. She says that she pushes that little boy an awful lot. She makes him learn 260 At the Gallery
the saxophone and Italian. Domenica says that he’s going to rebel the first chance he gets.”
“Mothers can be like that,” said Matthew. “They create a lot of problems for their sons. Anyway, it was a very amusing incident.”
They returned to the business of the gallery. An auction catalogue had arrived with the morning’s post and Pat had already perused it, noting down the lots in which she thought Matthew might have an interest. There were early twentieth-century studies of Kirkcudbright Harbour which she thought he might go for, and Matthew was busy looking at photographs of these, wondering about the price at which he would be able to sell them if he were to bid for them, when the door opened and a woman came into the gallery. For a moment he did not recognise her, but then he realised who she was. This was Janis, his father’s new girlfriend, the florist with whom he and his father had enjoyed a somewhat less than satisfactory evening in the New Club. He rose to his feet and greeted her. He tried to sound warm, but it was difficult.
“So this is your gallery,” said Janis, looking around her.
Matthew nodded. He wondered about her tone. Had she sounded a little bit dismissive? He was determined that he would not be condescended to by this woman, whatever her relationship with his misguided father was.
“Yes,” he said, his tone becoming noticeably colder. “This is where I work.”
“I hope you don’t mind my dropping in like this,” said Janis.
Matthew shrugged. “You’re very welcome,” he said, adding:
“I might drop into your flower shop some time.”
“Oh, please do,” said Janis. “Any time at all.” She cast an eye around her. “Not that we have much to interest you up there.
Unless you’re particularly keen on flowers.”
“I don’t mind flowers,” he said. “In their place.” It was an enigmatic remark, capable of interpretation at many different levels. In one reading, it suggested that one should not concern oneself too much with flowers; that there were better things to think and talk about. In another sense, it could be taken to mean At the Gallery
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that flowers should remain where they grew, and should not be picked. And in another sense altogether, it could be taken as implying that people who dealt in flowers should not take up with the fathers of those who dealt in pictures, especially when the father was considerably older than the florist.
“Well, I’m not sure,” said Janis evenly. “Flowers bring a lot of pleasure to people – ordinary people.”
This was itself an enigmatic observation. At one level, it might have been self-deprecatory: working with flowers made no claims to being anything special, unlike dealing in art, which gave pleasure to a slightly grander set of people. That was one interpretation. Another was this: at least people who sell flowers to people who buy flowers have no pretensions; they get pleasure from flowers and that is justification enough.
Whichever meaning Janis had in mind, she did not pursue it.
Smiling politely at Pat, whom Matthew had not bothered to introduce to her, she made her way over to the far side of the room and began to peer closely at a painting of a girl picking flowers in a field.
“My father’s girlfriend,” whispered Matthew to Pat. “The florist. Note how she goes straight for the picture of flowers.
Typical.”
“I don’t know,” said Pat. “She seems nice enough to me. And that’s a nice enough painting.”
“You don’t understand,” hissed Matthew. “Can’t you see the pound signs in her eyes? Can’t you see them?”
“No,” said Pat.
Matthew cast his eyes upwards in an expression of frustration, but said nothing, and returned to his catalogue. After a few minutes, Janis came over to his desk.
“You’ve got some nice paintings,” she said. “That Crosbie over there is very pretty.”