Matthew glanced at the painting in question. “Somebody may like it,” he said grudgingly. “You never know.”
“I thought that I might buy it,” said Janis. “That is, if you’ll sell it to me.”
“You’re welcome to it,” said Matthew. “It’s for sale.”
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“Then I’ll take it,” said Janis, adding: “It’s a present for your father. I’m sure that he’ll appreciate it.”
Matthew hesitated. The purchase of the painting as a gift for his father was a sign of intimacy between the two of them. One did not purchase paintings for those with whom one had a casual relationship.
“He’s not a great one for paintings,” muttered Matthew. “Are you sure?”
Janis nodded. “I’m very sure, Matthew. I’ve got to know him quite well, you know.”
Matthew said nothing. He rose from his desk and walked over to the place where the painting was hanging. Lifting it off its hook, he brought it back to Janis. He looked at the scene which Crosbie had captured so swiftly – a harbour-side scene with several fishermen sitting on upturned fish-boxes. It was a deft painting, a confident painting, of a subject that could so easily have appeared posed and trite. But that had been avoided.
Janis looked at the painting and smiled. “He’ll like that, you know.”
“I hope so,” said Matthew.
Janis hesitated. “Would you mind if I did something?” she asked. “Would you mind if I told him that you chose it for him?”
It was Pat who answered the question. “You’d be very pleased with that, Matthew? Wouldn’t you? Yes, he would.”
80. Dogs and Cuban History
Two days later, Pat knocked on Domenica’s door. Domenica had never appeared to be anything but pleased to see her younger neighbour, and today was no exception. Of course it was convenient; of course Pat must come in and have coffee.
Pat realised, of course, that Domenica liked conversation, but she had always felt that their encounters had been somewhat one-sided, with Domenica doing most of the talking. And that was because Domenica had just done so much more than she had; Dogs and Cuban History
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more happened in sixty years than in twenty, as a general rule, although naturally there were exceptions. Some people did very little in their lives, and such habits of inaction could last for generations. She had read in a newspaper somewhere of the work of Professor Sykes, who had used the techniques of modern genetics to look at the roots of people who bore the surname Sykes. People called Sykes, he discovered, tended to come from a small village in England, and there were still people of that name there – families that in eight hundred years had moved no more than a few hundred yards. That was stability on a thoroughly heroic scale.
On this visit, Pat had rather more to say than usual, as the previous two days had been full of incident. There had been the reported incident of Cyril’s biting of Irene; there had been the visit of Janis to the gallery and the resulting row with Matthew. And finally there had been the outing with Peter to the nudist picnic in the Moray Place Gardens, an occasion which she needed to talk about.
They sat in Domenica’s study, Domenica in the chair that she liked to occupy at the side of her desk, flanked by a pile of books, Pat in the chair normally reserved for visitors underneath Domenica’s framed photograph of her father.
Domenica had not heard from Angus Lordie of Cyril’s disgrace, and was delighted with the tale.
“I wouldn’t normally wish a dog-bite on anybody,” she said.
“However, in this case there is an element of poetic justice. I myself have wished to bite that woman for some time, and I can thoroughly sympathise with Cyril. I wonder whether she’s learned anything from the experience. I doubt it.”
“Matthew says that she provoked him,” said Pat. “She insulted him in some way.”
“Dogs are sensitive to insult,” said Domenica. “And, you know, it’s an interesting thing – dogs from highly sensitive cultures are more prickly about how they’re treated. There’s been a very interesting piece of research on that. Somebody from Stanford got it into his head that the behaviour of dogs reflected the national characteristics of the human culture in
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which the dogs lived. I think that the idea came to him when he visited New York and found that the dogs he saw were all highly-strung and neurotic – just like their owners. So that set him off thinking that these differences might be manifested at a national level too. A very interesting bit of research, but highly contentious, of course; almost eccentric.”
Pat was intrigued. “And what did he find out?”
Domenica smiled. “He found out what he had set out to find out,” she said. “Which always makes research a bit suspect. You have to keep an open mind, although you can have a hypothesis, of course. He looked at dogs in Spanish-speaking cultures
– Colombian dogs, I think – and then he looked at Swedish, Australian and Japanese dogs.”
“And?”
“Well,” continued Domenica, “Swedish dogs showed themselves to be quieter and more cautious. Their behaviour, in fact, showed signs of depression. They sat around rather mournfully and did not bark to the same extent as other dogs. The Colombian dogs were very excitable. If you subjected them to stress, they made a terrible fuss. They were always dancing about and chasing things.”
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“And the Australian dogs?”
“They behaved in a fairly boisterous way, too,” said Domenica,
“although not as markedly as the Colombian dogs. They seemed less concerned about their appearance – they were much scruffier
– and they were very outgoing. They were also very good at chasing balls.
“The Japanese dogs” she continued, “were very interesting –
from the animal behaviour point of view. They were very sensitive. Very concerned with face.”
Pat laughed. “All rather like their owners?”
“You could say so. And I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us.
Animals with whom we live in close proximity are bound to throw our behaviour back at us, aren’t they? I’m not sure if we should be surprised by such findings.”
“No,” said Pat. “But it seems a little bit far-fetched.”
Domenica looked thoughtful. “I had occasion to reflect on this myself,” she said. “Last year, when I was in Havana. I recalled that bit of Stanford research while I was there. And I must say I thought that he had a point. But I’m not sure if you want to sit there and hear all this from me. You have that picnic to tell me about.”
Pat wanted to hear about Havana. There would be time enough for Moray Place later on.
Encouraged to continue, Domenica picked up one of the books from the pile, glanced at it thoughtfully, and replaced it. “I wanted to go to Havana,” she said, “before two things happened. The first of these is before the place fell down altogether. Do you know that over one hundred of their lovely old buildings collapse every year? And the second is before the Americans got their hands on it. I am not one of those people who are uncharitable about the Americans, but the truth of the matter is that the United States has been breathing down Cuba’s neck since the early nineteenth century and continues to do so. I cannot believe – I just cannot believe – that if the average person in the United States knew how that lovely island has been treated over the years they would feel anything but shame. Pure shame. Indeed, everybody has bullied Cuba. The Spanish were simply murderous. Then they looted the place. We had a go at it. Then the Americans tried to buy it. They 266 Havana
occupied it. They treated it as a private playground. Organised crime ran the place. They built big hotels. They had their meet-ings there. And then Castro and his crew appeared and we all know what happened then. Thousands and thousands imprisoned and held under the thumb. Poor Cubans. It’s ever thus.”