“Good morning.”
Isabel spoke clearly. It was not a muttered greeting, but a very distinct one.
The man stopped in his tracks and stared at her. He was clearly confused, and a frown crossed his brow as he looked first at Isabel and then at Roz.
“Oh. Well, hello.” He spoke with an old-fashioned Edinburgh accent—the sort that elongates its vowels and has a tendency to stress the final syllable. The hello, as a result, came out as helloo.
It was immediately awkward. He had stopped, as if expecting a further exchange, and Isabel and Roz could hardly walk past now without appearing rude. Isabel had envisaged that there would be, at most, a courteous exchange of greetings; she had not imagined a conversation.
The man was now looking at Isabel again. He smiled nervously. “How are you?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you for an awful long time.”
He’s being polite, thought Isabel, and now she regretted saying good morning. She had not intended to confuse him.
She returned his smile. “No, well…”
The man waited for a moment before he continued the conversation. “Have you been away?” he asked.
Isabel shook her head. It occurred to her that perhaps she had met him after all; that they had been introduced at some party and had forgotten one another, and now he was racking his brains to remember who she was. “It’s difficult to get away these days. With a young child, you see…”
She was now feeling awkward that she had not introduced Roz. Even if she had created this ridiculous situation, ordinary human politeness required that she should not unduly embarrass this man.
“I don’t believe you’ve met Roz…” She suddenly realised that she could not remember Roz’s married name. She had been Leisk at school, but what was she now?
“Roz Harding,” said Roz, smiling. She had picked up on Isabel’s lapsus memoriae.
The man held out a hand to shake hands with Roz. “Martin Fortstone,” he said.
Martin Fortstone. The name was slightly familiar to Isabel, but she could not remember why. It was an unusual name; she had known a family of Fortstones, but they had all been girls: there had been no Martin Fortstone.
“We’re going to have to dash,” said Isabel. “Babysitting issues, you know.”
Martin Fortstone inclined his head. “Of course.” He paused for a moment. It seemed as if he had remembered something. “Thank you, by the way.”
Isabel was not sure how to interpret this. Had he assumed that she was somebody else—somebody whom he had reason to thank for something?
“You don’t have to,” she muttered.
He looked embarrassed. “No, I do. I really do. Thank you. You know what I mean. Thank you for your discretion.”
She had to bring this to an end. “Well, we must be getting on.”
He stepped aside to allow them to pass. “Goodbye,” he said. “And, Roz, thank you too. Nice to have met you.”
For a few moments as they continued on their way, neither said anything. Then Isabel turned to Roz and said, “I feel very bad about that.”
Roz shrugged. “You don’t need to. You only said good morning. There’s nothing to feel bad about in that.”
Isabel still felt uncomfortable. “It was childish. It was like ringing somebody’s doorbell and then running away.”
“Did you do that too?” Roz asked. “I remember we used to do it when I was a girl and we lived in Newington. We used to go to doorbells, ring them, and rush round the corner and giggle as we saw people coming out.”
“Childish pranks,” said Isabel. “But I still feel bad. Why did he thank me? What was he thanking me for? What did he mean by discretion? What was he talking about?”
“Heaven knows,” said Roz. “But anyway, let’s not worry about it. I want to hear what you think of that painting.”
“I like Ravilious,” said Isabel. “I always have. There’s a delicacy to his work.”
Roz liked the idea of delicacy. “Yes, I agree—that’s what it is. A sort of understated approach.”
“Very English,” said Isabel.
“Do you think that goes with being English? A tendency to understate things?”
“Yes, of course. They’re always understating things. If they’re in the middle of an absolute disaster, they’ll say things like a spot of difficulty or the situation gives rise to slight concern. They’re famous understaters, the English.”
“And the Scots? Don’t we understate?”
“No,” said Isabel. “We don’t. We tend to be taciturn. That’s not understatement.” She thought for a moment. “Well, it could be, I suppose. Saying nothing could be a serious understatement.”
Roz steered the conversation back to Ravilious. The problem with Isabel, she thought, was that she went off at a tangent.
“You probably know that Ravilious was very friendly with Bawden—back in the twenties. And Nash too—he studied under Paul Nash.”
“I like all of them,” said Isabel. “Bawden, in particular.”
“Well, yes, they’re—how would one put it—gentle. Yes, I think that sums them up. Gentle artists.”
“They wouldn’t go down well today, would they?” observed Isabel. “People seem to think that the role of art today is to make us feel uncomfortable. To shock us. To turn our world upside down.”
Roz was dismissive. “Oh that! I pay no attention to all that. Those people won’t last. They’ll be forgotten about. People like Ravilious will last.”
“You said something about your grandfather…”
“Yes, he was an artist too. He was with Ravilious at the Royal College of Art. He knew Bawden too. And when the Bawdens bought that house in Great Bardfield—Brick House, I think it was called—he used to go and see them there. Ravilious lived with them for a while. They were quite close friends.”
Isabel waited for Roz to continue.
“Then came the War,” said Roz. “My grandfather joined up more or less immediately—I think it was in November 1939—and Ravilious joined that December. They were both accepted as official war artists, both of them given the rank of captain. It’s a strange idea, don’t you think? Getting artists to paint something as awful as war.”
“I suppose people want a record of what it’s like.”
Roz looked doubtful. “They may want a record, but I’m not sure that they want the slant that an artist might give to it. Do you think that the military really want to show it as it is? Or are they more interested in glorification?”
“I suppose soldiers, like anybody else, feel that what they’re doing is worthy of being recorded by an artist. I suspect senior officers might feel art ennobles their efforts.”
“And they’re right—that Ravilious of the Spitfire and the young men does that. It affected both of us. It made us think about the courage of those pilots.”
She looked at Roz quizzically. “Would a photograph do the same? To the same extent?”
“Photographs can be extremely powerful,” countered Roz.
Yes, thought Isabel; they can. There came to her mind the picture of the young girl fleeing the napalm—her clothes torn off, running naked towards the photographer. It was almost too painful even to imagine. Or the Vietnamese officer with his pistol pressed to the contorted face of the Vietcong insurgent. “Perhaps they do different things,” said Isabel. “Guernica does one thing; a war photograph does another.”
Roz nodded. “Perhaps.” She returned to her grandfather’s story. “He and Ravilious saw one another on and off. They had different postings. Ravilious was with the Royal Marines; my grandfather was with the Infantry. Ravilious drew a lot of boats, while my grandfather did pictures of young men undergoing training. He went on to North Africa; Ravilious was sent to Iceland, and that’s where he died. He went out on a search mission for a downed plane, and never came back. It must have been a dreadful way to go—your last view of this world being the sea coming up to meet you as your plane went down.”
Isabel said n
othing. She had always found it difficult to imagine the courage that spurred young men to give up their lives. But there was not much that she wanted to say about that.
They walked on in silence. Then Isabel said, “Are you going to go for that painting? Are you going to bid?”
“Of course,” said Roz. “You saw the estimate. Two hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Not very much.”
“You can say that again. It’s worth about thirty-five to forty thousand—maybe more.”
“A bargain,” said Isabel.
“Exactly. I only hope that nobody else reaches the same conclusion that I have.”
Isabel smiled. “I hope not. But that’s what auctions are about. They’re uncertain. You never know.” She paused. “And I’m sure it’ll give you a lot of pleasure if you get it.”
This brought a chuckle from Roz. “The money will,” she said.
Isabel frowned. “You won’t want to keep it?”
“Oh, I’d love to keep it, but I won’t be able to afford to. If I get it at the estimate, or even slightly above, I’ll make a terrific profit by selling it to a dealer.” She looked at Isabel, as if slightly embarrassed. “Twenty thousand pounds, I imagine—probably more.”
Isabel blurted out something that she had not intended to say. “How unfortunate for the seller…”
“What?”
She had no choice but to explain. “Well, I feel a bit sorry for the seller. He—or she—obviously is unaware of the painting’s value.” She paused, and then repeated, “Obviously.” She saw Roz’s face fall, but she felt she had to explain herself. “He’s going to get only a very small proportion of its true worth, don’t you agree?”
Even as she spoke, Isabel thought: this is not my business. And then, as the words came into her mind, an inner voice uttered them in Jamie’s voice. Not your business. She heard him. He had said it before—on more than one occasion. And she usually replied, Yes, I know, but how can I not…
Roz did not look at her as she replied. “But it’s an open market—it’s an auction after all.”
“I know,” said Isabel. She hesitated, uncertain whether to retract what she had just said. There were times when familiar adages came to mind, and this was one such: least said, soonest mended. To which, Isabel now thought, one might add: quick retraction—satisfaction.
It was too late: Roz’s resentment now showed in her peevish tone. “But the whole point of an auction, Isabel,” she said, “is that when you put something in for an auction—what’s the word they use—when you consign something—you take the risk that the auctioneer might get it wrong. Surely that’s part of the deal? Or at least that’s been the case at any auction I’ve ever gone to…”
Isabel was, after all, a philosopher, and she considered general propositions rather than took them for granted. Did you take that risk? Or did you assume the auctioneer’s attribution would be correct? Perhaps you did not imagine there would be any risk.
The argument might have ended there, with both tiptoeing around a suddenly awkward difference of opinion, but Roz was not going to leave it at that. “There have been plenty of cases of people making discoveries at auctions and getting something really important for way below its real value. For instance…” She pursed her lips; the examples were clearly not coming readily to mind.
Isabel came to her rescue. She was beginning to feel guilty about raising the matter in the first place; she should have given it more thought before speaking; she should have realised that a casual observation on rights and wrongs could spoil another’s delight in a triumph. “I know. I’ve heard of that happening. And—”
Roz cut her short. “I need the money,” she muttered. “I’m not doing anything illegal. And also…well, I don’t think it’s morally wrong—if that’s what you were suggesting.”
Isabel reached out and touched the other woman’s arm gently. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was thinking aloud—before I really worked it out. You’re quite right: it’s what auctions are all about.”
Roz gave Isabel a reproachful look. “That’s what I said.”
Isabel made a gesture to indicate that she did not want to pursue the matter. “I hope you get it,” she said. She was not sure that she sounded convincing, and she glanced at Roz to judge her reaction to her apparent volte-face.
It was a while before Roz replied, and then it was to voice disquiet. “I take it that you aren’t going to mention this to anybody, are you? You did promise me, you know.”
Isabel swallowed. She had devoted the earlier part of the week to editing a special issue of the Review of Applied Ethics on promises and the obligations to which they gave rise. One of the papers she had read discussed the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus, by which undertakings could be revisited by those who gave them if circumstances had changed sufficiently. She had given a rash promise—one given before she had had the time to think of the implications of the situation. Now that she had done so, she was inclined to another view, one that would justify reconsidering the promise. Arguably.
She could not.
“Yes,” she said. “I remember what I said.”
Roz came to a halt. “That’s not good enough, Isabel. Let me ask you directly: do you intend to honour…yes, to honour the promise you made to me? Tell me. Do you?”
Isabel felt a wave of hostility welling up in the space, the few inches, between them. Hostility was like that: it could be a wall of ice between people; a wall that sometimes seemed almost tangible, almost real.
“I told you I wouldn’t,” she said. “And I won’t. I won’t do anything to stop you getting that painting.”
“Good,” said Roz. “Now, let’s see about getting a bus. I’ve had enough walking. I feel lazy.”
You feel physically lazy, thought Isabel, whereas I should feel intellectually lazy. She was aware that she had conceded on a point that should have been more stoutly defended. What made Roz think that she was entitled to expect omertà, like some Sicilian don? She found herself feeling a certain distaste for the other woman; greed dressed up as need, she thought.
Chapter Four
The first part of their journey took place in silence. As the bus laboured up the Mound, the slope that divided the Georgian part of Edinburgh from the Old Town, Roz made a remark about the National Gallery, that they were passing at the time. Isabel who was looking at a mother trying to keep her two unruly children on their seat—and sympathising—caught only the end of what Roz said: “…I imagine they’d think themselves lucky if they did.”
She turned to Roz. “Sorry. I didn’t get that.” She lowered her voice. “That poor woman over there. See her? Those kids are really hyper. She must be at the end of her tether.” Then she added, “What did you say?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Roz, huffily.
“No, please, I’m interested…” Isabel thought that it was probably something to do with finding things at auction, and how pleased the National Gallery would be to do so.
But then the bus gave a lurch as the driver applied his brakes and sounded his horn angrily. Another driver had made a sharp turn without warning, shooting off down Market Street towards Waverley Station.
“Some people!” muttered Roz.
For a moment Isabel wondered whether the comment was directed at her, but then realised that Roz was referring to the thoughtless driver.
“They don’t necessarily mean it,” said Isabel mildly. “They just get behind the wheel of a car and forget there are other drivers. Their minds are on other things.”
“Well they shouldn’t be driving,” snapped Roz.
“No, perhaps not.”
Roz was clearly in a bad mood. “What do they think buses are for? Why pollute the place with their cars when there’s a perfectly good bus service?”
“Or legs,” Isabel ventured. It was Roz, after all, who had suggested they board a bus. Isabel would have walked had she been by herself, but had felt that to insist on doing so when they had just e
merged from their argument might have been tactless.
“Well, not everybody can walk,” said Roz testily.
“No,” said Isabel. “I suppose not.”
“It’s all very well for us,” Roz went on. “We can walk, but what about people who can’t?”
Isabel looked out through the window. It was clear to her that Roz had been thoroughly…discombobulated by their exchange over the painting. Discombobulated…that was the word, that utterly splendid word. To be put out; to be upset…she thought of a metaphor…she had been derailed. Yes, thought Isabel, my mentioning the seller had derailed her. She felt sorry about that; Isabel did not like conflict, but was she really at fault to have made a perfectly reasonable observation about how one person’s gain was another’s loss? Of course people did not like to be made to feel bad about what they were doing, or proposed to do; that was the problem here, and she was not sure whether she could do anything to change that, short of making some sort of abject apology. That would have been insincere though, and she was not prepared to be insincere just to lighten Roz’s mood.
They lapsed into uncomfortable silence. By the time the bus reached Heriot’s School, Isabel was looking out of the window to the right—at the High Renaissance spires of the main school building—and Roz was gazing fixedly out the other side, at the glassy additions to the Old Infirmary. As they passed the King’s Theatre a few minutes later, the silence was interrupted by a muttered remark from Roz. “Nonsense. Complete nonsense.”
Isabel glanced at posters displayed in the theatre windows. “That play?” she asked.
“Yes, nonsense.”
“Oh. Did you see it?’
“Certainly not,” said Roz. “Mary saw it. She hated it. She said it was a complete waste of her time.”
Isabel wondered who Mary was. “Well, thanks for the warning.”
Roz said nothing. The road now wound up towards Bruntsfield; they were nearing the stop at which Isabel would alight.