The Lost Art of Gratitude

Isabel nodded. “He accused me of plagiarism,” she said. “Or of aiding and abetting it.”

Jamie’s eyes widened. “Let’s sort him,” he said. Then he laughed. “I don’t mean physically. Or maybe I did. But if I did, then I don’t mean it any longer. It just slipped out.”

Isabel reassured him that she had not taken him seriously. “We all say things like that,” she said. “Or think them.”

Jamie looked thoughtful. “Revenge fantasies. There was a conductor once—I wanted to …” His thoughtful look turned to one of shame. “I wouldn’t ever have done it.”

Isabel put on a look of mock censure. “I should hope not.”

“It would have been very therapeutic, though,” mused Jamie.

LUNCH—and defending himself against his new friend, Roderick McCaig—had exhausted Charlie, who was now sitting quietly on Isabel’s lap, fighting a losing battle to keep his eyes open. He would sleep, of course, in his pushchair, and Jamie now lifted him gently into it and strapped him in.

“I’ll take him for a sleep-walk,” he offered. “You go to the gallery. Half an hour?”

Isabel accepted the offer. The Scottish Gallery, run by her friend Guy Peploe, was a few doors down the road from Glass and Thompson, and she wanted to talk to Guy about an auction that was coming up in London. Isabel appreciated art and made the occasional foray into the art market—something she did with discretion and a degree of embarrassment. She sensed that Jamie did not entirely approve of the buying of expensive paintings, and she usually shielded from him the sums she actually paid for her acquisitions. In her view, of course, they were entirely justified; surely it was more selfish to leave money squirrelled away in a bank account than to recycle it? The people from whom she bought the paintings spent the proceeds no doubt—that was the reason they were selling them in the first place. And was it not generally better that money should circulate—which was, after all, its fundamental purpose?

She had mentioned this to Jamie—gently—and he had listened carefully. “I suppose so,” he said. “I don’t really understand economics though. If you left it in the bank, wouldn’t it be working anyway? Being lent to people?”

“But this is going even further,” argued Isabel. “I’m effectively giving it away. Nobody will be paying me interest once I’ve parted with the money.”

Jamie frowned. “But you’re not really giving it away. You’re getting something in return.”

“Those paintings have to hang somewhere,” Isabel retorted. “What point do they serve if they’re doing nothing?”

The conversation had petered out after that. Neither really knew anything about the subject; all Jamie knew was that he did not really have any money and was not particularly interested in acquiring it, while Isabel, who had money, knew that it was not only an opaque subject but a rather dull one too. If money could be changed into art, that at least made it more interesting.

Guy was summoned from the back office when Isabel came into the gallery.

“I don’t suppose …,” Isabel began.

“I do,” said Guy. “I’ve got Lyon & Turnbull’s catalogue. And one of the London catalogues too.”

They went downstairs and into the small garden at the back of the gallery. Seating themselves on two French ironwork chairs, they began to page through the London catalogue. It was the usual mixture for the day sale, where the cheaper pictures were offered; the evening sale brought out the higher bidders, the collectors who would pay hundreds of thousands, or even millions, for pictures which the artists might well have exchanged for a square meal. Isabel was not in that league; she was interested in the day sale, and the less expensive end of it too.

“Elegant company enjoying themselves again,” said Isabel, pointing to a French picture of a well-dressed group of people picnicking under a tree.

Guy read out the description that the cataloguer had prepared. “Circle of François Boucher. Elegant company at ease under a tree, musicians in the background.”

“I love the term elegant company,” said Isabel. “I wonder how one qualifies? And here, look at this. This is the opposite. Roughs drinking in a tavern. Frankly, the roughs seem to be having a better time.”

Guy laughed. Turning the page, he came across another allegorical work. “Big,” he said. “Seventy-two inches by fifty-four. And not a bad frame. But look what it is.”

Isabel studied the painting in the photograph. “The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. Oh look, Guy. See the wise virgins. Look at them.”