Sweet, Thoughtful Valentine

  She had to decide. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t buy it. I just can’t.”

  “I understand,” said George. “I didn’t think you would.”

  Isabel looked beyond him, to a shelf on which stood a large wineglass, a rummer, delicately decorated with an incised white rose.

  “Jacobite?” asked Isabel, pointing at the glass.

  George nodded.

  “Then that’s it,” she said. “He’ll love that.”

  George took it off the shelf and handed it to Isabel to examine. “You have to be careful with Jacobite glass,” he said. “Not all of it is original—by any means. But this one, I think, is.”

  She touched the glass engraving gently. All those years ago, a patient engraver had applied his wheel to the glass, working the design of the rose that indicated loyalty to the Stuart cause. Lives had been lost, great estates forfeited, because this, and other glasses just like it, had been raised in toast to the Pretender; and now, deprived of all such power, it sat on the shelf of an Edinburgh antique shop. It had lost its power, she thought, but it had not lost its significance. Scotland had not gone away.

  “He likes Jacobite songs,” Isabel explained as she examined the glass.

  “ ‘King Fareweel’?” asked George.

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “That, and others.”

  “It was a colourful cause,” said George. “I can understand how Bonnie Prince Charlie was a romantic figure.”

  “Irredentism,” said Isabel. “Or a variety of it.”

  “The idea that you have a right to get something back?”

  Isabel held the glass up to the light. The rose was very delicate. “Irredentists are usually claiming land on behalf of a country, rather than a monarch. But it amounts to the same sort of claim of right. Argentina and the Falklands; China and Taiwan; Russia and the Crimea; Indonesia and East Timor. It’s a long list.”

  “And an explosive one,” remarked George.

  “If people think they’ve lost something,” said Isabel, “they can be slow to forget. How many of us keep alive the memory that a friend hasn’t returned a book borrowed years earlier? We don’t readily forget, do we?”

  George sighed. “So many wars have been fought over memories,” he said.

  “Oh well,” said Isabel. “We must remind ourselves that we are in the twenty-first century.”

  “We hardly need do that,” said George, with a touch a regret. “The twenty-first century is quite good at reminding us itself.”

  And then he brightened. “Have you been down to Hamilton’s?” he asked.

  Hamilton’s was a small auction house round the corner. Their sales were irregular, but they had a reputation for fine silverware and paintings even if they were not in the same league as Bonhams or Christie’s.

  “No,” replied Isabel. “Anything on view?”

  George explained that there was a viewing of an auction due to take place the following week. “A mixed bag,” he said. “But some interesting stuff. There’s a lovely Gillies of the hills near Temple. Some Victorian Highland views—you know the sort of thing. A pretty impressive Jean Redpath—one of the big ones.”

  “I don’t need any further temptations,” said Isabel.

  “None of us does,” said George. “But you should pop in and take a look at the temptations you’re planning to resist. Viewing is today and tomorrow.”

  Isabel hesitated. Much as she liked Scottish art, she did not need any new pictures. There would be no harm in looking—although every human fall from grace, when one came to think about it, began with an innocent look.

  * * *

  With the Jacobite rummer carefully cosseted in bubble wrap, Isabel made her way to Hamilton’s. Once George had mentioned the viewing, she had not required much persuading, although she said to herself—as firmly as she could—that this was just a viewing and she would not be leaving any bids. She would treat it like a visit to a public gallery, where the last thing the visitor had in mind was the idea of acquiring anything on display.

  George had been right about the quality of the sale. Isabel bought a copy of the catalogue—a handsomely produced glossy affair—and read the background to what was on offer. Many of the paintings came from a single source, a collection put together over the second half of the twentieth century by a prominent Glasgow industrialist, Thomas Stiven, and his wife, Andrea. She recognised the name; his picture had often been in the papers, making this or that comment on behalf of trade bodies and the like; she had been reported too, usually after some act of public charity. Isabel remembered that the Stivens had been prominent supporters of Scottish Opera, and she had met them, she now recalled, at one of their receptions at the Festival Theatre. She had not known, though, about their collection, most of which now hung on the walls of the auction room, numbered and ready for the auctioneer’s hammer.

  The Stivens’ taste clearly ran to watercolours, although there were oils as well. The range was broad: at one end of the spectrum there were Chinese ink–and-wash drawings dating from the late eighteenth century and at the other there were floral paintings by Elizabeth Blackadder executed within the last decade. As in so much watercolour painting, the tone was subtle and subdued: if artists had a big point to make, Isabel thought, oils made it rather more forcefully.

  The prices, Isabel noted, were not extreme. This was not a sale aimed at big-spending collectors—the trophy hunters of the auction rooms; while a few of the lots—those by well-known artists—had estimates of thousands of pounds, many of these paintings would appeal to those with much more limited budgets. This, she thought, was a sale for people who would look at the painting and appreciate it for what it was rather than use it as a badge of wealth.

  She was looking at a small marine landscape, The North Sea from the Coast of Fife, when she heard her name.

  “Isabel?”

  She turned round. Roz Leisk, a contemporary from her schooldays, was standing behind her, catalogue in hand. Isabel smiled and then suddenly remembered: she had not thought much about Roz in recent years—their paths rarely crossed—until somebody had said something about a recent divorce. Isabel had been surprised; Roz’s husband, whom she had met on several occasions, was a urologist—a rather quiet man who had good husband material stamped all over him. Had it been Roz who had brought it to an end, or the quiet urologist? Or had they simply drifted apart, as some couples did, in much the same way as friends might grow away from each other?

  Isabel greeted her and then pointed at the marine painting. “I rather like this,” she said. “The North Sea seems to be behaving itself.”

  Roz peered at the painting. “It’s…it’s okay,” she said. “Not for me, though.”

  Isabel shrugged. She would not force the North Sea on anyone. “How are you?” she said. The question was intended to be neutral, but Isabel’s concern must have shown, as Roz frowned and hesitated before replying.

  “You’ve probably heard,” she said.

  “I did,” said Isabel. “I heard that you and…” She struggled to remember the name of Roz’s husband.

  “Andrew,” supplied Roz. “Yes, we’re just divorced. It came through last week, in fact.”

  “I was sorry to hear about it,” said Isabel.

  “Thank you.” Roz paused before she continued. “The male menopause.”

  “Somebody else was involved?”

  Roz nodded. “Yes. The usual story. Twenty-four.”

  Isabel winced. “Ow.”

  Roz made a gesture of acceptance. “It’s better for Andrew to be happy. If that’s what he wants, then I wasn’t going to stand in his way.”

  “I suppose not. Still…”

  “Yes, still. But here we are. We’re selling the house, of course.”

  Isabel imagined that Roz would not be short of money, but it seemed that there were problems.

  “We had a very bad mortgage on it,” Roz went on to say. “We chose one of these with-profits policy mortgages. We discovered
that the policy had done really badly, with the result that there’s a real shortfall.” She paused. “I’m going to struggle to afford a flat once everything is shared out.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  Roz looked about her. “Actually, there’s something very interesting turned up.”

  She had lowered her voice as she spoke, giving her words a conspiratorial tone. Isabel waited for her to continue.

  “May I tell you something in confidence? You won’t tell, will you?”

  Isabel nodded. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “All right,” said Roz, her voice now not much louder than a whisper, making it difficult for Isabel to hear what she had to say. “There’s a painting in this sale—one over there, at the end—that is very interesting indeed.”

  Isabel glanced in the direction Roz indicated. “Should we take a look at it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Roz. “But let’s not stand in front of it for too long. We wouldn’t want to attract attention.”

  Isabel looked at her sideways. Why should anybody wish to conceal interest in an item at an auction viewing?

  They crossed the floor. Roz was silent now, and did not say anything until they reached their goal—a large painting in muted colours, hanging in a dark corner of the room. Isabel glanced at the number, and then referred to her catalogue. “English School,” she said. She turned to Roz. “Is that all? No name?”

  Roz inclined her head in the direction of the painting. “Take a closer look,” she muttered, standing aside to give Isabel an unfettered view.

  The painting, considerably larger than those around it, had been framed in light oak. On one side this frame had been scoured slightly, as if a nail had been rubbed against it. This gave it a rather neglected look.

  “Nobody’s loved this for some time,” muttered Isabel.

  Roz said nothing.

  Isabel’s gaze moved over the picture. On the left of the scene, the point on which the painting’s composition dictated the eye should fall, was the unmistakeable shape of a Spitfire, the aircraft that had saved Britain against the Nazi onslaught. It was parked on the edge of an airfield, the chocks securing its wheels. Behind it, and slightly to the right, a group of four young men, clad in leather flying jackets and wearing scarves, sat on casually arranged deck chairs. One of the young men was asleep, the newspaper he had been reading slipping out of his grasp, his face turned up to the sky in repose; another one smoked; another read a letter; another had his eyes fixed on the horizon, as if watching for raiders. A dog—a black-and-white sheepdog—lay at the feet of one of the men, his chin against his master’s flying boot.

  The sky above the airfield was clear, apart from one or two small clouds, drifting white and wispy. Where sky and earth met could be made out a church spire and a few indistinct roofs.

  She caught her breath. The painting captured with extraordinary poignancy the historical moment. The young men were the only defence against something dark and unspeakable. The Spitfire, stood down for the moment, was all they had. On its side, a bright point in the restrained delicacy of the watercolour, was painted the familiar circular decal of the Royal Air Force. No heraldic device on a knightly shield could have conveyed with more force the message of that red, white and blue circle. It was these concentric circles against the sinister arms of the Swastika. It was as simple as that, and these young men understood that, although none of them, in life, would have made much of that. They were simply doing—or preparing to do—what they had to do.

  Isabel stood back, her gaze still fixed on the painting.

  “You see,” whispered Roz.

  She nodded. ‘It’s very powerful.”

  “And beautiful.”

  “Yes, and beautiful too.”

  Roz reached out to touch the glass with a fingertip. “Look at him,” she said. “Look how young he is. A boy.”

  Isabel peered at the young man. Roz was right; he could have been sixteen. “When did they let them join?”

  “Eighteen, I think,” said Roz. “Some of them were flying Spitfires at eighteen. They went up—into action, that is—after not much more than a few hours of training.”

  “So he could have been a young eighteen,” mused Isabel.

  Roz stood back. “And he would have existed. You know. That actual young man would have existed.”

  Isabel thought about this for a moment. It was not a photograph. The young men in those photographs of waiting aircrews would have existed, but artists could make up faces.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps he did.”

  Roz shook her head. “No, he would actually have existed. This was done by a war artist, you see. They sketched what they actually saw.”

  Something was dawning on Isabel. The style had been vaguely familiar and she had put that down to period atmosphere. But now she realised her feeling was something more than that. “It’s not Ravilious, is it?”

  Roz smiled. “Yes,” she whispered. “It is. It’s Ravilious.”

  Isabel consulted her catalogue again. Pilots with a plane, she read. English School, c. 1940.

  She was aware of Roz looking over her shoulder. “They’ve slipped up,” Roz said. “They haven’t attributed it correctly.”

  Isabel frowned, and looked at the bottom of the painting. She could just make out a signature. Evans? That explained it; the painting was, as the art historians would put it, in the style of Ravilious.

  “It’s by somebody else,” said Isabel. “It’s indistinct, but it looks like Evans. That explains it.”

  “No,” said Roz. “Forget about that signature for a while.”

  “Well—”

  Roz interrupted her. “You’d think they’d recognize the style. After all, Ravilious is one of the best-regarded English watercolourists of the twentieth century. Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. Everybody loves their work. All those prints you can buy—and mugs too, for that matter.”

  “It’s obviously by an admirer,” said Isabel. “Somebody who painted like Ravilious did.”

  Roz shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.” She paused. “I’ve looked very closely at the signature and I think it’s been added later.”

  “But why?”

  “Because people sometimes did that. The original had no signature and so some enthusiast decided that it’s by somebody else altogether and added a signature.”

  Isabel was not convinced. “But they have their experts. They know what they’re doing.”

  “Not always,” said Roz. “You often read about paintings being misattributed at auctions.” She drew Isabel aside. “And anyway, I have proof. I know this is a Ravilious.”

  Isabel looked at her dubiously.

  A resentful note crept into Roz’s voice. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “It’s not a question of not believing you. It’s just that…well, there are so many disagreements and conflicting opinions in the art world. You can never be completely sure.”

  “I have a photograph,” said Roz. “Would you like to see it?”

  She reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out a small brown envelope. Gingerly, as if extracting something fragile, she took out a faded black-and-white photograph that she passed to Isabel. “My grandfather,” she said. “That’s him on the left, and on the right is Eric Ravilious. In the background there—on that easel—you’ll see this painting.” She paused before continuing, “This was taken in Ravilious’s studio just before he went to Iceland. I’ve had an enlargement made from this print and it shows the painting in some detail. It’s the exact same dog, apart from anything else.”

  Isabel stared at the photograph before handing it back. “Should we go outside,” she said. “We could talk more freely.”

  Roz agreed. Slipping the photograph into its envelope, she then tucked it back into her pocket. “I have to get home anyway—are you heading back? I was going to walk.”

  They lived in the same part of the city, although R
oz’s house was in Morningside, slightly further out than Isabel’s.

  “Let’s walk,” said Isabel. “You can tell me a bit more on the way.”

  Chapter Three

  They began to make their way back up Dundas Street. The traffic was quiet, the pavements largely deserted.

  “I like the city when it’s like this,” said Roz. “You even feel inclined to greet people walking towards you.”

  “I sometimes do,” said Isabel. “I say good morning to strangers in the street; it’s quite interesting to see the reaction.”

  “Which is?”

  “Mostly surprise. But then, after a moment, they realise that all I’ve said to them is good morning and they respond warmly. You see a smile of recognition. They’ve recognised something that we’ve lost.”

  “Like greeting people behind the counter when you go into a shop?” said Roz. “As the French do?”

  “Yes,” said Isabel. She had been momentarily distracted from the conversation by the sight of a man walking down the road in the opposite direction to theirs. “Take this man walking towards us. Should we?”

  Roz glanced in the direction of the man advancing towards them. She could see that he was dressed fairly casually—not in business clothes—and was carrying a laden shopping bag. “Should we greet him? Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “Let’s say good morning to a perfect stranger.”

  “To prove what?” asked Roz.

  “That people still want to be human, even when they live in cities. That we haven’t lost all the ordinary ways of recognising the humanity of others. That would do—for a start.”

  Roz smiled. “Will we both say good afternoon? It’s after twelve.”

  Isabel looked at her watch. It was ten past twelve. “I think that we should stick to good morning. The day always feels like morning until at least one o’clock.”

  The man was now not much more than a few yards away, and they were able to make out more details of his appearance. He was, Isabel thought, somewhere in his mid-forties, perhaps a bit younger; his hair was a chestnut colour, but greying in a way that people sometimes described as “distinguished.” His clothing was suggestive of good taste. There was an air of prosperity about him: his jacket and shoes had an expensive look to them.