They reached the top of the stairs and made their way into the hall where rows of chairs had been set up for the lecture.
There was already a fair crowd, and they had to find seats at the back. Domenica waved to one or two people whom she recognised and then turned to address Pat, her voice lowered.
“Now this is interesting,” she said. “This is a very interesting audience. There are some people here who are just itching to have their portraits painted. They come to everything that the gallery organises. They sit through every lecture, without fail.
They give large donations. All for the sake of immortality in oils.
And the sad thing is – it never works. Poor dears. They just aren’t of sufficient public interest. Fascinating to themselves and their friends, but not of sufficient public interest.”
Domenica smiled wickedly. “There was a very embarrassing incident some years ago. Somebody – and I really can’t name him – had a portrait of himself painted and offered it to the gallery. This put them in a terrible spot. The painting could just At the Scottish National Portrait Gallery 197
have been lost, so to speak, which would have been a solution of sorts, I suppose, but galleries can’t just lose paintings – that’s not what they’re meant to do. So they were obliged to say that he just wasn’t of sufficient public interest. So sad, because he really thought he was of great public interest.
“Then there are people who are of some interest, but not quite enough, or at least not quite enough while they’re still alive. It will be fine when they’re dead, but the gallery can hardly tell them that the best thing to do is to die. That would be rude. It’s rather like the way we treat our poets. We’re tremendously nice to them after they’re dead. Mind you, some poets are rather awkward when they’re still alive. MacDiarmid could be a little troublesome after a bottle of Glenfiddich. He became much safer post-mortem.”
“I can tell you the most remarkable story about MacDiarmid,”
Domenica continued. “And I saw this all happen myself – I saw the whole thing. You know the Signet Library, near St Giles?
Yes? Well, I was working there one day, years ago. They had let me use it to have a look at some rather interesting early anthro-pological works they had. I was tucked away in a corner, completely absorbed in my books, and I didn’t notice that they had set out tables for a dinner. And then suddenly people started coming in, all men, all dressed in evening dress. And I thought that I might just stay where I was – nobody could see me – and find out what they were up to. You know how men are – they have these all-male societies as part of their bonding rituals. Tragic, really, but there we are. Poor dears. Anyway, it transpired that a terribly important guest was coming to this one, none other than the Duke of Edinburgh himself. Frightfully smart in his evening dress. And there, too, was MacDiarmid, all crabbit and cantankerous in his kilt and enjoying his whisky. I was watching all this from my corner, feeling a bit like an anthropologist observing a ritual, which I suppose I was.
A little later on, the Duke stood up to make a speech and I’m sorry to say that MacDiarmid started to barrack him. He was republican, you see. And what happened? Well, a very well-built judge, Lord somebody, lifted the poet up and carried 198
At the Scottish National Portrait Gallery him out of the room. So amusing. The poet’s legs were kicking about nineteen to the dozen, but to no avail. And I watched the whole thing and concluded that it was some sort of metaphor. But I’ve never worked out what it was a metaphor for!”
“Is that true?” asked Pat.
Domenica looked severe. “My dear,” she said, “I never make things up. But, shh, here comes our lecturer, the excellent James Holloway. We must listen to him. He’s very good.”
Pat had been distracted by Domenica’s monologue and James Holloway was several minutes into his lecture before she began to concentrate on what he was saying. But as Domenica had predicted, it was interesting, and the time passed quickly. There was enthusiastic applause and then the audience withdrew to another room where glasses of wine and snacks were being offered.
Domenica seemed in her element. Acknowledging greetings from several people, she drew Pat over to a place near a window where a sallow, rather ascetic-looking man was standing on his own.
“Angus,” she said. “This young lady is my neighbour, which makes her a neighbour, or almost, of yours.” She turned to Pat.
“And this, my dear, is Angus Lordie, who lives in Drummond Place, just round the corner from us. You may have seen him walking his dog in the Drummond Place Gardens. Frightful dog you’ve got, Angus. Frightfully smelly.”
Angus looked at Pat and smiled warmly. “Domenica here is jealous, you see. She’d like me to take her for a walk in the Drummond Place Gardens, but I take Cyril, my dog, instead.
Much better company.”
Pat stared at Angus, fascinated. He had three gold teeth, she noticed, one of which was an incisor. She had never seen this before.
Domenica noticed the direction of her gaze. “Yes,” she said loudly. “Extraordinary, isn’t it? And do you know, that dog of his has a gold tooth too!”
“Why not?” laughed Angus.
72. Angus Lordie’s Difficult Task
After a few minutes of coruscating conversation with Angus Lordie, Domenica was distracted by another guest. This left Pat standing with Angus Lordie, who looked at her with frank interest.
“You must forgive me for being so direct,” he said, “but I really feel that I have to ask you exactly who you are and what you do. It’s so much quicker if one asks these things right at the beginning, rather than finding them out with a whole series of indirect questions. Don’t you agree?”
Pat did agree. She had observed how people asked each other questions which might elicit desired information but which were ostensibly about something else. What was the point of asking somebody whether they had been busy recently when what one wanted to know was exactly what they did? And yet, now that she had been asked this herself, how should she answer? It seemed so lame, so self-indulgent, to say that one was on one’s second gap year. And to say that one worked in a gallery was almost the same thing as saying outright that one was still on the parental pay-roll.
But then there was a case for truthfulness – one might always tell the truth if in an absolute corner, Bruce had once remarked.
“I work in a gallery,” she said with as much firmness as she could manage, “and I’m on my second gap year.”
She noticed that Angus Lordie did not seem surprised by either of these answers.
“How very interesting,” he said. “I’m a portrait painter myself.
And I’ve done my time in galleries too.”
Pat found herself listening to him very carefully. His voice was rich and plummy, deeper than that which one might have expected from an ascetic-looking man. It had, too, a quality which she found fascinating – a tone of sincerity, as if every word uttered was felt at some deep level.
She asked him about his work. Did he paint just portraits, or did he do other things too?
“Just portraits,” he said, the gold teeth flashing as he spoke.
“I suspect that I’ve forgotten how to paint mere things. So it’s just portraits. I’ll do anybody.”
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Angus Lordie’s Difficult Task
“How do you choose?” she asked.
Angus Lordie smiled. “I don’t choose,” he replied. “That’s not the way it works. They choose me. People who want their children painted, or their wives or husbands, or chairmen for that matter. And I sit there and do my best to make my subjects look impressive or even vaguely presentable. I try to discern the sitter’s character, and then see if I can get that down on canvas.”