Something flickered in her eyes. ‘Okay,’ she said, in a voice which, whether she meant it or not, was loud enough to carry to the next table. ‘Nor, I suppose, was it simply a case of suddenly finding yourselves moderately rich and deciding to indulge yourselves by lying in the sun and copulating all day long.’
For a moment the territory felt distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I thought that was what I just said we decided to do.’
She laughed, and at once I was comfortable again. I looked at her as she attacked her crab, and I remembered Saturday evenings, more than a decade in the past, and the seafood stall in Crail harbour; other generations of crustaceans, still steaming from the boiling pot. Jan and I as sixteen-year-olds, country kids with ruddy faces, and tight-muscled thighs from our beach and coastal walks, tearing into them, bare-handed, as later we tore heartily into each other. I snapped myself back to the present and turned my attention to my own meal, quickly.
‘It’s funny to think of a man like Gavin Scott being conned,’ said Jan, finished at last.
‘Not really,’ I countered. ‘Scott’s a gambler by nature, I’d say. Look at his track record in business. He staked the lot on buying Soutar’s and it’s paid off. Once a punter always a punter. On top of that he’s an art enthusiast; he’d call himself an expert. A painter and a punter combined: some combination.
‘You have to understand, love, that there’s a whole Dali industry out there. If you spend any time in Catalunya you can’t avoid it. It’s all around you. You’ll find Dali prints in all the souvenir shops, and you’ll find special prints of signed work in the more up-market places. There’s a Dali museum in Figueras, and it has hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
‘The great man is buried there, you know. In the cellar. I’ve seen his tomb. The museum itself is spectacular. It’s a work of art in its own right; by Dali, about Dali. Paintings, displays, objects: the whole experience draws you into it, makes you part of it.’
‘Christ, Oz,’ Jan chuckled. ‘You sound like a disciple.’
‘I suppose I am, in a way. You visit the place and you can’t help it. The man was just crazy, but wonderfully crazy, larger than life. How can I put it? If you visit the place and you’re in tune with it, you can sense that in death he’s become part of it.
‘I’m no expert, and that’s how the place took me. So imagine someone like Scott, caught up in the spirit of it. He told us he’d been there, but I knew that even before I asked him. So imagine him, given the opportunity to have a piece of Dali as his own, and not just any old piece, but an undiscovered, signed work which he’s told is genuine, and from the look of it, could be the real deal.
‘Gavin Scott doesn’t see himself as having been conned.
He sees himself as having taken a gamble, with a limited downside and one which might still pay off, if you, Prim and I can come up trumps for him.’
Jan raised her right eyebrow, a gesture I had known since childhood. ‘If we do, maybe we should ask for a cut of the winnings.’
‘Absolutely not. Been there, done that, got the scars. We set decent fee levels, we bill by the hour, and we do not, repeat not, become personally involved with our clients. This may be a three-way equal partnership, but this is the one area in which Oz is laying down the law.’
She looked at me and smiled. ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘First you play big brother for your big sister. Now you’re getting assertive with me. After a lifetime of pretending to be Tonto, you’ve turned into the Lone Ranger.’
I stared back at her, conspiratorially, from under hooded eyebrows. ‘It’s the Spanish influence at work. Incidentally after the Black and White Minstrels, The Lone Ranger is the most politically incorrect TV programme ever made. In Spanish, Tonto, as in His Faithful Indian Companion, means stupid. But I’ll stop short of turning into the masked man, if you don’t mind. Kemo Sabay, phoneticised, translates roughly as smartarse … and …’
‘… nobody loves a Smartarse,’ we said, in unison.
16
Jan was still grinning as we left the Old Inn and headed up to town. She settled comfortably into the passenger seat as I drove through the night.
The yellow lights of Edinburgh bore down on us quickly as we listened to a Tom Waits tape which she had plugged into the cassette player. ‘You sure Noosh doesn’t have a problem about me staying?’ I asked once more as I turned off London Road and headed into Holyrood Park.
‘None at all. Hey Oz,’ said Jan suddenly, as we passed St Margaret’s Loch, and its geese, curled up asleep on its grassy banks. ‘How come you never ask me about your loft, and about your tenant? Never once have you asked me who I’ve put in there, or for references. Why is that?’
‘Simple. I don’t want to know. I loved my loft. Still do. If I have a mental picture of the person living there, I’m afraid that I’ll start to feel jealous. Then I might get nostalgic for it, and even out in Spain, I might feel homesick. Does that make sense to you?’
She nodded. ‘Perfect sense. You don’t want anything to disturb the Spanish idyll.’
‘No,’ I protested. ‘That’s not it.’
‘Oh no. So you’re still the same old softie at heart, then.’ For a while, there was silence in the dark. ‘Let’s drive past it anyway,’ said Jan, finally.
I swung out of the park, made the turn at the foot of the Royal Mile, then turned again. Less than a minute later, I could see the old building, with its belvedere, a familiar part of the Old Town nightscape.
‘Stop there,’ said Jan, quietly, as we reached it. ‘Just pull into your parking space. There’s nobody in.’
I did as I was told, without thinking. Something about Jan’s voice had my complete attention. She stepped out of the car as soon as it came to a halt, taking her jacket from its hook by the hand grip and reaching into the pocket.
I followed her. ‘Jan, what is this?’ I asked at last.
She gazed at me, across the red roof of the Fiesta. Her face had an odd look, and even at that distance, I could see that she was trembling. ‘Anoushka and I have split up, Oz.’ She kept her voice steady with an effort. ‘I’m your tenant.’
I felt my jaw drop for an instant, and snapped it shut. ‘But … When …’
‘About a week after you left for Spain.’
‘Why?’
She turned towards the door, beckoning me to follow. ‘Come on. I don’t want to talk out here.’
I followed her into the building and up the twisting stair which led to my old home. She unlocked the door, then stepped straight into the toilet, off the tiny hall. I was in the kitchen opposite, watching the kettle and waiting for it to boil, when she emerged. Her face and eyes were clear of make-up.
Standing in the doorway, she smiled at me awkwardly. I pulled her to me and hugged her. ‘Jan, love. Why didn’t you tell me before?’ She wrapped her arms around me and put her head on my shoulder, pressing her eyes hard against the wool and cashmere blazer that I had picked up from my dad’s.
‘I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘Who else knows about it? Christ, I can’t believe that we went through last night and I never picked up a hint.’
She gave me a quick hug, released me and stepped across to the work-surface, reaching out for the coffee jar. ‘Only Ellie knows so far, and she promised not to tell a soul, not even you. I’m still working out what to say to Mum. All that grief I put her through, making her realise that she had a gay daughter. Now …’
I took her face in both my hands and turned it up towards me. ‘My old girl, just tell her. She’s your mum, and she loves you. End of story.’
On the counter, the kettle hissed steam, until the thermostat cut out. I took the jar from her and made coffee for us both, reaching into the fridge for the milk without even looking.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Upstairs and tell me all about it.’
She led the way up to the living area, turning the dimmer switch to raise the wall lighting, an array which I had planned myself. Everything was as I had left it, almost. The furniture was still there, but slightly rearranged. The sofa-bed was on the other side of the room from where I had liked it. The desk faced away from the window. The curtains were tied back with neat bows. But up on the raised sleeping area, the bed was still in the same place, with, above it, the ladder which led up to the belvedere, where Wallace and I used to sit in serenity, my dinosaur sunning himself while I read the Sunday papers.