The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel (9) (3 page)

Now, standing in front of the
For Sale
notice, Martha asked after Charlie. “Where’s your little boy?”

“Jamie’s taken him to nursery,” Isabel explained. She pointed to the notice. “I was
thinking about this …”

Martha sighed. “Very sad. Did you know him?”

“I think I saw him,” said Isabel. “But no, I didn’t know him.”

They were both silent for a few moments. Then Martha asked Isabel whether she was
going to Cat’s delicatessen. “I thought you might be,” she said. “Something easy for
lunch?”

Isabel smiled, and nodded.

“I’m headed there too,” said Martha. “I can’t be bothered to cook in this heat. And
Mother eats like a bird. A couple of lettuce leaves and a slice—a very thin slice—of
smoked salmon, and she’ll be complaining about being bloated.”

“How convenient for you,” said Isabel.

“I’m very lucky with my aged parent,” said Martha cheerfully. “But listen, I need
to talk to you about something. About somebody I know who’s in difficulty.”

Isabel looked up at the sky. People asked her to do things
for them. She had no idea why they did, but they did. What did they think she was?
A private detective? An agony aunt? Or simply a friend? And because of her particular
sense of moral obligation, she felt that she had to do something, and that led to
Jamie’s accusing her of not minding her own business. But I cannot do otherwise, she
thought. I am no saint; I am no heroine; but how can anybody say no to a request for
help?

“Do you mind?” asked Martha. “We could have a cup of coffee and I could tell you about
it.” She looked at Isabel enquiringly. “But only if you don’t mind.”

Isabel shook her head. “I don’t mind,” she said.

“Good,” said Martha. “Because I promised my friend I would speak to you and he was
very relieved. He said ‘Thank God.’ ”

They began to make their way together down the road. As they walked, Martha told Isabel
about her latest letter from her former husband. “Do you know, he said that if he
could turn the clock back, he would. Can you credit it?”

“He wants to come back to you?” asked Isabel.

“So it would seem.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“It’s the last thing I want,” she said. “I’ve gone right off men.”

“Altogether?”

“Yes.” She paused. “Except for your Jamie. I would willingly have him on my mantelpiece.
Just to look at him, of course.”

Isabel smiled. “Not possible,” she said. “Sorry.”

“If I had somebody who looked like that,” mused Martha, “I would spend all day just
gazing at him, drinking it in. Do you do that sometimes, Isabel? Do you just sit there
looking at Jamie and … and purring?”

CHAPTER TWO
 

C
AT
’
S DELICATESSEN WAS
unusually busy when they arrived and it was a good ten minutes before Eddie, who
was single-handed behind the counter that morning, managed to serve them. Eddie had
recently returned from a trip across the United States he had made with his uncle
and his uncle’s girlfriend. The trip had been extended to include a four-month stay
in Canada, during which Eddie had worked—underpaid, and illegally—as a waiter in a
ski resort in Alberta. North America had changed him profoundly, boosting his confidence
and pasting a healthy tan over his normally pallid Scottish skin. The tan was now
fading, but the same could not be said of the traces of an affected American accent
that Eddie had somehow miraculously picked up on his travels. His conversation was
now littered with “sure thing”s and “you bet”s, so much so that Isabel had found it
difficult to conceal her amusement. Eddie had noticed this, and had looked injured.
Isabel was mortified; she was fond of Eddie and had always done her best to encourage
him. Now she had hurt him.

If offence had been taken, it was not long-lasting. Eddie
greeted Isabel cheerfully and went to some trouble to select for her the best of the
onion tarts.

“I know you’re going to get the best tart,” Martha said over Isabel’s shoulder. “But
could I at least have the second best?”

Isabel drew in her breath. There was so much she could have said, including an observation
that people got the onion tarts they deserved in this life; but that would have been
childish. Martha simply did not know that virtually everything she said was inappropriate,
and so there was no point in remonstrating with her. Isabel remembered the discussion
with Jamie about the
wiring
. This was much the same issue. Those important brain circuits, the ones that enabled
most of us to avoid saying the wrong thing, were simply not there in Martha’s case;
or fired in the wrong order; or were short-circuiting. In other words, Martha Drummond
was an electrical problem. And understanding people as electrical problems undoubtedly
helped one to tolerate them.

Once they had purchased their tarts, alongside one or two other things needed for
their respective meals, Isabel and Martha sat down at one of the tables Cat kept for
the serving of coffee. The customers were thinner on the ground in the pre-lunchtime
lull, and Eddie had time to prepare and bring to their table two large, steaming cappuccinos.

“Here we are, ma’am,” he said as he placed Martha’s cup in front of her. The intonation
was contrived American, overlaid with a heavy dose of Scotland.

Martha looked at him. “You from Glasgow?” she asked.

Eddie looked down at the floor, humiliated.

Martha smiled at Isabel, and winked conspiratorially.

“Eddie has just spent quite a bit of time in America,” said Isabel quickly.

“Yes,” said Martha, still smiling. “I suppose it must rub off eventually.”

Eddie went back to the counter in silence.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Isabel said quietly. “That young man has had a lot to put
up with.”

Martha looked towards Eddie on the other side of the counter. “Seems robust enough
to me. And I was only joking.”

Isabel wanted Martha to know the implications of her casual tactlessness. “Something
bad happened to him some time ago. Something traumatic.”

Martha looked interested. “What? What happened?”

“I’m not absolutely sure.”

Martha shrugged. “Dreadful things have happened to just about everyone,” she said.
“It’s called growing up. You know the statistics …”

Isabel decided to change the subject. She was not sure that she wanted to spend too
much time with Martha—time that could be better spent making up the salad that would
go with the onion tart. “You wanted to talk to me about somebody?” she said.

Martha looked at Isabel over the rim of her coffee cup. “I did. Of course I don’t
want to impose …”

Isabel cut her short. “Don’t worry.”

Martha lowered her cup. “You’re very good, you know. Everybody knows that you help
people in all sorts of ways. Where does it come from?”

Isabel squirmed with embarrassment. “I’m no better than anybody else,” she said. “I
have all the usual faults and flaws.”

“And you’re modest too,” said Martha.

Isabel said nothing, waiting for Martha to continue.

“So,” said Martha. “This problem: Do you know somebody called Duncan Munrowe?”

She did not give Isabel time to answer. “You might have read about him. He crops up
in the
Scotsman
from time to time. He does a lot for charity.” Martha paused, but only briefly. “He’s
the sort of person everybody hears about but doesn’t really meet very much. That’s
not to say that he hasn’t got any friends. He has quite a few actually.”

Isabel waited until it looked as if she would be allowed to speak. “I’ve heard of
him. I get him mixed up, though, with those other Duncan Munroes.”

“They’re Munro with an
o
. He’s Munrowe with a
w
and an
e
at the end. Not to be confused with all those Munros that are mountains over three
thousand feet.”

“I see,” said Isabel. She decided to be brief; sometimes people like Martha, who spoke
at excessive length, eventually exhausted themselves. The problem then was that they
lacked the energy to listen to what you had to say.

Martha continued. “These Munrowes—Duncan’s lot—are originally from Wigton or somewhere
near there. I’ve always thought of that part of Scotland as being virtually Ireland,
it’s that close.” She looked at Isabel with sudden interest. “Have you got any Irish
blood in you?”

“On my mother’s side there was some, I think. Irish and Acadian. They drifted down
to the South generations ago. The Acadian part of the family was from Nova Scotia,
I believe.” She thought: My sainted American mother, who would have been patient even
with somebody like Martha. And I must try.

“You’ve probably got a temper then,” said Martha, almost to herself.

Isabel sipped at her coffee. Martha was impossible—risible, really.

“Not that I’m one to talk,” Martha went on. “There are some things that make me see
red. I have to watch myself.”

“We all do,” said Isabel.
Watching yourself
, she thought. It was the essence of the moral life. Watch yourself; evaluate. The
examined life; the watched life. “Duncan Munrowe? You were telling me about him.”

It was as if Isabel had introduced an entirely new topic of conversation. “Oh yes,”
said Martha. “Duncan would very much like to meet you.”

“Why?”

“Because something has happened up at his place.” Although there was nobody near them,
Martha lowered her voice. “Duncan’s family used to be pretty well-off. They had rubber
plantations in Malaya. And they were something to do with Hong Kong—I have no idea
what, but they were. So when they came back to Scotland there was plenty of money.”

Isabel remarked that this was not an unusual story. The Scots had profited greatly
from the British Empire; they did not always like to admit it, but they had. There
were numerous families that had done well out of things like jute in Calcutta or wool
in Australia and had returned to Scotland to buy landed estates. It sounded as if
the Munrowes were in this category.

Martha leaned forward. “They were discreet about it, but one of them, Duncan’s grandfather,
had a very good eye. He was rather like that shipping man in Glasgow—what was he called?”

“Burrell?”

“That’s him. He put that great collection together, didn’t he? Well, Duncan Munrowe’s
grandfather had the same sense not
only of what was what in the art world, but also of what
would be
what. He anticipated fashions.”

This began to sound familiar to Isabel. “And he lent paintings to the Scottish National
Gallery?”

Martha nodded. “Yes. You might have seen some of the Munrowe collection there. It’s
not quite as impressive as the Sutherland collection, but it’s still pretty good.
He was particularly strong on the Post-Impressionists. Bonnard and so on. He picked
those up by the dozen in Paris, as you could in those days.”

Isabel had seen them. She remembered the wording on the labels:
On loan from the Munrowe Collection
. The galleries, with their tiny acquisitions budget, increasingly relied on such
generosity. She tried to bring to mind particular Munrowe paintings, but could not.
There were the Titians, and that whole roomful of Poussins, but they belonged to the
Sutherlands. Was there a Bonnard of a woman sewing, or was that Vuillard? And was
it part of the Munrowe collection?

“They still have some of the paintings in the house,” Martha continued. “They live
near Doune. It’s a rather
shy
house. I call it shy because it’s tucked away and you’d not know it was there until
you turn a corner and there it is next to some woods. And a hill. It has a hill directly
behind it—straight up. It’s an odd place to put a house, but there we are.”

Isabel was keen to hear what had taken place. “You said something happened. What was
it?”

“They have all these paintings in the house, as I’ve said. Maybe they’re not quite
as good as the ones in the Gallery, but they’re still pretty special. There’s a whole
room of seventeenth-century French and Italian paintings, and the dining room has
got a Toulouse-Lautrec in it—not a big one—and a Vuillard, I think.”

“They’re very fortunate,” said Isabel. “Imagine being able to look at paintings like
that over your boiled egg in the morning.”

Martha laughed. “There’s a small Degas drawing in one of the loos.”

“Loos, too, can be made beautiful.”

Martha frowned. “Have you heard of the open gardens weekend that they have round here?”

“Yes. It arranges for private gardens—”

“To be open to the public on a particular day. Exactly. And Munrowe House—that’s the
name of their place: somewhat unimaginative, but accurate, I suppose—was opened to
the public. The house too.”

Isabel could tell what was coming. “And some of the paintings were …”

“Stolen. Not some, just one. But, as it happened, it was the most valuable painting
in the whole house. Duncan had been thinking of transferring it to the Gallery, where
it would be safer, but he hadn’t got round to it.”