A silence ensued as the two of them contemplated the creation of value in the valueless.

‘Pat,’ said Matthew suddenly, looking at his watch.

Big Lou frowned. ‘I haven’t seen her for an awful long time.’

‘Well, you’re about to see her,’ said Matthew. ‘She’s coming in this morning. About now.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m taking her on in the gallery again,’ explained Matthew. ‘I’ve got my move coming up and I need to help Elspeth get everything ready. So I’ll need two helpers, rather than one.’

Big Lou absorbed this information. She liked Pat, and she was pleased that she would be seeing her again. She was worried, though, that Pat would not approve of Matthew’s new assistant, Kirsty. Certainly, Big Lou had not taken to her, even if she could not put her finger on the exact reason. Too glamorous? Possibly. But there was something more to it than that. Big Lou did not trust Kirsty – that was it; trust – a concept so hard to define and yet, in its absence, so unmistakable.

‘It won’t work,’ she said to Matthew.

‘Why?’

Big Lou shrugged. It would not be easy to explain it to Matthew, because he was a man and men often did not understand these nuances. No point in trying, she decided, but at least he might understand folk wisdom. ‘We used to say in Arbroath,’ she pronounced, ‘that you can’t have two women in the same kitchen.’

62. Unwelcome Thoughts

It was as Matthew was crossing the road on his way back from Big Lou’s that he saw Pat walking down the hill towards him. From the safety of the pavement he stood and waved. She waved back before quickening her pace.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she said as she reached him. ‘It took longer than I thought.’

Matthew smiled. ‘You don’t have to apologise. I was talking to Big Lou and I suddenly remembered that I’d arranged to meet you.’

They had not shaken hands, nor embraced, as long-lost friends might do. Between them there was that strange half-intimacy of former lovers, a feeling that can so easily become awkwardness, but which, in their case, had not. It was fondness, really; that fondness that comes, in Rupert Brooke’s words, from having done one’s best and worst and parted. Now, in the moments after a rather stiff beginning, Pat suddenly leaned forward and gave Matthew a kiss on his cheek. He moved, though, surprised, and she ended up kissing him on the lips. He reached out and put a hand upon her shoulder; she did the same.

And then he recoiled; a social kiss, as meaningless and often less warm than a shaking of the hands, had become something else. He had felt within him, around where he imagined his heart to be, although it could have been anywhere within his chest, a physical sensation that signalled desire.