It had been an uneventful morning for Kirsty. She had hoped that somebody would come into the gallery, would buy the most expensive painting on display, and then pay in cash. When Matthew came back, she would then inform him of the sale, modestly of course. But that was not the way the morning worked out. In fact, from the time that Matthew had gone off for coffee and left her in charge, hardly anybody had so much as lingered outside the window, let alone come in to buy a painting. At one point a tall man in an overcoat had almost entered, but had then glanced at his watch, looked up at the sky, and moved hurriedly away, as if he had just then reminded himself of an appointment, and of rain.

Kirsty sighed. She had taken the part-time job in the gallery because she felt that it was so much more interesting than the usual sort of job offered to students. Most people in her year – or at least most of those who did part-time work – were employed in bars or cafés. They might have considered it interesting to be a barista, but she did not. They were hard-worked and had no time to chat – she had heard that from a friend who worked an early shift at a coffee bar on South Clerk Street. Bars were no better, indeed were worse; there one had to contend with the flirting of middle-aged men. What made them think that somebody like her would find them even remotely attractive? It defied belief – it really did.

No, working in a gallery would be infinitely more exciting and a much more glamorous thing to report to others. ‘Actually, I have a job in an art gallery,’ she said to one of her friends. And her friend, who occasionally worked as a waitress in a lowly Italian restaurant on Lothian Road, looked suitably impressed.

‘You must meet some interesting people there,’ said the friend wistfully. There was nobody of any interest to be encountered on Lothian Road, she had decided.

‘Of course you do,’ said Kirsty airily. It was a lie, but most lies can be airily tossed off. Or perhaps it was not so much a lie as a statement that was not yet true in the strictest sense, but that was teleologically so. There were probably interesting people to meet, but she had not yet encountered any of them. So far, she had met only a few rather fusty clients of the gallery – rich people with nothing better to do than to buy paintings; and none of these were young men, who were the desired class of person with whom Kirsty wished to rub shoulders.