Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

hurt that he had not remembered me.
    â€˜What’s she doing?’ said Ned—fondly, to himself—and then he called out: ‘Annie, dearest! Keep up!’
    He beckoned to her, but she simply waved back, smiling very prettily: I suspect that she was too far away to hear him. Ned laughed, and blew her a kiss, and then he gave a happy sigh, and set off down the path, swinging his cane. Elspeth and I fell into step with him, and the children began to dart amongst and between the three of us, singing a nursery rhyme, something about bluebells. A passer-by might have taken us for a family, on a day out, with myself as the mother figure: the thought of it rather amused me.
    â€˜So, Herriet!’ cried Elspeth. ‘You don’t mind if we make haste, do you? Only we’re looking for Mr Hamilton, of the Fine Art Committee. We’re hoping to get Ned’s picture moved and we’ve had an idea of how it might be achieved.’
    She went on to explain that the poor location of By the Pond had been a source of concern since the start of the Exhibition. Indeed, in the opening week, Ned had taken the measure of writing to Horatio Hamilton, politely requesting that the painting be moved. Hamilton (now long forgotten) was then a well-established painter of the old-fashioned ‘gluepot school’: artists so called because of the dark, sticky nature of their preferred medium, megilp, and also, perhaps, because of their subject matter, which was often gooey, mawkish, and overly moralistic. As such, Hamilton was probably not one of Ned’s natural allies, but he was a leading light of the Fine Art Committee for the Exhibition, he ran a well-respected gallery in Bath Street and, crucially, he had been one of Ned’s tutors at the Art School. Without Hamilton’s support, Ned felt that he would have little chance of persuading the organisers to shift his painting. Thus, according to Elspeth, he had sent the man a letter, but received no reply. A second letter had also been ignored.
    This was all fascinating information, and I was flattered to be taken into their confidence, although I noticed that Ned did not join in the telling of the story. Indeed, in the beginning, he tried to dissuade his mother from divulging too much, but he might as well have been a newborn kitten in the path of a runaway bull. He soon gave up attempting to change the subject and concentrated on beseeching his mother to walk while she talked. Meanwhile, the little girls continued to run rings around us. Sibyl, in particular, seemed to barge into us almost every time that she hurtled past and, once or twice, I did wonder whether she had jostled me deliberately.
    â€˜It’s a well-known fact’, Elspeth was saying, ‘that Hamilton always takes a wee tour round the park between five and six o’clock. Now, Herriet, our plan is that we bump into him, as though by chance, and then, in the course of conversation, we can talk him into making sure that Ned’s painting is shifted. We won’t let him leave the park until he’s agreed to do what we want. I shall sit on him, if necessary!’ Although this did not strike me as an advisable course of action, it would have been impolite to suggest as much, and so I simply looked thoughtful, as though giving full consideration to what she had outlined. ‘If all else fails,’ cried Elspeth, to her son, ‘you must put the man in his place. Tell him he’s an old fool. Tell him he’s a pompous over-rated fat bald-pated snobbish old nincompoop!’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Ned, with a smile. ‘That would certainly win him over.’
    â€˜And while you’re at it, dear, should you not insist that your pond picture be displayed somewhere that everyone will see it? Why not move it out of that gallery altogether? Hardly anybody goes in there.’
    â€˜That is the British Sale Gallery,’ said Ned, kindly. ‘The painting has to be in