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don’t need so much oil. The only dietetic heresy is the glass of cognac I added. But the doctors can get stuffed.’
    ‘Yeah, stuff the doctors.’
    Carvalho did not press his business. He hoped that Artimbau would return to the subject of Stuart Pedrell. The painter chewed slowly, and advised Carvalho to do the same. That way, you digest your food better, you eat less, and you lose weight.
    ‘It’s always tricky talking about a client.’
    ‘He’s a dead client.’
    ‘The wife still buys some of my work. And she pays better than her husband used to.’
    ‘Tell me about her.’
    ‘That’s even trickier. She’s a living client.’
    The bottle was already finished, and the painter openedanother. In no time at all, this too was half empty. Their thirst was well served by large glasses designed for mineral water.
    ‘The wife is quite a woman.’
    ‘So I’ve seen.’
    ‘I offered to paint her in the nude, but she wouldn’t have it. She’s certainly got class. More than him, I’d say. Both of them were made of money. Both had an impressive education, and their different connections gave them a very varied life. I was his court painter, I suppose. One day they could be sitting where you are now, eating one of my concoctions with me and my wife. And the next day, they might have López Bravo or López Rodo round to dinner—or some minister from the Opus Dei. You see what I mean? That should give you an idea. One day they’d be skiing with the king, and the next they’d be smoking joints with left-wing poets at Lliteras.’
    ‘Did you paint the mural in the end?’
    ‘Ah, you’ve heard about that. No. We were still discussing terms when he disappeared. We never agreed anything concrete. He wanted me to paint something very primitive. The faux-naif style of Gauguin’s Canaques period, but transposed to the native life of Lliteras. I did a few sketches, but he didn’t like them. I was still into realism, and maybe something a bit too militant slipped in. The peasantry and suchlike … To be honest, I wasn’t really all that interested in the idea. Between you and me, he was a bit of a loudmouth.’
    By now, the two of them had disposed of the second bottle.
    ‘A loudmouth?’
    ‘Yes. A loudmouth,’ Artimbau repeated, as he went in search of a third bottle.

    ‘Well, maybe I went a bit far, writing him off as a loudmouth. Like anyone else, he both was and wasn’t what he was.’
    Artimbau’s eyes, half buried in a forest of hair, gleamed with satisfaction. Carvalho provided the perfect audience, as if he were a blank canvas on which the artist could paint his image of Stuart Pedrell.
    ‘Like any rich man with angst, Stuart Pedrell was pretty careful. Every year he would get dozens of proposals asking him to help finance cultural ventures of one sort or another. Someone even suggested the idea of a university. Or maybe he was the one who suggested it … I can’t remember. There were publishing houses, magazines, libraries, foundations, all kinds of projects … You can imagine what it was like, as soon as people smelt that there was money around attached to cultural angst. After all, there’s not a lot of money round here, and not much cultural angst among the rich either. That’s why Stuart Pedrell always took a long time before coming to a decision. But he was also a bit of a dabbler. He would get interested in all sorts of projects and give them money—then he’d suddenly come down to earth and leave them in the lurch.’
    ‘How was he thought of among the artists and intellectuals?’
    ‘They all thought he was pretty weird, really. Artists and intellectuals didn’t value him too highly—because they don’t value anyone highly. If that ever changes, it’ll mean that our egos have collapsed and we’re no longer artists and intellectuals.’
    ‘The same thing happens with butchers.’
    ‘Yes, if they own their own shops. But not if they’re just employees.’
    Carvalho attributed