I was at the framers. It was a cold day with a wan light in the sky. I had come in from the cold because I wanted frames for my pictures. I’d been thinking about this for a long time.
I had been walking down the street when I saw the heavy stack of Victorian frames neatly arranged in the shop. I had made a good find.
My daughter was asleep in her soft lamb’s wool blanket. My girlfriend had stopped in a shop to buy some honey. I stood in the warmth of the framer’s shop looking out of the big window. I wanted to surprise my girlfriend when she came hurrying out of the honey shop. I waited for a long time.
The framer was busy with a couple. They were taking quite some time buying a light wood frame and some nails and grips. The young man talked volubly to the framer while I waited. Then my girlfriend went past with an anxious look. She could not see me or the pram along the road.
Then she caught a glimpse of me in the framer’s window and smiled and came in. We waited patiently together. The young man began telling a long story about an aunt who found a painting in the attic. The framer was very obliging in the way he listened. We stood there a long time and the light in the sky darkened a little.
I had my back to the couple. My girlfriend was looking out of the window. That was when I heard the young man’s girlfriend say:
‘George, how many paintings have you sold?’
‘Five hundred,’ he said.
‘Five hundred?’ said the framer.
‘Five hundred,’ said the young man.
‘That’s a lot of paintings,’ said the girlfriend.
‘Five hundred,’ said the young man, ‘and then I gave up.’
‘You gave up? Why did you give up?’
‘It’s complicated. I was getting depressed. It was very hard. I got seriously depressed.’
‘But still, five hundred paintings!’
‘I was getting very seriously depressed. It was hard.’
‘Very odd that you gave up after selling five hundred paintings.’
‘Not really. I was depressed. I was worse than depressed.’
There was a pause. They were silent. It began to rain outside. You could hear the patter of rain on the window. It was as if someone dimmed the light of the sun.
‘All the painters I met who are in their sixties look terrible. They’re all a mess. They are the unhappiest-looking people I know,’ said the young man.
He paused.
‘I got unbelievably depressed,’ he added.
I looked at him. He didn’t look very depressed now. Though you never can tell. He was buying a cheap frame not for a work he had acquired, but for a painting his girlfriend’s mother had found in her basement. They’d had it valued, but it wasn’t worth anything at all. They were having it framed anyway.
The framer was very helpful. He offered to carry the frame to the car, but they wouldn’t let him.
I caught another glimpse of the young man as they went past the big window. He didn’t look depressed. He had a careful three-day growth of beard. His beard was not depressed either. But you never can tell.
We watched the hail drumming down on the pavement.