I have two criteria for buying a picture, says the small homosexual to the tall lady. One. Do I like it? Two. Can I bare to have it on my wall? He is pleased with what he considers to be a witticism worthy of Wilde and seeing me look towards him he beams a satisfied smile till he notices that the tall lady looks momentarily bored. He waves his small hands like fans, like ineffectual wings that deny him height, and, in a louder voice, he repeats his two criteria for buying a picture. The delivery is practised and repetitious. It lacks spontaneity or the strength of a folksy aphorism and instead finds a tired banality in the pomposity of revelation, but when he concludes he is rewarded with a hand resting on a padded shoulder of his suit as the tall lady laughs in a way found satisfactory during rehearsals.

I have given up pretending to look at the picture in front of me and, grateful for my witness, I am rewarded with another beaming smile from him, and from her, a confused, unfocused look that emphasises the lines at the corners of her eyes which, like dry rivers, create a geography of disappointment. Her eyes remind me of a house that I'd stopped the car in front of in the way into town. It was across the corner of a field and the tops of the windows were open to the autumnal winds. Curtains, like ghosts, flitted across dark panes.

They have both being drinking. Nothing too outrageous for the time of day but, nonetheless, festive in its effect. And the small homosexual responds to the hand on his shoulder like a favoured cat, looking up at the tall lady and finding comfort in her refulgent smile. Her shoulders are stooped as if her body has adapted to it's relationship with the small homosexual and I wonder at what point in a relationship I starts being we. They leave the room scattering bon mots like crumbs to pigeons and I go back to looking at the pictures. The artist is a breast man.

I arrived at the gallery too early and having done a quick tour of it's rooms I am waiting on the balcony when Sandy arrives. We hug, and I can see over his shoulder, down below, heading for the exit, the tall woman with the small homosexual following behind her, and I notice how they move together like the two halves of a pantomime horse.

Sometimes you can fit the wrong jigsaw pieces together and for a moment pretend that they work, I say to Sandy, and by the portrait of George MacKay Brown a man wearing glasses turns to look at me.