The World According to Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

weren’t asking,” he said. “Asking me to guess isn’t really asking anything. You just want to show me that I don’t know what’s happened. That’s all.”
    Pat was not sure how to react to this. It seemed to her a completely unimportant matter–an argument over nothing. She had said “guess what?” but she was not really expecting him to try to guess. In fact, she had intended merely to point to the red sticker which now adorned Angus Lordie’s painting. It was good news, after all, not bad. Aggrieved, she decided that she would defend herself. “I don’t know why you’re so ratty,” she said. “Lots of people say ‘guess what?’ when they have some news to give somebody else. It’s just a thing they say. They don’t really expect you to guess.”
    â€œWell, I’m not guessing,” said Matthew.
    Pat looked away. “Then I’m not going to tell you,” she said. She would not tell him; she would not.
    For a moment there was silence. Then Matthew spoke. “You have to,” he said. “You can’t say something like that and then not tell me.”
    â€œNot if you’re going to be so rude,” said Pat.
    Matthew raised his voice. “You’re the one who was being rude. Not me. You’re the one who wanted to expose my ignorance of whatever it is you know and I don’t. That’s hardly very friendly, is it?”
    Pat was still seated at the desk and now she looked up at Matthew. “You’re the one who’s not being friendly,” she said. “All I was trying to do was to give you some good news and you bit my head off. Just like that.”
    Matthew’s expression remained impassive. “You sold a painting.”
    Pat had not expected this. “Maybe,” she muttered.
    â€œThere!” crowed Matthew. “I guessed! Now, don’t say anything. No, let me guess.”
    â€œYou said you didn’t want to guess,” snapped Pat. “Now you’re saying you do. You should make up your mind, you know.”
    â€œI’m guessing because I’ve decided I want to guess,” said Matthew. “That’s very different from being made to guess when you don’t want to. You should have said: ‘Would you like me to tell you something or would you prefer to guess?’ That would have been much more polite.” He paused. “Now, let me think. You’ve sold a painting. Right. So which painting would it be? One of the MacTaggarts? No, I don’t think so. It’s not the sort of day on which one sells a MacTaggart. No. So, let’s see.”
    Pat decided to put an end to this. If Matthew had been unprepared to guess when she had very politely offered him the chance, then she did not see why he should now have the privilege of guessing. “I’m going to tell you. It’s…”
    â€œNo!” interjected Matthew. “Don’t spoil it. You can’t get somebody guessing and then stop them. Come on, Pat–I’m going to guess. Let’s think. All right–you sold Angus Lordie’s painting. Yes! You sold the totally white one.”
    â€œYou saw the sticker,” said Pat. “That wasn’t a proper guess.”
    Matthew was injured innocence itself. “I did not see the sticker! I did not!”
    â€œYou must have. You saw it when you came in and then you pretended not to. Well, I think that’s just pathetic, I really do.”
    â€œI did not see the sticker,” shouted Matthew. “Who knows better what I saw or didn’t see? You or me? No, don’t look like that, just tell me? Who knows what I saw? You or me?”
    Pat recalled what her father had said about the mind and its tricks of perception. It was likely that Matthew had in fact seen the sticker when he came in, even if he did not know that he had seen it.
    â€œYou don’t always know what you’ve