Love Over Scotland

Irene was in the sitting room when he returned, a half-finished cup of coffee on the table at her side, an open book on her lap.

From within the flat somewhere, the sounds of a saxophone could be heard; a difficult scale, by the sounds of it, with numerous sharps. And then, abruptly, the scale stopped, and there could be heard the first notes of ‘Autumn Leaves’, Bertie’s new set-piece.

Irene looked up when Stuart entered the room.

“I’m reading an extremely interesting book on Schadenfreude,” she remarked. “It’s a very common emotion, you know

– pleasure in the suffering of another.”

Stuart glanced at the book on her lap. His mind was still on his unfinished crossword, and Schadenfreude was no more than a diversion. He wondered how one might conceal such a word in a crossword clue. It would lend itself to an anagram, of course; most German words were good candidates for that, and this was a gift: Freud had . . . No, that wouldn’t work. Sacred feud hen?

. . . Sudden face her?

“The question is this,” went on Irene. “Why do we feel pleasure in the suffering of others?”

“Do we?” asked Stuart.

“Yes we do,” snapped Irene. “Not you and I, of course. But ordinary people do. Look at the way they clap and cheer when 94

Schadenfreude

somebody they don’t like gets his come-uppance. Remember how the papers crowed when that man, that annoying person, was sent to prison. They loved it. Loved it. You could more or less hear the church bells in London ringing out.”

“That’s because he played such a great pantomime villain,”

said Stuart. “And anyway, that’s simply justice, isn’t it? We like to see people being punished for what they’ve done. Is that really Schadenfreude?”

Irene’s answer came quickly. “Yes. If it weren’t, then punishment would be handed out with regret.”

“This hurts me more than it hurts you?” said Stuart. “That kind of thing?”

Irene nodded. “Precisely. It’s interesting, you know. I’ve never felt the desire to punish anybody. And I’ve never felt any pleasure in the discomfort of others.”

Stuart looked at her. Crossword clues were forming in his mind. All colours out on this monument, except one (whited sepulchre). Or, more simply: Sounds like one recumbent, teller of untruths (liar).

“Are you sure?” he said mildly.

“Of course I am,” said Irene. “I, at least, know what I think.”

Stuart thought for a moment. There was much he could say to this, but there was no point in engaging with Irene when he was tired after the office. His head was reeling with the statistics with which he had wrestled during his day’s work, and there was an unfinished, and possibly unfinishable, crossword in his briefcase. He decided that he would have a shower and then he might play a card game with Bertie before dinner. Bertie always won the games because he had invented them, and the rules inevitably favoured him, but Stuart enjoyed these contests between a mind of thirty-six and one of six. The advantage, he thought, was with six.

There was to be no time for a shower.

“That’s the bell,” said Irene. “Would you answer it, Stuart?

You’re closest.”

Stuart went to the front door and opened it. Two burly policemen, radios pinned to their jackets and belts weighed down Schadenfreude

95

by truncheons, stood on the doorstep. Stuart looked at them in surprise. Had Bertie been up to some sort of mischief? Surely not. Irene . . . ? For a brief moment he felt fear brush its wings against him. Yesterday was the day that Irene had gone to report the theft of their car, and she had lied. She had lied to the police.

A quinquennium within, just punishment? he thought: five years inside.

“Mr Pollock?”

He felt the relief flood within him. They did not want her; they wanted him, and he had never lied to the police.

His voice sounded high-pitched when he answered. “Yes.

That’s me.”

“Your car, sir,” said the policeman. “We’ve found it.”

Stuart smiled. “Really? That’s very good of you. Quick work.”

The policeman nodded. “Yes. We found it this morning, up in Oxgangs. It was parked by the side of a road. It would seem that whoever took it had abandoned it.”

“I’m surprised,” said Stuart. “It’s a nice car . . .”

“Old cars like that are often abandoned,” went on the policeman. “Not worth keeping.”

“I see.”

The senior policeman took out a notebook. “Perhaps you can explain, though, sir,” he said. “Perhaps you can explain why, when we searched this vehicle, we found a firearm hidden under the driver’s seat? Perhaps you have something to say about that?”

Stuart was vaguely conscious of the fact that Bertie had slipped into the corridor and was standing immediately behind him.

Now Bertie stepped forward and tugged at his father’s sleeve.

“Tell him, Daddy,” said Bertie. “Tell him about how we got that car from Mr O’Connor. Tell him about how we can tell that it’s not really our car at all.”

“Not now, Bertie,” whispered Stuart. “Go and finish your scales.”

The policemen looked keenly at Bertie. “What’s that, son?”

one asked. “What do you mean when you say that it wasn’t your car?”

96

Bertie Makes His Statement

“It wasn’t,” said Bertie. “Our car had five gears. That one had four. It was a car which Mr O’Connor gave us.”

“Interesting,” said the senior policeman. “A Mr O’Connor gave you a car. Then a firearm is found in it which I imagine you’re going to say you know nothing about.”

“I don’t,” said Stuart. “I had no idea.”

“It must have belonged to this Mr O’Connor then?” asked the policeman.

“Yes,” said Bertie. “It must be his. Or his friend Gerry’s.”

The senior policeman smiled. “I think I’d like to ask a few questions,” he said, adding, and looking at Bertie as he spoke,

“from you first.”

31. Bertie Makes His Statement

“Now then, Bertie,” said the policeman, as he took his seat in the kitchen. “When we talk to youngsters we like to check up that they know the difference between the truth and . . .”

He was cut short by Irene. “Of course Bertie knows the difference,” she snapped. “He’s a very advanced . . .”

The policeman glowered at her. “Excuse me, Mrs Pollock,”

he said. “I’m talking to this young man, not to you.”

Irene opened her mouth to say something more, but was gestured to by Stuart, who raised a finger to his lips.

“Thank you,” said the policeman. “Now then, Bertie, do you know what I mean when I say that you must tell the truth?”

Bertie, perched on the edge of his chair, nodded gravely. “Yes,”

he said. “I know the difference. I know that you mustn’t tell fibs, although Mummy . . .” He was about to point out that Irene told a whole series of fibs at the police station, but decided that it would be impolitic, and he stopped himself.

“Well,” said the policeman. “Perhaps you’d care to tell us about your car. Is it your car, or is it somebody else’s?”

“Well, really . . .” snorted Irene, only to be silenced by a warning look from the policeman.

Bertie Makes His Statement

97

“We used to have a car,” said Bertie. “Mummy and Daddy were always arguing about it.”

“Oh?” said the policeman. “Why was that? Was it anything to do with where it came from?”

“No,” said Bertie. “It wasn’t that. It was just that they used to forget where they parked it. Daddy left it in Tarbert once, and then he forgot that he had driven through to Glasgow and he came back by train.”

“Leaving the car in Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.

Bertie glanced at Stuart. “He didn’t mean to leave it there,”

he said. “He forgot. Maybe it’s because he’s forty. I think you begin to forget things when you’re forty.”

The two policemen exchanged a glance. Irene was staring at Bertie, as if she was willing him to stop, but Bertie had his eyes fixed on the buttons of the policeman’s jacket. It was easier talking to this policeman, he thought, than to Dr Fairbairn. Perhaps that was because this policeman was not mad, unlike Dr Fairbairn. It was hard to talk to mad people, thought Bertie. You had to be very careful about what you said. By contrast, you could tell policemen everything, because you knew you were safe.

He wondered whether the policeman knew Mr O’Connor.

He thought that the two of them would get on quite well if they met. In fact, he could just imagine the policeman and Mr O’Connor driving off together to the Burrell Collection in Mr O’Connor’s green Mercedes-Benz, talking about football, perhaps. Would they support the same football team? he wondered. Perhaps they would.

“So you went off to Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.

“Yes,” said Bertie. “Daddy and I went off to Glasgow together.” And for a moment he remembered; and recalled how he had been happy in the train with his father, with the ploughed fields unfolding so quickly past the window and the rocking motion of the train upon its rails, and the hiss of the wind. And they had talked about friends, and how important friends were, and he had not wanted the journey to end.

“And you found the car where Daddy had left it in Glasgow?”

asked the policeman.

98

Bertie Makes His Statement

Bertie shook his head. “No. Our car had gone. And that’s when Gerry invited us into Mr O’Connor’s house. And Mr O’Connor said . . .”

The policeman held up a hand. “Hold on,” he said. “This Mr O’Connor – can you tell me a wee bit about him?”

“He’s very fat,” said Bertie. “Fatter even than you. And he was no good at cards. I won lots of money off him. But then he told Gerry to go and find our car, and Gerry did. He came back with our car. But it wasn’t exactly the same car. It was another car just like ours, but a bit different.”

The policeman looked thoughtful. “And did Daddy know it wasn’t your car?”

Bertie hesitated. He was not sure about that. He knew that adults often knew things but tried to pretend that they did not, and he thought that this might be such a case. On the other hand, his father had asked him not to tell his mother, which suggested that he knew that the car was not theirs all along.

What should he say? He should not tell the policeman any fibs because that would be wrong, and, anyway, if you told lies it was well known that your pants went on fire. But his father had never actually said that he thought it was somebody else’s car; he had never actually said that.

“No,” said Bertie. “He didn’t know that it wasn’t our car. I was the only one who knew that. You see, the handles on the door . . .”

The policeman looked rather disappointed. Off the hook, he thought. It was typical. These types always get themselves off the hook. Reset – having stolen goods in one’s possession – was a difficult crime to prove. You had to establish that the person knew that the goods were stolen (or should have known, perhaps), and it would be difficult to get anything to stick in this case. But there was still this O’Connor character to deal with, and this might just be a very good chance to sort him out.

It was Lard O’Connor that this wee boy was talking about –

that was pretty clear. Lard O’Connor, also known as Porky Sullivan. That was him. Strathclyde Police would love to get Sirens and Shipwrecks

99

something on him, and they would be pretty sick if it came from Lothian and Borders! Hah!

“Well, Bertie,” said the policeman, snapping shut his notebook. “You’ve been very helpful. This Mr O’Connor character, I’m afraid, is not a very nice man. I fear that he might have given your Daddy a stolen car.”

Bertie swallowed. He liked Mr O’Connor and he was sure the policeman was wrong. It was Gerry who had stolen the car, not Lard. Surely if Mr O’Connor could be given the chance to explain then all would be made clear. Gerry is the fibber, thought Bertie. He’s the one whose pants will go on fire.

“I’ve got Mr O’Connor’s address,” said Bertie brightly. “I wrote it down. You can go and talk to him.”

The policeman reached out to shake Bertie’s hand. “Well done, son,” he said. “We’ll do just that.”

Stuart closed his eyes.

32. Sirens and Shipwrecks

Pat was worried. Her unnerving encounter with her flatmate Tessie – an encounter that had ended in a barely-veiled threat of dire consequences should Pat have anything to do with Wolf

– had left her speechless. The threat, in fact, was the last thing that Tessie uttered before she walked out of the room, lips pursed, her expression calculated to leave Pat in no doubt of the seriousness of her intent.

For a few minutes after Tessie had left, Pat had contemplated following her into her room and asking her precisely what she meant by the threat. Yet it had been unambiguous enough, and Tessie might well merely have repeated it. Perhaps, then, she should assure her that she had in no sense encouraged Wolf and that she had no intention of doing so. That would, no doubt, reassure the other girl, but it would also amount to a complete capitulation in the face of aggression. It was rather like giving in to blackmail: if you did that, then it would simply come back again and again.

100 Sirens and Shipwrecks

Her first instinct had been to telephone her father for advice.

But then she decided that she could not go running to him over every setback. He would be supportive, of course, and patient too, but she could not burden him with this. What would he think of her if she confessed to him that she was attracted to a boy called Wolf who already had a girlfriend, and that girlfriend was her own flatmate? She could explain that she had not actually set out to attract Wolf (well she had, really: she had waited by the notice-board at the end of the seminar purely because he would walk past her). No, it would be better to talk to somebody else – somebody more her own age who would understand; somebody she knew reasonably well, but not too well; somebody like . . . Matthew.

There were several good reasons why she should talk to Matthew, not the least of these being that she had been feeling guilty about misleading him over Wolf. She wanted to make a clean breast of that to Matthew, and she could take the opportunity to talk to him about the awkward situation that had arisen in the flat. Matthew was a good listener. He had always been kind to her and had, on occasion, come up with useful advice.

And if she told him the truth about Wolf, then she could also Sirens and Shipwrecks 101

convincingly tell him that she thought of him as a confidant and not as anything else.

That day, following the confrontation with Tessie, she had a lecture to attend and planned to spend a couple of hours after that in the University Library. Matthew would be expecting her at twelve-thirty, so that she could look after the gallery while he went off for lunch, and she would stay there for several hours after he returned, as it was a Wednesday, and for some reason Wednesday afternoons in the gallery tended to be rather busy.

She arrived in the lecture hall ten minutes early, and she was one of the first there. She picked a seat in the middle, behind a small group of students who were poring over a letter which one of them had received, and were laughing at the contents.

She sat there, her pad of paper opened at the ready, as she paged through a photocopied article on proportion in the early Renaissance. It was a rather strange article, she thought, as the author was one of those people who believed that the ratio of phi would be found in every work of art of any significance.

Even the human face could have lines superimposed on it in such a way as to come up with phi, and the more beautiful the face appeared, the more would the distance between the eyes and the length of the nose and such measurements all embody phi. Could this be true?

Suddenly, she became aware of somebody beside her and looked up from her article. Wolf. He had slipped into the seat beside her and had half-turned to smile at her.

“Phi,” he said.

For a moment Pat was confused. Had Wolf said phi?

“What did you say?” she asked.

“I just said hi,” said Wolf, smiling at her. And she thought: those teeth.

She tucked the article away in her bag. The hall was filling up now, and there was a hubbub of conversation.

“It’s Fantouse again, isn’t it?” said Wolf. “Wake me up if I fall asleep.” He closed his eyes in imitation of sleep and Pat noticed that with his eyes shut he looked vulnerable, like a little boy. And his lips were slightly parted, and she thought 102 The Ethics of Dumping Others

. . . this was very dangerous. It would be just too complicated if she became involved with Wolf. Tessie would be bound to find out, and if that happened the most appalling consequences could ensue. She would have to be strong. It was perfectly possible to be strong about these things, to tell oneself that the person in question meant nothing to one, that he was not all that good-looking and that one’s stomach was not performing a somersault and one’s pulse was not racing. That was what one could tell oneself, and Pat now did. But it did not work, and any private attempts at indifference which she might try to affect would be of even less use later on in the lecture, when Wolf’s knee came to rest against hers under the writing surface which ran shelf-like in front of each seat. The knee moved naturally, not in a calculated nudge, but with that natural looseness of relaxation, casually, and this, for Pat, was the defining moment. If I leave my own knee where it is, she thought, then I send a signal to Wolf that I reciprocate, that I consent to this contact. And if I move it, then that will be an equally clear signal that I want to keep my distance. And I should want to do that . . . I have to.

Then she thought: there will be others. I don’t need this boy.

This room is full of boys and plenty of them are as attractive as this boy on my right . . . She looked up at the ceiling. She knew that she should not look at Wolf, because that would be to look into the face of the sirens and face inevitable shipwreck; but she did. “Phi,” she muttered.

“Phi yourself,” whispered Wolf. “Little Red Phiding Hood.”

33. The Ethics of Dumping Others

In the corridor outside, in the midst of the post-Fantousian chatter, Pat turned to Wolf and addressed him in an urgent whisper.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I’ve thought about it. I really have. But we can’t . . .”

The Ethics of Dumping Others 103

Wolf reached forward and placed a hand on her arm. “Listen,”

he said. “You don’t know what’s really happening. Just let me tell you.”

Pat brushed his hand away. “I know exactly what’s going on,”

she said. “You’re seeing Tessie. That’s it. You can’t see both of us.”

Wolf smiled. “But that’s what I’ve been wanting to tell you about,” he said. “Tessie and I are . . . Well, I’m about to break up with her.”

Pat stared at him. He was taller than she was, but he was bending forward now, his face close to hers. She noticed that he had neglected to shave at the edge of his mouth and there was a small patch of blonde stubble. And his shirt was lacking a button at the top. The small details, the little signs of being human; and all the time this powerful, physical presence impressing itself upon her, weakening whatever resolve there had been before. How could she resist it? Why did beauty set such a beguiling trap? The answer to that lay in biology, of course – the imperative that none of us can fight against. In the presence of beauty we are utterly reduced, made to acknowledge our powerlessness.

“Does she know?” she asked.

Wolf dropped his gaze, and Pat knew that he was ashamed.

“Yes,” he said.

Pat had not expected this reply, and she doubted that it was true. If Wolf had told Tessie of his intentions, then he would not have felt ashamed.

“You’ve told her?” she pressed. “You’ve told her that’s it over?”

Wolf looked up again. The bottom of his lip quivered as he spoke. “Not in so many words,” he said. “Not specifically. But I have discussed with her the idea that we should have a trial separation. We did talk about that.”

Pat raised an eyebrow. “A trial separation?”

“Yes,” said Wolf. “We talked about that a few weeks ago. I suggested that we might not see one another for three or four weeks and then we could see how we felt.”

“And she agreed to this?”

104 The Ethics of Dumping Others Wolf thought for a moment before he answered. “Not exactly.”

Pat sighed. It was clear to her that Tessie was determined to keep hold of Wolf and that nothing had been agreed about their splitting up. Such cases, where one person was determined to keep the relationship alive, could only be brought to an end by brutality. He would have to dump Tessie, an action which, like the word itself, was unceremonious and unkind. It was not easy to dump somebody gently; and no wonder that somebody had started a service which involved other people doing the dumping for you. One contacted a company (the dumper) who then sent an e-mail to the dumpee that said, effectively: “You’re dumped.”

In fact, the wording used was slightly more tactful. “The relationship between you and X is no longer in existence,” it said.

“We advise you that you should not contact X about this matter.”

She looked at Wolf. He was, she realised, more beautiful than anybody she had seen for a long time. He could step into a Caravaggio, she thought, and go unnoticed, and for a moment her determination somehow to make herself immune to his charms faltered. Most girls confronted with an approach from Wolf would consider themselves blessed; and here she was spit-ting in the face of her luck. And yet, and yet . . . He was the property of another, and one did not trespass on the property of another unless one was prepared for conflict, which was exactly what Pat did not want.

A nun walked past. Pat had seen this woman before, and had been told by somebody that she was studying at the university and was in the second year of her degree. She did not wear a full habit, but had a modest black dress and white blouse, a uniform of sorts that set her apart from the run of female students, with their faded blue jeans and exposed flesh.

Pat looked up at Wolf. “No,” she said. “And look, I have to go now. I really do. Let’s talk some other time. Later.”

Wolf opened his mouth to protest, but Pat had turned away and was already walking along the corridor, following the nun.

Wolf took a step forward, but stopped himself. “I won’t give up,” he muttered. “I won’t.”

The Ethics of Dumping Others 105

Pat followed the nun through the glass door and out into the purlieus of George Square. It had been raining when she had entered the lecture theatre that morning, but now the weather had cleared and the sun was bright on the stone of the buildings, on the glass of the windows. She saw the nun ahead of her, making her way towards Buccleuch Place, and she quickened her step to catch up with her.

“Excuse me.”

The nun turned round. “Hello.”

The response was friendly, and Pat continued. “I’ve seen you around,” she said. “I mean, I’ve heard of you.”

The nun smiled. “Gracious! Are people talking about me?

What have I done to deserve that?”

Pat had already placed the voice. One half expected nuns to talk with an Irish accent – the stereotype, of course, but then stereotypes come from somewhere – and yet this nun was Glaswegian or from somewhere thereabouts – Paisley, perhaps, or Hamilton, or somewhere like that.

“Is it true you’re a nun?” asked Pat, and added hurriedly: “I hope you don’t think me rude.”

“Not at all,” said the nun. “I don’t mind being asked. And, yes, it is true. I’m a member of a religious order.”

The older woman – older by ten years, perhaps, if that –

looked at Pat. She was due at a tutorial in five minutes, but something told her that she should not go, that she should talk to this rather innocent-looking young woman. At any time, in any place, a soul may be in need of help. She had been taught that, and she had learned, too, that the requests of those in need often came at the worst possible time.

“Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?” she asked.

“If you wanted to talk, then we could do that over coffee. It’s easier that way, isn’t it.”

“The Elephant House? “ said Pat. “Half an hour’s time?”

“Yes,” said the nun. “Deo volente.”

34. In the Elephant House

They sat in the Elephant House, Pat and the nun, who had introduced herself simply as Sister Connie. They were at the very table which Pat had occupied with Wolf on their first proper meeting, and as Connie waited for the coffee at the counter, Pat thought about the strange turn of events that had brought her to this. One day I was here with a boy called Wolf, she said to herself, and now here I am with a nun called Connie. Why is that so strange?

Sister Connie brought over the coffee and set the two mugs down on the table. “I suppose you’re wondering about me,” she said. “I suppose you’re asking yourself about how I can possibly be a nun.” She paused, stirring her coffee with the tip of her spoon. “Am I right? Are you wondering that?”

“Yes,” said Pat. “It had crossed my mind.”

“And quite reasonably,” said Sister Connie. “After all, how many members of religious orders do you see these days? Very few. I believe that it was very different not all that long ago.

There were several convents in Edinburgh. More in Glasgow.”

“I suppose it seems unusual,” said Pat. “At least, it seems unusual to my generation.”

Sister Connie nodded. “And why do you think that is?”

Pat shrugged. “Because . . .” She did not know how to say it. It was because of the me factor, she thought; because of the fact that nobody now was prepared to give anything up for the sake of . . . well, what was it for the sake of? For the sake of a God that most people no longer believed existed? Was that it?

She noticed that Sister Connie had blue eyes, and that these eyes were strangely translucent.

“Why don’t I tell you what happened?” said Sister Connie.

“Would you like me to do that?”

Pat nodded. Lifting her mug of coffee to her lips, she took a sip of the hot liquid. The feeling of strangeness was still there, but she felt comfortable in the company of Sister Connie, as one feels comfortable with one for whom the demands of ego are quiescent. “Please tell me,” she said.

In the Elephant House 107

Sister Connie sat back in her chair. “I was a very ordinary schoolgirl,” she said. “Just like everybody else. When I was fourteen, I wanted to be a dancer. I used to go to a modern dance class, and ballet too, and I was serious about dancing exams. I thought that it would be a wonderful thing to do. I imagined being picked for the Royal Academy of Dance, or somewhere like that, and appearing in London. I really thought that it would be that easy.

“But then something happened – something which changed the direction of my life – changed my life, actually. It’s odd, isn’t it, how one little incident, one conversation, one experience, one thing you see or hear, can change everything? That’s odd, don’t you think?”

Pat thought of her own life. Had there been something which had changed the whole course of her life? Yes. There had been.

There had been something on that gap year, something which had happened in Australia, which had done that. If she had not gone to that particular interview, if she had not seen the notice in the West Australian, then she would not have met . . . Well, it would all have been so different.

“We were from Gourock,” said Sister Connie. “We lived in a flat which looked out over the Firth. We were on the top floor, right up at the top, and there were one hundred and twenty-two steps from the ground floor up to our landing. I counted them. One hundred and twenty-two.

“On the floor below, there was a woman who lived by herself.

She wasn’t particularly old – I suppose she was hardly much more than sixty, but at the time, when I was a teenager, that seemed old enough. She was a nice woman, and I liked her. I used to get messages for her from time to time, as she had difficulty with those stairs. Her breathing wasn’t very good, you see.

People like that should live on the ground floor, but ground-floor flats are more expensive and I don’t think she could manage it.

“She was frailer than I had imagined. She had given me a key to let myself in when I helped her, and one Saturday morning I used this key to let myself in when she did not answer my 108 In the Elephant House

knock on the door. I went inside and found her on her bed, half in, half out. Her feet were on the floor, but her body was under the sheets. I thought that she was dead at first, but then I saw that she was watching me. Her eyes were open.

“I rushed over to her bedside and looked down at her. I saw then that she was still alive, and I reached out to take hold of her hand. It felt very dry. Very cold and very dry. Then she pointed to a piece of paper on the side of the table and whispered to me. She asked me to phone the number on the paper and . . .”

Sister Connie’s narrative tailed off. She had noticed that Pat was no longer looking at her, but was staring in the direction of another table, one closer to the door.

“I don’t want to bore you,” said the nun. “Perhaps I should tell you the rest of the story some other time.”

For a moment, Pat said nothing. Then she turned back to face her companion. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve just seen somebody I’m trying to . . . Well, I suppose I’m trying to avoid him.”

Sister Connie looked in the direction in which Pat had been staring. “That young man over there?” she asked. “That handsome young man?”

Pat lowered her eyes. Wolf’s presence could have been a coincidence, but that seemed unlikely to her. “Yes,” she said.

Sister Connie frowned. “Is he bothering you?” she asked.

Pat hesitated. Was Wolf bothering her? Yes, he was. He must have followed her here and was presumably waiting until Sister Connie left so that he could talk to her. That was stalking, in her view, or something which was close enough to stalking.

Sister Connie leaned forward. “Troublesome men are easily defeated,” she said. “Just give me five minutes. That’s all I’ll need.”

35. Setting Off

Domenica had an early breakfast in the courtyard of her small hotel in Malacca. The couple who ran the hotel, the da Silvas, brought her a plate of freshly sliced tropical fruits – paw-paw, watermelon, star fruit – and this was followed by a fine white porridge, sweetened and flavoured with cinnamon, and after that by scrambled eggs in which chopped smoked fish had been mixed. She ate alone at her table; it seemed that she was the only guest in the hotel; she had seen nobody else since she had arrived, and the da Silvas had urged her to stay as long as possible.

“There is plenty of room,” they said, wistfully, she thought.

The courtyard suited her very well, as it had two frangipani trees in blossom and she could just pick up the delicate, rather sickly scent of their white flowers. She liked frangipani trees, and had planted several in her time in Kerala, all those years ago. But not everybody shared her enthusiasm; the Chinese often did not like them because they associated them with cemeteries, where they often grew. Tree associations interested Domenica.

In Scotland, it was well known that rowan trees protected one against witches, just as buddleia attracts butterflies. And then there were the ancestor trees in Africa – a tree which one should not cut down, out of respect for the ancestor who might inhabit it. In India, the same rule applied to banyan trees, and she had once travelled on a highway where a banyan tree had been left growing in the middle of the road. Surprising as it was, that, she thought, demonstrated a proper sense of priorities. In her view, the car should give way to spiritual values, although it rarely did. And, of course, there were places where the car was even accorded an almost spiritual status. Had somebody in the United States not insisted on being buried in his car? It was so absurd.

Her breakfast over, Domenica returned to her room and packed her bags. In an hour’s time, Edward Hong would be calling for her, as he had agreed to drive her to meet the contact who would lead her to the pirate village. He could not drive all the way, he explained, for reasons of security.

110 Setting Off

“I’m afraid that they’re a little bit unwilling to let me go to the village itself,” he said. “And you will be obliged to walk the last couple of miles. But everybody knows where it is, of course.

I suppose they like to maintain at least some sense of clandes-tinity. Good for their self-image, I suspect.”

When Domenica expressed astonishment that the location of the pirate stronghold should be widely known, Edward Hong waved a hand in the air. “But that’s the way things are, you know.

The police are probably rather frightened of these pirate fellows, I imagine. A policy of live-and-let-live is easiest.”

Domenica had experience of this in India, where the law could be enforced sporadically, but surely piracy was different . . .

Edward Hong sighed. “They make an effort,” he said. “They announced the hanging of a couple of pirates a few years ago, but nobody thought they were really hanged. Maybe just suspended.” He glanced at her sideways and they both laughed.

It was difficult to tell these days whether people still appreciated humour. He was pleased to find out that Domenica did; but of course she would, he thought – she is clearly a woman of discernment and wit.

Setting Off 111

“It’s rather difficult for the authorities,” he went on. “Poor fellows. They have so much to do, and it does get frightfully hot out here.” He took a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. Domenica noticed, with approval, the gold embroidered initials on the corner of the handkerchief: EH, worked in fancy script.

Edward Hong looked at his watch. “If you’re ready,” he said,

“we can go. My driver will take us to pick up this reprobate, and then we shall take a little spin out to the village, or as close as we’re allowed to get. Have you brought a good sun hat?”

Domenica nodded.

“And insect repellent?”

Again she nodded.

“I can see you’ve been in the field before,” said Edward Hong appreciatively. He paused. “Are you absolutely sure that you want to go on with this? You know, I doubt if anybody would think the less of you if you decided to do something different.

We have a very interesting set of Chinese secret societies here in Malacca; I’m sure we could fix you up to study those.”

Domenica assured him that she was well aware of the risks and that she was determined to continue with her project.

“Oh, it’s not the risk I’m thinking of,” said Edward Hong quickly. “It’s more the discomfort. You know these people have a pretty primitive cuisine – I gather that pirate cooking is just awful. And the boredom of the conversation. They’re not brilliant conversationalists, you know, and you’ll be talking pidgin into the bargain. I’m afraid that you’re in for a rather thin time of it socially.”

Domenica pointed to her trunk. “I have a good supply of books,” she said. “I shall not want for reading matter.”

Edward Hong inquired as to which books she had brought with her, and she told him of the last six volumes of Proust that she had tucked away in the trunk.

“Proust!” he exclaimed. “The ideal companion for a mangrove swamp! That sets my mind at rest. I shall picture you in that steamy swamp with your little notebooks and your Proust.”

“I’m not so sure that Proust is the right choice,” said 112 Singapore Matters

Domenica. “But at least it will fill the hours. And, of course, I shall be busy with my fieldwork. I have so many questions to ask these people. I doubt if I’ll have all that much spare time.”

They left the hotel and got into Edward Hong’s waiting car.

Then, negotiating a series of pothole-ridden backroads and alley-ways, they arrived at a small café on the front of which was a block of Chinese script and a large sign in Baharsa Malay advertising the merits of Tiger Balm.

Edward Hong said something to the driver, who climbed out of the car and walked into the café. A few minutes later, Domenica saw him come out with a striking-looking young man with a blue headscarf tied across his brow. He was wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of denim jeans. His feet were in sandals.

The driver gestured to the passenger seat in the front and the young man got into it. He turned and gave Domenica a wide smile, exposing a brilliant set of teeth. Then he winked at her. She wondered if she had been mistaken, but then he winked again, and she realised that she had not. I cannot afford to have a romance with a pirate, she said to herself. Not at my stage of life. I just cannot.

36. Singapore Matters

As they drove out of Malacca, heading north, Edward Hong entertained Domenica with an account of his life. He had a strange way of talking – that style sometimes encountered which conveys the impression that the listener already knows what is being said and the narrator is merely adding detail.

“We’re a Malacca family,” he said. “My grandfather, Sir Percival Hong, was one of the first locals to be on the bench.

He was a very popular man – everybody liked him, and he was the one who built our house, actually. He had a very good collection of early Chinese ceramics which he built up with the help of a dealer in Hong Kong. I remember that dealer coming to the house when I was a boy. I thought that he was the last word Singapore Matters 113

in sophistication back then. He had a pencil moustache and wore his handkerchief tucked into the sleeve of his jacket, which impressed me greatly, for some reason.

“Then, after my grandfather’s death, when we had the appraisers in to value the collection, we discovered that virtually every piece was a fake. A clever fake, mind you, and an aesthetically-pleasing one, but a fake nonetheless. My grandfather simply had not known enough to tell what was genuine.

And the dealer, it transpires, was a charming crook. And I must say it was better that my grandfather never found out, don’t you agree?”

Domenica looked out of the window. They were on the outskirts of the town now and passing a small section of paddy field that abutted onto a warehouse of some sort. A group of children stood at the edge of the paddy field, throwing stones into the water. At the far end, a large white egret rose slowly into the air, circled, and headed off on some business of its own.

She answered Edward Hong’s question. “I suppose it is better.

It’s never easy to discover one’s been taken in.”

Edward Hong nodded. “Then there was my father,” he said.

“He was destined for the law, too, but really couldn’t knuckle down to his studies, and so he joined a cousin of his who had a business in Singapore. I was actually born in Singapore, you know, and spent my childhood there. We had a rather nice house just off Orchard Road, which wasn’t so built up in those days.

My father chose that in order to be close to the Tanglin Club, where he always went for a whisky after work. They had an arrangement whereby you could leave your own bottle of whisky in the club and be served from that if you wished.

“I felt a bit trapped in Singapore. I did not mind the government there, of course – it wasn’t that. In fact, I rather liked Lee Kuan Yew. He used to come for dinner at the house from time to time and he would talk about things they were proposing to ban. Chewing gum, for example. You did know that chewing gum is illegal in Singapore?

“I must say that I happen to think that that is the most remarkably enlightened bit of legislation. I can’t bear to see people 114 Singapore Matters

chewing gum – they look so vacant, so bovine. I’m sorry, but when I see somebody chewing gum, I can’t help but think that they look like a cow. It’s such a moronic activity!”

Domenica thought of Edinburgh, and the chewing gum that had disfigured its pavements. In some parts of the city, the pavements had become covered in gum, which was difficult and expensive to remove. There was something to be said for a chewing-gum ban, she thought.

“You can say what you like about Singapore,” went on Edward Hong, “but it’s safe. They don’t tolerate crime, and as a result they have very little. Post hoc, propter hoc. And they don’t tolerate drug addiction, and again they don’t have too much of that.

Drug users, you see, are put into an institution at Changi and kept there for six months. They teach them a trade and they wean them off drugs.”

Domenica looked doubtful. “And does it work?”

Edward Hong shrugged. “They claim a reasonable success rate, but . . .” He paused and looked at Domenica. “But tell me, what do you do for your drug addicts back in Scotland?”

Domenica thought. She was uncertain what was done, but she thought it was very little. Could we say, we leave them to get on with it, or would that imply a lack of concern? Or was the problem simply too big to be dealt with any more, with twelve-year-olds and the like starting drinking, with the connivance of adults? Where did one start?

“I can see that it’s difficult,” said Edward Hong sympathetically. “I understand. You have so much freedom, don’t you, and then you find that freedom leads to complications. Would one rather live in London or Singapore, do you think?”

Domenica was about to laugh, as if the answer were so obvious, but she hesitated.

“Yes,” said Edward Hong, shaking a finger. “You see, it’s not quite as simple as one might imagine. In London, unless you’re very fortunate, or rich, you have to worry a great deal about being mugged, or worse. You have to contend with crowded trains, and a lot of frustration. You have to struggle for everything. In Singapore, everything is tremendously clean. A woman

Singapore Matters 115

can walk about anywhere in the city, anywhere, without fear of being molested or attacked. Children can play outside, on their own, wherever they like, in perfect safety. And there are no threatening beggars on the streets.”

“But if there are no beggars on the streets,” said Domenica.

“Where are they?”

Edward Hong looked puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“There are no beggars on the streets because nobody is allowed to beg. People can go about their business unmolested – it’s as simple as that.”

“So the beggars are gainfully employed?” asked Domenica.

“They aren’t just moved on?”

“Of course,” said Edward Hong. “Besides, there’s nowhere to move them on to. If you moved anybody on from Singapore they’d fall into the sea. So nobody is moved on.”

“How interesting,” said Domenica.

37. Ling’s Story

Both Edward Hong and Domenica were surprised to find out that the young man who was to act as her guide spoke passable English. This surprise, though, was accompanied by a great deal of relief. If Ling, as he was called, spoke English then the prospect of having to communicate in some form of pidgin, or to rely on gestures and body language, receded, and this meant that Domenica’s fieldwork became all the easier. Of course, there was something to be said for studies in which no verbal communication took place between anthropologist and subject – such studies were free of the filtering effect of language and could therefore be more insightful than those in which language was used. There had been several well-known studies which had been completely compromised by the anthropologist’s having accepted explanations given to him by the hardly disinterested subject. In a polygamous society, a man might lie, for example, as to the number of wives he had, a larger number being associated with greater wealth. Or he might exaggerate his position in the village hierarchy, thereby confusing the anthropologist’s understanding of authority within the community. Such dangers disappeared completely if mutual incomprehension was the order of the day.

Ling explained that he was the son of a farmer who had gone bankrupt. Thanks to the efforts of a group of Catholic missionaries, he had received a good education, including a very good grounding in English, and had been planning to pursue a career in the United Bank of Penang, but had been distracted from this by having fallen in love with the daughter of one of the elders in the village towards which they were heading. He had decided to postpone the accountancy course he had enrolled in until his girlfriend was ready to leave her family and marry him.

This would not be for a year or two yet, he explained, as a result of the illness of her grandmother, to whom she was particularly attached.

“The old lady does not have long to live,” explained Ling.

“The doctors doubt if she will last a year. My fiancée wishes to Ling’s Story 117

spend as much time as possible with her, and I support her in this decision.”

“That is very considerate,” said Edward Hong. “You will make a fine son-in-law.” And then he added quietly: “Not for me, of course, but for this chap in the village.”

Ling thanked him for the compliment. He then turned to Domenica. “Mrs Macdonald, may I ask you a question? What exactly do you want to find out in the village?”

“As you know,” said Domenica, “I am an anthropologist. I was thinking of a new project, at the suggestion of my dear friend, Dilly Emslie, a few months ago, and it occurred to me that it would be interesting to do an anthropological study of one of these modern pirate communities. And so that is why I’m here.”

Ling looked thoughtful. “Well, I suppose that you have come to the right place. There certainly are pirates operating in the Malacca Straits. It’s quite dangerous for shipping these days.”

Edward Hong had been studying Ling with care. Now he interrupted. “Tell me, young man,” he asked, “are you involved in piracy yourself?”

Ling looked shocked. “Certainly not! I would never get involved in that sort of thing. It would hardly be a good start for my career, would it?”

“No,” said Edward Hong. “But then you do live amongst these people, don’t you?”

Ling sighed. “Some of us don’t have much of a choice, Mr Hong. The fact of the matter is that my future father-in-law may know these people quite well, might even be slightly involved in their activities – I have no evidence of that, of course

– but as far as I am concerned it is nothing whatsoever to do with me.”

Edward Hong nodded. “Very well,” he said. “I understand.

But will you be able to ensure that Mrs Macdonald has adequate access to them? Will you be able to do that?”

“Of course I will,” said Ling. “It’s a small village, you know.

Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

Domenica looked reassured.

118 Ling’s Story

“I’m sure that Ling will be very good to me,” she said to Edward Hong. Then, turning to Ling, she said: “And I really am very grateful to you for giving up your time to help me. It’s very generous of you, you know.”

“I have little else to do,” confessed Ling. “Assisting the occasional anthropologist helps pass the time.”

This remark was succeeded by complete silence. Domenica, who had been winding her watch, glanced up quickly. “You’ve had anthropologists before?” she asked.

Ling did not seem to notice the anxiety in her voice. “We’ve only had one.”

Domenica looked at him searchingly. “And who was this person?”

“He was a Belgian,” said Ling. “I never found out his surname.

We all just called him André.”

“And what happened?” Domenica pressed. She had visions of her study being rendered completely otiose by the imminent appearance, in one of the prestigious journals, perhaps Mankind Quarterly, of an extensive Belgian study of a pirate community on the Malacca Straits. It would be bitterly disappointing.

And what would they think of her when she returned to Edinburgh after only a few weeks and announced that there had been no point in proceeding? She would be a laughingstock, and everybody who made comments about the foolhardiness of the study would feel vindicated.

Ling, who had been looking out of the window, transferred his gaze to Domenica.

“He is still there,” he said.

Domenica gasped. There was no situation more tense, more fraught with difficulty, than the unexpected encounter by one anthropologist of another – in the field.

If this Belgian were still in residence, then she would have to ask Edward Hong to instruct his driver to turn the car round without delay. There would be no point in proceeding, and they might as well return to Malacca and listen to Edward Hong’s daughter playing Chopin.

Then Ling spoke again. “Yes,” he repeated. “He’s still there.

At the Queen’s Hall 119

Down by the place where the fishing nets are hung out to dry.”

Then he added: “Still there. In his grave.”

38. At the Queen’s Hall

“Hurry up now, Bertie,” said Irene. “It’s almost ten o’clock, and if we don’t get there in time you may not get your audition.

Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Bertie sighed. To miss the audition was exactly what he would want, but he realised that it was fruitless to protest. Once his mother had seen a notice about the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, she had immediately put his name down for an audition.

“Do you realise how exciting this is?” she said to Bertie. “This orchestra is planning to do a concert in Paris in a couple of weeks. Not much rehearsal time, but Paris, Bertie! Wouldn’t you just love that?”

Bertie frowned. The name of the orchestra suggested that it was for teenagers, and he was barely six. “Couldn’t I audition in seven years’ time?” he asked his mother. “I’ll be a teenager then.”

“If you’re worried about being the youngest one there,” said Irene reassuringly, “then you shouldn’t! The fact that it’s called the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra is neither here nor there. The word “teenage” is there just to indicate what standard is required.

That’s all it is!”

“But I’m not a teenager,” protested Bertie, helplessly. “They’ll all be teenagers, Mummy. I promise you. I’ll be the only one in dungarees.”

“There may well be others in dungarees,” said Irene. “And anyway, once you’re sitting down behind your music stand, nobody will notice what you’re wearing.”

Bertie was silent. It was no use; he would be forced to go, just as she had forced him to go to yoga and to Italian lessons and to all the rest of it. There was no use protesting. But he thought he would try one final argument.

120 At the Queen’s Hall

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind being in it, Mummy,” he said. “But the saxophone, you know, isn’t an orchestral instrument. They won’t want anybody to play the tenor sax.”

“Nonsense,” snapped Irene. “The tenor sax is in B flat. That’s exactly the same as the clarinet or the euphonium. You see euphonia in orchestras, don’t you? And other B flat instruments.

You can just play one of those parts, or Lewis Morrison can arrange a part specially for you.”

Bertie was silent. If he was unable to persuade his mother not to subject him to the humiliation of being the youngest member, by far, of an orchestra, then he would have to find some other means to ensure that he did not get in. He thought for a moment and then realised that there was a very obvious solution.

Irene saw Bertie’s face break into a broad grin. He must have realised, she thought, what fun it would be to go to Paris. These little bursts of resistance were curious things; they could be quite intense and then suddenly evaporate and he would come round.

Such a funny little boy, but so appealing!

“Why are you smiling, Bertissimo?” she asked. “Thinking of Paris? The Eiffel Tower – you know you can climb that right up to the top? And then there’s the Louvre with the Mona Lisa.

We’ll have such fun in Paris, Bertie!”

Bertie, who had been smiling to himself over the prospects of escape which had just presented themselves, now became grave. We? Had his mother said we’d have such fun in Paris?

His voice was tiny when he asked the question. “Are you coming, too, Mummy? Are you coming to Paris, too?”

Irene laughed. “But of course, Bertie. Remember that you’re only six. Mummy will come to look after you.”

“But the teenagers won’t have their mothers with them,”

pleaded Bertie. “I’ll be the only one.”

And it would be worse, he thought; the humiliation would be doubled and redoubled by the fact that Irene was now visibly pregnant. This would mean that the other boys would know what she had been doing. It was just too embarrassing. Tofu had already passed a comment on Irene’s pregnancy when he had raised the subject in the playground.

At the Queen’s Hall 121

“Your mum makes me sick,” he said. “Do you know what she’s been doing? It’s gross! Yuk! Disgusting!”

Bertie had said nothing; one cannot defend the indefensible, but he had smarted with shame. And now he was to be subjected to yet further humiliation, unless, unless . . .

“I haven’t been to Paris for years,” said Irene. “There is really no other city like it.”

Bertie nodded grimly. “Should I go and put my saxophone in its case?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Irene, looking at her watch. “We will probably need to take a taxi now, as we’ll never get up to the Queen’s Hall in time if we have to wait for a bus.”

They were soon in a taxi, rattling their way up Dundas Street and the Mound. Princes Street was en fête, with its lines of flut-tering flags and its flowers. Bertie liked Princes Street Gardens, and had gone there once with his father, when they had climbed the hill beneath the Castle and watched the Glasgow train emerging from its tunnel beneath the gallery. He had also gone to the Gardens several times with his mother, but they had not climbed the hill. On the last occasion, she had insisted that they watch a display of Scottish country dancing at the Ross Bandstand.

“Why do people dance?” he had asked his mother.

“It’s a form of deflection of the sexual impulse,” explained Irene.

“Even at the Ross Bandstand?” asked Bertie.

Irene laughed. “Oh my goodness no, Bertie! Scottish country dancing is not like that at all. It’s an expression of bourgeois obsession with time and order. That’s what’s going on there.

Look at it! Absurd!”

Bertie looked at the dancers, who appeared to be enjoying themselves greatly. He did not understand why they should be absurd. “But aren’t we bourgeois, Mummy?” asked Bertie.

Irene laughed. “Most certainly not,” she said.

The journey to the Queen’s Hall passed largely in silence, or at least on Bertie’s part. Irene had various bits of advice for him, though, including tips on how to present himself at the audition.

122 Bertie’s Agony

“Don’t feel nervous,” she said.

“Remind yourself that there are not only strangers there –

I’ll be sitting there, too! Keep that in mind, Bertie.”

Bertie reeled under the fresh blow. He had been hoping that his mother would wait outside. Now she was coming in! And that, he realised, would make his plan much more difficult to put into effect.

39. Bertie’s Agony

The Queen’s Hall was thronged that morning with a large crowd of ambitious parents and children. Bertie followed his mother down the corridor that led to the coffee room and bar at the end. He was aware of the fact that there were many people about, but he hardly dared look up to see who they were. His eyes were fixed on the floor, hoping to locate the geological flaw which would swallow him up and save him from his current embarrassment. But of course there was none; at no time is the earth more firm than when we wish that it were not.

Irene cast her eye about the room like a combatant assessing the field before joining the fray. Such gatherings held no terrors for her; this was the opposition of course, the other parents, but she knew that she had little to fear from any of them. In fact, she felt slightly sorry for them as she surveyed their offspring; that bespectacled teenage boy in the corner of the room, for example, standing with his mother – what an unhealthy speci-men, with his sallow complexion and his jeans with holes in the knees. Irene knew how expensive such jeans could be. That boy, she thought, is a fashion victim and that mother of his does nothing to prevent it. Sad.

Her gaze moved on to the rather prim young girl seated at one of the tables, her oboe case balanced on her knee and her mother proudly sitting opposite her. Such a consummately middle-class pair, thought Irene: the daughter at St Margaret’s, perhaps; the father – at the office, probably – a lawyer of some Bertie’s Agony 123

sort; their Volvo parked somewhere on the edge of the Meadows.

Irene stopped. She had a Volvo, too, of course, or used to have one. Let those without Volvos make the first social judgment, she told herself, and smiled at her wit.

“You can sit down here, Bertie,” she said, pointing to a chair beside one of the tables. “I shall go and get some coffee. But I won’t get you a cup, Bertie, as we don’t want you wanting to rush off to the little boys’ room for a tinkle in the middle of the audition, do we?” Bertie felt his heart stop with embarrassment. It was bad enough for his mother to say such things in any circumstances, but for her to say it here, in the middle of the Queen’s Hall, with the eyes of the world upon him, was horror itself. His face burning red, he looked about him quickly.

A girl at a neighbouring table had clearly heard, and was giggling and whispering to her friend. And there, on the other side of their very table, was a boy who had also heard and was now staring at him.

The boy, who looked barely thirteen, glanced at Irene as she made towards the bar, and then turned to face Bertie. “Is that your mother?” he asked.

Bertie shook his head. “No,” he said. And then added, for emphasis: “No, she’s nothing to do with me.”

“Who is she then?” asked the boy.

“She’s just somebody I met on the bus,” he said. “I talked to her and then she followed me in.”

The boy looked surprised. “You have to be careful about talking to strangers,” he said. “Haven’t you been told that?”

Bertie nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s just that I felt sorry for her.” He racked his brains for a credible story, and then continued: “She’s just been let out of a lunatic asylum, you see.

They let them out every Saturday, and she had nobody to talk to her. So I did.”

“Oh,” said the boy. “Do you think she’s dangerous?”

“Not really,” said Bertie. “Or maybe just a little bit. But she’s very strange, you know. She’s pretending to be my mother, I think.”

“Some grown-ups are really sad,” said the boy.

124 Bertie’s Agony

“Yes,” agreed Bertie. “It’s really sad.”

He looked at the boy. If he could make a friend here, then the ordeal of being the youngest person present, by far, would be lessened. And this boy, who had what looked like a trombone case with him, seemed to be friendly enough. “What’s your name?” Bertie asked.

The boy smiled. “I’m called Harry,” he said. “And you?”

Bertie swallowed. “I’m called Tom,” he said.

“But she called you Bertie,” said Harry. “That woman called you Bertie. I heard her.”

Bertie shook his head. “Yes,” he said. “It’s sad, isn’t it? I think she calls everybody Bertie. It’s her illness talking.”

Harry nodded. “Look,” he said. “If you need to get away from her, I can help you. We can go and hide in the toilet while she’s getting her coffee. I suppose she’ll go away after a while. How about it?”

Bertie looked towards the bar. He had never run away from his mother before, although he had once managed to get as far as Dundas Street. He did not wish to run away, having decided that he would sit his childhood out until that magical date when he turned eighteen, but the humiliation he had just suffered at the hands of his mother seemed to him now to justify a strong response. But he was not sure whether hiding with Harry would solve anything. What if Irene panicked when she found him missing and started to scream? Or what if she saw him going into the toilets and came in after him to drag him out? She was quite capable of doing that, he thought, and he imagined the scene if Irene went into the men’s room. He closed his eyes. He could not bear to think about it. “Too late,” muttered Harry rising to his feet. “Look out, here she comes. I’m taking off. See you!”

Irene, reaching the table, put down her cup of coffee and lowered herself into the chair beside her son. “It’s going to be very easy for you, Bertie,” she said. “I was talking to one of the other mummies at the bar, and she said that the conductor is a good friend of Lewis Morrison. So I’m sure that he’ll be kind to Mr Morrison’s pupils.”

Bertie Plays the Blues 125

“He may not know,” muttered Bertie.

“Of course he’ll know,” said Irene. “Naturally, I’m going to have a word with him beforehand. I’ll make sure that he knows just who you are.”

Bertie looked at the ground in despair. “Mummy,” he said.

“Please take me home. That’s all I’m asking you. Please just take me home.”

Irene leaned forwards. “Later, Bertie, carissimo,” she said.

“I’ll take you home after the audition. And that’s a promise.”

40. Bertie Plays the Blues

There were at least one hundred hopeful young musicians assembled in the hall for the orchestral audition. The young people ranged between the age of thirteen and eighteen, although there were one or two nineteen-year-olds and Bertie, of course, who was six. The teenagers had been instructed to sit in the first five rows of seats at the front and, in the case of those with large instruments, the cellists, bass players and bassoonists, in a cluster of seats to the side of the stage. The auditions were by section, and the aspirants were free to wander out of the hall until their section was called, as long as they kept their voices down and did not allow the door to bang shut when they left or came in.

To his horror, Bertie found that his mother insisted on sitting next to him in the fourth row. Nobody else’s parents sat anywhere near them, he noted. Most of the parents sat at the back with their friends, or had remained in the bar. But Irene insisted, and Bertie sank down in his seat, trying to persuade himself that not only was she not there, but that neither was he. He had remembered reading somewhere that the best way of dealing with unpleasant moments was to try to imagine that one was somewhere else altogether. So he closed his eyes and conjured up a picture of himself in Waverley Station, watching the trains coming in, his friend Tofu at his side. Tofu had a large bar of 126 Bertie Plays the Blues

chocolate and was breaking off a piece and handing it to him.

And he felt happy, curiously happy, to be there with his friend, just by themselves.

He felt a nudge in his ribs. “We’ll be next,” whispered Irene.

“It’s woodwind next.”

“Shouldn’t I go on with the brass?” asked Bertie. “Maybe just after the trombones?”

“But you’re woodwind, Bertie,” said Irene reproachfully. “You know that the saxophone is technically woodwind.”

Bertie bit his lip. His mother’s insistence that he should audition even when there was no call for saxophones was perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of the entire experience. It was bad enough being six and trying to get into a teenage orchestra, but being six and a saxophonist, was even worse. Nobody else had brought a saxophone with them; everybody else, everyone, had a conventional orchestral instrument with them.

At a signal from a woman who was helping the conductor, a small knot of oboists made their way to the front of the hall.

“You get up now, Bertie,” said Irene. “Woodwind now.”

Bertie did nothing. His mother was giving him no alternative. He did not want to put his plan into effect, but she really left him with no choice.

“Come on,” said Irene, rising to her feet and pulling Bertie up by the straps of his pink dungarees. “I’ll come with you.”

“Please, Mummy,” pleaded Bertie. “Please . . .”

It was to no avail. Virtually frogmarched to the front, Bertie approached the conductor at his table.

“Tenor saxophone,” said Irene, pushing Bertie forward.

“Bertie Pollock.”

The conductor looked up. “Saxophone?” he said. “Well, I’m afraid . . .”

“His sight-reading is excellent,” said Irene. “And he can trans-pose very well, too. He can easily go from B flat to E flat, so you can let him play the tenor horn part. I don’t see any tenor horns around. Bertie can fill that gap for you.”

“Well,” said the conductor. “It’s a different timbre, you know.

I’m not sure that . . .”

Bertie Plays the Blues 127

“Or the euphonium part,” went on Irene. “I take it that you want a bit of slightly richer bass. I don’t see any tuba players.

You don’t want to sound thin, do you?”

The conductor exchanged a glance with the woman beside him, who was smiling, lips pursed. Irene shot the woman a warning glance.

“He’s a bit young, isn’t he?” ventured the woman. “This is the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, after all. We’ve never had anybody that young . . .”

Irene’s eyes flashed. “That, if I may say so, is a somewhat unhelpful remark,” she said coldly. “Do you really want to stifle talent by discriminating against younger musicians?”

She waited for an answer, but none came. The conductor looked at the woman, as if seeking moral support. She shrugged.

“Oh, very well then,” said the conductor wearily. “Go up on stage, Bertie. And just play us this piece, the first fifteen bars, that’s all. Do you think you can manage?”

Bertie looked at the sheet of music. It was not all difficult.

Grade five, he thought, or six perhaps; both of which examina-tions he had recently passed with distinction. It would be easy to play that piece. But no: he would now have to put his plan into operation. He would not play what was before him. Instead, he would play something quite different, something defiant.

That would surely lead to his rejection; if one would not play what one was meant to play, then one should not be in an orchestra – that was obvious.

He mounted the stage and walked over to the music stand.

He placed the sheet of music on the stand and hitched his saxophone onto its sling, at first ignoring the sea of faces in front of him. But then he saw that one or two were laughing. They were looking at him, and laughing at him; laughing at the fact that he had a saxophone, he thought; laughing at the fact that he was only six; laughing at the fact that he was wearing pink dungarees.

Bertie raised the mouthpiece to his lips and blew the first note. Closing his eyes, he continued and soon was well into a fine rendition of ‘As Time Goes By’ from Casablanca, the same 128 Delta of George Street

piece that he practised so regularly directly below Pat’s bedroom in Scotland Street; a fine rendition, perhaps, but a disobedient one, and one which would be bound to irritate the conductor.

When he came to the end of the piece, he lowered the saxophone and glanced quickly at his mother. She would be angry with him, he knew, but it would be better to face her anger than to be forced into a teenage orchestra.

The conductor was silent for a moment. Then, rising to his feet, he clapped his hands together.

“Brilliant!” he exclaimed loudly. “What a brilliant performance, young man! You’re in!”

41. Delta of George Street

“You clever little boy!” said Irene, as she bundled Bertie out of the Queen’s Hall and into the street outside. “It was rather a risky thing to do, of course, but, my goodness, didn’t it pay off!”

Bertie, his eyes downcast, said nothing. As far as he had been concerned, the audition had been a complete disaster.

Not only was there that unfortunate episode in which his mother made that embarrassing comment within earshot of Harry, but then his playing and his deliberate disobedience had brought exactly the opposite result to that which he had intended. He was now a member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra and would be obliged to go with the other players to Paris, with his mother in attendance. It would be bearable

– just – if he went by himself, but that was not to be. Nobody else would have their mother with them; and none of them, he was sure, would be forced to go to bed at seven o’clock.

Nobody went to bed at seven in Paris, even French children.

Les enfants stayed up late at night, he had heard, eating with the adults, sipping red wine, and discussing the latest books and films. French mothers were obviously not like his own; French boys did not do yoga.

Irene glanced down at him. “Are you all right, Bertie?” she Delta of George Street 129

asked. And then, answering her own question, she said: “Of course you are. You’re as thrilled as I am. I can tell.”

Bertie shook his head. “I don’t want to be in it,” he said. “I told you that a hundred times. You never listen, Mummy.”

“Of course I listen,” said Irene, pulling Bertie along. “I listen to you all the time, Bertie. Mummy is a listening mummy! It’s just that sometimes mummies have to take decisions for their boys if their boys are not quite old enough to know what’s good for them. You’ll thank me, Bertie. You just wait. You’ll thank me.”

Bertie was not sure that he would, but he knew that there was no point in arguing with his mother. He sighed, and looked at his watch. It was a Saturday, and that meant yoga in Stockbridge, in the course entitled Bendy Fun for Tots. If Bertie felt that he was too young to be a member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, then he felt that he was far too old to go to Bendy Fun for Tots. In that class, he seemed to be the oldest by far; the other member of the class nearest in age to him was a four-year-old boy called Sigi, whose mother was friendly with Irene and discussed Melanie Klein with her. The other children seemed to be much younger still and had to be helped into the yoga position because they were unable to stand yet.

Bertie wished that after the excitement of the audition his mother would forget about yoga, and his hopes were considerably raised when she suggested that they get off the bus at George Street so that she could go to the bookshop. Although he wanted only to go home, Bertie felt that a visit to the bookshop, which would distract his mother from yoga, was worth-while, and he would, if necessary, prolong the expedition by offering advice on what books were available.

“What are you looking for, Mummy?” asked Bertie, once they reached the bookshop. “More Melanie Klein?”

Irene laughed. “Dear Bertie!” she said. “No, I have rather a lot by Melanie Klein, you know. I’m after something different.

I feel in the mood for something to entertain me.”

Bertie stood on his tip-toes to look at the piles of books on a display table. “There are some nice books here, Mummy,” he said. “Look. That one looks exciting. How about that one?”

130 Delta of George Street

Irene looked to where Bertie’s small finger was pointing. “No dear,” she said. “Anaïs Nin. I think not, somehow.”

“But it looks like a nice book, Mummy,” said Bertie. “There’s a lady on the cover. Look.”

Irene smiled. “Believe me, Bertie, that’s not what I had in mind.”

Bertie looked at the other books. There were several Patrick O’Brian novels, with pictures of sailing ships, their cannons blasting away at each other. The ships had sail upon sail, all the way up their towering masts, and the tiny figures of men, and boys too, it seemed, scaled the rigging.

“Look,” said Bertie. “There’s a book by Mr O’Brian, Mummy.

Daddy has read some of those. Should we get one for Daddy?”

Irene looked disdainfully at the naval tale. “Pure masculine fantasy,” she said. “Escape to sea, to a world without women.

Rather sad, in a way.”

Bertie looked puzzled. He did not see anything wrong with escaping to sea to escape women. He wondered if they still took cabin boys in the Navy. If they did, then perhaps he could enlist and go off to sea from Leith. They would not let his mother come with them – the Navy was fussy about things like that –

and she would have to wave to him from the shore. But the other sailors would not know that she was his mother, and they might think that she was just a strange woman who liked to wave to ships. So that would not be too embarrassing. And perhaps Tofu could come with him, as a cabin boy too, and they Empower Points 131

could climb the rigging together and keep a look-out for other ships, up there, high on the mast, almost in the clouds. It would feel like flying, he thought, almost like flying.

Irene looked at her watch. “Bertie, dear,” she began. And his spirits sank. Yoga. But no. “Bertie, dear,” she said. “You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen! Dr Fairbairn! I think I’ll just pop up and have a quick chat with him in the coffee room upstairs. Would you mind? You could maybe look at some of the books in the children’s section. They have a nice little chair through there.”

Bertie did not mind in the least. He had no desire to see his therapist. It was bad enough seeing him in his consulting rooms.

She was welcome to him. But then he thought: what does she want to chat to him about? Could it be about the baby? Bertie had had a dream in which he saw his future baby brother clad in a romper suit made of the same blue linen as Dr Fairbairn’s jacket. It had been very strange, very disconcerting.

42. Empower Points

Pat had decided that she would have to do something about Wolf. It seemed to her that Wolf had far from broken off with Tessie, and this led to the conclusion that he envisaged having two girlfriends at the same time. Now, Pat knew that there were some men who liked the idea of such arrangements. On her ill-fated trip to Australia, she had read a novel in which an airline pilot had kept two wives, each in a different city. That was outrageous (although very clever), even if Bruce, to whom she had described the plot, had merely leered at her and said: “Lucky man.” That was typical of Bruce, of course, and she shuddered at the memory of her unlamented landlord.

And yet, in spite of her distaste for Lotharios such as Bruce, she found herself wondering – and she did feel rather guilty about it

– what it would be like to have two boyfriends. Did she, as a woman, disapprove as much of that as she did of the idea that a man might have two girlfriends? It was an interesting thought. What if she 132 Empower Points

were to have Wolf as her exciting boyfriend (a sort of mistress, so to speak; perhaps the masculine term was master, but surely not) and Matthew as her solid, dependable boyfriend? That’s exactly what men did when they kept a mistress, was it not? They had their wife, who was solid and dependable, and who kept the home going, and then they had a younger and more exciting woman tucked away in a flat somewhere, to be visited from time to time and indulged in expensive clothes and Belgian chocolates. Belgian chocolates had come to mind, but, she asked herself, did mistresses actually eat Belgian chocolates? It seemed likely that they did, sitting there on their pink sofas, in Moray Place perhaps. The image seemed somehow quite right, and she smiled at the thought.

She looked out of the window. She was sitting at her desk in the gallery, waiting for Matthew to return from his prolonged coffee-break at Big Lou’s, paging through the catalogue of an impending sale. Women, she thought, were generally the victims of masculine bad behaviour largely because men, for all that they affected to have absorbed the lessons of equality, had steadfastly refused to change their ways. Men wanted to be in control; to take the initiative; to determine the pace and circumstances of a relationship. Many women, of course, were perfectly content that this should be so, and quietly allowed men to assert themselves, or at least enjoy the appearance of being the dominant sex. But others were determined that men should not get away with this and battled to assert themselves. The word for this, Pat knew, was empowerment. Every time a man was cut down to size, a woman was empowered.

In a sudden moment of stark self-appraisal, there in the gallery, Pat reflected on her position. What was she? A middle-class Edinburgh girl, attractive enough, intelligent enough, but amounting to . . . to nothing. I make nothing happen. I do nothing unusual. I have never challenged anything. I am an observer. I lack . . . What do I lack? And the answer seemed to her to be so immediately obvious. Power.

She was disempowered – completely disempowered.

She let the catalogue slip out of her hands and down onto the floor. It seemed to her that if she was going to change, to make Empower Points 133

something of her life, she should start getting what she wanted in life. She had never done this before. She had let other people decide for her; she had deferred to those who already had what they wanted and tried to get still more. Why should she be worried about what Tessie thought of her? If she wanted Wolf, then she should go out and get him. And if Tessie resented that, then let her do so. She would not be bullied by a girl like that, with her split ends and her broken nose. For all she knew, Tessie, who was definitely empowered, had herself taken Wolf from another girl.

Well, whether or not that had happened, now she would find out what it was to come up against a newly-empowered woman.

Of course, there would have to be some reparative work. She had told Wolf in the lecture that she was not interested, and then, when he followed her to the Elephant House, she had thrown him to the mercy of her new friend, Sister Connie. It had been an eye-opener to see how the otherwise gentle nun had succeeded in dealing with Wolf. She had stridden across to his table, sat down opposite him, and spoken to him in an urgent and confidential way. Pat had noticed Wolf’s reaction to this. He had listened intently and then, visibly backing off, he had risen to his feet and left the coffee house, barely looking back as he did so.

She had not managed to find out from Sister Connie what she had said to him. When the nun had returned to the table she had asked, but Sister Connie had merely smiled and raised a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence.

“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I warned him off. He won’t be troubling you again.”

She had not thought much more about it, but now that she might see Wolf again, she might have to undo Sister Connie’s work, whatever that had been. She took out the small red diary that she always carried with her. Wolf had given her his mobile phone number, and she had written it down in the notebook.

She found the number and picked up the telephone.

Wolf answered almost immediately, with the lupine howl that he gave to identify himself. It was very witty, very clever.

“It’s Pat,” she said.

There was complete silence at the other end of the line, or 134 Matthew Comforts Pat

almost complete, for Pat thought that she heard an intake of breath – not quite a gasp, but certainly an intake of breath.

Then Wolf spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t talk now.

Goodbye.”

“But Wolf . . .”

“I said that I can’t talk.”

There was a crackling sound, and Pat realised that somebody else had seized the phone.

“Is that you?” came Tessie’s unmistakable voice. “Is that you?

You listen to me. I warned you. I warned you. You leave my Wolfie alone. Understand?”

43. Matthew Comforts Pat

Pat was still upset when Matthew returned from Big Lou’s. He noticed it immediately, and sat down beside her.

“There’s something wrong,” he said.

Pat shook her head; she could see that he was concerned, but she was not going to tell him.

“Yes, there is. There obviously is.” He reached out and took her hand. “Come on. You’re not very good at hiding things, you know. You’re upset.”

Pat felt the pressure of his hand upon hers. She had never had that degree of physical contact with Matthew, and it seemed strange to her. His hand felt warm and dry.

Matthew smiled. “That’s better. Come on. What is it?” He paused, fixing her with a searching look. She noticed the grey flecks in his eyes, which she had often thought about before –

they were so unusual, so unlikely; she noticed the slight stain on the front of his sweater. He was not wearing his new distressed-oatmeal cashmere today, but had on the sweater that she had seen him wear at weekends, an old, navy-blue garment that had lost its shape.

“I suppose I’ve just had a bit of a shock,” she said. “I’ll get over it.”

Matthew Comforts Pat 135

Matthew raised an eyebrow. “It’s that boy, isn’t it?” he said gently.

“That boy – the one with the name. Wolf. It’s him, isn’t it?”

Pat nodded miserably. “It’s about him, I suppose. Although actually it’s about his girlfriend.”

If Matthew felt relief, he did not show it. “So he’s let you down,” he said evenly. This was very good news. Wolf was a two-timer; of course he was! “You know, I was worried that something like this would happen. I never liked him.”

Pat looked up sharply. “You never met him,” she pointed out.

He waved a hand in the air. “You know what I mean. You can dislike people you’ve never met. I sensed that he wasn’t right for you. I sensed it.”

Pat felt herself becoming irritated. She still felt defensive of Wolf, who had done nothing wrong as far as she was concerned

– other than wanting to have two girlfriends at the same time.

What worried her was Tessie, and the difficulty she would now face on going back to the flat. The animus in Tessie’s voice, the sheer vitriol, was such that she simply could not see herself going back to Spottiswoode Street. She could not imagine how she could possibly face that unpleasant girl, and she could hardly live under the same roof and not see her. They each had their own room of course, but there was the bathroom and the kitchen, which were shared, and the front door and the stair too. She wondered what she should do if they both came back at the same time and had to climb the stair together. Would they do so in tight-lipped silence, or would one rush ahead to get away from the other? No, it was impossible. She would have to move out. She would have to find somewhere else to live.

She looked at Matthew. She should not be offended that he had taken against Wolf as he had. It was flattering, really, to have about her somebody like Matthew, who at least liked her enough to feel jealousy. And if his fondness for her was sometimes awkward, then perhaps indifference would have been more difficult.

She gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Matthew,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I know that you . . . that you worry about me.”

Matthew smiled reassuringly. “I suppose I do worry,” he said.

“I don’t want you to get hurt. That’s all.”

136 Matthew Comforts Pat

Pat moved her hand away from his, but did so gently. She began to explain to him about Tessie and her hostility, and she told him about her snatching the telephone from Wolf.

“She’s frightening,” she said. “She really is. It seems that she’ll do anything to keep him.”

Matthew’s expression was grim. “You can’t go back there,” he said. “Or you can’t go back there by yourself. Why don’t I go back with you and help you get your things?”

Pat looked relieved. Tessie would hardly try anything if Matthew were present, and then she could . . . She stopped. It was all very well planning to collect her possessions and move out of Spottiswoode Street, but where would she move to? She could not go back to Scotland Street, and she could think of no particular friends on whose floor she could ask to stay. She would have to go home, and that, in spite of the comfort and security which it represented, would be an unacceptable admission of failure. Her father would be nice about it, she thought, and her mother, if she was there, would hardly notice. But it would be so demeaning to have to go home after trying so hard to establish her independence.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know. I haven’t got anywhere to go, you see. I can’t think . . .” She looked around her, mentally sizing up the gallery for living purposes. She could have a bed in the back room – it was easily big enough – and she could keep her clothes in the walk-in cupboard they used to store paintings. It would be possible, just possible, particularly if one ate at Big Lou’s and did not have to bother too much about cooking.

Matthew reached forward and took her hand again. “Now listen,” he said. “I have a suggestion to make, and I want you to take it very seriously. I’m not just saying this – I’m not. You come and stay in India Street. I’ve got plenty of room and you can have the spare room at the back. It’s nice there. It’s very quiet.”

Pat looked down at the floor. There was no doubt in her mind but that Matthew was trying to be helpful. There was no ulterior motive in this invitation – she was sure of that – but it would be a major step to share a flat with him. What if he wanted to be something more than her landlord, more than her Angus Lordie Prepares to Entertain 137

flatmate? And he would want that – of course he would; she was sure of that.

But in spite of this conviction, this certainty, she thanked him for his offer – and accepted.

“Good girl,” said Matthew, and closed his eyes at the thought.

44. Angus Lordie Prepares to Entertain Angus Lordie felt disgruntled. He had woken early that morning

– rather earlier than he had wanted to – and had found it difficult to get back to sleep. Now it was six o’clock, and still dark.

In the summer, when the mornings were so bright and optimistic, he would sometimes make his way into his studio and paint for several hours. He loved those summer mornings, when the city was quiet and the air so fresh. Life seemed somehow richer in possibilities at that hour; it was like being young again; yes, that was what it was like, he thought. When you are young, the world is in better definition, clearer; it is a feeling not dissimilar to that which one had after the first sip of champagne, before the dulling effect of excess. But now, in the autumn, with the drawing in of days, the morning hours lacked all that, and painting could only begin much later on, after breakfast.

What produced this sense of disgruntlement on that particular day was the fact that Angus was due to entertain that night.

He enjoyed dinner parties – in fact, he relished them – but in general, he preferred to be a guest rather than a host. It was such a bother, he thought, to have to cook everything and then to serve it. He found it difficult to relax and enjoy the conversation if he had to keep an eye on the needs of his guests. And at the end of it all, of course, there was the mess which had to be cleared up. Angus kept his flat tidy – it was rather like the galley of a well-run ship, in fact; somewhat Spartan, with everything neatly stacked and stored.

Of course, this preference for being entertained rather than entertaining had not escaped the notice of others. If records 138 Angus Lordie Prepares to Entertain were kept of these things, in the same way in which certain denizens of London society kept lists of the season’s parties –

and that was never done in Edinburgh – then Angus Lordie’s debit columns would heavily outweigh anything in his credit columns. In fact, his credit columns would be completely blank, unless one counted buying lunch for one or two friends in the Scottish Arts Club as a credit. And the friends for whom he had bought lunch were themselves noted more for the eating of meals than for paying for them. And as for those who had invited him to their large parties in places such as East Lothian, they did so in the sure and certain knowledge that their hospitality would never be repaid. Not that they minded, of course; Angus was witty and entertaining company, and nobody expected a bachelor to be much good at reciprocation.

“He’s such a charming man,” remarked one hostess to a friend.

“Men like that are such fun.”

“But he’s absolutely no good,” said the friend. “A convinced bachelor. No use at all.”

“Such a waste,” said the first woman.

“Criminal.”

They were both silent. Then: “Remember when” – and here she mentioned the name of a prominent lawyer who, some years back, had become a widower – “Remember when he came on the market and there was that mad dash, and she got there first?”

The other thought for a moment. She shook her head. There were other cases too, though none as egregiously tragic for a number of hopefuls as that one.

“Of course, Angus is very friendly with that woman who lives in Scotland Street. That frightful blue-stocking . . .”

“Domenica Macdonald.”

“Exactly. The one who went off somewhere on some madcap project.”

“But there’s nothing between them, surely?”

“No. They gossip together. That’s all.”

“So sad.”

“Criminal.”

But now Angus was cornered and found himself committed Angus Lordie Prepares to Entertain 139

to the holding of a dinner party in Drummond Place. This situation had come about as a result of an undertaking he had rashly given to Domenica shortly before her departure for the Malacca Straits. She had asked him to give her an assurance that he would invite to his flat Antonia Collie, her friend who was occupying her flat in her absence.

“She knows very few people in Edinburgh, Angus,” Domenica had said. “And she is an old friend. I don’t expect you to fall over yourself, but do at least have her round for a meal. Promise me that, will you?”

Angus felt that he could hardly refuse. He gave his word that he would invite her within a week of her arrival, and on the sixth day he had pushed an envelope through Antonia’s letter-box and walked down the stairs quickly in case she should come out and invite him in. He did not want to see much of her. She’s insufferably pleased with herself, he thought. And she has that arrogance of those whose modest amount of talent has gone to their head.

He considered how he might dilute her company. If he invited four other guests, then he could place her at the far end of the table, opposite his own seat at the head, and then he would have two guests on either side of the table between himself and Antonia. In this way, he would not have to listen to her at all and she would, in turn, find it difficult to condescend to him.

But it was not just the seating plan that Angus had been contemplating – there was also the menu to consider. His own taste tended towards uncomplicated fare – to lamb chops with mashed potatoes, to smoked salmon on brown bread, to venison stew with red cabbage. But he was aware that such dishes would not do for a dinner party of sophisticates – and Antonia would certainly consider herself a sophisticate. She may have drawn the conclusion that he knew little about fiction – but he would not allow her to draw a similar conclusion about his culinary ability. With this in mind, he had gone to some trouble to plan a meal of considerable complexity. He had consulted the book which he had received for his birthday from a female cousin some years previously, Dear Francesca, a book of memoirs and 140 A Memory of Milanese Salami

recipes, and had made a note of the ingredients he would need: pasta, extra virgin olive oil, anchovy fillets, Parmigiano Reggiano. His mouth watered.

“Come, Cyril,” he announced. “Time to go shopping.”

Cyril looked at his master. For some reason, he experienced a sudden sense of foreboding. But, being a dog, he had no means of articulating this, no means of warning.

45. A Memory of Milanese Salami

With Cyril trotting beside him, Angus Lordie made his way along London Street and turned up Broughton Street to complete his journey to Valvona & Crolla. Although he rarely bought anything more adventurous than a packet of dried pasta, he liked the authentic Italian feeling which he derived from browsing its shelves. On this visit, of course, there were more ambitious ingredients to be bought: fresh Parmesan cheese, for example; tagliatelle which were rich in eggs; olive oil from tiny, named estates in the Sienese hills; perhaps even a small jar of Moscatelli’s grated truffles, as a treat. He would choose these ingredients with care, so that when that opinionated Antonia Collie came to dinner he could subtly put her in her place (what would she know about truffles, or vintage olive oil?) He thought of her condescension, and bristled. Who did she imagine she was? Breezing into Scotland Street like that from Perthshire and implying – or even doing more than that –

stating, in fact, that he did not understand the nature of fiction.

Domenica, for all her faults – and he thought that one day he might present her with a list of them, just to be of some assistance – never condescended to anybody. Indeed, she went to the opposite extreme, and assumed that those to whom she was talking shared her understanding, which was generous of her, as they usually did not. That was such a courtesy, and it was so refreshing to see it in operation. Such people made one feel better by just being with them. One was admitted to the A Memory of Milanese Salami 141

presence of a liberal intelligence and made to feel welcome; made to feel at home.

Outside the shop, Angus looked down at Cyril, who gazed back up at him in expectation. Cyril loved going to Valvona & Crolla, but Angus had been reluctant to take him inside ever since Cyril had lost control of himself and snatched a small but expensive Milanese salami from the counter and gobbled it up before Angus had a chance to snatch it from his jaws. Nobody in the shop had noticed a thing, and Angus had felt torn over what to do in such circumstances. There were many different responses to such a situation. On the one hand, there were those who felt no compunc-tion over eating in supermarkets and then walking out, replete, and not paying for what they had consumed. Angus himself had once witnessed a woman feeding processed cheese to her child in the dairy-products section of his local supermarket. He had stopped and stared at her in astonishment and their eyes, for a few instants, had met. What he had seen was not shame, as he had expected, but something quite else: the look of challenge of those who believe that they are doing nothing wrong.

Such a view was unconscionable – eating the food in a supermarket was simply theft, and could be distinguished from shoplifting only by virtue of the nature of the container used to remove the property. But in this case, when the salami had been eaten by Cyril, he had not intended to take any property that did not belong to him, and that made a difference. As he thought about it, he saw that there was a similarity with a situation where one mistakenly took the umbrella of another in the belief that the umbrella was one’s own. That was not theft; that was a mistake. Of course then, when one discovered the error, the umbrella should be returned to the person to whom it belonged, or one might then become a thief by keeping. So, too, in this situation, although the salami could not be returned to its rightful owner, there was clearly a moral duty to report the incident at the cash desk and offer to pay.

Angus had ordered Cyril to desist, but for a short time the dog had completely ignored him, so lost was he in the pleasure of eating the salami. But then, the salami consumed and 142 A Memory of Milanese Salami

lingering only in the faint odour of garlic that hung about him, Cyril had been struck by the enormity of what he had done and had looked up at his master in trepidation. Angus rarely struck Cyril, and now he merely shook his head and spoke to him quietly and at length in a low voice that was every bit as effective as one that was raised. The words, of course, meant nothing to Cyril, apart from bad dog, which he recognised and which cut him to the quick. Cyril had no word for temptation, nor for irresistible, and could not explain that what had happened had been beyond his control. So he lay there and endured the shame.

Angus offered to pay, and when his offer was cheerfully declined on the grounds that such things happened – a most understanding response, he thought; but Italians, and this included Italo-Scots, always had a soft spot for dogs, and people too, for everything in fact – he had voluntarily offered to leave Cyril outside on his next visit to the shop. Now, standing outside the delicatessen, he looked about for a suitable place to tie Cyril’s lead. The pavement at that point was broad and without railings, but the civic authorities had thoughtfully placed a bicycle rack nearby, and he thought that this would provide a handy tethering post for Cyril.

“I won’t be long,” he explained, as he fastened the leash to the rack. “Sorry, you can’t come in. It’s your record, you see. A small matter of a Milanese salami. Remember?”

He gave Cyril a pat on the head and entered the shop. A few minutes later, while Angus was examining a small bottle of olive oil, holding it up to the light to determine its clarity, a young man in a black T-shirt and jeans walked up to Cyril and bent down to ruffle his fur.

Cyril, always eager for human company, but particularly so when tied up on the street, licked at the young man’s hand.

His keen nose smelled tobacco, and something else, something he could not identify and which was unfamiliar, and sharp. He drew back a bit, and looked at the young man. He felt unsure, and he looked at the door of Valvona & Crolla.

A bus passed, and Cyril smelled the fumes. He looked up; A Conversation about Angels etc 143

there was a seagull hovering nearby, and he caught a slight smell of fish and bird.

The young man was undoing his lead. He was being dragged.

He was confused. Was he being sent away? What had he done?

46. A Conversation about Angels etc Inside the delicatessen, unaware of the drama being enacted outside, Angus Lordie carefully replaced on its shelf the bottle of olive oil he had been examining.

“That,” said a voice behind him, “is a particularly good oil.

We’ve been selling it for some time now. Poggio Lamentano.

It’s made from the Zyws’ olives. Gorgeous stuff. This is the new vintage, which has just arrived – you can taste it, if you like.”

Angus turned round and recognised Mary Contini. He had met her socially once or twice – and of course it was she who had written Dear Francesca – but he was not sure whether she remembered him. Her next comment, however, made it clear that she did. “You’re a painter, aren’t you? We met at . . .” She waved a hand in the air.

Angus nodded, although he, too, had forgotten the name of their host. He, too, waved a hand in the air – in the direction of the New Town. “It was somewhere over there,” he said, and laughed. Then there was a brief silence. “I’m cooking a meal,”

he said lamely, as if to explain his presence. It was rather a trite thing to say, of course, but she did not seem to mind.

“They’re a painting family too,” she said, pointing at the bottle of oil. “They had a studio down in the Dean Village, overlooking the Water of Leith. But they have this place in Tuscany and they produce the most beautiful oil. I’ve visited it.

Wonderful place.”

“I would be very happy living in Italy,” said Angus. “Tuscany in particular.”

“What artist wouldn’t be?” asked Mary Contini.

Angus gazed up at the ceiling. He knew of some artists who 144 A Conversation about Angels etc would not like Italy; some artists, he thought, have no sense of the beautiful and would be ill at ease in a landscape like that.

He was tempted to name them, but no, not amidst all this olive oil and Chianti. “In Tuscany, I have always thought one is in the presence of angels,” he said. “In fact, I am sure of it.”

Mary Contini looked intrigued. “Angels?” she said.

“Yes,” said Angus, warming to his theme. “Have you come across that marvellous poem by Alfred Alvarez? ‘Angels in Italy’.

Written in Tuscany, of course, where Alvarez has a villa.”

Mary Contini thought for a moment, and then shook her head.

“He describes how he is standing in his vineyard and suddenly he sees a choir of angels – that is the collective term for angels, I believe – or shall I say a flight of angels? – somehow that seems more appropriate for angels in motion; choirs are more static, aren’t they? He sees this flight of angels crossing the sky, and it seems so natural, so right. Isn’t that marvellous? And there they are, flying across the Tuscan sky while below them everybody is just carrying on with their day-to-day business.

Somebody is cutting wood with a buzz-saw. The leaves of the vines rattle like dice. And so on.”

“I can just see it,” said Mary Contini.

Angus smiled. “Of course, angels are an intrinsically interesting subject. Especially if one has little else to do with one’s time. Like those early practitioners of angelology who speculated about the number of angels who could stand on the head of a pin.”

“I’ve always thought of angels as being rather big,” said Mary Contini.

“Exactly,” said Angus. “Mind you, there are an awful lot of them, I believe. The fourteenth-century cabalists said that there were precisely 301,655,722. Quite how they worked that out, I have no idea. But there we are.” He sighed. He enjoyed a conversation of this sort – but ever since Domenica had gone away, there seemed to be so few people with whom to have it. And here he was taking up this busy person’s time with talk of angels and the Tuscan countryside. “I must get on,” he said. “One cannot stand about all day and talk about angels. Or olive oil, for that matter.”

A Conversation about Angels etc 145

She laughed. “I am always happy to talk about either,” she said, and she nodded to him politely and moved on. He reached for a bottle of olive oil and placed it in his shopping basket.

Then, with his small collection of purchases selected, he made his way to the till, paid, and went out into the street.

He looked for Cyril, and saw that he was not there. He stopped, and stood quite still. Fumbling with the bag of purchases, he dropped it, and it fell onto the pavement, where the bottle of olive oil shattered. A slow green ooze trickled out of the crumpled bag. It soaked into his loaf of rosemary bread.

It trickled down into a crack in the pavement.

Somebody passing by hesitated, about to ask what was wrong, but walked on. Angus looked about him frantically. He had tied Cyril’s leash quite tightly – he always did. But even if Cyril had worked it loose, he would never leave the spot in which Angus had left him. He was good that way – it was something to do with his training in Lochboisdale, all those years ago. Cyril knew how to stay.

Angus saw a boy standing nearby. The boy was watching him; this boy with a pasty complexion and his shirt hanging out of his trousers was watching him. He walked over to him. The boy, suspicious, stiffened.

“My dog,” he said. “My dog. He was over there. Now . . .”

The boy sniffed. “A boy took it,” he said. “He untied him.”

Angus gasped. “He took him? Where? Did you see?”

The boy shrugged. “He got on a bus. One of they buses.”

The boy pointed to a red bus lumbering past.

“You didn’t see which one?”

“No,” said the boy. He looked down at the packet on the ground and then back up at Angus. “I’ve got to go.”

Angus nodded. Bending down, he picked up the oil-soaked bag and looked about him, hopelessly. Cyril had been stolen.

That was the only conclusion he could reach. His friend, his companion, had been stolen. He had lost him. He was gone.

He walked back to Drummond Place slowly, almost oblivious to his surroundings. Worlds could end in many ways, but, as Eliot had observed, it was usually in little ways, like this.

47. Goodbye to Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.) The car in which Domenica Macdonald was travelling – the car belonging to Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.) – came to a halt on the outskirts of a small settlement about an hour’s drive from the city of Malacca. Ling, the young man who was to be Domenica’s guide and mentor in the pirate community, had tapped Edward Hong on the shoulder as they neared the village.

“I’m sorry,” Ling said. “We’re going to have to walk from here. I’ll find a boy to carry the suitcase.”

“There are always boys to do these things,” said Edward Hong to Domenica. “That’s the charming thing about the Far East. I gather that in Europe these days one has run out of boys.”

Domenica nodded. “Boys used to be willing to do little tasks,”

she said. “But no longer.”

Edward Hong looked wistful. “When I was a boy,” he said,

“I was a Scout. Baden-Powell was much admired in these lati-tudes, you know. And we were taught: always do at least one good deed every day. That’s what we believed in. And I did it.

I did a good deed every day. Do you think that happens today?”

“Alas, no,” said Domenica, as she prepared to get out of the car. “Most children have become very surly. That is because they are not taught to think about others any more. They are, quite simply, spoiled.”

“I fear that what you say is right,” said Edward Hong. “It is very sad.”

They stood outside the car and stretched their legs while Ling went off to the village. Domenica, her head shaded by a large, floppy sun hat – for even with cloud cover, she could feel the weight of the noonday sun – stood on the roadside and gazed out over the surrounding landscape. The village, which seemed to consist of twenty or so houses, straddled the road, which had now narrowed to a single track. The houses were small square buildings, each raised a couple of feet above the ground on wooden pillars. This, she knew, provided both protection from floodwaters and allowed the air to circulate in the heat. The roofs, which were made of palm thatch, were untidy in their Goodbye to Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.) 147

appearance, but everything else seemed neat and well-kept. A small group of children stood on the steps of the nearest house, staring at them, while a woman, wearing a red sarong, attended to some task on the veranda. On one side of the village stood a small shop, on the front of which was pinned a sign advertising Coca-Cola. The shop-keeper, standing outside, clad in a dirty vest and a pair of loose-fitting green trousers, seemed to be talking into a mobile telephone, gesticulating furiously with his free hand.

“Village life,” said Edward Hong, pointing. “Children. Dogs.

A shop-keeper in a dirty vest. It holds no romantic associations for me, I’m afraid.”

Domenica laughed. “I don’t romanticise these things either,”

she said. “Most anthropologists know too much about such places to romanticise them. I’m sure that life for these people is thoroughly tedious. They’d love to live in Malacca – I’m sure of it.”

“And yet they are better off out here,” said Edward Hong.

“They may not know it, but they are. Wouldn’t you rather live here, in relative comfort, than in some hovel in town – for the privilege of which you would be working all hours of the day in some sweatshop?”

“I don’t know,” said Domenica. “I just don’t know.”

Ling now reappeared, accompanied by a teenage boy, bare-shouldered, a printed cloth wound about his waist. He pointed to Domenica’s large suitcase, which had been taken out of the car by the chauffeur, and the boy cheerfully picked it up.

“We must go,” said Ling. “It’s at least two hours’ walk from here. Do you have your water bottle?”

Domenica answered by pointing to her small rucksack. Then she turned to Edward Hong and shook his hand. “You have been more than kind, dear Mr Hong,” she said. Edward Hong lowered his head in a small bow. “I shall miss your company,” he said.

“And my daughter will too.”

“I shall think of her playing Chopin,” said Domenica. “If the company of the pirates becomes a trifle wearisome, I shall think of her playing her Chopin.”

148 Goodbye to Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.) They said their final farewells, and then the small party set off, led by Ling, with Domenica in the middle, and the teenage boy bringing up the rear. Edward Hong waved from the car, and Domenica waved back. She knew that she would miss his urbane company; indeed she knew that there was a great deal that she was already missing, and would miss even more over the coming months. She missed her conversations with Angus Lordie. She missed looking out of her window onto Scotland Street. She missed her morning crossword in The Scotsman. And when would she next have a cup of foaming cappuccino and a freshly-baked croissant?

I shall not think of any of this, she told herself. I shall be thoroughly professional. I am an anthropologist, after all, heir to a long tradition of endurance in the field. If I had wanted a quiet and comfortable life, then I would have become something else. The furrow I have chosen to plough is a lonely one, involving hardship, deprivation, and danger. Danger! She had forgotten about Ling’s almost throwaway comment about the Belgian anthropologist, the one who had preceded her to the village and who was now buried there. She had meant to ask Ling about this, but the direction of the conversation had changed and she had not had the opportunity. Besides, she did not want to give Edward the impression that she was frightened. If she did, then she knew that he would fret for her, and she did not want that.

She looked at Ling’s back as he walked in front of her. A large patch of sweat had formed between his shoulder blades, making a dark stain on his shirt. Such circumstances as these, she thought, remind us of just what we are: salt and water, for the most part.

“Ling,” she said. “That Belgian anthropologist you mentioned. Could you tell me more about him?”

Ling glanced back at her, but kept on walking. “We don’t like to talk about him,” he said. “Do you mind?”

Domenica was quick to say that she did not. But his comment puzzled her and, if she were to be honest about her level of anxiety, she would have to admit that it had grown. Considerably.

48. A View of a House

The small party followed a track that led away from the village.

The track was narrow, but was wider than a footpath and had obviously been used by vehicles. There was white, sandy soil underfoot, and here and there this had been churned up by the wheels of a vehicle. There were other signs of human passage too – a discarded tin can, roughly opened and rusting; a fruit-juice carton, waxy and crumpled; the print of a sandal on the soil.

Trees grew on either side of the path. These, together with an undergrowth of creeping vines and thick-leaved shrubs, made for a barrier that was dense, if not entirely impenetrable. It would be easy to lose oneself in such surroundings, thought Domenica; one might wander about in circles for days, unable to see any reference points, unable even to work out the direction of the sun’s movement. At moments such as this, she mused, dependence on one’s guide reminded one of the mutual reliance of human existence. In large numbers, in towns and cities, we forget that without the help of others we are fragile, threatened creatures. But the moment that support is removed, then the reality of our condition becomes apparent. We are all one step from being lost.

After walking for half an hour, Ling called a halt and they sat down on the trunk of an uprooted tree. Domenica reached for her water bottle and took several swigs. The water, which had kept cool in the air-conditioned interior of Edward Hong’s car, was now tepid – the temperature of the soupy air about them – and it bore the chemical taste of the purification tablets she had dropped into it. The boy, who had been uncomplain-ingly carrying Domenica’s suitcase, shifting it from hand to hand every so often, was given a small sugared bun, which Ling had extracted from a packet secured to his belt. Domenica was offered one of these buns too, but declined.

“It must be very difficult living in such isolated conditions,”

she said to Ling. “I suppose they have to bring their supplies all the way down this track.”

150 A View of a House

Ling shook his head. “This track is not used a great deal,”

he said. “The people in the village we are going to do not come this way very often. They have boats, you see.”

Domenica nodded. Of course, the village for which they were heading was on the coast, or close enough to it.

“Where shall I be staying?” she asked. She had been told that accommodation would be arranged, but Edward Hong had not gone into details. All he had said was: “You will probably be somewhat uncomfortable, but I suppose that you anthropologists are used to that sort of thing.” And then he had shuddered; not too noticeably, but he had shuddered.

Ling wiped his brow. “You will stay in the village guest house,”

he said. “It is a small place, just two rooms, which is used for any visitors to the village. It is clean and it is cool too. There is a big tree beside it. That will give you shade.” He paused, and smiled. “You will be very happy there.”

“Oh, I’m sure I shall,” said Domenica. His description of her accommodation had cheered her slightly. A small, cool house in the shade sounded as if it would be perfect.

“And there is another house beside it,” Ling went on. “The woman from that house will be your friend. She speaks a little English – not much – but a little. And she is making her sons learn English too. They are just boys, but they will speak to you too.”

Domenica liked the sound of that. Ling made it seem no more than moving to a new suburb – a suburb with friendly neighbours.

“This woman,” she asked. “She’s married to . . .” She paused, unsure as to whether the term pirate seemed a bit extreme, ungenerous perhaps.

“To a pirate,” said Ling. “Yes, her husband is a big pirate. He is called Ah, and her name is Zhi-Whei. They have called the boys after ships which . . . which he seized. The older one is called Freighter and the other is called Tanker. They have Chinese names, too, but that is what they are called in the village.

They are a good family, and they will be kind to you.”

They continued with their journey. As they progressed, the vegetation thinned. The trees, which had towered above them

A View of a House 151

at the beginning, now became sparser. The dense undergrowth, too, was broken up by patches of grass and thinly-covered sand.

And as the tree cover diminished, the light changed. There was open sky now, and the air seemed fresher. There was a smell of the sea.

“We’re not far now,” said Ling eventually. And as he spoke, Domenica heard a snatch of music somewhere in the distance; a radio playing. Then, a little later, she heard a voice – a woman’s voice, calling to a child perhaps.

Suddenly the path turned sharply to the right and descended.

Ling stopped and pointed ahead. “That is the village,” he said.

Domenica looked at the place which was to be her home for the next few months. It was a small settlement – much the same as the village through which they had passed at the beginning of their journey. There was one difference, though: the houses in this village all faced a small bay, the blue waters of which now caught the early afternoon sun. It seemed to Domenica to be idyllic; the sort of place that Gauguin had found on his south sea islands; the sultry shores which he had painted in those rich colours of his; sexual, beguiling landscapes.

152 The Story of Art

“That is your house just over there,” said Ling. “You see that one? The one near that big tree? That is your place.”

Domenica looked in the direction in which he was pointing.

They were not far from the house, and she could make out the details clearly. It seemed to her that it was quite ideal. It was constructed of wooden planks, all painted off-white, and the windows were secured with green, slatted shutters. There was a veranda, too, with what looked like an old planter’s chair on it, and a lithe young man in a sarong standing near the front door.

“Who is that young man?” asked Domenica.

Ling turned to look at her. “That is the young man who will be looking after you. He will cook for you and carry things. I will tell you what to pay him.” He paused, and added: “He is utterly at your service. You will see.”

49. The Story of Art

“Now,” said Matthew firmly, as he opened the door of the taxi for Pat, “you’ve made your decision and you must stick to it!

You’re unhappy there. Of course you can’t continue to live with that ghastly girl.”

“You haven’t met her,” pointed out Pat, as she sat back against the cheerful Royal Stewart rug which the taxi driver had placed on the seat. It was a curious thing about Edinburgh taxis: insofar as they carried rugs, for some reason these were almost always Royal Stewart tartan.

She looked at Matthew, who was leaning forward to give instructions to the driver. It annoyed her that he seemed so ready to make judgments about people whom he had never met.

He had done that with Wolf, whom he had disliked instantly, and now he was doing it with Tessie, her flatmate.

Matthew fastened his seat belt. “But of course she’s ghastly,”

he said. “You yourself told me . . .”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Pat. “Let’s change the subject.”

The Story of Art 153

Matthew nodded. “Yes,” he said. “You have to look forward, Pat. Going to that awful flat was a mistake. A bad mistake. You should have stayed in Scotland Street.”

He’s doing it again, thought Pat. Matthew had never seen the flat in Spottiswoode Street, and yet he was calling it awful. There was actually nothing awful about it. It was a typical Marchmont student flat – rather nicer, in fact, than many, and she would miss it. But he was right about the need to move. Tessie was ghastly, whichever way one looked at her. She was aggressive.

She was suspicious. And she had as good as threatened Pat with physical violence over Wolf.

They travelled up the Mound and made their way along George IV Bridge. On their right, just before they branched off beyond the Museum, they passed the Elephant House, the café where she had first talked to Wolf and where she had subsequently had that intriguing conversation with Sister Connie.

“That place,” said Matthew, as they drove past. “I had lunch there once.”

It was the sort of inconsequential thing that Matthew sometimes said. When she had first gone to work for him, Pat had expected these remarks to lead somewhere, but they rarely did.

In another taxi, a long time ago, he had once said to her: “The Churchill Theatre” as they had driven past it, but had said nothing more. Now, as the taxi shot past the little bronze statue of Greyfriars Bobby, Matthew simply said “Dog”. Pat smiled to herself. There was something rather reassuring about Matthew.

Wolf, and Tessie, and people like that were fundamentally unsettling; Wolf, for his physical attractiveness, and Tessie for her aggression. Matthew, by contrast, was utterly comfortable, and she felt for him a sudden affection. He might not be anything special, but he was a good friend and he was predictable. She would feel safe living with Matthew in India Street, although . . . There were doubts, but this was not the time to have them, just as she was about to leave Spottiswoode Street.

They reached their destination. Matthew insisted on paying the taxi fare, although Pat offered. Then, with Matthew behind her, Pat went up the common stair to the door of her flat.

154 The Story of Art

“Is she likely to be in?” whispered Matthew, as Pat inserted the key.

She was unsure. Tessie kept strange hours; Pat had heard her going out in the early hours of the morning and had often found her in during the afternoons. And then, late at night, she had sometimes heard the sound of raised voices emanating from her room.

“She might be,” she answered. “But I hope we don’t see her.”

Matthew shuddered. “Me too. Horrible girl.” He paused.

“What about him? Monsieur Loup? Will he be here?”

Pat shrugged. She did not want to see either of them at the moment, she thought, although when it came to Wolf –

well . . .

They entered the hall. Tessie’s door was closed, but there were faint sounds of music coming from within. She pointed to the door and raised a finger to her lips.

“Hers?” whispered Matthew.

“Yes.”

Her own door was slightly ajar, which puzzled her. She always closed it when she left the flat and she thought that she must have done that morning. She hesitated. Could Tessie have done something to her room? The thought crossed her mind, but she tried to dismiss it immediately. That sort of thing did not happen in Edinburgh, in real life, in ordinary student flats in Marchmont, in broad daylight.

She pushed the door open cautiously. Everything inside seemed to be as she had left it. There was Sir Ernst Gombrich’s The Story of Art on the desk. There was her hairbrush and her sponge-bag. There was the picture of the family cat, Morris.

There were the trainers she had been about to throw out, their frayed laces in a tangle.

Matthew pointed at the two suitcases balanced on the top of the wardrobe.

“Those?” he said.

Pat nodded and he reached up to retrieve the suitcases. She had fitted everything in those two cases when she had moved in, and so there was no reason why they should not do the move Bad Behaviour 155

in a single trip. Matthew placed the suitcases on the bed and opened them. Then she began to bundle clothes from the drawers into the cases. She noticed that Matthew turned away and looked out of the window while she did so, and again she felt a rush of fondness for him. It was such a nice, old-fashioned thing to do, the sort of thing that a modern boy would not think of. Modern boys would stare.

Soon the suitcases were filled. It proved to be a tight fit, and the trainers, and one or two other items were ignominiously consigned to the wastepaper bin. Sir Ernst Gombrich would not fit in, but Matthew agreed that Pat should carry him under her arm; he would be able to manage both suitcases, he said, as they would balance one another out.

Pat looked about her. She was sorry to be leaving the room, which she liked, and in which she had been comfortable. But it was too late now to have second thoughts, as Matthew was manoeuvring the cases out of the door, as silently as he could, lest he attract the unwelcome attentions of Tessie. He need not have worried about being quiet, though, because there were now sounds coming from Tessie’s room, strange sounds, rather like howls.

50. Bad Behaviour

When they heard the noise coming from behind Tessie’s closed door, Pat and Matthew, on the point of leaving the flat, stopped.

Lowering the two heavy suitcases to the floor, Matthew looked at Pat in astonishment.

“What on earth . . . ?” he began to whisper, but Pat, still holding Sir Ernst Gombrich’s The Story of Art under her arm, did not reply. Creeping forward, she inclined an ear to the door.

Matthew, embarrassed by such obvious eavesdropping, but curious nonetheless, quickly moved forward to join her at the door.

The howls which they had heard – if they were indeed howls, and it sounded like that to them – had now stopped, to be 156 Bad Behaviour

replaced by a peal of laughter. Then there was a voice, not raised at all, but still audible from outside.

“I wish you wouldn’t howl quite so much.” It was Tessie.

“Why not? If it makes me happy.” There was a pause, and then: “And I know what makes you happy.” That was Wolf.

Matthew glanced at Pat. There was something indecent in standing outside somebody’s bedroom door and listening to what went on within. He was about to gesture to Pat that they should leave, but then Wolf could be heard again.

“And, as you know, I like to make girls happy. It’s my role in life. We all need a hobby.”

Tessie snorted. “You’re lucky I’m not the jealous type. Most people wouldn’t hack it, you know. You’re lucky that I don’t mind.”

“That’s because you know I don’t mean it,” said Wolf. “You know that you’re the one. You know that.”

“Yes,” answered Tessie. “But how are you getting on with her over there? Pat. God, what a name! I’m fed up with acting jealous, by the way. All to keep you amused.”

“I need another week. She’s in lurve with me. Big time. But it’ll be another week or so before . . .” There was laughter.

It was as if Pat had been given an electric shock. She moved back quickly from the door, reeling, nearly dropping Sir Ernst Gombrich from under her arm. Matthew, visibly appalled, made to support her, but she drew back, humiliated, ashamed.

“Quick,” whispered Matthew, picking up the suitcases.

“Quick. Open the door.”

Out on the landing, the flat door closed firmly behind them, Matthew rested the suitcases on the floor and reached out for Pat’s arm.

“Listen,” he said. “Listen. I know how you must feel. But there’s no reason for you to feel bad. It’s not your . . .” He looked at her. She had turned her face away from him and he could see that she had begun to cry. He put down the suitcases and reached out to her.

“No,” she mumbled, starting down the stairs. “I just want to go.”

Bad Behaviour 157

There were a few awkward moments at the front door, as they waited for the arrival of the taxi which Matthew had ordered.

Matthew wanted to talk – he wanted to reassure Pat – but she told him that she did not want to discuss what they had heard.

“All right,” he said. “We won’t talk about it. Just forget him.

Put him out of your mind.”

They stood in silence. Matthew, looking up at the wispy clouds scudding across the sky, thought of something he had read in a magazine somewhere, or was it a newspaper? – he was unsure

– of how Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had entertained themselves with stories of their conquests. He had been appalled by the story, and it had confirmed his prejudice against a certain sort of French intellectual, who deconstructed other people; who played games with people. One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists – indeed, that was what existentialism was all about, was it not? – but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.

Matthew looked down the street, which was quiet and taxi-less. A black and white cat was sauntering towards them and had now stopped a few yards away, staring at Matthew. An elderly woman, laden with shopping bags, was catching her breath a little distance away, holding onto a railing for support. It was a very ordinary street scene in that part of Edinburgh, and yet it seemed to Matthew that the moment was somehow special and that what it spoke to, this moment, was agape, the selfless love of the other.

Such moments can come at any time, and in unexpected circumstances, too. Those who travel to a place of pilgrimage, to a holy place, may hope to experience an epiphany of some sort, but may find only that the Ganges is dirty or that Iona is wet.

And yet, on their journey, or on their return, disappointed, they may suddenly see something which vouchsafes them the insight they had wished to find; something glimpsed, not in a holy place, but in very ordinary surroundings; as Auden discovered when he sat with three colleagues on the lawn, out under the stars, on a balmy evening, and suddenly felt for the first time what it 158 Sun-Dried Tomatoes

was like to love one’s neighbour as oneself. The experience lasted in its intensity, he later wrote, for all of two hours, and then gradually faded.

Matthew felt this now, and it suppressed any urge he might have had to speak. He felt this for Pat – a gentleness, a cherishing – and for the cat and for the elderly woman under her burden. And he felt it, he thought, because he had just witnessed cruelty. He would not be cruel. He could not be cruel now. All that he wanted was to protect and comfort this girl beside him.

He looked at Pat. She had stopped crying and she no longer avoided his gaze.

“Thank you, Matthew,” she said.

He smiled at her. “You’ll be much happier in India Street.

You really will.”

“You must tell me how much rent I need to pay,” said Pat.

Matthew raised his hands in protest. “None,” he said. “Not a penny. You can live rent free.”

Pat frowned. “But I have to pay something,” she said. “I can’t . . .”

“No,” said Matthew. “No. No.”

Pat was silent.

51. Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Cyril was not accustomed to travelling in a bus – nor indeed in any vehicle. Angus Lordie had no car, and so Cyril’s experience of motor transport was limited to a few runs he had enjoyed in Domenica’s custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz. From time to time, she invited Angus to accompany her on a drive into the country, to Peebles perhaps, or Gullane for lunch at the Golf Inn. Cyril was allowed to come on these outings, provided that he remained on a rug in the back, and he would stick his nose out of the window and revel in the bewildering range of scents borne in on the rushing air: sheep, hayfields, burning stubble, a startled pheasant in flight; so many things for a dog to think about.

Sun-Dried Tomatoes 159

But now he was on a bus, bundled under a seat amid unfamiliar ankles and shoes. He did not like the experience at all; he did not like the smell of the air, which was stale and acrid; he did not like the vibrations in the floor and the rumble of the diesel engine; he did not like the young man who had dragged him away from his tethering place. He looked up. The young man was holding the end of his leash lightly in his hand, twisting and untwisting it around his fingers. Cyril began to whimper, softly at first, but more loudly as he saw that the young man was not paying any attention to him.

As the whimpering increased in volume, the young man looked down at Cyril. For a few moments, dog and man looked at one another, and then, without any warning, the young man aimed a kick at the underside of Cyril’s jaw. It was not a powerful kick, but it was enough to force Cyril’s lower jaw up against the upper, causing him to bite his tongue.

“Haud yer wheesht,” the young man muttered, adding:

“Stupid dug.”

Humiliated, Cyril shrank back under the seat. He knew that he did not deserve the kick, but it did not occur to him to 160 Sun-Dried Tomatoes

retaliate. So he simply stared up at this person who now had control of him and tried to understand, but could not. After a few minutes, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. It was at least warm in these strange surroundings and he was now becoming used to the throb of the engine. Perhaps things would be different when he woke up; perhaps Angus would be there to meet him wherever it was that they were going, and they would make their way back to Drummond Place by way of the Cumberland Bar.

He woke up sharply. The young man had tugged on his leash, and now tugged again, yanking Cyril’s neck backwards as he did so. Cyril rose to his feet and looked expectantly at the young man, who now began to make his way towards the front of the bus, pulling him as he went. The bus slowed, and then stopped.

The doors opened and there was a sudden rush of new smells as fresh air flooded in.

Cyril followed his captor outside, standing just behind him as the bus pulled away in a swirl of fumes: diesel, burnt oil, dust.

The dog closed his eyes and then felt the pressure on his collar as the young man pulled him away from the side of the road.

There were human voices; the sudden smell of a cat off to his right; the acrid odour of sweat from a passer-by; so much for a dog to take into account, and now hunger, too, and thirst. He opened his eyes and saw off to one side a building rising up against the sky. It made him dizzy to look at it. There were gulls wheeling in the air, white wings against the grey of the sky, tiny black eyes trained on him, a mewing sound.

He lunged away, pulling sharply on his leash. The young man cried out, a hostile yell which frightened him further, and, feeling the sudden freedom of the slipped collar, Cyril bolted. All he knew was that his collar was no longer around his neck, that he was free, and that he could run. There was a further shout, and a stone, hurled in blind anger, shot past him.

Cyril had no idea where he was going; all he wanted to do was to escape from the young man who had taken him away and put him in the bus. The young man was danger, was death, he thought, although Cyril had no idea what death was. All that Casting Issues 161

he knew was that there was pain and something greater than pain – great cold and hunger, perhaps – which was death. Now, his heart thumping within him, the stones on the path cutting hard on his paws, he sought only to put as much distance as he could between himself and that death that was behind him, shouting. And it was easy to do so, because that death was slow and could not run as a dog could run.

Somewhere ahead of him – he could smell it – was water. His nose led him and soon it was before him, a thin body of water that snaked off to left and right, and beside it a path. He hesitated briefly and raised his nose into the air. Off to the right there was a confusion of smells, of other animals, of emptiness. And to the left there was a similar confusion, but somewhere, deep in the palette of odours, something familiar. He had no name for it, of course, no association – just familiarity. Sun-dried tomatoes.

Somewhere in that direction there were sun-dried tomatoes.

Cyril chose the familiar. Aware now that there was nobody chasing him, he set off at a comfortable trot along the canal tow-path. There were many indications of the presence of other dogs, a tantalising array of territorial claims, of warnings left behind on bushes and trees, but he ignored these. He was going home, he thought, although he had no idea of where home might be, other than in this general direction. The hunger pains in his stomach were still present, but Cyril ignored these too.

He felt calmer now, quite as calm as he would feel if he were going for a walk with Angus by his side. Angus. Cyril loved Angus with all his heart, and this sudden remembering of Angus, this knowledge that Angus was not with him, made the world as dark and cold as if the sun had dropped out of the sky.

52. Casting Issues

Bertie had told nobody at school about his unwelcome recruit -

ment to the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra. He had entertained hopes that the proposed orchestral tour to Paris would be 162 Casting Issues

cancelled; that war might break out between Britain and France, thereby curtailing all cultural exchange. But none of this happened. He scoured the columns of the newspapers in search of references to conflict, but none was to be found. Cultural relations, it seemed, were thriving and there was nothing on the horizon which would make it impossible for the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra to venture to Paris.

It was not just the humiliation of being the youngest member of the orchestra which worried Bertie; it was the knowledge that his mother planned to come to Paris with him. He would be the only member to have his mother with him, and he could imagine how that would amuse the other players, the real teenagers. They might even make cruel jokes about it, asking him if his mother had brought his baby food with her. Bertie was under no illusions as to how unkind children could be to one another. Look at Tofu.

Look at Olive. Look at the sorts of things they said about other people. Being down there, down among the children, was like living in a jungle teeming with predators.

But there was something else that worried Bertie. At the audition at the Queen’s Hall, he had explained to Harry, the boy to whom he had chatted, that Irene was not really his mother at all but was a deluded madwoman who had followed him in off the bus. Harry had accepted this explanation, but what would he think if Irene came on the trip and was officially revealed as Bertie’s mother? He would no doubt spread the story about, and Bertie would be exposed as a liar. So he would be doubly ostracised: both as the youngest member – not a real teenager – and as a liar, too.

These thoughts had preyed on Bertie’s mind ever since the audition and now, a good week later, they were still there in the background, mixed up with all the other fears that can blight a six-year-old life. Bertie was conscious that not all was well in his world. He wanted so much to be like other boys, to play the games they played. He wanted to have a friend to share secrets with, a friend who would be an ally in the world and who would stand by him. Tofu was all very well – he was a sort of friend – but he left a great deal to be desired. Bertie did not think that Tofu would support him in a tight corner; in fact, quite the opposite. Tofu was Casting Issues 163

your friend if you gave him presents, preferably money, but beyond that he really had little interest in anybody else. And as for Olive, she was completely unreliable in every respect. She had gone round the school telling everybody that Bertie was her boyfriend, and this had led to Bertie’s being mercilessly teased, especially by Tofu, who found the idea particularly amusing. Olive had sent him a Valentine card, which she had tucked into his desk and which Bertie had rashly opened in the belief that it was a party invitation. He had been appalled to see the large red heart on the face of the card and, inside, the message ‘My heart beats just for you’.

It was unsigned, of course, but she had given a clue by drawing a large picture of an olive beneath the message. Bertie had quickly tried to tear it up, but had been seen doing this by Olive, who had snatched it back from him in a rage.

“If that’s what you think of me,” she spat out, “then . . . then you’ll find out!”

She had left the threat vague, and this was another thing that Bertie had hanging over him. It was bad enough having his mother to worry about, but now here he was with Olive to think about, too. It was really hard being a boy, he thought, with all these women and girls making life difficult for one.

Such were Bertie’s thoughts that morning at school when Miss Harmony, smiling broadly, announced that the class had been chosen to put on a play at the forthcoming concert in aid of the new school hall.

“This is, of course, a great responsibility, boys and girls,” she said. “But it is also a challenge. I know that we are a very creative class, and that we have some very accomplished actors amongst us.”

“Such as me,” said Tofu.

Miss Harmony smiled tolerantly. “You can certainly act, Tofu, dear,” she said. “But all of us can act, I think. Hiawatha, for example. You can act, can’t you, Hiawatha?”

“He can act a stinky part,” said Tofu. “He’d do that well.”

“Tofu, dear,” said Miss Harmony. “That is not very kind, is it? How would you like it if somebody said that about you.”

“But my socks don’t stink,” said Tofu. “So they wouldn’t say it.”

164 The Sybils of Edinburgh

Miss Harmony sighed. This was not an avenue of discussion down which she cared to go. It was certainly true that Hiawatha appeared to wear his socks for rather longer than might be desir-able, but that was no excuse for the awful Tofu to say things like that. Tofu was a problem; she had to admit. But he would not be helped to develop by disparaging him, tempting though that might be. Love and attention would do its work eventually.

“Now then,” she said brightly. “I have been thinking about what play we should do. And do you know, I think I’ve found just the thing. I’ve decided that we shall do The Sound of Music.

What do you think of that, boys and girls? Don’t you think that will be fun?”

The children looked at one another. They knew The Sound of Music and they knew that it would be fun. But the real issue, as they also knew, was this: who would be Maria? There were seven girls in the class and only one of them wanted Olive to be Maria. That one was Olive herself. And as for the boys, and the roles available to them, every girl in the class, but especially Olive, hoped that Tofu would not be Captain von Trapp. And yet that was the role that Tofu now set his heart on. He would do anything to get it, he decided. Anything.

53. The Sybils of Edinburgh

The effect of Miss Harmony’s announcement that Bertie’s class was to perform The Sound of Music was, in the first place, the descent of silence on the room. If the teacher had expected a buzz of excitement, then she must have been surprised, for no such reaction occurred. Nobody, in fact, spoke until a good two minutes had elapsed, but during that time a number of glances were exchanged.

Bertie, whose desk was next to Tofu’s, looked sideways at his neighbour, trying to gauge his reaction. He knew that Tofu wished to dominate everything, and that the class play would be no exception. In the last play that they had performed, a truncated version The Sybils of Edinburgh 165

of Amahl and the Night-Visitors, for which the music had been provided by the school orchestra, Tofu had resented being cast as a mere extra and had made several unscripted interventions in an attempt to raise the profile of the character whom he was playing (a sheep). This had caused even Miss Harmony, normally so mild, to raise her voice and threaten to write to Mr Menotti himself and inform him that the performance had been ruined by the misplaced ambition of one of the sheep.

When Bertie glanced at him, he saw that Tofu’s expression gave everything away. He was smiling, his lips pressed tight together in what could only be pleasure at the thought of the dramatic triumphs that lay ahead. Bertie looked down at his desk. There was something else for him to think about now.

Whereas all the other children had seen the film of The Sound of Music, he had not been allowed to do so by his mother, who disapproved of it on principle.

“Pure schmalz,” she had explained to Bertie, when he had asked if they might borrow a tape of it and watch it one Saturday afternoon, after yoga. “Singing nuns and all the rest. I ask you, Bertie! Have you ever encountered a singing nun? And all those ghastly songs about lonely goatherds and raindrops on roses and the rest of it! No, Bertie, we don’t want any of that, do we?”

It occurred to Bertie that it might be rather fun to listen to songs about goatherds, and that anyway his mother appeared to know rather a lot about the film. Had she seen it herself? In which case, was it fair that she should prevent him from seeing it? That, to his mind, sounded rather like hypocrisy, the definition of which he had recently looked up in Chambers Dictionary.

“But you must have seen it yourself, Mummy,” he said. “If you know all that much about it, you must have seen it yourself.”

Irene hesitated. “Yes,” she said eventually. “I did see it. I saw it at the Dominion Cinema.”

Bertie thought for a moment. “So you must have walked out,”

he said.

“Walked out? Why do you ask me whether I walked out, Bertie?”

166 The Sybils of Edinburgh

“Because you disapproved of it so much,” said Bertie. “If you hated it, then why did you stay to the end?”

Irene looked out of the window. Now that she came to think about it, she had seen The Sound of Music twice, but she could not possibly tell Bertie that, as he would hardly understand that one might see such a film in a spirit of irony. So the subject was dropped, and The Sound of Music was not mentioned again. Irene had, of course, attended the production of Amahl and had been very critical, both of the choice of the opera and the production itself. “I don’t know why schools insist on choosing the same old thing time after time,” she observed to Stuart as they drove back along Bruntsfield Place.

“I thought it was rather touching,” said Stuart, but then added:

“Or maybe not.”

“Definitely not,” said Irene. “Young children are perfectly capable of doing more taxing drama.”

“Such as?” asked Stuart.

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ” said Irene lightly. “I’ve always liked Albee.”

The Sybils of Edinburgh 167

In the back seat, Bertie listened intently. He had heard his mother talk about Virginia Woolf before and he had looked her up in a book he had found on her shelves. Mrs Woolf, he read, had been married to Mr Woolf, and had written a number of books. Then she had filled her pockets with stones and had jumped into a river, which Bertie thought was very sad. He was not sure if he would enjoy a play about a person like that, and he was worried that his mother would suggest it to Miss Harmony. But then he had gone on to think what one should do if one saw a person with stones in his pockets jump into a river. Bertie was sure that he would try to rescue such a person, and that would raise the question of whether one should take the stones out of the pockets before trying to drag him or her to the shore. Perhaps it would depend on the depth of the river.

If somebody filled his pockets with stones and jumped into the Water of Leith, it would be easy to save him, as the Water of Leith was a very shallow river and one would probably not sink very far, even with stones in one’s pockets. One would just sit in the mud until help arrived.

Bertie knew about the Water of Leith because Irene had taken him for a walk along the river one day, after yoga, and they had stopped to look at the Temple of St Bernard’s Well.

“That, Bertie,” said Irene, “is a Doric temple. Nasmyth designed it after the Temple of the Sybil in Tivoli.”

Bertie had looked at the stone columns and the statue of the woman within. “Who were the Sybils, Mummy?” he asked.

Irene smiled. “We’d call them pundits today,” she said. “They were prophetesses who were associated with particular shrines.

There was the Sybil of Delphi. She sat on a tripod over a sacred rock. Rather uncomfortable, I would have thought. And the Romans wanted their own Sybil – they were very envious of the Greeks, Bertie – so they appointed one at Tivoli. The Sybil of Tibur. They made pronouncements. On everything.”

Bertie listened carefully. So a Sybil was a woman who made pronouncements on everything. A disturbing thought occurred.

His mother was a Sybil!

It was yet another blow.

54. Political Truths

It was Olive who broke the silence in the classroom. Like Bertie, she had been staring at Tofu and had discerned, almost immediately, the look of determination that meant that he intended to play Captain von Trapp.

This conclusion required some quick thinking on her part. It would be intolerable for Tofu to be Captain von Trapp if, as she planned, she was going to play the part of Maria. She was confident about her acting ability, but it would surely test her talent to its absolute limit – and indeed beyond – if she had to pretend to be enchanted by Tofu. She could always close her eyes, of course, as actresses did in the films when they had to kiss somebody, but it would be difficult to act the entire play with her eyes closed. No, it would be impossible for her to be Maria and for Tofu to be Captain von Trapp in the same production.

It would be better, even, to have Hiawatha in the role; by a supreme effort of will she could probably ignore the problem of his socks. Yet it was unlikely that Hiawatha would be chosen, given the strange accent with which he spoke and which rendered him almost unintelligible, even to Miss Harmony. Nobody knew why Hiawatha spoke as he did – he was not foreign; he was not even from London, where they spoke in a very strange way. One of the other girls, Pansy, had suggested that it was something physical, and had put her fingers into his mouth to investigate it one morning while Miss Harmony was out of the room, but with inconclusive results.

Olive decided that the only possible strategy would be to claim the role of Maria before anybody else might ask for it.

This pre-emptive move might then deter Tofu from suggesting himself as Captain von Trapp, on the grounds that he would not wish to play opposite her. This result could not be guaran-teed, of course, but she felt that it was worth trying.

“I’ll be Maria,” she burst out. “Miss Harmony, is that all right, then? I know all the songs – you can test me.”

Every eye in the room turned to Olive. While Olive had been thinking about the means of obtaining the role, every other girl Political Truths 169

in the class had been thinking similar thoughts, but each was consumed by her own version of despair when Olive volunteered herself. It was typical of Olive, thought Pansy: push, push, push.

And Skye, who believed with utter conviction that she alone was qualified to play the role, felt a great surge of despair at the realisation that it might go to somebody else. For her part, Lakshmi, who was a quiet girl and rather given to defeatism, merely thought: Olive Oil, a soubriquet which she never openly uttered but which gave her great inner satisfaction and comfort.

Tofu, taken by surprise, was able only to glare at Olive, who returned his look with interest. She was now sure that her tactic had succeeded. Tofu would not dare to volunteer as Captain von Trapp while she was looking at him like this.

Miss Harmony, who believed in the innocence of children, pointedly ignored the undercurrents of ambition and hostility that flowed and eddied around the room. In her mind, Olive was not a suitable candidate for Maria because she had played a prominent role in the informal play they had performed in the classroom the previous week. She had also played a solo part in the class recorder consort’s benchmark performance of ‘Pease Pudding Hot’, and it was a principle of Steiner educational theory that every child should be given a chance. No, it was definitely not Olive’s turn.

“That’s very kind of you, Olive,” she said. “But we mustn’t allow you to do all the work, must we? Your poor shoulders would buckle under the strain, wouldn’t they? No, don’t shake your head like that, Olive – they really would!” She looked around the class. “Now then, Skye. You haven’t had a big part in any of the plays yet. Would you like to be Maria?”

Skye looked down at her desk. She had hardly dared hope, and yet it had happened. She began to cry.

Tofu turned to Bertie and smirked. “What a girlie!” he whispered.

Miss Harmony, who was comforting Skye, looked up sharply.

“Did we say something, Tofu?”

Tofu looked sullen.

“I said: did we say something, Tofu?” repeated Miss Harmony.

170 Political Truths

“I said ‘What a girl’, Miss Harmony.”

Miss Harmony smiled. “That’s kind of you, Tofu. And yes, it is good of Skye to accept the part of Maria. These big parts are a lot of work, as I’m sure you know.” She paused. “Now then, as you are all aware, boys and girls, the main part for a boy is Captain von Trapp. The Captain is a brave man, an Austrian patriot . . .”

“Me,” said Tofu, raising his hand in the air.

Miss Harmony drew a deep breath. She had expected this, of course, and was ready with her response.

“Now then, Tofu,” she began, “we’re old enough to understand that we can’t have all the things that we want in this life.

If that happened, then what would we have to look forward to?

So it’s best to accept that we can’t all be Captain von Trapp, much as we would like to be. And I’m sure that Captain von Trapp himself was very good at sharing. Yes, I’m sure he was.

That’s why they made him a captain. He knew when it was his turn and when it wasn’t. And it’s not your turn now, Tofu. So Captain von Trapp will be played by . . .”

There was complete silence.

“Bertie.”

Domenica Settles In 171

Bertie looked down at the floor. He did not dare look at Tofu, because he knew what expression would greet him if he did that.

He looked up at Miss Harmony. “I’m not sure . . .” he began.

“He’s not sure,” Tofu interjected. “Don’t force him, Miss Harmony. Please don’t force him.”

“Bertie’s a useless actor, Miss Harmony,” said Larch.

Tofu, aware now of the threat that Larch might claim the role, spun round and glared at the other boy.

“And you’re useless too, Larch,” he said. “You know that you can’t act for toffee.”

“Toffee yourself!” said Larch, and everybody laughed, except Tofu, who fumed. He wanted to hit Larch, but he understood that principle which everybody, but particularly politicians and statesmen understand very well: you only ever hit weaker people.

55. Domenica Settles In

The arrival of a stranger in a remote village is usually something of an event. When Domenica Macdonald, though, arrived in the small pirate village on the coast of the Straits of Malacca, such interest as was shown by the villagers was discreet. As the party made its way down the path leading to Domenica’s bungalow, a group of women standing under a tree looked in its direction, but only for a few moments. A couple of children, bare to the waist and dragging a small puppy on a string, drifted over to the side of the path to get a better view of the new arrivals. But that was all; nobody came to greet them, nobody appeared to challenge the arrival of the anthropologist with Ling, her guide and mentor, and the teenage boy recruited to carry her suitcase.

Ling led the way to Domenica’s house. The young man whom they had spotted from afar now stood at the top of the steps.

He was wearing a pair of loose-fitting linen trousers and a white open-necked shirt. His feet were bare, and Domenica’s eyes were drawn to his toes. They were perfect, she thought. Perfect toes; 172 Domenica Settles In

she had seen so many perfect toes in her times in the tropics –

toes unrestrained by shoes, allowed to grow as nature intended them.

The young man lowered his head, his hands held together in traditional greeting. “I am very happy,” he said.

Domenica returned his greeting.

Ling turned to Domenica. “He says he is happy,” he announced.

“So I heard,” said Domenica. “And I am happy too.”

These niceties over, Domenica went up the steps that led to the veranda. Behind her, Ling took the suitcase from the boy who had carried it from the village at the end of the track. The boy was sweating profusely; it had been a long walk and the suitcase was heavy. Ling rested the suitcase on a step and fished into his pocket for a few coins. These he tossed at the boy, who caught them in the palm of his hand, looked at them, and then stared imploringly at Ling.

Domenica watched this, uncertain as to whether she should interfere. It was obvious to her that Ling had underpaid the boy.

Of course, this is the East, she thought, and people work for very little, but it distressed her that she should be part of the process of exploitation. She looked at the boy; she had not paid much attention to his clothes, but now she saw them, as if for the first time. His shirt had been repaired several times, and his trousers were frayed about the pockets. He was obviously poor, and she, whose suitcase he carried, was by his standards, impossibly rich.

It would have been a simple matter for her to intervene. She had a pocketful of ringgits, and many more stashed away in her suitcase. It would have been easy for her to press a few notes into the boy’s hand to make up for Ling’s meanness, and she was on the point of doing this when she checked herself. One of the rules of anthropological fieldwork was: do not interfere.

A well-meaning interference in the community which one was studying could change relationships and distort results. The anthropologist should be invisible, as far as possible; an observer.

Of course, there were limits to this unobtrusiveness. One could Domenica Settles In 173

not stand by in the face of an egregious crime if one could do something to help; this, though, was hardly that. The real bar to her intervention lay in the fact that if she now gave money to the boy, Ling would lose face. Her act would imply that he had acted meanly (which he had) and reveal her as the one who was really in charge (which she was), and that could amount to an unforgivable loss of face.

Domenica looked at the boy. He was still staring at Ling and it seemed to her that he was on the brink of tears.

She turned to Ling. “Such a helpful boy,” she said. “And he has such a charming smile.”

Ling glanced at the boy. “He is just riff-raff,” he said. “The son of an assistant pirate.”

“But such appealing riff-raff,” persisted Domenica. “In fact, I really must photograph him – for my records.”

She had been carrying a small camera in her rucksack, and she now rummaged in the bag to retrieve it.

“I do not think you should photograph him,” said Ling, shooing the boy away with a gesture of his hand. “He must go away now.”

“But I must!” exclaimed Domenica. “I must have a complete record.”

Ignoring Ling, she moved towards the boy and led him gently away from the side of the veranda. At first he was perplexed, but when he realised what was happening his face broke into a grin and he stood co-operatively in front of a tree while Domenica took the photograph.

The picture taken, Domenica reached into her pocket and thrust a few banknotes into the boy’s hand.

“Why are you giving him money?” Ling called out. “I have paid him. Take the money back.”

“I’m not paying him for carrying the case,” Domenica said lightly, indicating to the now delighted boy that he should leave.

“That was for his photograph.” She glanced at Ling and smiled.

She felt pleased with herself. She had repaired the injustice without causing a loss of face to her guide. The natural order of things had not been disturbed, and the amount of happiness 174 By the Light of the Tilley Lamp in the world had been discreetly augmented. It was a solution of which Mr Jeremy Bentham himself could only have approved.

The young man who was to be Domenica’s house-servant now picked up her suitcase and walked into the house. He moved, Domenica noticed, with that fluidity of motion that Malaysians seemed to manage so effortlessly. We walk so clumsily, she thought; they glide.

She followed him into the living room of the house. It was cool inside, and dark. Such light as there was filtered through a window which was largely screened by a broad-leafed plant of some sort. She suddenly thought of the Belgian anthropologist.

Had he lived here? She looked about her. On one wall, secured by a couple of drawing pins, was a faded picture of le petit Julien, le Manneken Pis, symbol of everything that Brussels stood for, culturally and politically, or so the Belgians themselves claimed.

I detect, she thought, a Belgian hand.

56. By the Light of the Tilley Lamp There was no electricity in the village, of course, and when night descended – suddenly, as it does in the tropics – Domenica found herself fumbling with a small Tilley lamp which the house servant had set out on the kitchen table. It was a long time since she had used such a lamp, but the knack of adjusting it came back to her quickly – an old skill, deeply-ingrained, like riding a bicycle or doing an eightsome reel, the skills of childhood which never left one. As she pumped up the pressure and applied a match to the mantle, Domenica found herself wondering what scraps of the old knowledge would be known to the modern child. Would that curious little boy downstairs, Bertie, know how to operate an old-fashioned dial telephone? Or how to make a fire? Probably not. And there were people, and not just children, who did not know how to add or do long division, because they relied on calculators; all those people in shops who needed the till to tell them how much change to give because nobody By the Light of the Tilley Lamp 175

had ever taught them how to do calculations like that in school.

There were so many things that were just not being taught any more. Poetry, for example. Children were no longer made to learn poetry by heart. And so the deep rhythms of the language, its inner music, was lost to them, because they had never had it embedded in their minds. And geography had been abandoned too – the basic knowledge of how the world looked, simply never instilled; all in the name of educational theory and of the goal of teaching children how to think. But what, she wondered, was the point of teaching them how to think if they had nothing to think about? We were held together by our common culture, by our shared experience of literature and the arts, by scraps of song that we all knew, by bits of history half-remembered and half-understood but still making up what it was that we thought we were. If that was taken away, we were diminished, cut off from one another because we had nothing to share.

The light thrown out by the Tilley lamp was soft and forgiving, a light that did not fight with the darkness but nudged it aside gently, just for a few feet, and then allowed it back.

Looking out through her open door, she saw that here and there in the village other lights had been lit. In one of the houses a kitchen was illuminated and she could make out the figures within: a woman standing, holding a child on her hip; a man in the act of drinking something from a cup or beaker; the moving shadow of fan-blades. She had yet to adjust to where she was, and it seemed to her to be strange that the people she was looking at through the window were outlaws – contemporary pirates. How peculiar it was that ordinary life should take place in spite of this sense of being beyond the law. She would get used to that, of course; anthropologists in New Guinea came to accept even head-hunting after a while.

The house servant, who had gone off to his hut shortly before dusk fell, had left a meal for her in the kitchen: a bowl of noodles, a plate of stewed vegetables and a pot containing pieces of grilled chicken. Domenica was not particularly hungry; she always lost her appetite in the heat, but now she tackled the meal almost for want of anything else to do. It was, she found, tastier than 176 By the Light of the Tilley Lamp she had expected, and she ate virtually everything prepared for her. Then, sitting in an old planter’s chair, she read for two hours by the light of her Tilley lamp.

It was nine o’clock when she went to bed. Taking the lamp with her, she made her way through to her bedroom, the only other room in the small house. Above her bed, suspended from an exposed rafter, hung a voluminous mosquito net. It was a comfort for her, a luxury, the only means of ensuring a night untroubled by stinging insects.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, she blew out the lamp’s flame and slipped behind the net. The bed was narrow, but not uncomfortable, and it seemed to her that the sheets had been freshly laundered, for they were crisp and sweet-smelling. She wondered who had gone to all this trouble. It was unlikely that the pirates themselves – crude types, she suspected – would have bothered to ensure her comfort in this way, and if they had not done this, then it could only be Edward Hong who was behind it. In fact, the more she thought of it the clearer it became to her. In Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.), she had a protector, a man who cared for her welfare. It was a reassuring feeling, a feeling that can normally be expected to induce in many single women a warm feeling of contentment. And Domenica, for all that she was a distinguished anthropologist, was a woman; and what woman would not be pleased to know that there was a lithe young man immediately at hand, at her beck and call, while, in the background, there was a more mature and urbane M.A. (Cantab.) who had her interests at heart?

With these pleasant thoughts in her mind, Domenica began to feel drowsy. It had been an unusual and demanding day. The walk down the track to the village had been physically tiring, and the change of surroundings had also had an effect.

As she lay there in this state of agreeable tiredness, Domenica allowed her mind to wander over what lay ahead. Tomorrow, she would introduce herself, with Ling’s assistance, to the people of the village. She would introduce herself to the women first, as they would be the focus of her scientific inquiry, and then in due course she would meet the pirates themselves. For a moment she thought of pirates, and a few snatches of Gilbert and Sullivan A Nocturnal Visitation 177

came to her mind, faintly, as if from a distant, half-heard chorus: For he is a pirate king! Hurrah for the pirate king! And it is, it is a glorious thing, to be a pirate king . . . How absurd, thought Domenica sleepily; how completely inappropriate. It was not at all glorious; not at all.

57. A Nocturnal Visitation

Domenica was a sound sleeper, even if she had a tendency to awake somewhat early. In Scotland Street, in the summer, she would often find herself wide awake at five in the morning; it was, she felt, the finest part of the day, and she would often go out and walk round Drummond Place at that hour, enjoying the quiet of the morning. In Malaysia, where the day was divided into two roughly equal parts, it would still be dark at five and she imagined that if she woke up that early she would stay in bed for a while before getting up and starting the day. Once the sun rose, of course, it would be too hot to stay in bed anyway, and one might as well get up and begin by pouring a large jug full of tepid water over one’s face and shoulders. She looked forward to that; bathing oneself in a place without running water was an almost sacramental act, underlining the preciousness of that water that one takes so much for granted when it flows from a tap.

However, she did not wake up at five that morning, but closer to two. She did not confirm that it was two o’clock; it just felt like that, when she suddenly became conscious of her surroundings and of the shafts of moonlight which came through the small window above her bed. The moonlight, soft and diffuse, fell half upon the folds of the mosquito net and half upon the floorboards.

Beyond it, the room was filled with dark shadows; the shape of the roughly-finished chest of drawers in which she had stacked her clothes before retiring; the form of the table and the small pile of books that she had piled there on retrieving them from her suitcase; the low hillock of the chair near the door. But then, between the bed and the chest of drawers, just touched in part 178 A Nocturnal Visitation

by the moonlight, was the shape of a man, standing quite still.

The first thing that came to Domenica’s mind was a literary reference. She had read somewhere, some time ago, that one of the most disturbing experiences in this life was to wake up and discover that one is not alone in a house in which one had gone to bed believing oneself to be alone. Who had said that? Who?

It was John Fowles; yes, that was who it was; not in The Magus, but somewhere else. Or at least she thought it was him; and now the words, whatever their provenance, came back to her, and caught at her wildly palpitating heart.

She did not move. She lay there, her limbs heavy beneath the sheets, her eyelids the only part of her moving, and very slightly at that, as she watched the still figure at the end of her bed.

For a moment she wondered if she was imagining it, if this was just another shadow, a trick of the light; but it was not, and she knew that it was not. She thought: I can scream. I can wake people up. It’s a small village and they will all hear me. People would come; Ling, the young man, the family in the house next door, which was not far away. And if I scream and this man comes for me, I can throw myself off the bed; there is a mosquito net between him and me, and he will have to fumble with that, which will give me the time to escape. She wondered if the man could see that her eyes were open. Probably not, she thought, for her head was in the shadows and he would not be able to see her face. That made her feel better. And the fact, too, that he was just standing there made her fear subside slightly. He was looking at her, just looking, and there was no sign that he was planning to attack her. And again, unbidden, there came to her mind another literary reference; this time its source quite clear. Carson McCullers, she thought. Reflections in a Golden Eye. The private soldier, the slow one, watches the Major’s wife from outside her window; that is all he does, he watches her. And then he comes into the house and watches her there too. He is gentle, unthreatening, a watcher. Boo Radley, she thought; another gentle watcher; the man who watches Jem and Scout Finch; watches over them, really, and saves their lives eventually. I am being watched. That is all this man is doing. He is watching me.

Moving In, Moving Out 179

She felt calmer now, and for a moment almost as if she would laugh, with the release of tension. The figure in the shadows had ceased to be threatening; it was as if he had become a companion. That is what she now thought, and it was at that moment that he stepped forward; not a great step, but just a small movement in her direction. And as he did so, the moonlight fell on his face, and she saw who it was. It was not a man at all. It was the boy, the teenage boy who had carried her suitcase and whose photograph she had taken.

She caught her breath in surprise, a gasp that he heard, for he turned round quickly and ran out of the room.

“What do you want?” Domenica called out. “Why are you here?”

Her voice was not loud at all, and the boy probably did not hear it. Or her words might have been lost in the sound of the outer door slamming behind him.

She reached for the box of matches on the table beside her bed and struck one to light the lamp. In the glow of the lamp, the shadows resolved and became solid, unthreatening objects.

Domenica no longer felt alarmed, just curious. She had frightened the boy away, and in a strange way she was sorry about that.

If he had not fled, she would have let him remain there, perhaps, and he would have been company for her. She had no idea why he had been there; it was curiosity, perhaps, on his part; she did not think it was anything more sinister than that. Perhaps she was something of a miracle in his mind; a woman from somewhere distant, who had given him money. It had been a small thing for her to do, but it was probably not small for him.

58. Moving In, Moving Out

“Here we are,” said Matthew, as he fumbled for the key of his flat. “Home.” Pat said nothing. It was evidently home for Matthew, but was it home for her? She had accepted his offer of a room, of course, but this had been only because of his 180 Moving In, Moving Out

persistence and the suddenness of her need to leave Spottiswoode Street. Home for her was her parents’ house in the Grange, where her room was kept exactly as she had left it, as parents often will keep their child’s room, as a museum. Home was not here in India Street; Matthew, she felt, should not make un-warranted assumptions.

She had never been in Matthew’s flat before and she had not expected the spaciousness and grandeur which greeted her. The front door gave onto a large hall, perfectly square, topped by a sizeable cupola. There were flagstones on the floor and these were covered, in part, by dark oriental rugs. There were several paintings on the walls of this hall, one of which Pat recognised from the gallery – a gilt-framed but otherwise dreary view of the Falls of Clyde by a Victorian painter whom they had been unable to identify.

Matthew showed her to her room, which was at the back of the flat, next to the kitchen. It was considerably larger than the room she had occupied in Spottiswoode Street, and better provided with cupboards and drawers.

“I’ve always used this as a guest room,” said Matthew. “Or, rather, I would have used it as a guest room if I’d had any guests.”

He looked out of the window, as if searching for guests who had never arrived.

Pat glanced at him. There was something inexplicably sad about Matthew; a sense of life having passed him by. There were some people who had that aura of sadness, often inexplicably so, she thought, and Matthew was one of them. Or was it loneliness rather than sadness? If it was, then it could be relieved by company. There was no reason why Matthew could not find somebody. He was presentable enough, quite good-looking in fact when viewed from a certain angle, and even if he required some gingering up there were plenty of girls in Edinburgh who would be prepared to see Matthew as a project.

Matthew dragged Pat’s suitcase into her room and then left her to unpack. He would make coffee, he said, in half an hour, after she had sorted things out. He would then show her the kitchen and where things were.

Moving In, Moving Out 181

“You can use everything,” he said. “There’s never much food in there, but you can help yourself to what there is. Feel free.”

Pat thanked him, but thought that she would buy her own supplies. His insistence that she stay rent-free was difficult enough; to be fed by him too would have made her position impossible. I would be a kept woman, she thought; and smiled at the thought. It was a wonderful expression, she reflected; so exotic, so out-of-date, rather like the expression “a fallen woman”. She knew somebody who lived in a house in Edinburgh that used to be a home for fallen women; after their fall, the women went there to have their babies before the babies were then given up for adoption. One of the rooms in the house had been a lecture room, where the women were lectured on the avoidance of further falls, perhaps.

After she had unpacked, she went through to the kitchen, where she found Matthew seated at the scrubbed-pine table, a coffee pot and two mugs in front of him.

“Don’t you love the smell of freshly-brewed coffee?” he said brightly. “And the smell of the grounds before you make the coffee. That’s even better.” He sniffed at the air. “Lovely.”

Pat sat down. She had resolved to talk to Matthew and decided that it would be best to do so now, right at the beginning. It would be easier that way.

“Matthew,” she began. “I’m really grateful to you for letting me stay here. You know that, don’t you?” He made a gesture with his hand, as if brushing aside, in embarrassment, an unwanted compliment. “I’m happy to be able to help,” he said.

“And I really don’t mind. That room is never used.”

The guests who never came, thought Pat; he was lonely – it was so obvious. She almost stopped herself there, but continued.

She had to.

“Well, it’s kind of you,” said Pat.

“Don’t think about it,” said Matthew. “You’d do the same for me. I know you would.”

Pat was silent. Would she? Perhaps.

“And it’s not going to be for long,” she went on. “No more than a couple of weeks. Until I find somewhere else.”

182 Moving In, Moving Out

Matthew was staring at the coffee pot. He reached out and picked it up, as if to start pouring, but then put it down. He reached for one of the mugs and peered inside it.

“Only a few weeks?”

She could tell that he was making an effort to keep his voice level, to hide his disappointment. But she had to go through with this; it would be far more difficult to say anything later on, when misunderstandings had already occurred.

“You see,” she said, “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to share just with one person, particularly with a . . .” she hesitated for a moment before continuing, “with a man.”

Matthew continued to stare into the mug. Then he looked up. “I hoped that you’d stay a bit longer than that,” he said. “It gets very . . . very quiet around here. I just hoped . . .” He bit at his lip. “I would never make it awkward for you. Why would you think that? Why would you think I’d make it awkward for you?”

Pat reached out and took his hand. “Because it would be awkward,” she said. “Because you’re a man and I’m a girl, and

. . . you know.”

Matthew sighed. “But you don’t fancy me. I know that.

Nothing could ever happen, because you don’t fancy me.

Nobody does.”

There was no self pity in his voice; he merely spoke with the air of one stating a fact.

“That isn’t true,” said Pat vehemently. “A lot of people fancy you.”

“Name one,” said Matthew flatly. “Name just one.”

Pat did not have the time to answer the question, which she could not have answered anyway. But at that moment, with the question still hanging in the air, the doorbell rang and the conversation came to an end.

59. A Person from Porlock

The arrival of an unexpected visitor has ruined many an important conversation and at least one great poem. When Coleridge started to describe his vision of Kubla Khan’s Xanadu, he had, we are told, the words in mind to describe what he saw. But then came the person from Porlock, who by chance knocked at the door at precisely the moment that the poet was committing his vision to paper, and it was lost. Thus began Porlock’s long career as a symbol of that which interrupts the flow.

Pat might have been able to reassure Matthew that he was appreciated, had she had the chance to do so. But she was not to have that chance. As Matthew rose to his feet to answer the door, he gave her a look which said, very clearly, that what he said was irrefutable, and that she should not even bother to dispute it. Pat made a gesture of hopelessness, the meaning of which was similarly clear: if that’s your view of yourself, then nothing will persuade you otherwise, will it?

While Matthew was answering the door, Pat poured herself a cup of coffee. She felt unhappy about the disappointment that she had caused Matthew; she liked him – she liked him a great deal, in fact, as he had always been kind to her. But there was no mistaking the difference between the affection she felt for Matthew – a rather sister-like affection – and the feelings which Wolf had aroused in her. She could hardly bear to think about Wolf now, but she had to admit that what she had previously felt for him was far from sisterly. The thought of that disturbed her, and she found herself wondering whether she was the sort of woman who was invariably attracted to the wrong sort of man. She had seen that behaviour in others, the stubborn refusal to acknowledge the worthlessness of some man. And it was always the same men who benefited from that; handsome, charming men who knew how to exploit women; men like . . .

like Bruce and Wolf.

The solution to that problem was obvious: pick a man who was not handsome and not, on the face of it, charming; some-184 A Person from Porlock

body like Matthew, somebody quiet and decent. But could she ever be attracted to somebody quiet and decent? And what, she wondered, had quiet and decent men to offer? They made good husbands, perhaps; they would wash the car and help with the children, but that was hardly what Pat, at her age, was interested in. She wanted romance, excitement, the sense of being swept away by something, and Matthew, for all his merits, would never be able to give her that. Matthew would never be able to sweep anybody away; it was impossible.

There was the sound of voices in the hall – Matthew was speaking to somebody, and now he walked into the kitchen with a young woman behind him.

“This is Leonie,” said Matthew. “Leonie, this is Pat.”

There was a moment of silence as the two young women looked at one another. Pat noticed Leonie’s hair first of all, which was cut short, in an almost masculine style, and her black jeans, low on the hips. She’s the type to have a tattoo, she thought, somewhere; somewhere hidden. And what is she to Matthew?

Is she . . . ?

For her part, Leonie merely thought: interesting.

“Leonie’s an architect,” said Matthew as he pulled out a chair for the guest. “We met . . .”

“In the Cumberland Bar,” supplied Leonie. “A few weeks ago, wasn’t it, Matthew?”

Matthew nodded, and busied himself with pouring coffee.

“An architect,” said Pat.

“Yes,” said Leonie. She turned to Matthew. “I’ve done a few sketches for you, Matthew. Remember? You said that you might do something with this place?”

Matthew frowned. “Yes, well, I hadn’t really decided. Not definitely.”

“They’re just sketches,” said Leonie. “And I’ve made a card model. It gives you an idea of how things might feel.”

Matthew looked at Pat. It was, she thought, a mute plea for help. “Is there anything wrong with this flat?” she said. “It seems pretty nice to me.”

Leonie, who had addressed her remarks to Matthew, now A Person from Porlock 185

turned to Pat. “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it,” she said.

“But we can make much more of things, you know. Just about anywhere can be improved if you take a hard look at it. Made more user-friendly, if you see what I mean.”

“But this isn’t meant to be user-friendly,” said Pat, gesturing towards the hall. “This is Georgian. This is what it’s meant to be like.”

Leonie smiled. “We don’t have to live in museums,” she said.

“That’s the trouble with this town. It’s a museum.”

“Maybe you could show me the sketches,” Matthew interrupted. “Then we could see.”

Leonie reached into the large black folder that she had brought with her. “Right,” she said. “Here we are.” She took out a large piece of paper and unfolded it. “Here’s something.”

They stared at the neatly-traced sketch, drawn on draughtsman’s paper.

“Here’s the hall,” said Leonie, pointing to the sketch. “That’s the welcoming space. At the moment, you come in and what do you see? Nothing. The hall leads nowhere.”

“But is a hall meant to lead somewhere?” asked Matthew.

“Well, what else should it do?” asked Leonie. “You don’t live in it, do you? Unused space.” She tapped the paper. “You’ll see that I suggest that we take down this wall here, which allows the hall to flow into this room here, to absorb it. You get a much better sense of being drawn into the living space, you see. The spaces will talk to one another.”

Pat stared at the sketch. It was a short while before she established the orientation of the plan, but once she had done that she realised that the room which was being absorbed into the hall was her own. “My room,” she said quietly.

“What was that?” asked Leonie.

“I said, my room,” Pat replied.

Leonie looked to Matthew for an explanation.

“Pat’s staying with me,” he explained. “For the time being.”

Leonie took her hands away from the plans. “I see.” She looked at Pat in a curious way. There was something about her look which made the younger girl feel unsettled. It was not an 186 An Invitation to Dinner

unfriendly look, but it was not uncomplicated. The best word to describe it, she thought, was bemused.

“These are just ideas,” said Leonie after a few moments.

60. An Invitation to Dinner

Feeling uncomfortable sitting in the kitchen with Matthew and Leonie, Pat retreated to her room with the excuse that she had more unpacking to do. Leonie smiled at her as she left, but it was a puzzling smile, and she found it hard to interpret.

“So,” said Leonie after Pat had left. “So, Matthew, who’s our young friend?”

Matthew blushed. “She works for me,” he muttered. “In the gallery.”

Leonie raised an eyebrow. “And the room goes with the job?”

Matthew did not reply immediately. He had not expected Leonie’s visit and now he found himself resenting her arriving without warning. He had met her only once before, on that occasion when he had invited her back to India Street for a pizza. They had got on reasonably well on that occasion and had made a vague agreement to meet again. Telephone numbers had been exchanged, but he had not called her, and she had not called him. He had toyed with the idea of doing so once or twice, but had decided against it. He was just not sure that he liked her. Perhaps he did; perhaps not.

They had talked on that occasion about possible renovations to his flat, but he had not encouraged her in any way. And now here she was, with a set of unasked-for drawings, expounding about rooms talking to one another and fluid spaces. What business was it of hers who stayed in his flat? What precisely was she suggesting anyway? That he was taking advantage of a vulnerable young employee? It was all a bit too much.

“She had a bit of trouble in her last flat,” he said evenly. “I’m helping her out.”

Leonie took a sip of her coffee. Matthew noticed that she An Invitation to Dinner 187

was looking at him over the rim of her mug. Her expression, he thought, was one of scepticism.

She lowered her mug. “Nice for you,” she said. “Very nice.”

Matthew looked away with mounting irritation. “Look,” he said. “I’m not sure that I’m all that keen on doing any structural alterations to this place. I didn’t think that you were serious back then.”

Leonie sighed. “They’re just some ideas I had,” she said.

“Nothing more than that. I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything.”

“No,” said Matthew. “Well, thanks anyway. Thanks for going to the trouble.”

Leonie folded up the plan and slipped it into her case. Her manner was cool. “That’s fine,” she said. “I enjoyed doing it.

You get a bit bored designing extensions for boring little houses in the suburbs. It’s nice to imagine doing something more challenging.”

She had abandoned her plan so readily that Matthew felt slightly sorry for her. Australians were direct speakers, and perhaps she had not meant to sound snide when she referred to Pat’s presence. Perhaps there would be the possibility of a friendship here – nothing more than that, of course, at this stage.

“Have you been back to the Cumberland Bar?” he asked politely.

Leonie shook her head. “No. I had a long weekend in London and then a friend from Melbourne dropped by. She stayed for a week. You know how it is when you have friends staying. Busy.”

“Yes, of course.” Matthew hesitated. Leonie’s visit had made him forget his disappointment over Pat’s rebuff – for that is how he thought of it – and now the thought of asking Leonie out to dinner seemed attractive. It would make up, too, for any disappointment she might feel over the rejection of her drawings.

“I’m sorry about the plans,” he said. “You must have spent a lot of time doing those. And then I . . .”

“Don’t think about it,” said Leonie reassuringly. “If you knew how many times drawings of mine have been torn up, you 188 An Invitation to Dinner

wouldn’t think about it for a moment. It happens. Architects are used to it.”

“Well, at least let me take you out to dinner,” said Matthew.

“As a thank-you.”

Leonie laughed. “I thought you were never going to ask,” she said. “Yes. Dinner would be nice.”

Matthew rubbed his hands together. “I’ll book a table for two somewhere,” he said.

“Make it three,” said Leonie. “Would you mind very much?”

“Three?” Matthew wondered whether she thought that Pat would be included, but why should she imagine that? Surely he had made it clear enough that although he and Pat were living together, that was all they were doing together.