The World According to Bertie

she said.

“Sorry?”

“For your phone calls,” she said. “Sometimes when one stays somewhere one leaves money for one’s share of the phone bill.

That sometimes happens.”

Bruce blushed. This woman was the end. She was le fin, he thought.

“I haven’t kept a note,” he said. “Sorry. Maybe I should have noted down the length of the calls. You know, something like: Edinburgh to Glasgow, two minutes ten seconds. That sort of thing.” His lip curled as he spoke; she would hardly understand sarcasm, he thought; such people rarely do.

“Yes,” she said. “Maybe you should have.”

Bruce looked down at his suitcase. “You’ve got a problem, Caroline,” he said. “You’ve got a big problem. Maybe with phones, but also with men, I’d say, and I’m sorry about that, because there are lots of men about, you know.”

Caroline’s reply came quickly. “Not with all men,” she said.

“Just some.”

Bruce shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. He picked up his suitcase; there was no point in prolonging this. “You’ve been very kind,” he said. “Thanks for everything.”

Caroline did not move from the doorway. “My conditioner,”

she said, between clenched teeth. “Put it back in the shower!

You’ve moved it again, and I told you, I told you. I want it in He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him 191

the shower, on that little shelf. That’s where it lives. That conditioner lives there.”

57. He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him

“It’s amazing how petty some people are,” said Bruce. “They get really, really upset about tiny things. You know, really tiny things.” Julia Donald looked at him adoringly. “Such as?” she asked.

Bruce leaned back in his chair. “Well, Caroline was one of these OCD-types – you know, obsessive-compulsive disorder. She used to line the conditioner bottles up in the shower just like this, plonk plonk plonk, and she would go absolutely mental if you touched any of them. And of course you have to have a bit of room to move in a shower . . .” At this, he winked at Julia.

“Ideally, showers should have enough room for two. Saves energy.”

Julia giggled. “And it’s somehow more . . . more friendly.”

“Precisely,” said Bruce, glancing for a finely timed moment in the direction of the bathroom, which lay behind him in Julia’s flat. “Anyway, Caroline would go through the roof if any of her stupid conditioner bottles was moved. Ballistic. Stupid woman.”

“You’d think that she’d have better things to do,” said Julia.

“I can’t bear obsessively tidy people.”

Bruce glanced around her sitting room – their sitting room now. In the New Town, of course, he knew it would be called a drawing room, depending on how one defined oneself. As a surveyor, he had prided himself on being able to tell exactly when a living room would be described as such, or as a lounge (never), or when it would be a drawing room. It was not always easy, but there were many clues. A drawing room was genteel, and there were many drawing rooms in Edinburgh; this, he was sure, was one.

“It’s so comfortable,” he said, smiling at Julia. “It’s so comfortable, sitting here in the . . . in the . . .”

192 He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him

“Drawing room,” she supplied.

Well, thought Bruce, that settles that. There were few surprises in life if one had fine social antennae, which, he thought, I have.

He looked at Julia. She was very attractive – in a slightly outdoorsy way, and by that he did not mean rustic, or agricultural, but more . . . well, grouse-moorish. There was a breed of women who frequented grouse moors, standing around outside Land Rovers while their husbands and boyfriends peppered birds with lead-shot, an activity which, in an atavistic, tribal way appeared to give them pleasure. Some of these women themselves actually shot – ladies who shoot their lunch, as Country Life had so wittily put it. These women wore green down-filled jackets and green Wellingtons and liked dogs – although they only seemed to have one breed of dog, which was a Labrador.

They liked Labradors and Aga cookers, thought Bruce, and smiled at the thought. That was Julia.

And Julia, looking at Bruce, thought: he is so gorgeous, so hunkalato. It’s his shape, really – the whole shape of him. And that cleft in his chin. Do men have plastic surgery to put clefts in? Why not? Silly thought. I can just see him standing in his dressing gown in front of the Aga, cup of coffee in his hand, hair still wet from the shower, and mine, all mine! But who’s going to make the first move? He will, of course. Or he’d better.

He won’t wait long.

And what if he says to me: are you, you know . . . What should I say? No, it’s not wrong, not really. If I don’t get him, then some girl is going to get her claws into him and he may not be as happy with her as he is with me. I’ll make him happy – of course I will. He’ll be really happy with me, and the baby. Baby!

A real little baby! Mine. Mr and Mrs Bruce Anderson. Or, rather, Bruce and Julia Anderson. And little Rory Anderson? Charlotte Anderson? And we can still have lots of fun because we’ll get somebody to help. A Swedish girl, maybe. No. Not a Swede.

They’re pretty and we want somebody homely. So it’ll have to be a girl from . . . (and here she mentally named a town in Scotland, known for its homely girls).

He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him 193

Bruce stretched out his arms. “Yes, it’s really great being here, Julia. Thanks a lot.” He glanced at his watch. “I thought that I might have a shower, and then how about I cook some pasta?”

“Great,” said Julia. “Fab idea.”

Bruce rose to his feet. “Where’s the shower?” he asked.

Julia gestured to the corridor. “Along there.” She paused. “It’s a bit temperamental,” she said. “I need to get the plumber to come and take a look at it. But there’s a trick to working it. You have to turn the lever all the way to the right and then a little bit to the left. I can show you how to do it.”

Bruce smiled. “But won’t you get wet? Unless . . .”

She smiled encouragingly. “Unless what, Brucie?”

“Unless . . .”

She rose to her feet, kicking off her shoes as she did so. “You go,” she said. “I’ll just be a sec.”

Bruce went through to his bedroom and stood for a moment in front of his window. Julia was all right, he supposed, but it was clear to him that she would keep him occupied. There were some women who were simply high maintenance, in his terms, and she, he imagined, was one of them. That could be managed, he thought, but it could become difficult if they started to cling.

That was the point at which one had to make it clear to them that men were not there to be used, and that they should not be tied down too much. And that, thought Bruce, was the problem.

Women get hold of a man and then they think they own him.

That would not happen to him, and if Julia had ideas along those lines, then she would have to be disabused of them. He was happy to keep Julia happy, but he was not going to be tied down. That would have to be made quite clear – a little bit later.

He gazed out of the window, which overlooked Howe Street, a street that sloped down sharply to sweep round into the elegant crescents of Royal Circus. It was one of Bruce’s favourite streets in that part of Edinburgh, and he felt a wave of contentment come over him. Here I am, he thought, exactly where I want to be. I have a place to live. I have a woman who is wild keen on me. I have no rent to pay and probably no electricity bills, 194 Patriotism and the Jacobite Connection etc., etc. And I even have a job, financed by Julia, bless her.

Perfection.

He moved away from the window. In the background, down the corridor, he could hear the shower being run. Duty calls, he said to himself.

58. Patriotism and the Jacobite Connection While Bruce was entertaining Julia in her flat in Howe Street, Big Lou was busy with one of her periodic cleanings of the coffeehouse in Dundas Street. It was a Saturday, and Saturdays were always quieter than weekdays, with many of the usual customers – office people – at home in places such as Barnton or Corstorphine, contemplating their gardens or their dirty cars and resolving to do something about both of them, but perhaps tomorrow rather than today. Dundas Street itself was reasonably busy, but for some reason many of the people in the street had things other than coffee on their minds, and this left Big Lou the time to do her cleaning.

Big Lou came from a background of cleanliness. The east coast of Scotland may at times be a cold, even a harsh place to live, but it was a well-scrubbed and self-respecting part of the world. In Arbroath, where Big Lou hailed from, kitchens were almost always spotless, and even the most modest of houses would make some attempt at a formal front room. You just did not leave things lying about, just as you did not waste things, nor spend money profligately. There was an idea of order there, forged in a tradition of stewardship and careful use of what resources the land, and the sea, provided. And what, thought Big Lou, is wrong with that? If the rest of Scotland followed the rules of places such as Arbroath or Carnoustie, then life would be better for all, of that Big Lou was quite convinced.

That Saturday, as Big Lou polished the inner windowsills of the coffeehouse, she saw her new boyfriend, Robbie Cromach, Patriotism and the Jacobite Connection 195

descending the steps that led down from the street. Big Lou straightened up and tucked her duster into her pocket. She liked to look her best for Robbie, who was something of a natty dresser himself, and here she was in her working clothes, hair all over the place, and no lipstick to speak of.

“Noo den,” said Robbie, as he came in the door. “What’s up with you, Lou?”

It was rather a strange greeting, but it was one which he used whenever he saw her, and she had become used to it. “Noo den,”

she understood, was Shetlandic for now then; Robbie’s mother was from Shetland, and he liked to use the occasional bit of dialect. But noo den? Big Lou had been told that one might say, in reply: “Aye, aye boy, foo is du?” but she had decided that this sounded too like “you’re fu’,” which was, of course, an accusation of drunkenness.

“Nothing much, Robbie,” said Big Lou. “Just cleaning up.”

Robbie crossed the room and gave Big Lou a kiss on the cheek. He looked at his watch. “I’ve arranged with some of the lads to meet here,” he said. “Can you do us a few cups of coffee?”

“Of course.” Big Lou paused. “The lads? The usual . . .”

Robbie nodded. “Aye. Michael, Jimmy, Heather. That’s all.

Maybe Willie will turn up, but I don’t think so.”

Big Lou moved to her counter, took four cups off the shelf, and lined them up in a row. She looked at Robbie. She did not like these friends of his – she had tried – but there was something about them that she just did not take to. Michael, she supposed, was not too bad, but that Heather woman – Heather McDowall – she was, well, away with the fairies if you asked Lou, and Jimmy, she thought, was just rather pathetic, a train-spotting type who seemed to have latched onto Michael and who followed him round as if waiting for some priceless pearl of wisdom to fall from the older man’s lips.

Robbie, of course, was a different matter. He was immensely attractive in Big Lou’s eyes, and in the eyes of others too – Big Lou knew that. Women can tell when the heads of other women are turned; they see it – the heads turn, ever so slightly, but they turn, as an attractive man walks by. And he was good company,

196 Patriotism and the Jacobite Connection and gentle, which was something that Big Lou admired in a man, but had seen so rarely.

“This is a meeting?” asked Big Lou. “Or purely social?”

Robbie, leaning against the counter, looked about him quickly, as if searching for those who might overhear. “I wanted to have a word with you about that, Lou,” he said. “You know how I feel about . . . about historical matters.”

Lou nodded. “You’ve told me, Robbie,” she said. “You’re a Scottish patriot. That’s fine by me. I’m not really political myself, you know. But it’s fine by me that you should be.”

Robbie appeared pleased with this. “Good,” he said. “But there’s a particular angle here, Lou. Some of us feel very strongly about the monarchy.”

“I know that, Robbie,” Big Lou said. “And I support the monarchy too. Look at the Queen, at all the hard work she does. And Prince Charles too – not that many people give him credit for it. They’re always sniping at him and in the meantime he’s dashing around doing these things for other people.”

“Yes, yes,” said Robbie, a note of impatience in his voice. “I’m not denying any of that. They do a fine job. But there’s still a problem, Lou. We had our own line of kings in Scotland, you know, and they took the throne away from us and gave it to the Germans. The Germans! To a line of wee German lairdies! Did they ask us? Did they ask the permission of our parliament?”

Robbie was now becoming flushed. “They did not ask us, Lou!

A Visitor from Belgium Is Expected 197

They did not. And we don’t accept it.” He shook his head. “We just won’t accept it, Lou!”

Big Lou stood there. She said nothing.

“So,” said Robbie. “There are some of us who will not let this pass. Not while we have breath in our bodies.”

He looked at Big Lou, waiting for a response.

“I’m not sure,” she began. What else could she say? she wondered. Big Lou remembered something that an aunt of hers had once said: “A man needs a hobby, Lou – remember that and you can’t go far wrong. Always let your man have a hobby and he won’t stray.”

“I suppose it’s all right with me, Robbie,” she said.

Robbie relaxed. “Well, that’s good, Lou. I’m pleased that we can count you in on this.”

On what? thought Big Lou.

Robbie provided the answer. “We’re Jacobites, you see, Lou.

And we like to talk about the cause. And we like to remind people from time to time who is the real king of Scotland.”

“Oh,” said Big Lou. “Where does he live, this real king?”

“Germany,” replied Robbie.

59. A Visitor from Belgium Is Expected Only a few minutes elapsed between Big Lou’s conversation with Robbie about the Jacobite cause and the arrival in her coffeehouse of the Jacobites in person. Big Lou, her back turned to the door, did not see them come in, and turned round to find Michael, Jimmy, and Heather, now seated at a table with Robbie.

They sneaked in, she thought, behind my back, furtively.

She made coffee and took it over on a tray. Michael looked up and smiled at her. “Thank you, Lou,” he said. “Won’t you join us?”

Big Lou looked at Robbie, who nodded his encouragement.

“Why not, Lou?”

198 A Visitor from Belgium Is Expected Big Lou sat down. Jimmy was on one side of her, Heather McDowall on the other.

“I love your coffee,” said Heather. “Mmm. Smell that, folks.

Gorgeous.”

“It’s just coffee,” said Big Lou. “That’s all.”

“But it’s the way you make it,” enthused Heather. “That’s where the skill lies. Oh yes.”

Big Lou said nothing. She did not like this woman, with her gushing ways, and as for Jimmy, sitting there, his eyes fixed on Michael, he’s like an adoring dog, thought Big Lou; it’s unhealthy.

Michael cleared his throat. “Is Lou . . . ?” he began tentatively. “Is Lou . . . on board?”

Robbie glanced at Lou. “You’re a sympathiser, aren’t you, Lou?” he asked. There was an eagerness in his tone which made Big Lou realise that it was important to him that she should agree with him on this issue. That was a problem, she thought, but it was a problem that many women had, and husbands too, come to think of it. Could one be out of political sympathy with one’s spouse? There were probably plenty of couples who voted different ways in the privacy of the polling booth, but that probably only applied when the spouses concerned were not particularly political. It was rare – if not almost unheard of – for the wives or husbands of active politicians to take a different political view from that of their spouses. It was implicit, thought Big Lou, that the wife of the prime minister did not support the Opposition, although there were cases – and she had heard of one or two – where the wives or husbands of ministers of religion were less than enthusiastic about religion. But she was in no doubt of the fact that Robbie wanted her support, and she was similarly in no doubt that she wanted Robbie.

“Well,” began Big Lou, “I see nothing wrong in taking an interest in . . . in historical matters. If it makes you happy. After all . . .” She was on the point of saying it makes absolutely no difference, but decided not to, even if it was perfectly obvious that nothing that these people believed in relation to the succession to the crown would have the slightest impact on anything.

A Visitor from Belgium Is Expected 199

“That’s fine, then,” said Michael. “Welcome to the movement, Lou.”

Lou inclined her head graciously. “Thank you.” She was not sure if she was expected to say anything more than that, but it became apparent that she was not, as Michael immediately moved the conversation on.

“Now, friends,” he said. “Heather has some very interesting news to report.” He turned to Heather, who was sitting back in her chair, arms folded in the satisfied manner of one who is harbouring information that others do not have.

“Extremely interesting,” Heather said. “News from Belgium.”

Big Lou watched her, repelled, yet fascinated, by the air of triumph. There’s something wrong with this woman, she thought.

Heather lowered her voice. “Our visitor,” she said, “has confirmed that he is coming. He will arrive. It’s confirmed.”

For a few moments, there was complete silence. Jimmy was staring at Michael, waiting for his response; Robbie had clasped his hands together and glanced at Big Lou, as if to gauge her reaction; Michael had reached out across the table to grip Heather’s forearm.

When Michael spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“When?” he asked.

Heather leaned forward. “Just over three weeks from now,”

she whispered. “Three weeks on Friday.”

Again, a silence descended. The Jacobites looked at one another, to all intents and purposes, thought Big Lou, like children who had just heard of an impending treat. They were to receive a visitor from Belgium; obviously somebody of importance in their movement, a historian perhaps or . . . No, that was highly unlikely; in fact it was absurd.

“Who exactly . . . ?” Big Lou began to ask.

Michael interrupted her, raising a finger in the air in warning. “One minute,” he said. “Before further details are revealed, I must ask you, Lou, to give your word that this conversation will be kept confidential. It’s absolutely impera-tive that . . .”

200 A Visitor from Belgium Is Expected Robbie now interrupted Michael. “You will, won’t you, Lou?

You won’t speak about this, will you?”

Big Lou shrugged. “I don’t like secrets very much,” she said.

“But then I don’t talk about things it’s no business of mine to talk about.”

“That’s fine, then,” said Robbie, turning to Michael. “Lou’s fine on that.”

Michael looked doubtful for a moment, but Robbie held his gaze and eventually he nodded. “All right, this is it. We’re receiving a visit from a member of the Stuart family. He’s coming to Scotland. A direct descendant of Charles Edward Stuart, or Bonnie Prince Charlie as you may know him, Lou.”

Jimmy, who had been hanging on Michael’s every word, now turned and looked at Big Lou. She noticed, as he did so, a trace of milk from his cappuccino making a thin line around his weak, immature mouth. “See,” he said. “Just like Charlie himself. A Young Pretender.”

Big Lou stared at him. “Really?” she said. “Coming to Scotland to claim his kingdom?”

“Well, not exactly,” said Michael, glancing discouragingly at Jimmy. “What Jimmy means is that there are parallels. As you know, Charles Edward Stuart came to incite an uprising against the usurpers. Conditions are different today. This is more of a consciousness-raising exercise. This member of the Stuart family is not exactly acting on behalf of His Majesty King Francis, whom we recognise as the rightful king, even if he’s never made that claim himself and doesn’t use that title.

His Majesty keeps himself out of all of this. He’s very digni-fied. This young man’s a descendant of Charles through a subsidiary line. He’s coming for a few weeks to assist us in our endeavours.”

“So this is not the Forty-Five all over again?” asked Big Lou.

Michael laughed, waving a hand in the air. “Hardly! No, this is more of a courtesy call by a member of the family to those in this country who have kept alive the claims of the Stuarts.

That’s all.”

Does Scotland Need All This Nonsense? 201

“Yes,” said Jimmy, slightly aggressively. “That’s all. We’re not bampots, you know.”

Big Lou looked at him. “Have you finished with that coffee cup?” she asked.

60. Does Scotland Need All This Nonsense?

Robbie stayed with Big Lou for half an hour or so after the rest of the Jacobites had left. She had hoped that he would stay for longer, that he would keep her company while she continued with her cleaning, but he had seemed nervous, as if he was uneasy about something, and had kept looking at his watch.

“You’re awful fiddly,” she said at one point. “Looking at your watch like that. Is there something . . . ?”

Robbie cut her short. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

Big Lou shook her head. “Well, it’s nothing that’s worrying you then,” she said. “And what is this nothing?”

“I said . . .”

Big Lou sighed. “Robbie. I’m no wet aboot the ears. It’s those folks, isn’t it? Your friends.”

Robbie was defensive. “What about them? Have you got a problem with them, Lou?”

Big Lou hesitated. The truthful answer was that she did have a problem with them – with all of them, but most of all with Heather McDowall and Michael’s acolyte, Jimmy. But Lou was tactful, and melancholy experience had taught her that men sometimes did not respond well to direct criticism, particularly the sort of men with whom she found herself ending up.

“Don’t get me wrong, Robbie,” she began. “I’m not the sort of person who likes to find fault. I’m sure that there are lots of things about your friends that are very good, very positive.” She tried to think of these qualities, but they seemed to elude her for the moment.

202 Does Scotland Need All This Nonsense?

“But?” asked Robbie. “There’s a but, isn’t there?”

“Well,” said Big Lou, “there is a small but. Just a small one.

This Jacobite business. This character who’s coming over. Isn’t that a bit . . . ?”

“A bit what?”

She took a breath. What she wanted to say was that it was bizarre – ridiculous, even, that people should want to open such obviously finished business. But then she realised that there were many people who were interested in precisely that – old business. People lived in the past, fought old quarrels, clung to the horrors of decades . . . centuries ago. But the futility of this had always struck Big Lou forcibly. There were plenty of old quarrels that she could keep alive if she wished, nursing her wrath to keep it warm – like Tam O’Shanter’s wife – but she found she had no desire to do this, nor the energy.

“Well,” she began, “I think it’s a good idea to let go. Scotland used to have Stuarts – now it doesn’t. And the Hanoverians used to be Germans, now they aren’t. They’re British. So what’s the point of looking for some ridiculous Pretender? Haven’t your friends got anything better to do?”

Robbie shook his head in dismay. “You’re talking about people who are prepared to do anything for Scotland,” he said. “To die, even.”

Big Lou dropped her dusting cloth. “To die? Are you serious, Robbie?”

Robbie looked straight back at her. “Aye, Lou. Dead serious.”

She laughed. “That wee boy, Jimmy. He’s drinking all this in from Michael, with his posh voice and his fancy clothes. Die for the cause? Does Scotland need all this nonsense, or does it need something done about its real problems? About teenage binge drinking? About all those folk who get by on next to nothing?

About that sort of thing?”

Robbie reached out to touch Big Lou on the arm, but she withdrew. “Answer my question, Robbie Cromach,” she snapped.

Lou’s man looked at his hands. The hands of a plasterer, they Does Scotland Need All This Nonsense? 203

were cracked from exposure to lime and grit. “All right,” he said. “I’ll answer you, Lou.” He looked up at her, and she saw the features that had attracted her so much, the high cheek-bones, the boyish vulnerability.

“I know that there’s a lot wrong with this country of ours,”

he said. “I know fine that there are folk who can’t earn a decent wage, no matter how hard they work. I know that there’s a very rich company in this city, for instance, that pays its cleaners a pittance while it rakes in the profits big-time. Shame on them.

Shame on them. I know that there are places where the kids are all fuelled up on Buckie and pills and where the fathers are not there or are drunk or otherwise out of it. I know that we’ve got a wee parliament that makes lots and lots of grand-sounding bodies and is full of high heid-yins and tsars. I know all that, Lou. But all of this goes back, you see. It goes back to things not being right with ourselves. And until we get that right –

until we take back what was taken away from us right back there when they took our kings away from us, then the rest is going to be wrong. That’s what I believe, Lou. God’s truth – that’s what I believe.”

Robbie stopped. He looked at Big Lou almost imploringly, as if he was willing her to see the situation as he saw it.

“I understand all that, Robbie,” she said quietly. “It’s just that I think that sounding off about something as old as that is not very helpful. It was all very romantic – I give you that – when Charlie landed and when it looked like he was going to get his kingdom back. But for what? What sort of rulers had those people been? And anyway, it makes no difference, surely. It’s old, old business, Robbie. Surely you can see that?”

Big Lou waited for Robbie’s response. It was slow, but at last he said something: “No. I don’t see that, Lou. Sorry, I don’t.”

Big Lou sighed. Why was it her lot in life, she wondered, to find men who had something odd about them? Every time, every single time, she had been involved with a man, there had been something strange about him. There had been that man in Aberdeen who had been obsessed with billiards and who had 204 “Middle-Class” Used as a Term of Abuse spent all his spare time watching replays of classic games; that had been very trying. Then there had been Eddie, with his thing about teenage girls; that had been intolerable. And now here was Robbie, who was, of all things, a Jacobite! She had to smile, she really had to. Teenage girls or obscure Jacobite shenanigans?

Which was worse?

There was no doubt in Big Lou’s mind. “Oh well, Robbie,”

she said at last. “Whatever makes you happy.”

Robbie leaned forward and kissed Big Lou on the cheek.

“You’re a trouper, Lou,” he said. “One of the best. Just like Flora MacDonald.”

61. “Middle-Class” Used as a Term of Abuse It was rare for the Pollock family to go on an outing together.

This was not through any lack of inclination to do so, but it was rather because of the crowded timetable which Irene prepared for Bertie. Not only was there a saxophone lesson each week –

complemented by a daily practice session of at least half an hour (scales, arpeggios, and set pieces) – but there was also Bertie’s yoga in Stockbridge, which took at least two hours, and Italian structured conversazione at the Italian Cultural Institute in Nicolson Street. On top of that, of course, there was psychotherapy, which, although it might take only an hour, seemed to occupy much more time, what with Bertie’s writing up of dreams in the dream notebook and the walk up to Queen Street for the actual session.

It was an extremely full life for a little boy, and there was more to come: Irene had planned a book group for Bertie, in which five or six children from the New Town would meet regularly in each other’s flats and discuss a book that they had read.

The model for this was, in Irene’s mind, her own Kleinian book group, which had flourished for several months before it had been sabotaged by one of the members. This still rankled with Irene, who had resisted this other member’s attempts to

“Middle-Class” Used as a Term of Abuse 205

introduce works of fiction into the group’s programme. This had effectively split the group and left such a sour taste in the mouths of Irene and her allies that the group’s meetings had fizzled out and never restarted.

“The whole point about our group,” Irene had complained to a friend, “is that we are not one of those awful groups of middle-class ladies who meet and talk about the latest vapid imaginings of some novelist. That we are not.”

The friend had nodded her agreement. “Thank heavens for that,” she said. “Those people are so earnest. So self-consciously serious. All trying to outdo one another in the depth of their comments. It’s quite funny when you come to think of it.”

This conversation had taken place in the Pollocks’ flat in Scotland Street and had been overheard by Stuart. He wondered what was wrong with book groups, which he thought were a rather good idea. Indeed, Stuart would have liked to have been in a book group himself and had almost joined one organised by a colleague in the office – a book group for men – but Irene had poured cold water on the idea.

“Join it if you wish,” she had said disparagingly. “But it’s sad, don’t you think? Rather sad to think of these middle-class men all sitting around talking about some novel they’ve tried to finish in time for the meeting.”

Stuart had said nothing. He had never understood Irene’s prejudice against people whom she called middle-class; indeed, he had never comprehended why the term middle-class should be considered a term of abuse. To begin with, he thought that they themselves were middle-class; not that he dared say that to his wife, but surely it was true. In income terms, they were about the middle, and they lived in a street where just about everybody else was in roughly the same position. And Edinburgh, of course, was itself mostly middle-class, whatever some people liked to think. As a statistician, Stuart knew the figures: 60 per cent of the population of the city was in highly skilled jobs and was therefore middle-class. So why should Irene speak so scornfully about the middle-class when the middle-class was all about 206 “Middle-Class” Used as a Term of Abuse her; and if you took the middle-class away, the city would die

. . . just as it would if you took away the people who did the hard, thankless jobs, the manual work that was just as important in keeping things going. That, thought Stuart, was why class talk was so utterly pointless: everybody counted.

And now, overhearing this attack on book groups, Stuart pondered this again. It might be true that middle-class ladies belonged to book groups, but what was wrong with that? It seemed to him to be an entirely reasonable and interesting thing to do. It was fun to discuss books with others – to share the pleasure of reading – and one might learn from the views of one’s fellow members, even if they were middle-class.

Irene was an enigma to him. He admired her, and there was a bit of him that loved her – just – but he could not understand her contempt for others and her desire to be something that she was not. Stuart was a reasonable person, who saw the good and the bad in others without reference to where they stood politically. He would read any newspaper he found lying about in the office and find something of interest in it. And if he did not agree with what was written, he would nonetheless reflect on the arguments put forward and weigh them up. Irene did not do that. There was one newspaper she read, and one alone, and she would barely look at anything else.

On occasion, Stuart came back from the office with another paper, and this would trigger a firm response from Irene.

“Stuart, I don’t think it’s wise to bring the Daily Telegraph into the house,” she said. “Just think for a moment. What if Bertie read it? You know how he picks things up and reads them.”

Stuart had shrugged. “He’s got to learn what the world’s like sooner or later,” he said. He wondered if he should add: “He’s got to learn that there are Conservatives . . .” but a look from Irene discouraged him.

“That, if I may say so,” she said, “is utterly and completely irresponsible. Do you want his mind to be poisoned? It’ll be the Daily Mail next. Or the Sun. For heaven’s sake, Stuart! And what if somebody saw you carrying that paper? What would they think?”

It Seemed the World Was Full of Killing 207

That argument had not gone any further, for Stuart had capit-ulated, as he always seemed to do, and had agreed that inappropriate newspapers would not be brought into the house in the future. But, as they set off on their walk that Saturday morning, he thought about it and wondered why he had not defended freedom of thought.

“Where are we going?” asked Bertie, as Stuart and Irene jointly manipulated Ulysses’s baby buggy down the common stair to the front door.

“Valvona & Crolla,” replied Irene. “It’ll be a nice walk.” Bertie was pleased to hear this. He liked the delicatessen, with its high shelves of Italian produce. For the most part, they bought olive oil there and sun-dried tomatoes and packets of pasta. But there were other delights there too, such as Panforte di Siena, and Bertie, with all his soul, loved Panforte di Siena.

62. It Seemed the World Was Full of Killing They walked around Drummond Place, the four of them – Irene, Stuart, Bertie, and Ulysses, who did not walk, of course, but was pushed in his new MobileBaby baby buggy, of which Bertie was inordinately proud. Their car might be old, but their baby buggy, at least, was brand-new. In fact, as they rounded the corner into London Street, Bertie saw their car, parked on the other side of the road.

“There’s our car!” he exclaimed. “Look, Daddy. There it is.”

208 It Seemed the World Was Full of Killing

“So I see, Bertie,” said Stuart. “That’s where Mummy must have parked it.”

Irene reacted sharply. “I beg your pardon. You parked it there, Stuart. I very rarely park in this street.”

Stuart looked down at the pavement. He was sure that he had not parked the car there, but he understood that there was no point in arguing about it. Irene seemed to win any argument that they had, particularly in relation to their car, often by the simple technique of staring at Stuart until he became silent. It was a powerful method of overcoming opposition, and Stuart had come across one or two politicians who used it to great effect. These were generally the same ones who refused to answer any questions, usually by giving a response which bore no relation to the actual question which was asked.

In fact, when he came to think of it, Irene would make a good politician – but for which party? Would Jack McConnell have her in the Labour Party, he wondered, or would she simply stare at him until he became uncomfortable? Irene would not join the Conservatives, and they, quite understandably, would not want her. Which left the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, and the Greens. The Greens! There was an idea. Stuart knew Robin Harper, their leader, and liked him, but wondered if even Robin Harper, the leader of the Greens, could continue to smile if he found himself faced with Irene.

No, Irene should perhaps remain out of politics after all.

“Well, at least we know where our car is,” said Bertie. “That’s something.”

They continued down London Street, with Bertie throwing the occasional glance over his shoulder at the car. Now they went up the hill, up Broughton Street and into Union Street, in the direction of Leith Walk. A dog walking along Union Street with its owner made Bertie think of Cyril and the plight in which the dog found himself.

“Tofu says that they’ll cut Cyril’s tail off as a punishment for biting,” he ventured. “Tofu said that’s what happens to dogs that bite.”

It Seemed the World Was Full of Killing 209

“That’s absolute nonsense,” said Irene. “Your friend Tofu is full of ridiculous notions. It would be much better, Bertie, if you had nothing to do with him.”

Bertie was relieved to hear that Tofu, as usual, was wrong.

“So they won’t do anything cruel like that?”

“Of course not,” said Irene.

“Then what will they do?” asked Bertie. “If they find him guilty?”

There was an awkward silence.

“Well?” said Stuart, looking at Irene. “Will you answer, or shall I?” He waited a moment and then turned to his son. “I’m afraid that they’ll put Cyril down, Bertie. Sorry to have to tell you that.”

Bertie looked puzzled. “Put him down where?” he asked.

There was another silence. Then Irene took charge of the situation. She remembered Cyril as the dog who had bitten her – quite without provocation – in Dundas Street. He was a nasty, smelly creature in her view, and she still had a slight scar, a redness, on her ankle where his gold tooth had penetrated the skin.

“Put down is a euphemism, Bertie,” she said. “You’ll remember that Mummy told you about euphemisms. They’re words which sound nicer than . . . than other words.”

Bertie remembered their conversation about euphemisms, but he could not remember any examples that his mother had given.

In fact, he had pressed his mother for examples and she had been strangely reluctant to give any. “Such as, Mummy?”

“Well . . .” said Irene. She trailed off.

“Putting down for . . . for killing,” said Stuart.

Bertie stopped in his tracks, causing them all to come to a halt. He looked up at his father, who immediately regretted what he had said.

“You mean that they’re going to kill Cyril?” asked Bertie, his voice faltering.

“I’m afraid so,” said Stuart. “But they’ll do it humanely, Bertie.

They won’t shoot him or anything like that.”

210 It Seemed the World Was Full of Killing

“Will they put him in an electric kennel?” asked Bertie. “Just like an electric chair?”

Stuart reached for Bertie’s hand. “Of course not, Bertie!” he said. “What an idea!”

Holding his father’s hand was a comfort for Bertie, but it was not enough. As he stood there on the pavement in Union Street, his eyes began to fill with tears. He could not believe that anybody would wish to kill Cyril, or any dog, really. Nor could he believe that anybody would want to kill anything, for that matter, and yet it seemed that the world was filled with killing. People killed seals and deer and birds. They killed elephants and rhinoceroses and buffalo. The Japanese even killed whales, when just about everybody else had recognised that as wrong; those great, intelligent, friendly creatures –

they killed them. And then people killed other people with equal, if not more, gusto: Bertie had seen pictures in the newspaper of a war that somebody was fighting somewhere, and had seen a soldier firing a gun at somebody who was firing back at him. That seemed utterly absurd to him. People should play with one another, he thought, not fight. But then obviously there were people who disagreed with that, who wanted to fight; people such as Larch, for example, who loved to punch people and kick them too, if he had the chance. Larch had pinned a sign saying kick me on Tofu’s back and had then kicked him hard in the seat of the pants. That had brought whoops of delight from Olive, who had witnessed the event and who had run over to try to kick Tofu while the offer still stood, only to have her hair pulled by an enraged Tofu. That sort of violence solved nothing, thought Bertie. But that, it seemed to him, was what the world was like. People kicked one another and pulled each other’s hair and wept at the result.

Why?

“There, there, Bertie,” said his father. “I’m sure that everything will turn out well in the end.”

Irene shook her head. “It’ll do no good your telling Bertie that, Stuart,” she said. “It won’t. You know it. I know it. It won’t.”

63. Panforte for Bertie and a Shock for Stuart In the delicious caverns of Valvona & Crolla, Mary Contini, author of Dear Olivia, was busy adjusting jars of truffle oil on a shelf when the Pollock family entered. She turned round and saw Irene, and for a moment her heart sank. She knew Irene slightly, and their relationship had not been easy. Irene had strong views on olive oil and was only too ready to share these with the staff of the delicatessen, even when, as was often the case, she was on shaky ground. Mary listened patiently and refrained from correcting or contradicting Irene, but it was not easy. And that poor little boy of hers, she thought. And the husband! Look at him. There’s a hearth from which freedom has been excluded, if ever there was one.

And now there was another baby, who would no doubt have to face the same awful battle that poor little Bertie had faced.

Poor child!

Irene smiled at Mary. She had read her books and enjoyed them, but it did remind her that she herself could have written a number of books, and that these books would undoubtedly have been very successful; indeed, they would have been seminal books. But she had not actually got round to doing this yet, although it was, she felt, merely a question of time. The books would certainly come, and she would handle the resulting success very much better than many authors did. Of that she was certain.

“Can we get some Panforte di Siena, Mummy?” asked Bertie.

“I know where they keep it.”

“Very well, Bertie,” said Irene. “But not a large one. Just one of those small ones. In Italy, boys eat small pieces of Panforte di Siena.”

Bertie led his mother to the shelf where the panforte was stacked, resplendent in its box with its Renaissance picture. He picked up a small box and showed it to his mother, who nodded her approval. Then they all went on to the sun-dried tomato section and, after that, to the counter where the salami and cold meats were served.

212 Panforte for Bertie and a Shock for Stuart Once their purchases were complete, Stuart looked at his watch. “I think I’m going to walk over to the Fruitmarket Gallery,” he said.

Irene agreed to this. She would go home with Bertie, she said: he had saxophone practice to do in view of his impending examination. Bertie was not pleased by this, but his mind was now on the panforte, and he was wondering if he could persuade his mother to allow him to eat it all in one sitting. This was unlikely, he thought, but he could always try. Irene believed in rationing pleasures, and Bertie was never allowed more than a small square of chocolate or a spoonful or so of ice cream. And some pleasures –

such as Irn-Bru – were completely banned; it was only when Stuart was in charge that they slipped through the protective net.

Irene and Bertie walked back together. It was a fine morning, and Drummond Place was filled with light. In Scotland Street, they saw Domenica walking up the opposite side of the road, and she waved cheerfully to them. Bertie returned the wave.

“Poor woman,” said Irene quietly.

Bertie said nothing. He did not understand why his mother should call Domenica poor woman; it seemed to him that Domenica was quite contented with life, as well she might be, he thought, with her large, custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz.

But then Bertie realised that his mother had views on just about all the neighbours, with whom there was, in her view, always something wrong.

Inside the flat, Bertie was allowed to eat half the panforte, with a promise that he could eat the remainder the following day, provided he did his music practice.

“Mr Morrison is counting on you to do well in the examination,” said Irene. “So don’t let him down.”

“I won’t,” said Bertie, licking the white dusting of icing sugar from his lips. Panforte was Italy’s greatest invention, he thought.

His mother went on about Italian culture, about Dante and Botticelli and all the rest, but in Bertie’s mind it was Panforte di Siena which was Italy’s greatest gift to the world. That, and ice cream.

Panforte for Bertie and a Shock for Stuart 213

Bertie’s practice was finished by the time that Stuart returned from the Fruitmarket Gallery. He let himself into the flat and sauntered into the kitchen, where Irene was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of soup, and Bertie was sitting at the table, reading.

Irene turned round to greet Stuart. “Interesting exhibition?”

she asked.

“Very,” said Stuart. “All sorts of marvellous artists – Crosbie, Houston, McClure. And I saw that chap Duncan Macmillan there. You know, he’s the one who has been poking such fun at the Turner Prize recently. And he’s right, in my opinion.”

Irene was not particularly interested in this. The Turner Prize was, in her view, a progressive prize, and it was nothing new to have people attack progressiveness. She put down her spoon.

“Where’s Ulysses?” she asked. “Is he in the hall?”

Stuart, who was standing in the doorway leading into the kitchen, seemed to sway. “Ulysses?” he asked. His voice suddenly sounded strained.

“Yes,” said Irene sarcastically. “Your other son.”

Stuart reached for the door handle and gripped it hard, his knuckles showing white under the pressure of his grip.

“Oh no . . .” he began.

Irene let out a scream. “Stuart! What have you . . . ?”

“I thought you had him,” said Stuart. “You parked the baby buggy . . .”

He did not finish. “I did not park it anywhere,” shouted Irene.

“You were meant to take him to the Fruitmarket Gallery. You were pushing him at Valvona & Crolla. You’re the one who parked him somewhere. Where is he? Where have you parked Ulysses?”

Stuart threw himself across the room to the table on which the telephone stood. “I’ll phone them right away,” he said.

“Quick, Bertie, get me the telephone directory. Quick.”

Bertie ran through to the hall and returned with the telephone directory. But then, noticing a Valvona & Crolla packet, he said, “We don’t need to look it up, Daddy,” he said. “The number’s there on the packet. Look.”

214 You Mean You Lost a Tiny Baby?

With fumbling fingers, Stuart dialled the number. It was a moment or two before the telephone was answered at the other end. “Our baby,” he shouted into the receiver. “Have you found a baby in the shop, or outside?”

“No,” said a voice at the other end. “No babies. An umbrella, yes. But no babies.”

64. You Mean You Lost a Tiny Baby?

In the storm that followed, three voices were raised, each offering different suggestions. Irene, her face flushed with rage, insisted that Stuart go immediately to Valvona & Crolla and personally search the shop for any sign of Ulysses. Stuart disagreed, and tried to make his voice heard above the screech of his wife’s.

There was no point in going back to the shop if they reported that there was no trace of a lost baby.

“Lost?” raged Irene. “You mean abandoned. Lost is when you

. . . when you forget where you put something. Abandoned is when you simply walk away from something. Ulysses was abandoned.”

“It takes two to tango,” Stuart stuttered. “You were jointly in charge.”

“What’s a tango?” asked Bertie.

Stuart looked down at his son. “It’s an Argentinian dance,”

he began to explain. “The Argentinians were very keen on dancing back in the . . .”

“Stuart!” shouted Irene. “We are discussing Ulysses. Every second may be vital, and there you are talking about Argentina.”

Stuart blushed. “I thought you were going to take him when I said that I was going to the Fruitmarket Gallery,” he said mildly. “I really did.”

“Well you had no reason to think that,” snapped Irene. “I distinctly remember saying to you that you should take him. We were standing outside the shop and I . . .”

You Mean You Lost a Tiny Baby? 215

“So he wasn’t in the shop at all,” said Stuart. “Well, that’s something. Now we know that we have to look for him in the street, rather than in the delicatessen.” He paused. Irene had sunk her head in her hands and appeared to be crying.

Bertie moved forward to comfort her. “Don’t cry, Mummy,”

he said. “Ulysses will be all right, I’m sure he will. Even if somebody’s stolen him by now, they’ll give him a nice home. He’ll be very happy somewhere.”

For a moment, Bertie reflected on the opportunities that might have opened up for Ulysses. He might have been taken by a supporter of Hearts Football Club, for example, and these new parents might even buy him one of those baby outfits in the football team’s wine-red colours that Bertie had seen in the newspaper. Ulysses would like that, and when he grew up in that Hearts-supporting home, he could go to Tynecastle with his new father and watch the games. Ulysses would never have had that opportunity if he had remained in Scotland Street. And the new parents might have a better car too, thought Bertie, a Jaguar perhaps, and they might send him to a boarding school, somewhere where there would be midnight feasts in the dorm and proper friends who were quite unlike Tofu and Larch. All of that was possible now.

Bertie’s attempt to reassure his mother did not have the desired effect. Irene now rose to her feet and grabbed Stuart’s arm. “We must go to Leith Walk right now,” she said. “We must look for

. . . look for . . .” Her voice broke. It was impossible for her to utter Ulysses’s name, and so it was left for Bertie to say it for her.

“Ulysses,” he said.

Stuart rose to his feet. “I’ll call a taxi,” he said. “It’ll be quicker.”

By the time the taxi arrived, Irene, Stuart, and Bertie were standing at the front door of 44 Scotland Street. Stuart gave directions to the driver that he was to take them to Valvona & Crolla and that they were then to drive slowly down Leith Walk while they looked for something they had lost.

“What have you lost?” he asked. “A bicycle? There’s lots of 216 You Mean You Lost a Tiny Baby?

bicycles go missing in Leith Walk, I can tell you. My brother’s boy had a . . .”

Stuart interrupted him. “Not a bicycle,” he said. “A child.”

“Oh,” said the driver. “Bairns tend to come back of their own accord. Don’t worry too much. By the time he feels like he wants his tea, he’ll come strolling in the door.”

“He can’t stroll,” said Bertie. “In fact, he can’t walk at all.

He’s only a baby, you see.”

The taxi driver looked in his mirror. “You mean you lost a tiny baby?” he asked.

“It would seem so,” said Stuart. “He was left in his baby buggy outside Valvona & Crolla. A mistake, you know.”

The taxi driver whistled. “Well, if you ask me, we should go straight to the council child protection nursery. You know the place? It’s where they take babies who’ve been taken into care.

Emergency cases. Things like that.”

Stuart thought for a moment. “If the police had been called,”

he asked, “would they take the baby straight there?”

“Yes,” said the taxi driver. “They wouldn’t take the baby to the police station. They’d go straight to the nursery. That’s likely where your baby will be right now.”

“Then we’ll go there,” snapped Irene. “And please hurry.”

It took less than fifteen minutes to reach the emergency nursery, a converted Victorian house on the other side of Duddingston. Slamming the door of the cab behind her, Irene ran up the path, leaving Stuart to pay the fare and bring Bertie to the front door. This door was locked, but she rattled at the handle and rang the bell aggressively until a woman appeared and opened up.

“My baby,” said Irene. “My husband left him outside Valvona

& Crolla. Just for a few minutes, you’ll understand, and it was all a misunderstanding. But when we went back . . .”

The woman gestured for Irene to enter. “And this is your husband here?” she asked, nodding in the direction of Stuart, who smiled at her, but was rebuffed with a scowl.

“Our baby,” said Irene. “Has he been . . . handed in?”

It Was Almost Too Terrible to Describe 217

“Well we’ve just had a baby brought round,” said the woman.

“But we obviously can’t let him go to the first person who turns up. Can you describe the baby buggy he came in? And what he was wearing?”

Irene closed her eyes and gave the description. The woman’s attitude irritated her, but she was astute enough to realise where power lay in these circumstances.

When Irene had finished, the woman nodded her head. “Close enough,” she said.

“So can we have him back?” asked Irene.

“Yes,” said the woman. “He’s in the nursery. We’ve given him a change and he’s sleeping very peacefully with the three other babies we’ve got in at the moment. If you would come with me?”

They followed the woman down a corridor into the house.

“You wait outside,” she said. “I’ll bring the baby out to you. We don’t want too many germs in there, if you don’t mind.”

She opened a door off the corridor and went into a side-room. A few minutes later, she came out again and handed over Ulysses, who was now heavily swaddled in a rough, white shawl.

“Here we are,” she said, as she passed Ulysses over to Irene.

“Your baby. Safe and sound.” And then she added: “None the worse for the neglect.”

65. It Was Almost Too Terrible to Describe In the taxi on the way back to Scotland Street, Irene was unusually quiet. With Ulysses sleeping in her arms, she sat there, tight-lipped, deliberately making no eye contact with Stuart, who perched nervously opposite her on the jump seat, his hands clasped around his knees. He looked at Irene, and then looked away again; he understood her perfectly. It was his fault that Ulysses had been misplaced, and he knew that he would be reminded of it for a 218 It Was Almost Too Terrible to Describe long time to come. But anyone, he thought, could have done what he had done, could have misunderstood who was in charge of the baby. It was all very well for Irene to heap the blame upon him, but had she never made a mistake herself? Of course she had, not that she liked to admit it. Irene was always right.

Bertie could sense that his father was miserable, and his heart went out to him. He did not blame Stuart for what had happened to Ulysses, and the important thing, he thought, was that Ulysses was unharmed and back with his family – not that Bertie was entirely pleased with that; he would have been quite happy for Ulysses to have found somewhere else to live, but he knew that this was not the way in which adults looked on the matter, and he did not express this view.

“There’s Arthur’s Seat,” he said, in an attempt to cheer his father up. “Look, Daddy. There it is.”

Stuart looked out of the window at the green bulk of the hill, outlined like a crouching lion against the sky. He nodded to Bertie. “Yes,” he said, glancing at Irene. “That’s right, Bertie.

There it is.”

“Have you ever climbed Arthur’s Seat, Mummy?” asked Bertie.

“Right up to the top?”

Irene pursed her lips. “No,” she said. “I haven’t, Bertie. There’s no need to climb Arthur’s Seat.”

There was silence. Then, quite suddenly, Irene looked up and addressed Stuart. “The humiliation,” she began. “The sheer humiliation of it all. That woman. Did you hear what she said to me, Stuart? Did you?”

Stuart looked out of the window. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that,” he said mildly. “Often people mutter things that don’t really mean very much. I find that with my minister sometimes. You just have to let it flow over you. And then they forget that they ever said it. And you do, too. The other day, for example, the minister said that we needed a policy review of the statistical process. I was there with my immediate boss, and we both just said something about a pigeon that had landed on the windowsill – you know, one of those grey, Edinburgh City It Was Almost Too Terrible to Describe 219

Council pigeons – and the minister plain forgot what he had just said and . . .”

“Nonsense!” said Irene. “That woman in the nursery knew exactly what she was saying. She chose her words very carefully indeed.”

Bertie had been following this exchange between his parents.

Now he intervened. “What did she say, Mummy?”

Irene’s answer was directed at Stuart, at whom she was now glaring. “She said that Ulysses was none the worse for the neglect.

Neglect! That’s what she accused me of. And I had to stand there and take it, because otherwise she probably wouldn’t have given Ulysses back without all sorts of forms and waiting and heaven-knows-what. I felt so humiliated.

“That sort of woman,” went on Irene, “relishes every bit of authority she has. I know the type. And what does she know about me and how I bring up Ulysses? Nothing. And then she goes and accuses me of neglect.”

Stuart shrugged. “People say things,” he muttered. “Just forget it. The important thing is that we’ve got Ulysses back.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” Bertie quoted, “but words will never hurt me. Have you heard that poem, Mummy?

That’s what Tofu said to Larch.”

“Oh?” said Stuart. “And then what happened?”

“Larch hit him,” said Bertie. “He hit him and walked away.”

“The point is,” said Irene, resuming control of the conversation. “The point is that if there was any neglect, it was not on my part.”

This was greeted by silence.

“I’m going to get in touch with our councillor,” said Irene.

“And I’m going to complain about that woman. I’m going to insist on an apology.”

Nothing much more was said during the rest of the journey.

Ulysses was still asleep, and although he opened his eyes briefly when being carried up the stairs, he merely smiled, and went back to sleep.

“He’s had such a traumatic experience, poor little thing,” said

220 It Was Almost Too Terrible to Describe Irene pointedly. “Imagine being left outside Valvona & Crolla in your baby buggy!”

“He wouldn’t have minded, Mummy,” said Bertie. “Ulysses doesn’t really know where he is.”

“Exactly,” said Stuart.

Ulysses was placed in his cot, and the family returned to the kitchen, where Irene heated up the soup she had been making and served out three bowls.

“Such a relief,” said Stuart. “I’m so sorry.”

“Daddy’s sorry,” said Bertie.

Irene nodded. “I heard him, Bertie.”

It was at this point that Ulysses started to cry. Bertie, eager to promote concord, decided that he would offer to change him; he had been instructed in this task, which he disliked intensely, but he felt that such an offer would mollify his mother.

“Thank you, Bertie,” she said. “And call us if you need any help. We’ll give Ulysses a bath later on, and then he can have his tea.”

Bertie went through to the room at the end of the corridor.

He picked up Ulysses, and laid him down on the changing mat.

Then he began to remove the blanket in which he had been wrapped. Underneath was a romper suit, which Bertie carefully peeled off. And then . . .

Speculation on What Might Have Been 221

Bertie stood quite still. Ulysses was very different. Something awful had happened; something almost too terrible to describe.

“Mummy!” Bertie shouted. “Come quickly. Come quickly.

Something’s happened to Ulysses! His . . . His . . . It’s dropped off! Quick, Mummy! Quick!”

There was the noise of a chair being knocked over in the kitchen and Irene came rushing into the room, followed by Stuart. She pushed Bertie aside and looked at Ulysses, who was lying contentedly on the changing mat.

“Oh! Oh!”

It was all she could say. Ulysses was not Ulysses at all. This was a girl.

“The wrong baby!” Stuart stuttered. “They’ve given us the wrong baby!”

Bertie stared intently at the baby, who smiled back at him.

“Do you think we can keep this one, Mummy?” he asked.

66. Speculation on What Might Have Been While the unsettling discovery was being made in the Pollock household that the wrong baby had been handed over at the council holding nursery, Matthew was hanging his back in twenty minutes sign in the doorway of his gallery. This sign, as had been pointed out by numerous people, including Pat, was ambiguous and mendacious. In the first place, it did not reveal when the twenty minutes began, so that the person reading it would not know whether it had been placed there nineteen minutes earlier, or just one minute before. Then, anybody who knew Matthew’s habits would be aware of the fact that he rarely spent less than forty minutes over coffee in Big Lou’s coffee bar, and that anybody choosing to wait on the doorstep of the gallery until his return could face a much longer wait than they anticipated.

It was Angus Lordie who had suggested a different sign, one that said, quite simply: out. That would have the merit of clarity 222 Speculation on What Might Have Been and would raise no false hopes. “There are occasions,” he said,

“when the simple word is best. And that reminds me of the story told by George Mackay Brown, I think it was, about the Orcadian who completely disappeared for eight years. When he returned, simply walking into his house, he was asked by his astonished family where he had been. He gave a one-word answer: ‘Oot.’”

Matthew had found this very amusing. “Funny,” he said.

“That’s really funny.”

“Yes,” mused Angus. “It’s funny to us. But, you know, I’m not sure if that would be all that funny outside Scotland. There are some things which are made funny because of a very specific cultural context.”

“Oh, I think that would be funny anywhere,” said Matthew.

Angus smiled. “Maybe. But here’s something which is only funny in Scotland. It was told to me by a teacher. Do you want to hear it?”

“Only if it’s funny,” said Matthew.

“It is,” said Angus. “It’s funny here, as I said. A teacher noticed that a boy called Jimmy wasn’t eating fish when it was served in the school lunch. After a while, she decided to take up the matter with the boy’s mother and wrote a note to her to this effect. Back came a letter from the mother which said: See me? See my husband? See Jimmy? See fish? We dinnae eat it.”

There was only a moment’s silence before Matthew burst out laughing. “That’s very funny indeed,” he said.

Angus nodded. “Of course it is. But you could tell that story down in London and they’d look very puzzled. So why do we find it so amusing?”

Matthew pondered this. There was the habit of saying

“see” before any observation; that was a common way of raising a subject, but in itself was not all that amusing. Was it the way in which the mother developed her response, step by step, in the manner of a syllogism? That was it! It was a peculiar variant of syllogistic reasoning, perhaps, and its Speculation on What Might Have Been 223

expression in the demotic seemed surprising and out of place.

But there was something more. It was the conflict between two worlds: the world of the teacher and the world of the mother. When two very different worlds come into contact, we are amused.

Angus might have read Matthew’s mind. “It’s the desire to deflate officialdom,” he said. “There’s a strong streak of that in Scottish humour, and that’s what’s going on here, don’t you think?”

Matthew nodded, and thought: and there’s something funny about Angus.

That day, which was Saturday, was usually a busy day for Matthew, and he might have felt reluctant to leave the gallery unattended, but by the time that ten o’clock came round he was feeling distinctly edgy, and thought that one of Big Lou’s double espressos might help.

When he entered the café, Big Lou was by herself, standing at the bar, reading a book. She looked up at Matthew when he came in, slipped a bookmark between the pages of the book, and closed the cover.

“Don’t let me disturb you, Lou,” said Matthew, glancing at the title of the book. “Eric Linklater. The . . .”

“The Prince in the Heather,” Big Lou said. “Robbie gave it to me. It’s quite a book. All about Bonnie Prince Charlie being chased through the Highlands.”

Matthew reached over and took the book from Lou. He opened it at random; a picture of a wild coast, a map, the prince himself draped in tartan. “Quite a story, isn’t it?” he mused. “It seems like a game from this distance.”

“It was no game at the time,” said Big Lou.

Matthew sensed that he was being judged for levity. “No,”

he said. “Of course not. But there’s something that interests me, Lou. What would have happened if Charlie had pushed on just a bit more? Weren’t things rather disorganised in London? What if he had huffed and puffed a bit more and blown their house right down?”

224 We All Need to Believe in Something Big Lou’s answer came quickly. One did not engage in such idle speculation in Arbroath. “No point thinking about that,”

she said. “It didn’t happen.”

“But it could have,” said Matthew. “It could easily have happened. Look at how far he actually got. And anyway, there’s nothing wrong in asking these ‘what if’ questions. I saw a whole book on them the other day. What would have happened if the American planes had been on a different deck at the critical moment in the Battle of Midway? What would have happened if the wind had been coming from the other direction when the Spanish fleet took on the English? We’d be speaking Spanish now, Lou, as would the Americans if the wind had shifted just a few degrees. You know that, Lou?”

Big Lou shrugged. “Well, Prince Charlie didn’t get there,”

she said.

“If he had,” mused Matthew. “We’d have had more bishops.”

Big Lou looked thoughtful. “Robbie . . .” she began.

“I know,” said Matthew. “He’s got this thing about them, hasn’t he? He’s a Jacobite, I gather. I suppose that it’s a harmless enough bit of historical enthusiasm. Like those people who reenact battles. What do they call themselves? The Sealed Knot Society or something. You know, Lou, I was going for a walk in the hills above Dollar once and suddenly a whole horde of people came screaming down the slope. And suddenly I saw this chap in front of me dressed in sacking and wielding a claymore. And do you know who it was? It was an Edinburgh lawyer! Very strange. That’s how he spent his Sundays, apparently.”

67. We All Need to Believe in Something Big Lou stepped back from the counter and started to fiddle with her coffee machine. “Men need hobbies,” she began. “Women are usually far too busy with looking after the bairns and running We All Need to Believe in Something 225

the home and so on. Men have to find some outlet – now that they no longer need to hunt in packs.”

Matthew smiled. “So dressing up in sackcloth and pretending to be some ancient clan warrior is entirely healthy?”

“Well, it’s not unhealthy,” said Big Lou. “It’s odd, I suppose.

But it’s male play, isn’t it? There are all sorts of male play, Matthew.”

“Such as?”

Big Lou ladled coffee into a small conical container and pressed the grounds down with an inverted spoon. “Golf clubs,”

she said. “Car rallies. Football. The Masons. The list goes on and on.”

“And don’t women play?” asked Matthew.

Big Lou switched on the machine, stood back, and wiped her hands. “Not so much, you know. We women are much more practical. We just don’t feel the need.”

“Very interesting,” said Matthew. “But to get back to Robbie and his friends. Is it play, do you think, or are they serious?”

Big Lou looked up at the ceiling. She was not sure that it was that simple. Play involved a suspension of disbelief, but once that step was taken, then one might imagine that everything was very serious. “Do you go to the theatre?” she asked. “Or the cinema?”

“Yes,” said Matthew, and he thought: But I don’t really go to anything these days.

“Well, when you’re in the cinema, you believe in what’s happening on the screen, don’t you? You engage with the actors and with what’s happening to them. You believe in it, although you know it’s not real.”

“I suppose I do,” said Matthew. “Everyone does. Everyone wants the men in the white hats to sort out the men in the black hats. Or they used to. Maybe it’s different now.”

“I don’t know about hats,” said Big Lou. “But the point is this.

Robbie and his friends know that there are not many of them.

They know that there’ll never be a restitution of the Stuarts. But they act as if it’s possible because . . .” She trailed off.

226 We All Need to Believe in Something For Matthew, this was the most interesting part. How could people hold on to so evidently a lost cause and expect to be taken seriously? “Well, Lou,” he pressed. “Why?”

The coffee machine was beginning to hiss, and Lou reached out to operate a small lever that released steam into the jug of milk she had placed below it. “Because we need to believe in something,” she said. “Otherwise our lives are empty. You can believe in anything, you know, Matthew. Art. Music. God. As long as you have something.”

Matthew knew that this was true. He would not have expressed the idea in that way, but he knew that what Big Lou said was true. And it was as true of him as it was of Robbie. Robbie believed in something while he, Matthew, believed in nothing, and that made a major difference. If I believed in something, thought Matthew, then my life would have some meaning. I wouldn’t be drifting, as I am now, I would have some sense of purpose.

Could he become a Jacobite, or even an ardent nationalist?

Could he find his personal salvation by becoming enthusiastic about Scotland’s cause? He did not think so. He did not think it was that simple. What about becoming a Catholic –

converting – and sinking deeply into a whole community of belief? If you became a Catholic, then at least you had a strong sense of identity. Catholics knew who their fellow Catholics were. They belonged. For a moment, he thought: it would solve everything; I’d become a Catholic and then I’d meet a Catholic girl who would appreciate me. But then he thought: no, I can’t make that particular leap. It’s different if you’re born to something like that. It’s part of you, part of your aesthetic. But it’s not part of me.

And yet all that – all that embracing of a whole raft of rituals – was attractive. Matthew had met somebody who had become Jewish, not for reasons of marriage, but out of spiritual conviction. The rabbis had been surprised, of course, because they didn’t seek to convert people, but he had found them, and the spirituality that they had, and had gone down We All Need to Believe in Something 227

to London to a rabbinical court and been accepted. And then he had never looked back. A whole world opened to him: a culture, a cuisine, a way of dressing, if one wanted that. He had been very content.

I would like something, thought Matthew, but I haven’t got it. He looked at Big Lou, whose back was turned to him, and suddenly he felt a sense of her human frailty, her precious-ness. For the most part, we treat others in a matter-of-fact way; we have to, in order to get on with our lives. But every so often, in a moment of insight that can be very nearly mystical in its intensity, we see others in their real humanity, in a way which makes us want to cherish them as joint pilgrims, almost, on a perilous journey. That is how Matthew felt. He felt sympathy for Big Lou – sympathy for everything: for the hard childhood she had had; for her struggle to improve herself with her reading; for her desire to be loved; for what she represented – a whole country, a whole Scotland of hard work and common decency. Oh Lou, he thought, I understand, I do, I understand.

Big Lou turned round. “Here’s your coffee, Matthew.”

He took it from her and took a sip of it, scalding hot though it was.

“Careful,” said Big Lou. “I had somebody in the other day who burned his tongue. You have to let coffee cool down. Those machines heat it up something dreadful.”

Matthew nodded. “I’ll let it cool down.” He paused. “I’m not wasting your time, am I, Lou?” he asked. “I come over here and blether away with you. And it never occurs to me to ask if I’m wasting your time.”

“Of course you’re not,” said Big Lou.

“Good,” said Matthew. And it was good, because he felt better about everything now, and he had a strong feeling that something was about to happen – something positive.

Big Lou looked at him. “You’ll find somebody, Matthew,” she said. “I know you’ve got somebody already. I know about Pat.

But . . .”

228 How Do You Tell Someone “It’s Over”?

“But she’s not for me,” said Matthew. “Is that what you think, Lou?”

Lou nodded. “Best to tell the truth,” she said.

68. How Do You Tell Someone “It’s Over”?

And Lou was right, thought Matthew, as he crossed the street to return to the gallery. She had told him nothing that he did not already know – deep within him; that was often the case with that which purported to be a disclosure: we knew it already.

He had somehow convinced himself that he would be happy with Pat, but in his heart he knew that this was not so. Now the thought that he had even gone so far as to propose to her at that party made him feel extremely uncomfortable. She had asked for time to consider and had mentioned a few weeks. What if she decided to accept? If he wanted to avoid that embarrassment, then he would need to speak to her soon and tell her that it was over.

Now, it might have been simple for some young men to drop a girlfriend, but it was not easy for Matthew. There were two reasons for this. One was that Matthew had never done this before; he had always been the one who had been discouraged or disposed of, and he had no idea how one should let the other person know. The other reason was that he was kind by nature, and the thought of causing distress to another was quite alien to him. That is, of course, if Pat would be distressed, and it occurred to him that there was a strong possibility that she would not be. In fact, there was even the possibility that she would be relieved. She had never been unduly demonstrative towards Matthew – indeed, there had been many occasions on which Matthew had thought that she was quite indifferent to him.

Well, if that was the case, then it could be a release for both of them.

Matthew felt quite cheered by this thought as he completed How Do You Tell Someone “It’s Over”? 229

his crossing of Dundas Street and approached the door of the gallery. He now noticed that there was somebody standing outside peering into his display window. It was a woman, not as young as Pat, but about Matthew’s age, or perhaps a year or two older. Twenty-eight or twenty-nine, thought Matthew as he drew nearer.

“I’m about to open up again,” said Matthew, as he reached for his keys. “If there’s anything you’d like to look at more closely, please come in.”

The woman seemed flustered. “Oh no,” she said. “I’m not really thinking of buying a painting. I was just looking at that picture over there. That little one in the window. It’s so . . .

Well, it’s so beautiful.”

Matthew looked over her shoulder at the painting behind the glass. It was a small Cowie oil that he had acquired recently at an auction – the front of a building with a girl sitting on stone steps. And beyond this a sweep of rolling countryside, fields, the dark green of trees.

“That’s by James Cowie,” he said. “He was a very fine painter. You may know that big painting of his in the modern art gallery. Do you? That big one of the people sitting in front of a wide stretch of countryside with a curtain behind them and a man on a horse? It’s one of my absolute favourites.”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure if I’ve seen it,” she said.

“I’ll go, though. I’ll go and look for it.”

Matthew watched her as she spoke. She has a lovely face, he thought, lovely, like one of those Italian madonnas, smooth skin.

And I like her eyes. I just like them.

“Come in and look at it,” he pressed. “Most people who go into galleries have no intention of buying a painting. Please.”

She hesitated for a moment and then agreed. “I’ve been shopping,” she said, gesturing to a small bag she was carrying. “I’ve spent enough money.”

Matthew ushered her into the gallery. “Shopping for things you need?” he asked. “Or for things you don’t need?”

She laughed. “The latter, I’m afraid. You’ve got such a nice 230 How Do You Tell Someone “It’s Over”?

antiques shop just down the road. The Thrie Estaits. Do you know it?”

“Of course,” said Matthew. “I know Peter Powell. He’s got a very good eye. Everything in his shop is very beautiful.”

“Yes,” said woman. “And this is what I bought. Look.”

She reached into the bag and took out a small vase, chalice-shaped, made of streaky, opaque glass. “It’s called slag-ware,”

she said. “He told me that the glassmakers put something into the glass to make it look like this.” She traced a pattern along the side of the vase, following a whorl of purple. “Isn’t it lovely?

He had three or four of these. I chose this one. It’s a present to myself. I know that sounds awful, but I really wanted it.”

“It’s very attractive,” said Matthew. “May I take a closer look?”

She handed him the vase and he took it over towards the window to look at it in the light. “The colours are really wonderful,” said Matthew. “Look at these different shades of purple. And that lovely creamy white.”

Then he dropped it. He had been holding it firmly enough –

or so he thought – but the vase suddenly slipped through his hands and tumbled downwards. Matthew gave a shout – a strangled cry of alarm – and the glass broke, shattering into fragments which went shooting across the floor.

Matthew stared at the floor for a few moments. Then he looked up at the young woman. She was gazing at the broken vase, her eyes wide with shock.

“Oh,” said Matthew. “Look what I’ve done. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He bent down to start picking up the pieces, and held two together, as if working out whether the vase could be put together again somehow. But it was far beyond repair; some of the pieces were tiny, little more than fragments.

“It’s all right,” she said. “These things happen. Please don’t worry.”

“But it’s broken,” said Matthew. “I don’t know what to say. I feel so stupid. It somehow . . . well, it seemed to jump out of my hands. I . . .”

A Replacement – and an Extra Little Present 231

“Please don’t worry,” she said. “I’m always breaking things.

Everybody does.”

Matthew stood up, looking at his hands, to which a few tiny fragments of glass had stuck.

“You must be careful,” she said. “You must get those off without cutting yourself.”

She reached out for Matthew’s right hand and carefully brushed at it with a handkerchief. Her touch was very light, very gentle.

69. A Replacement – and an Extra Little Present She tried to stop him, but he would have none of her objections. “I insist,” Matthew said. “I broke it, and I’m going to replace it.”

“It was an accident,” the woman said. “Anybody can drop things. You mustn’t think twice about it. It’s not the end of the world.”

Matthew shook his head. “Of course it’s not the end of the world,” he said. “But that’s not the point. The point is that I stupidly dropped your beautiful slag-ware vase. That was my fault and my fault alone. Fortunately, you happened to mention that Peter has others, and so I’m going to go down the road and get you one to replace the one I broke. And that’s that.”

He moved towards the door. “You stay and look after the gallery for five, ten minutes at the most. Just stay. I’ll be back with the replacement.”

She sighed. “You’re very insistent,” she said.

“Yes,” said Matthew, although he thought: nobody’s ever called me insistent before. Nor decisive. But that is what I’m going to be. He looked at her. I’ve decided, he thought. I’ve decided.

He turned and walked out onto the street, looking back briefly to see the woman standing in the gallery, watching him. He 232 A Replacement – and an Extra Little Present waved to her cheerfully, and she smiled at him. It was, he thought, a smile of concession.

Down the road, at The Thrie Estaits, Peter Powell welcomed him from behind his desk. In front of him, half on the desk and half resting on an upturned leather suitcase, was a Benin bronze of a leopard, teeth bared in a smile. A stuffed spaniel in a case stood on guard beside the desk, while on the wall behind Peter’s head, a large gilded sconce hung at a slightly drunken angle.

“Slag-ware, Peter,” said Matthew. “A slag-ware vase, to be precise.”

Peter smiled. “As it happens, I have three,” he said. “And I’ve just sold another. What is it about slag-ware that makes it suddenly so popular?”

“I’ve just broken the one you sold,” said Matthew. “And I want to replace it. I’ll take the best of the three.”

Peter rose to his feet and went to a small cupboard. Matthew saw the three vases within and noticed, with relief, that they looked identical to the one which he had just shattered. Peter examined the price ticket.

“They’re not too expensive,” he said. “But then they’re not all that cheap. Are you sure that you want the most expensive one?”

“Yes,” said Matthew. “I’m sure.”

“And what about a small Indian puppet theatre?” Peter asked.

“Or a bottle with a sand picture of Naples in it?”

Matthew laughed. “No thanks.” He paused. “That woman who came in to buy the vase,” he said. “Did she like anything else? Did she express an interest in anything other than the vase?”

Peter thought for a moment. “Well, yes, she did, as it happens.

She was very taken with that Meissen figure over there. You see, that one, the figure of the girl. She liked that. But it’s rather too expensive, I’m afraid. It’s very rare, you see, and quite an early example.”

“How much?” asked Matthew.

Peter picked up the delicate figure of the girl and looked A Replacement – and an Extra Little Present 233

underneath it. “Prepare yourself for a shock,” he said. “Sixteen hundred pounds.”

Matthew did not blink. “That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll take that too.”

Peter knew about Matthew’s more-than-comfortable finan-cial situation; Big Lou had told him, discreetly of course. “If you’re sure . . .”

“I am,” said Matthew. “I’ve never been surer in my life.”

With his purchases cosseted in bubble wrap, Matthew left the Thrie Estaits and walked briskly back up the road. Inside the gallery, she looked at him reproachfully, but he noticed that she was struggling not to smile. “You’re very bad,” she said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Well, I have,” said Matthew. “And here you are. Here’s your replacement. As good as the last one, I’m told.”

She took the package and unwrapped it. “Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t expect that. But thank you.”

Matthew blushed. His heart was racing now, but he felt a curious elation. “And I bought you an extra little present to make up for my clumsiness,” he said. “Here.”

He thrust the parcelled-up Meissen figure into her hands and waited for her to unwrap it.

“But you can’t!” she protested. “You really can’t. The vase was one thing, this is . . .”

“Please,” said Matthew. “Please just unwrap it. Go on.”

She removed the bubble wrap carefully. When the figure was half-exposed, she stopped, and looked up at Matthew. “I really can’t accept this,” she said. “You’re very kind, but I can’t.”

Matthew held up his hands. “But why not? Why?”

She looked down at the figure and removed the last of the wrapping. “Because I know what this cost,” she said quietly.

“And I can’t accept a present like this from somebody I don’t even know.”

Matthew looked down at the floor in sheer, bitter frustration.

It was such a familiar experience for him; every time he tried to get close to somebody, it ended this way – with a rebuff. He 234 She Could Not Help but Hear the Conversation knew that buying this present was an extravagant gesture, an unusual thing to do, but he thought that perhaps this one time it would work. But now he could see her recoiling, embarrassed, eager to end their brief acquaintance.

He thought quickly. He would be decisive; he had nothing to lose.

“I understand,” he said. “It’s just that I wanted to get you something.” He paused. He would speak. “You see, the moment I saw you, the very first moment, I . . . well, I fell for you. I know it sounds corny, and I’m sorry if that embarrasses you, but there it is. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.

Nothing.”

She cradled the Meissen figure. “I don’t know what to think,”

she said. “I’m sorry.” But then she looked up at him. “You’ve been very honest,” she said. “You really have. So I should be honest too. When I saw you, I felt I rather liked you. But . . .

But we don’t even know each other’s names.”

“I’m Matthew,” Matthew blurted out.

“And I’m Elspeth,” she said. “Elspeth Harmony.”

Matthew reached out to take the Meissen figure from her.

“Let’s put this down somewhere,” he said. Then he asked: “What do you do, Elspeth?”

“I’m a teacher,” she said. “At the Rudolf Steiner School.”

Matthew thought of Bertie. “There’s a little boy called Bertie,”

he began. “He lives near here. In Scotland Street.”

“One of mine!” said Miss Harmony.

70. She Could Not Help but Hear the Conversation Domenica Macdonald was aware that something was happening downstairs. One of the great glories of 44 Scotland Street, she had always felt, was the fact that noise did not travel – with the exception of Bertie’s saxophone practice – and that, as a result, one heard little of the neighbours’ private lives. This was thanks She Could Not Help but Hear the Conversation 235

to Edinburgh architecture, and the generosity of construction methods which prevailed during the building of the great Georgian and Victorian sweeps of Edinburgh. In Scotland Street, the walls were a good two feet thick, of which solid stone formed the greatest part.

Used to this as she was, Domenica was always astonished to see the sheer flimsiness of walls in other places, particularly in postwar British construction, with its mean proportions (oppressive, low ceilings) and its weak structures (paper-thin walls).

She had noticed how different things were on the Continent, where even very modest houses in countries such as France or Germany seemed so much more solid. But that was part of a larger problem – the problem of the meanness and cheapness which had crept into British life. And there was an impermanence too, which reached its height in the building of that great and silly edifice, the Millennium Dome, a “muckle great tent,”

as Angus Lordie had described it. “That could have been a cathedral or a great museum,” said Angus, “but don’t expect anything as morally serious as that these days. Smoke and mirrors. Big tents.”

Edinburgh at least could be grateful that it was, to a very large extent, made of stone, and that this gave a degree of privacy to domestic life. But in a tenement, if there was noise on the common stair, that could carry. As in the cave of Dionysius in Syracuse, a whisper at the bottom of the stair might be heard with some clarity at the top. And similarly, each door that gave onto the landing might be an ear as to what was said directly outside, with the result that remarks about neighbours had to be limited to the charitable or the complimentary until one was inside one’s own flat; at that point, true opinions might be voiced – might be shouted even, if that helped – without any danger that the object of the opinion might hear.

Domenica had heard none of the discussion that preceded the dreadful discovery below that the wrong baby had been picked up at the council emergency nursery. Nor had she heard the cries of alarm that accompanied the actual discovery. But 236 She Could Not Help but Hear the Conversation what she had heard that day was a great banging of doors and hurried footfall on the stairs as the Pollock family headed off to the nursery in search of the missing Ulysses. This had caused her to look out of the window and to see Irene, Stuart, and Bertie piling into a waiting taxi and racing off in the direction of Drummond Place. Where, she wondered, was the baby?

Then, a couple of hours later, she had heard them talking on the stairs as they returned. She had cautiously opened her door and peered down from the landing to see that all was well. What she saw was Irene holding Ulysses as she waited for Stuart to open the door. Bertie was there too, and he seemed cheerful enough, so she had gone back into the flat, reassured that all was well.

What she heard next was more slamming of doors. When she looked out of the window this time, she saw the entire Pollock family, including what she thought was Ulysses, again getting into a taxi and again racing off up the road at some speed. This time, it was not much more than an hour before she heard the door at the bottom of the stair close with a bang and the sound of Irene’s voice drifting upwards.

Domenica could not help but hear, even had she not been standing close to her front door, which was held open very slightly.

“Humiliation!” said Irene. “Sheer, utter humiliation! How dare she say that we should have checked the baby first to see that it was the right one! Isn’t that her job? Isn’t she meant to make sure that she’s handing over a boy rather than a girl? It’s easy enough, for heaven’s sake!”

Stuart muttered something which Domenica did not quite catch. But she did catch Irene’s reply.

“Nonsense! Complete nonsense! Your trouble, Stuart, is that you’re a bureaucrat and you’re too willing to forgive the crass ineptitude of your fellow bureaucrats. What if Ulysses had been given to somebody else . . . ?”

The door slammed, and the conversation was cut off.

She Could Not Help but Hear the Conversation 237

Domenica smiled. It sounded as if there had been some sort of mix-up over babies. But she was not sure how this could have occurred, and it had obviously been sorted out in the end. Her curiosity satisfied, she was about to close her door when she noticed that Antonia’s door on the other side of the landing was open. For a moment, she thought that her neighbour had perhaps been doing exactly what she was doing – listening to the conversation below, and she felt a flush of shame. It was a most ignoble thing to do, to listen in to the conversation of others, but there were occasions when it was, quite frankly, irresistible. And if we can’t be ignoble from time to time, then we are simply failing to be human.

For a moment or two, Domenica hesitated. There were no sounds coming from Antonia’s flat, so the builders were probably not there. But if they were not there, then who, if anybody, was? Had Antonia perhaps left the door open by mistake when she went out on some errand? If that were the case, then it was Domenica’s duty, she felt, to check up that all was well and then close the door for her.

Domenica crossed the landing and pushed Antonia’s door wide open. “Antonia?” she called out.

There was silence, apart from the ticking of a clock somewhere inside the flat. She went in, peering through the hall and into the kitchen beyond. There was no sign of anybody.

“Antonia?”

Again there was only silence. Then, quite suddenly – so suddenly, in fact, that Domenica emitted a gasp – a man appeared from a door off the hall. It was Markus, the builder.

“You gave me a fright,” Domenica said.

Markus looked at her. He was frowning.

“Where’s Antonia?” she asked. There was something about his manner which worried her. It was something strange, almost threatening.

“Where is she?” Domenica repeated.

Markus said nothing as he moved behind Domenica and closed the front door.

71. For a Moment, Domenica Felt Real Alarm Anthropologists, of course, are no strangers to danger. Although relations between them and their hosts are usually warm, developing in some cases into lifelong friendships, there are still circumstances in which the distance which the anthropologist must maintain reminds the host of the fact that the anthropologist does not, in fact, belong.

This may not matter if one is studying a group of people not known for their violent propensities, but it may matter a great deal if one is, for instance, taking an interest in organisation and command structures within the Shining Path in Peru. Or looking at gift-exchange patterns among narcotraficantes in Colombia: here, at any moment, misunderstandings may occur, with awkward consequences for the anthropologist. Indeed, aware-ness of this problem prompted the American Anthropological Association to publish a report entitled “Surviving Fieldwork,”

which revealed that anthropology is one of the most dangerous professions in the world, with risks ranging from military attack (2 per cent) to suspicion of spying (13 per cent) and being bitten by animals (17 per cent).

Domenica had experienced her fair share of these dangers in the course of her career and had discovered that physical peril had a curiously calming effect on her. While some of us may panic, or at least feel intense fear, Domenica found that danger For a Moment, Domenica Felt Real Alarm 239

merely focused her mind on the exigencies of the moment and on the question of how best to deal with them. Now, trapped in Antonia’s flat – or so it appeared, once Markus had closed the front door and was standing, solidly, between the door and her – Domenica quickly began to consider why it was that she should feel threatened.

The closing of the door may have been a perfectly natural thing for Markus to do; a builder working within a house would not normally leave the front door open. And, of course, the Poles would not be affected by the paranoia and distrust which have affected those countries where it is considered unwise for a man to be in a room with a woman unless the door is left open. That ghastly custom, insulting to all concerned, would not yet have reached the less politically correct shores of Poland, thank heavens, and long may they be preserved from such inanity, thought Domenica.

She found her voice. “Now, Markus,” she said. “I know that you don’t speak English, and I, alas, do not speak Polish. But my question is a simple one: Antonia?” As she pronounced her neighbour’s name, Domenica made a gesture which, she thought, would unambiguously convey the sense of what she was trying to say – a sort of tentative pointing gesture, ending in a whirl of a hand to signify its interrogative nature.

Markus looked at her in puzzlement. “Brick?”

Domenica sighed. “Brick! Brick! I’m sorry, we’ve really said everything there is to be said about bricks. Antonia?

Antonia?”

Markus shook his head sorrowfully and muttered something under his breath. For a moment, Domenica felt real alarm – not for herself, now, but for Antonia. Had something happened?

She took a few steps forward so that she was standing right before him. She repeated her sign. Surely he could understand that, at least.

As she gestured, Domenica found herself remembering one of the most curious books in her library, Jean and Thomas Sebeok’s Monastic Sign Languages. She had come across this book years ago 240 For a Moment, Domenica Felt Real Alarm in Atticus Books in Toronto and had been astonished that anybody should have made a detailed study of such a subject. But there it was, complete with page after page of photographs of Cistercian monks, bound by their rule of silence, making expressive signs to one another to convey sometimes quite complex messages. She had toyed with buying it, but had been put off by its price of one hundred and forty Canadian dollars. This had been a bad decision: we always regret impulsive purchases not made, and no sooner had she returned to Scotland than she thought how much pleasure she would have obtained from the book.

Years later, finding herself again in Toronto for an anthropological conference, Domenica had returned to Atticus Books and innocently asked: “Do you by any chance have a book on monastic sign language?”

The proprietor of the bookshop concealed his delight. “As it happens,” he said . . .

But now, standing before Markus, she found herself desperately trying to recall the Cistercian sign for where is, a simple enough phrase and presumably a commonly used sign – but not one she could remember. Instead, she remembered the sign for cat, which involved the twisting of an imaginary mustache on both sides of the upper lip with the tips of the thumbs and forefingers.

That was no good, of course, but the need now passed, as Markus appeared to have grasped the gist of her inquiry and was smiling and nodding his head. “Antonia,” he said enthusiastically and pointed downstairs. Then he tapped his watch and held up five fingers. That, thought Domenica signified five minutes, or possibly five hours. Among some North American Indians, it might even have meant five moons. Five minutes, she decided, was the most likely meaning.

It was not even that. A few moments after communication had been established between Domenica and Markus, the front door of the flat was pushed open and Antonia appeared, carrying a bulging shopping bag. She gave a start of surprise at seeing Domenica in the flat, and then she cast a glance in the direction of Markus. But that was all it was – a glance. It was not a

“I’ve let myself down,” she said. “Badly.” 241

lingering look of the sort that Domenica had seen her give him before: this was a dismissive glance.

“I wish he would get on with his work rather than standing about,” she muttered to Domenica. “Polish builders are meant to be hard-working.”

This remark, taken together with the glance, was enough to inform Domenica immediately that the affair between Antonia and Markus was over. She was not surprised, of course, as she had wondered how a relationship which must, by linguistic necessity, have been uncommunicative, could last. The answer was now apparent: a week or so.

She looked at Antonia, who had placed the shopping bag on the ground and was beginning to unbutton her coat.

“You clearly need a cup of tea,” she said. “Or something stronger. How about . . . a glass of Crabbie’s Green Ginger Wine? Come to my flat.”

Crabbie’s Green Ginger Wine, those wonderful evocative words, balm to the troubled Edinburgh soul, metaphorical oil upon metaphorically troubled waters! And redolent of everything quintessentially Edinburgh: slightly sharp, slightly disapproving, slightly superior.

“Tea, please,” said Antonia.

72. “I’ve let myself down,” she said. “Badly.”

Domenica ushered Antonia into her flat and closed the door behind her. “You’ll forgive me if I have a glass of Crabbie’s,”

she said. “I shall make tea for you. Earl Grey?”

“Oh, anything will do,” said Antonia. She looked up at her neighbour. “This is very kind of you.”

“Not at all,” said Domenica. “I sense that . . . Well, I might as well be frank. Things are fraught next door, I take it?”

Antonia looked down at her shoes. “A bit.” There was a short silence, and then she added, “Very fraught, actually.”

242 “I’ve let myself down,” she said. “Badly.”

“Markus?”

Antonia sighed. “Yes. I must confess that I have been having a little fling with him.”

“I could tell that,” said Domenica, adding, hastily, “Not that it’s any business of mine. But one notices.”

“I don’t care if anybody knows,” said Antonia. “But it’s over now, and it’s not very easy having one’s ex working in the house.

You’ll understand that, won’t you?”

“Of course,” said Domenica. “I had a boyfriend once in the field, years ago. He was a young man from Princeton, a heartbreaker – unintentionally, of course. When it didn’t work out, we found that we still had three months of one another’s company in the field. We were in New Guinea and we could hardly get away from one another. Sharing a tiny hut which the local tribe had thoughtfully built for visiting anthropologists. It was very trying for both of us, I think.”

Antonia nodded. “It must have been. It’s not quite that bad for me, but I still feel a bit raw over the whole thing.”

Domenica poured the boiling water into the teapot. “I take it that it was a comprehension problem. After all, he seems to have only one word of English. I suppose one can put a lot of expression into one word, but the whole thing can’t have been easy.”

“Oh, we communicated quite well,” said Antonia. “It’s amazing how much one can say without actually saying anything.”

“Cistercian monks . . .” began Domenica, but the look on Antonia’s face made her trail off.

“He’s married,” said Antonia abruptly. “He showed me a picture of his wife and children.”

Domenica said nothing for a moment. Of the problems that she had foreseen with this relationship, this was not one of them, and beside this, issues of communication seemed to fade into insignificance. “I’m very sorry,” she said. It sounded trite, she knew, but it was what she felt – she was sorry.

“It’s my own fault,” said Antonia. “What else can one expect

“I’ve let myself down,” she said. “Badly.” 243

if one takes up with somebody who’s virtually a complete stranger?”

Domenica tried to console her. “We all make mistakes when it comes to matters of the heart,” she said. “It’s part of the human condition. I’ve certainly made mistakes.”

Antonia shook her head. “One makes such mistakes in one’s twenties, perhaps,” she said. “But not later. No, there’s no excuse for me. None at all.”

It seemed to Domenica that Antonia was berating herself unnecessarily. It had been foolish of her, perhaps, to get involved so quickly, but she had no reason to apologise for that. Antonia was the victim here and so had no need to look for excuses. She thought this as she went to the kitchen cupboard to get the bottle of green ginger wine. As Domenica poured herself a small glass, Antonia continued to speak. “I’ve been such a fool. I really have.”

“You haven’t,” said Domenica. “You’ve been human – that’s all.”

“And he’s been human too?”

Domenica looked up at the ceiling. “Men take comfort where they can find it,” she said. “And all the evidence is, is it not, that they are genetically designed to take up with as many women as they can. It’s something to do with genetic survival.” She paused. “But lest you believe that I’m condoning this sort of thing, I must say that we’re designed to do exactly the opposite. We have to raise children, who take a lot of time. So we’re designed to keep men under control and in the home, providing for everybody. That’s the way it’s meant to work.”

Antonia took a sip of her Earl Grey tea. It was all very well talking about genetic destiny, she thought, but she felt let down, both by herself and by Markus. “I’ve let myself down,” she said.

“Badly.”

Domenica did not agree. “How can one let oneself down?”

she said. “Unless one is going to be intensely dualistic?”

Antonia ignored the question. “Anyway,” she said. “I’ve learned my lesson. From now on, I shall look for a very different sort of man.”

244 “I’ve let myself down,” she said. “Badly.”

“One to whom you can talk?” Domenica regretted saying this the moment she spoke, but Antonia appeared not to have taken offence.

“You know that I’m writing a novel about the early Scottish saints?” she said. “Well, I shall look for a man who is the modern equivalent of the hero of my book.”

Domenica picked up her glass of green ginger wine and glanced at Antonia over the rim. “Are we being practical?” she asked. “Are there any saints out there?”

Antonia met her gaze. “I’m sure there are. It’s only a question of finding them.”

“And it will have to be an unmarried saint.”

Antonia nodded. “Naturally.”

“But where exactly will you find a contemporary saint?” said Domenica. “It’s hard enough to meet any half-decent man these days, let alone somebody saintly.”

Antonia thought for a moment. Then she said: “Saintly men presumably go to church. I shall find one at St Giles’ perhaps, or the Episcopal Cathedral over on Palmerston Place. I find Episcopalian men rather interesting, don’t you?”

Domenica stared at her neighbour. She wondered if she was perhaps not quite feeling herself, if she needed to see somebody.

First, there had been the ridiculous affair with Markus, and now there was this absurd notion that she would meet a man in church.

It really was ridiculous, she thought, quite unrealistic, risible really.

“Are you quite serious?” she asked gently.

“Of course,” said Antonia, setting her teacup down on the table. It was a Blue Spode teacup, the companion of the one which had appeared next door and which Domenica believed had been stolen.

“I’ve got a cup just like that,” said Antonia casually.

Domenica drew in her breath sharply. Antonia was a dangerous, deluded woman – an unrepentant stealer of teacups, a siren to Polish builders, a predator really. She – Domenica –

would have to proceed extremely carefully.

73. Julia Makes a Joyful Discovery It was now almost two weeks since Bruce had moved into Julia’s flat in Howe Street. It had been for both of them a blissful fortnight. For Bruce, it had been a period marked by the discovery of just how comfortable it was to have one’s every whim catered for. Julia cooked for him and made just the dishes he liked – risotto, truffle oil salad, venison pie – while she also attended to his wardrobe, sewing buttons back on those shirts from which they had dropped, pressing his trousers, and generally making sure that he had everything that he wanted. She also drove Bruce about town in the small sports car which her father had given her for her last birthday, taking him to the gym and spa, to the squash club, and wherever else he needed to go.

For Bruce, the bargain was a good one. He was looked after in return for his company – not a bad arrangement, he felt, even if there were times when he found her a bit overbearing and perhaps just a little bit too anxious to please. Although he had his own room in the flat, it had rapidly become no more than a dressing room, where he kept his clothes and his supplies of hair gel and what he referred to as his après-rasage. He and Julia now shared her bedroom, which was dominated by a queen-size bed on which large red cushions were scattered. On each side of the bed, there was a small table stacked with magazines –

Vanity Fair, Harpers & Queen, Cosmopolitan on her side, and on Bruce’s, Gentleman’s Quarterly and High Performance Car, all of them bought by Julia.

Julia liked to lie on top of the bed, paging through the magazines, a small plate of cashew and macadamia nuts beside her.

“This is bliss,” she said. “I’m so happy.”

“Good,” said Bruce. He wanted her to be happy – not too happy, perhaps, but happy enough. If she were to become too happy, then he feared that she might start talking about commitment and permanence, as women tended to do, and this was not on the agenda, as far as he was concerned.

246 Julia Makes a Joyful Discovery Julia had a small diary in which she noted certain facts. On one page of this diary – a day which coincided with Bruce’s moving into the flat, she had written, enigmatically, day fourteen. That was two weeks ago, and now, while Bruce sat watching television in the kitchen, she made her way through to the bathroom off the main bedroom. It was not very tidy, and there was a riot of shampoo bottles cluttering the shelf above the basin.

But from a cupboard behind that – one of those flat medicine cupboards fronted with a mirror – she extracted a small box.

From this she took a plastic tube. Her hands were shaking as she read the leaflet that came with this; the instructions were clear enough, but Julia read them through twice, just to be certain.

In the kitchen, Bruce rose from his chair and fetched a bottle of mineral water from the fridge. Pouring himself a glass, he downed it quickly and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He noticed that the fridge was, as usual, almost completely full, and this gave him a particular pleasure. He could barely remember when he had last had to do any shopping for food, which he had never liked doing very much. And now here was a constantly refilling cornucopia, including that delicious sparkling mineral water tinged with the merest hint of lemon.

He poured himself another glass of that, drank it, stretched his arms above him, and then flopped down on the chair in front of the television.

In the bathroom, Julia held the tube up to the light. A small marker tab inside would reveal the result, the leaflet had promised: a blue line would appear if the test were positive. She peered at the tab. Five seconds, ten seconds . . . a blue line! She closed her eyes and then looked again. This time, the blue line was even more clearly present.

She disposed of the tube carefully. Bruce would probably not know what it was, but she did not want to run the risk of his finding it and asking any awkward questions before she was ready to answer them. Then, standing in front of the mirror, she placed a hand gently against her stomach. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered. I’m pregnant!

Julia Makes a Joyful Discovery 247

It had been very quick, and this was the very first day on which she could perform the test after that first passionate encounter when she had shown him how to use the shower.

What a place for it to happen! But how lovely, she thought.

If it were a girl – which she rather hoped it would be – then perhaps they could even call her Doccia, which was Italian for shower. It was a very nice-sounding name, she thought –

Doccia Anderson; but no, it could be awkward for the poor child later on. One wouldn’t want a child to know that she originated in a shower; one could never tell the effects of that.

Julia looked at her watch. Where would her father be now?

Probably in his office in Melville Street, from which he ran the hotels and other businesses in which he dabbled. She picked up the telephone and dialled the number.

“Daddy?”

Her father chuckled. “Julia! And how is Daddy’s girlie today?

Working hard?”

“Of course. But I shouldn’t overdo it. Not in my condition.”

There was a silence at the other end of the line. Then her father spoke. “What did you say? What condition?”

“You’re going to be a grandfather.” She had rehearsed that in her mind, and it was what she thought would give him greatest pleasure.

Again there was silence for a few moments. Then he said:

“Please say that once more. Slowly this time.”

Julia repeated herself, but was then cut off by a whoop of joy from her father. She was now slightly concerned that she was being a bit premature in conveying the news, but her instinct had been right as to her father’s likely reaction: he was evidently thrilled. But then a hesitant note crept into his voice. “Do you mind my asking,” he said, “but who’s the young man?”

“He’s called Bruce, Daddy. And you’ll love him.”

“Has he asked you to marry him?” her father asked.

“Not quite. But I’m sure he will. With a little . . .”

248 Julia Decides to Test the Temperature

“Yes, with a little what?”

“With a little help from you,” said Julia. “And I know how good you are at getting people to do the things you want them to.”

74. Julia Decides to Test the Temperature When Julia went back into the kitchen, still light-headed from the discovery she had made in the bathroom – a discovery which she knew would change the course of her entire future – she found Bruce sitting with his feet up on the breakfast table. On the other side of the room, the small portable television set which she kept in the kitchen was disgorging some football match which appeared to interest Bruce greatly.

“They’re rubbish,” said Bruce, gesturing towards the television. “They can’t play. They just can’t play.”

“Oh dear,” said Julia. “That’s bad.”

Bruce grunted, and Julia crossed over to the fridge to pour herself a glass of milk. Calcium, she thought. I must get some calcium.

She turned to Bruce, the container of milk still in her hand.

“Calcium, Brucie?”

Bruce looked up from the football match. “What?”

Julia blushed. The word calcium had slipped out unintentionally. “Milk?” she asked.

Bruce made a dismissive gesture. “No thanks. But if you’re making coffee, I wouldn’t mind.”

Julia picked up the kettle and began to fill it with water. There is nothing she would have wished for more than to be able to tell him, to share her news with him, but she realised that it would be unwise to do so – just yet. There would be time enough for that in the future, when the moment was right, and when she would perhaps have the support of her father. For the moment, though, it might still be possible to test the temperature of the Julia Decides to Test the Temperature 249

water by making one or two pertinent remarks. She suspected that Bruce would be a good father, and a willing husband, of course, but it might be an idea just to ascertain exactly where he stood.

Joining him at the table, she made a determined effort to ignore the fact that his feet were on the surface from which they ate. Men were like that, she reminded herself; they were really quite unsanitary in their habits.

“I bumped into an old friend this morning,” she said casually.

Bruce did not take his eyes off the television set. “Oh yes,”

he said.

“Yes,” said Julia. “I was at school with her. A girl called Catherine. We were actually very close friends at school.”

“The best sort of friend,” said Bruce. “As long as they don’t change. Sometimes you find these people you knew a while ago have become all gross and domestic.”

Julia caught her breath. Did he think that grossness and domesticity went together? “Well, she is married,” she ventured.

“But it hasn’t really changed her. She’s even happier than she used to be, in fact.”

“Chacun à son goût,” remarked Bruce. Then he added: “Glad to hear it.”

Julia looked at her fingernails. “She told me she’s pregnant.”

“That happens,” said Bruce. He was not interested in this sort of thing, women’s gossip, he thought.

Julia persevered. “You couldn’t tell yet, of course. But, anyway, she’s really pleased about that. She and her husband have been hoping for this to happen.”

“They may as well get some sleep now – while they can,”

said Bruce, reaching for his glass of sparkling water. “They won’t get any for the next ten years.”

“But sleep isn’t everything, Brucie!” Julia teased. “And lots of babies sleep quite well, you know. They can be fun.”

There was a silence. On the television set, in some unspecified distant place, a man kicked a ball into a goal. There was cheering and despair. Bruce raised a finger and shook it at the 250 Julia Decides to Test the Temperature set. “There you are,” he said. “That’s what comes from having a cripple for a goalkeeper.”

“Some babies you hardly even notice,” Julia went on.

“These people are seriously useless,” said Bruce. “Did you see that? They’ve just let the other side score a goal and now they’re risking having somebody sent off. Incredible. Just incredible.”

He rose to his feet and walked across to switch off the television set. “I can’t bear anymore,” he said. “I’m going to go and have a bath. Should we go out for dinner tonight? You choose.”

Julia nodded vaguely, but her mind was elsewhere. This was not going to be easy, she thought. She watched Bruce as he left the kitchen, and she realised that, quite apart from anything else, quite apart from the baby – their baby! – she had to secure this man, this gorgeous, gorgeous man, as she thought of him.

This Adonis – what exactly did that word mean? – this rock star – this husband!

Bruce went into the bathroom and slipped out of the moccasins he was wearing. He loved the bathroom floor, which was made of limestone, and had a cool, rough feel on the soles of the feet.

And he liked the decor too, the stone-lined shower cubicle – even if the shower itself required special handling – the double basins with their designer bases, the entire glass shelf which Julia had cleared for the hair gels and shampoo she had seen him unpacking in his room. It was a bathroom for living in, Bruce had decided.

One could move one’s stuff in here and just live in it.

He bent over and started the bath running. There was a cube of bath salts on the edge of the bath, left there by Julia, and he picked this up and smelled it. Lily of the Valley. Well, not what he would exactly have chosen – he preferred sandalwood – but he liked the feel of these things and the way they made the water milky white. So he unwrapped it and broke it into the rapidly filling bath. Then he turned round and his eye caught the small leaflet which was lying on the floor at the end of the bath. He reached forward and picked it up. He became quite still.

A Prayer from a Painter in Utter Despair 251

For a few moments after he had finished reading the leaflet that came with Julia’s pregnancy testing kit, Bruce did nothing.

Then, quite slowly, he pivoted round and turned off the running water. Now there was silence in the bathroom.

Bruce looked at the leaflet again. She told me, he thought.

I asked her and she told me. I very specifically, very considerately, asked her, and she reassured me. And now . . . What if the result had been positive? What if he was already responsible for

. . . He suddenly remembered the conversation they had had in the kitchen. He had dismissed it, thought nothing of it. Women always talked about babies, but now he realised that there was a very good reason for Julia having raised the subject.

He looked at the bathwater. He would get in and do some serious thinking in the bath, thinking about his future, thinking about escape routes.

75. A Prayer from a Painter in Utter Despair Angus Lordie had painted very little since the fateful day of Cyril’s arrest. He had been finishing a portrait which had been commissioned by the board of a whisky company; the sittings were done, and he was now working from photographs, but his heart was not in it. It seemed to him that although Cyril was no longer lying at his feet, as he normally did, he was somehow insinuating himself into the very painting, somewhere in the background, a canine presence, a shadow. No, it was hopeless: a painter could not work when his muse lay somewhere in a cold pound, awaiting trial for something that he did not do.

On that morning, although Angus knew that he would have to force himself into his studio, he sat unhappily at his breakfast table, toying with his food; even a Pittenweem kipper seemed unap-petising while he was in this frame of mind. Food was a problem.

The previous evening, to tempt himself to eat, he had treated himself to several thick slices of the smoked salmon sent down to 252 A Prayer from a Painter in Utter Despair him from Argyll by his friend Archie Graham. Archie’s salmon, which he steeped in rum and then smoked himself, was, in Angus Lordie’s opinion, the finest smoked salmon in Scotland, but he had found that in his current mood he had little appetite even for that. Indeed, since Cyril’s arrest, Angus had lost a considerable amount of weight. He now had to wear a belt with the trousers that had previously fitted him perfectly ungebelt, and his collars, normally slightly tight because of the age of his shirts, could now have two fingers inserted between them and his neck and waggled about without discomfort. If a dog could pine for a man, thought Angus, then a man could just as readily pine for a dog.

He lingered over his coffee, watching a shaft of sunlight creep slowly across the table to illuminate the cracks in the wooden surface, the ancient crumbs these contained. We are not worthy, he thought, so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table . . . The familiar words of the Book of Common Prayer came back to him unbidden, from the liturgy of the Scottish Episcopal Church, in which he had been raised and to which, when he felt the need, he always went home; these phrases lodged in the mind, to surface at unexpected moments, such as this, and brought with them their particular form of consola-tion. Such language, such resonant, echoing phrases – man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live . . . Dearly Beloved we are gathered together here in the sight of God –

this was the linguistic heritage bequeathed to the English-speaking peoples in the liturgy and in the Authorised Version by Cranmer and by Jamie Sext, James VI, a monarch with whom Angus had always felt a great affinity. And what had we done with it, with this language and all its dignity? Exchanged it for the banalities of the disc jockey, for the cheap coin of a debased English, for all the vulgarities and obscenities that had polluted broadcasting. And nobody taught children how to speak clearly anymore; nobody taught them to articulate, with the result that there were so many now who spoke from unopened mouths, their words all joined together in some indecipherable slur. You have taken away our language; you have betrayed us. Yes. Yes.

A Prayer from a Painter in Utter Despair 253

Our situation, he thought, is serious. Our nightmares are waking ones: global warming; the loss of control over our lives; a degenerate, irretrievably superficial popular culture; the arrival, with bands playing, of Orwell’s Big Brother. He stared at his table in despair. Did he want to live through all this? Did he want to see the world he knew turned so utterly upside down?

He closed his eyes. Even then, he could feel the presence of the sun as it cast its light upon his table. It was there, a yellow glow, a patch of warmth. He lowered his head and brought his hands together on his lap; hands on which the smell of paint and turps seemed always to linger, the hands of one who made something, an artist. Suddenly, and with complete humility, he began to pray. At first, he felt self-conscious as he performed the forgotten act, last done how many years ago? But, after a moment, that went away, and he felt the onset of a proper humility, a glow. Because I am nothing, he thought, just an ordinary man, a tiny speck of consciousness on a half-burned-out star, precisely because of that I lower my head and pray.

And it seemed to him at that moment that it did not matter if there was nobody listening; the very act of prayer was an acknowledgement of his humanity, a reminder of true scale.

“Oh Lord,” he whispered, “who judges all men and to whom alone the secrets of the heart are known; forgive me my human failings, my manifold acts of wickedness. Open my heart to love.

Turn thy healing gaze to me. Forgive me for that which I have not done which I ought to have done.”

254 All Hail Cyril as He Returns in Triumph It was a hotch-potch of half-remembered phrases, taken out of context and patched together, but as he spoke them, uttered each one, he felt their transformative power. He saw a man beside a shore. He saw children at the feet of the man. What he saw was love and compassion; he was sure of that, utterly sure.

Angus opened his eyes and saw the sunlight upon the table.

He moved his hands so that they lay in the square of warmth.

He looked. The hairs on his hands were picked out by the light; there was a small fleck of white paint on one knuckle. He closed his eyes and concluded his prayer. “And I ask one final thing,”

he muttered. “I ask that you restore to me my dog.”

He rose to his feet and looked about him. How foolish, he thought, to imagine that words uttered by him could change the world in the slightest way, what a massive, sentimental delusion!

But then the telephone rang. Angus gave a start, and then crossed the room to answer. For a second or two, he imagined that his prayer had brought results and that the call would bring news of Cyril. But that, he knew, was not how the world worked.

The world was one of chance, a biological lottery, not one ruled by eternal verities and design. Prayer was a wishful-thinking conversation with self; that’s what he told himself. Of course he knew that.

He picked up the telephone. It was his lawyer, George More, on the other end. “Come round to the office,” said the lawyer.

“There’s somebody here who’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

Angus frowned. Who could George have in the office? Then he heard, coming down the line, a bark.

76. All Hail Cyril as He Returns in Triumph They had not expected it in the Cumberland Bar. There they were, the regulars – Jock, Sid, Harry, Maggie, Gerry, all sitting there, as they always did at six o’clock, waiting for somebody to All Hail Cyril as He Returns in Triumph 255

say something memorable – which nobody ever did – and in walked Angus Lordie, with – mirabile dictu, as Harry, a classical scholar, was so fond of saying – Cyril behind him, gold tooth flashing, tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth as it always did. For a moment, nobody said anything, but all eyes were turned to them; and, a few moments later, before Angus had taken more than a few steps into the bar, the assembled company erupted.

Cyril barked once or twice, but for the most part accepted the fuss calmly and with dignity. Unfamiliar hands ruffled the fur on his head, stroked him, patted him vigorously on the back, all of which he took in his stride, for this is what humans do to dogs, and Cyril understood his place.

Angus, glowing with pleasure, ordered his drink from the bar and the dish of beer for Cyril. Then he went over to his table, where friends were ready to ply him with questions.

“He’s been acquitted?”

“What happened at the trial?”

“Is he on probation?”

None of these questions were relevant, and Angus simply shook his head. Then he began to explain.

“I received a telephone call this morning,” he said. “I must admit I was feeling somewhat low, and I almost didn’t answer the phone. Thank heavens I did! There was George More on the line and he said . . .” He looked down at Cyril, who had finished his beer and was looking up at his master, his eyes damp with contentment.

“He said,” Angus continued, “that he had acted on the information which we passed on – information about the real culprit, which that funny wee boy in Scotland Street . . .”

“Bertie,” prompted Maggie. “The one with the . . .”

“With the mother,” said Harry.

Angus nodded. “Anyway, George said to me that he had been in touch with the powers that be and told them that we intended to lodge a special defence of incrimination. Apparently, that’s what you do when you say that it wasn’t you, it was somebody else.

256 All Hail Cyril as He Returns in Triumph

“Apparently, this caused disarray at the other end, because nobody has ever lodged that defence in a case involving a dog.

And there was the additional issue of whether or not any of the defences normally available in a criminal trial would be able to be applied to a dog. Nobody at the Crown Office seemed to know!”

“So?” asked Maggie, reaching down to pat Cyril again.

“So the fiscal asked the police to go and see if they could find the dog in question. Which they did . . . with very convenient results. Convenient for us, that is.”

Angus looked about him at the expressions of his friends.

“They found that dog all right,” he went on. “They found him and the dog very obligingly bit one of the policemen on the shins. Not a bad bite – just a nip really, but enough to suggest that the finger was pointing in the right direction.”

There were expressions of satisfaction all round. Most people in the Cumberland Bar had been convinced of Cyril’s innocence, and this result merely confirmed what they had always believed.

Now they crowded round Angus, sharing his manifest joy and relief.

“I can get back to work now,” Angus said, smiling. “I haven’t been able to paint a thing – not a thing.”

His friends nodded in sympathy. And when, an hour or so later, Angus rose to go home, they raised their glasses to Cyril as he walked past, a triumph of sorts, a victory march. Cyril wagged his tail and his gold tooth flashed in the light. “He’s a very great dog,” said the barman. “Would you just look at him?

One of the finest dogs of his generation.”

As they made their way out onto Dundonald Street, Cyril raised his head and sniffed at the air. There were the familiar smells of Drummond Place, the smell of the gardens in the centre, the sharp smell of oil on the stone setts, a cooking smell from somewhere close by, the smell of damp. All of that was there, but there was something else, a smell so exciting that Cyril quivered in anticipation.

“What is it, boy?” Angus asked.

Cyril looked up at his master. Then he twisted his neck round All Hail Cyril as He Returns in Triumph 257

and smelled the air again. He had to go where his nose took him; he simply had to.

“What’s troubling you, old chap?” asked Angus. “Are you hungry?”

Cyril tugged at his lead. It was an insistent tug, an urgent one, and Angus decided to let him go where he wanted to go.

So, with Cyril pulling at the leash, Angus followed him across the road, to the gardens in the centre of Drummond Place.

“So you want a run round?” asked Angus, when they reached the half-open gate of the gardens. “All right. But make it brief.

I’m hungry.”

He bent down to take the leash off Cyril’s collar. The moment he did this, Cyril tore towards the centre of the gardens. Angus, bemused at Cyril’s sudden, but totally understandable desire for a bit of freedom, followed behind his dog.

It was one of those generous summer evenings when the light persists, and it was quite bright enough for him to see exactly what was happening. A woman had been walking her dog, a large terrier of some sort, in the gardens, and now, to Angus Lordie’s horror, Cyril rushed over to this dog and began what could only be interpreted as amatory advances. The woman shouted loudly and threw something at Cyril, missing him by some margin. Angus dashed forward, shouting his apologies as he did so. Cyril and the female dog were now in full embrace.

“Stop him!” shouted the woman. “Stop him!”

Angus struck at Cyril with his leash, using it as a whip, but he missed. He raised his arm again and struck once more. This time, the lead connected with Cyril, but the amorous dog seemed to be impervious to his master’s displeasure. There was a growling sound, a warning.

Angus turned to the woman. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “It appears that . . .”

The woman glared at him.

“Listen,” said Angus testily. “You shouldn’t take a dog out in that condition.”

“How dare you!” snapped the woman.

258 Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test Angus looked at Cyril reproachfully. New dogs, perhaps, behaved with greater sensitivity; Cyril, it seemed, was not a new dog.

77. Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test Ever since Olive had come to play “house” in Scotland Street, Bertie had tried to avoid her at school. One reason for this was that he feared that if he talked to her she would try to arrange a further visit; another was that he was concerned that she might wish to give him the result of the blood test she had carried out.

Bertie remembered with a shudder the moment when Olive had cornered him in his room and insisted on plunging the needle of her syringe into his upper arm. It had hurt, even if not quite as much as he had feared, but what had terrified him was the sight of his blood rising so very easily in the barrel of the syringe. Olive herself had seemed to be slightly surprised at this and remarked, with some satisfaction: “I seem to have found a vein first time, Bertie! And look at all that blood. Look at it!”

Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test 259

That had been some days ago, and Bertie hoped that Olive had forgotten all about the test, whatever it was, that she was proposing to conduct. He wondered if he could ask for his blood back, and if it could be injected back into him – by a proper nurse this time.

But he thought that it was probably too late for that, and this was confirmed when Olive eventually trapped him in the playground.

“No, don’t go away, Bertie,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”

Bertie looked about him desperately. At the other side of the playground, Tofu and several other boys were engaged in some game; they had not noticed Bertie, and so no help would come from that quarter. Bertie decided to go on the attack.

“I want my blood back,” he said.

Olive laughed. “Why? Why do you want it back?”

“I want it injected back in,” said Bertie. “You didn’t ask me properly before you took it.”

Olive laughed, screwing up her eyes in amusement. “Oh, Bertie,” she crowed, “you’re so silly! Everybody knows that blood goes dry and hard after a while, especially your yucky sort of blood. You can’t put it back in.”

Bertie frowned. Every day on the bus he went past the Blood Transfusion Service in Lauriston Place. He had asked his mother about this, and it had been explained to him that blood was taken there and stored until needed for transfusion. Olive, he thought, was clearly lying.

“What about blood transfusions, then?” he challenged. “Don’t you know about those?”

Olive, who could not bear to be bettered in any discussion, took a moment or two to compose herself. “Those are different,”

she said. “I would have thought that you would have known how they do that.”

Bertie waited for her to continue, but she did not.

“Well?” he said. “How are they different?”

Olive waved a hand airily. “I haven’t got time to go into all that,” she said. “I need to talk to you about the tests I did. I did some tests, you see, then I threw your blood away. Into the rubbish bin, in fact.”

260 Olive Has News of Bertie’s Blood Test Bertie glared at her in anger. But he was experiencing another emotion too – anxiety. One part of him did not believe that Olive had been able to carry out any tests at all, but another remembered advertisements he had seen for various home-testing kits. It was just possible, perhaps, that Olive had got her hands on one of these and had subjected his blood sample to some procedure or other. He shuddered.

“Worried?” asked Olive. “Well, that’s quite understandable, Bertie. It’s not knowing that’s the worst. That’s what everybody says.”

“Not knowing what?” asked Bertie. He tried to sound strong and insouciant, but that was not how his voice came out.

“Not knowing the result of a test,” said Olive calmly. “But you mustn’t worry too much, Bertie – yet. I promise I’ll tell you gently.”

He gasped. He opened his mouth to say something, but Olive silenced him. “Not very good news, I’m afraid,” she said. “You’ve tested positive for leprosy. Sorry about that, Bertie.”

Bertie stared at Olive. He looked at her fingers, hoping that he would see them crossed – a sure sign that she was telling lies.

But there was no sign of that. All he saw was Olive looking at him sympathetically, a concerned frown on her brow.

“Leprosy is a very serious disease,” Olive went on. “It’s quite rare these days, you know. There’s hardly any at the school.”

“What happens . . . ?” Bertie stuttered.

“Well,” said Olive. “Your nose can fall off. And your fingers too. It’s not very nice. That’s why lepers are given a bell. They ring it to warn people to keep away.”

Bertie reached up and felt his nose. It seemed to be fastened securely enough. He looked at his fingers again; these seemed unaffected.

“How do you catch it?” Bertie asked.

“I’ve been reading about it in the encyclopaedia,” said Olive.

“They say that it’s very difficult to get. You have to have very close contact with somebody who has it.”

“By shaking hands?” asked Bertie. If that was so, then Tofu Question Time for the Boys – and for Olive 261

would have it too. He and Bertie had shaken hands the previous day when they had agreed to swap comics. Would this mean that Tofu would have leprosy too?

As it happened, Tofu was now making his way across the playground to join them.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“Olive says that I’ve got leprosy,” said Bertie. And then he added, “And if I have, then you might have it too, Tofu. I shook hands with you yesterday, remember?”

Tofu looked at Olive, who stared back at him defiantly, as would one who had science on her side. “Oh yes?” he said. “And can you get it from the spit of somebody who’s got it?”

“Of course,” said Olive. “That’s an easy way to get it.”

Tofu smiled at Bertie, and then turned back to face Olive.

“In that case,” he said, “you’ve got it too!”

And with that, he spat at her.

Olive screamed. It was an extremely loud scream, high and painful on the ear, and although there was a certain amount of background noise in the playground, it carried.

Inside the building, Miss Harmony, who was enjoying a cup of tea in the staff room, leapt to her feet and looked out of the window before she hurried out to deal with the emergency.

“Olive!” she cried, as she ran towards the screaming girl.

“What on earth’s wrong?”

Olive opened her eyes. “These boys spat at me, Miss Harmony,”

she said. “I was just talking to them and they spat at me.”

Miss Harmony sighed. Her task in life was every bit as difficult, she thought, as that taken on by the late Dr Livingstone.

78. Question Time for the Boys – and for Olive Inside the classroom, while the rest of the class busied itself with an arithmetical exercise, Miss Harmony took Tofu and Bertie to one side.

262 Question Time for the Boys – and for Olive

“Now, I don’t think I really need to say how disappointed I am,” the teacher began. “Spitting at somebody is not only a very unkind thing to do, it’s also very insanitary. You know that, don’t you? Both of you know that you should never spit at another person.”

“I didn’t,” said Tofu. “She’s lying, Miss Harmony. Olive tells lies all the time. Everybody knows that.”

Bertie drew in his breath. Tofu was telling a bare-faced lie now, and he marvelled at his ability to do so. Surely Miss Harmony would know that he was lying or, worse than that, she might ask Bertie if it were true. That worried Bertie: it was one thing for Tofu to lie to Miss Harmony, quite another for him to do the same thing. In fact, he would never be able to do it.

“Now, Tofu,” said Miss Harmony. “Why would Olive tell me that you boys had spat at her if you hadn’t? And, anyway, I noticed that there was something on her face.”

“That was slime,” said Tofu. “That had nothing to do with me.”

Miss Harmony turned to Bertie. “Now, Bertie,” she said.

“You’re a truthful boy, aren’t you? You tell me: did you spit at Olive?”

Bertie thought for a moment. He could answer this question quite truthfully. He had not spat at Olive, and he could tell Miss Harmony that. “No,” he said, with some indignation. “I didn’t spit at her, Miss Harmony. Cross my heart, I didn’t.”

“And Tofu, then?” asked the teacher. “Can you tell me, Bertie, did Tofu spit at Olive?”

Bertie looked at Tofu. The other boy had been looking away, but now he shot a glance at Bertie and made a quick throat-slitting gesture with his hand. He did it quickly, but not quickly enough for Miss Harmony not to notice it.

“I see,” said the teacher. “Ignore that, please, Bertie. Tofu has just confirmed his guilt.”

Tofu flushed. “It was her fault, Miss Harmony,” he protested.

“She told Bertie that he had leprosy.”

Miss Harmony frowned. “Bertie, did Olive tell you that?”

Question Time for the Boys – and for Olive 263

Bertie nodded miserably. “Yes, Miss Harmony. She took some blood of mine, you see, and did some tests.”

“Blood!” exclaimed Miss Harmony. “Are you making this up, Bertie?”

Bertie shook his head and began to explain to Miss Harmony about what had happened. He told her of Olive’s visit to Scotland Street and of the junior nurse’s set. When he came to tell her of the syringe and the taking of the blood sample, Miss Harmony winced and shook her head in disbelief.

“She actually put the needle in, Bertie?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Bertie. “Then she told me that she had done some tests and that I had leprosy. That’s when Tofu came and . . .”

“Well, we can pass over that,” said Miss Harmony hurriedly, adding, “in the circumstances. But first of all, Bertie, let me assure you: you do not have leprosy. You positively don’t.”

Bertie felt a great weight of anxiety lift off him. Instinctively, he felt his nose again: it seemed more firmly anchored than ever.

“So,” went on Miss Harmony, “you should now forget all about that. Olive had no right to do any of that, and even if we cannot condone spitting . . .” and here she looked at Tofu, “there are some occasions in which a blind eye might properly be turned.

And so I want you two boys to go and sit down and not to think anymore about all this. No more nonsense about leprosy! And no more spitting either!”

From the other side of the classroom, Olive had been watching this carefully. Now she saw the two boys sitting down in their seats and she noticed, somewhat to her alarm, that they were smiling. And now, even more to her alarm, she saw Miss Harmony beckoning her over to her desk.

“Yes, Miss Harmony?” said Olive as she approached the teacher.

“Olive,” said Miss Harmony. “I want a straight answer. No ifs, no buts. Just a straight answer. Did you take a blood sample from Bertie?”

264 Question Time for the Boys – and for Olive Olive looked down at the floor. “Maybe,” she said. And then she added, “I was only trying to help him, Miss Harmony.”

Miss Harmony expelled breath from between her teeth. To Olive, it sounded alarmingly like a hiss.

“You silly, silly little girl,” said the teacher. “Do you realise how dangerous it is to stick a needle into somebody? Do you realise that?”

Olive did not have time to answer before Miss Harmony continued. “And then you went and told him that he had leprosy!

Of all the stupid, unkind things to do, that takes some beating.

Do you even begin to understand how silly that is?”

Olive looked up at her teacher. She knew that her position was very difficult, but it was not in her nature to give up without a fight. “Please don’t destroy my confidence, Miss Harmony,”

she said.

“What did you say?” hissed Miss Harmony. “Destroy your what?”

“My confidence,” said Olive.

It was at this point that Miss Harmony felt her self-control evaporating. She was a graduate of Moray House, the benefi-ciary of a fine training in the Scots pedagogical tradition. She knew all the theory of how to maintain control in the classroom; she knew all the theory about reinforcing positive behaviour.

She also knew that one should never use violence against children, no matter what the temptation. Yet here, faced with this infinitely irritating child, she felt an almost irresistible urge to do something physical.

She tried to collect her thoughts. “Olive,” she said, “do you know the test that people used to see if somebody had leprosy?

They would pinch them on the ear to see if they felt pain.

The poor people with leprosy didn’t, you see. Look, I’ll show you.”

She leaned forward and took Olive’s right earlobe between her thumb and forefinger. “There,” she said. “That’s what they did.”

A Confusion of Daddies at the Dinner Table 265

She pinched extremely hard, and Olive gave a yelp of pain.

“Good,” said Miss Harmony. “So you haven’t got leprosy.

That’s a relief, isn’t it?”

As Olive made her way back to her desk, Miss Harmony looked out of the window. She knew that the eyes of all the children were on her; they had heard Olive’s yelp; they had seen what had happened. Yes, thought Miss Harmony. I have just abandoned everything I was ever taught, but, oh my goodness, it was satisfying!

79. A Confusion of Daddies at the Dinner Table Several days had passed since the evening on which Julia and Bruce had made their respective discoveries; or rather, since Julia had made her discovery and Bruce had discovered her discovery.

For Julia, it had been an exciting and positive moment; she wanted to secure Bruce, and she knew that this might be difficult without a certain amount of leverage. And what better leverage was there than the fact of a pregnancy? He might not like the idea at first, but, with a certain amount of help from her father, she thought that any slight objections that Bruce might have to marriage could be smoothed over. That was her strategy.

For Bruce, the finding of the instruction sheet for the home pregnancy test had been the cause of immediate panic.

Fortunately, as he lay in the bath and reflected on what had happened, this panic subsided, and he began to work out the best approach to the problem. What he required was level-headedness; a careful appreciation of just where he stood and where the danger lay would be followed by a few cautious moves, and, with one bound, he would be free. Julia might think herself smart, but she was no match for Bruce, or so he thought. Indeed, as he reflected on it, he realised that he had never once been 266 A Confusion of Daddies at the Dinner Table outsmarted by a woman. That’s not at all bad, he said to himself.

In all my years of playing the field, I’ve never once, on any single occasion, had any girl get the better of me. Hah! And I’ve known quite a few, he thought, who were considerably wilier than Julia Donald.

He felt reassured; the situation was awkward, yes, but no more than that. And Julia would get over him quickly enough, even if she decided to go ahead with having the baby. If she did that, of course, Bruce felt that it would be her own decision – and her own responsibility. The baby, no doubt, would be good-looking – just like me, he mused – and would keep her company, would give her something to do other than read those stupid magazines and have her hair styled. So getting her pregnant, really, was an act of kindness on his part, a gift.

Over the days that followed, Bruce was careful to give no indication that he had found out about Julia’s pregnancy. And Julia, for her part, did nothing to indicate that her situation had changed. They were pleasant enough to one another and they talked about much the same things that they always talked about.

They went to a party together and had some mutual friends round to the flat in Howe Street. Nothing was said, not a word, to suggest that anything had changed or would change in the future.

But then Julia announced to Bruce one morning that she had invited her father for dinner that night and that he was looking forward to meeting her new flatmate.

“He likes you already,” she said. “He told me that on the phone.”

Bruce smiled. Of course her father would like him, but surely he should have the chance to meet him first. It was typical of Julia, he thought, half-fondly: she was enthusiastic about everything.

“But he hasn’t met me yet,” Bruce pointed out. “I’m not sure if one can like somebody without meeting him first.”

Julia laughed. “But Daddy does,” she said. “I tell him all the A Confusion of Daddies at the Dinner Table 267

things you say, and he says: ‘Seems pretty sound to me.’ So, you see, he knows you quite well already.”

“Oh well,” said Bruce. “I look forward to meeting him too.

He sounds a nice guy, your old man.”

“Oh, he is,” said Julia. “He’s so kind too. He’s always been kind.”

Bruce was curious about Julia’s mother. She had never mentioned her, as he could recall, and he wondered if there was some difficulty there.

“And your mother, Julia? Is she . . . ?”

Julia looked down at the floor. “She’s dead, I’m afraid. Or we think she’s dead.”

Bruce was puzzled. “You don’t know?”

“Well, it was fairly awful,” said Julia. “They went to the Iguazu Falls in South America. They didn’t take me – I was quite young then, and I was left with my aunt in Drymen. You know, right on Loch Lomond. And . . .”

“Nice place,” said Bruce.

“Yes,” said Julia. “But they were in Argentina, you see, and . . .” She broke off.

“Oh well,” said Bruce.

Julia said nothing, and Bruce shifted in his chair. Something had obviously happened at the Iguazu Falls, but perhaps it was better not to go there, he thought, in the metaphorical sense, of course. One could always go to the Iguazu Falls but not . . .

Julia interrupted his train of thought. “I don’t really like to talk about it,” she said.

“No,” said Bruce. “But I’m really looking forward to meeting your father. I really am.”

“I’m so pleased, Brucie,” she said. “Just the four of us.”

Bruce looked up sharply. “Four?”

Julia’s eyes widened. “Did I say four? Four? I meant three, of course. Daddy, me, daddy. That’s three. That’s what I meant.”

Bruce frowned. “You counted your father twice,” he said. “You mentioned two daddies. You did.”

268 A Confusion of Daddies at the Dinner Table Julia was becoming flustered. “Oh, Brucie, you’re getting me all mixed up. What I meant was you, me, and Daddy. That makes three.”

“I see.”

“And I’m going to cook something really nice,” she said. “And you’ll have the chance to chat with Daddy.”

“About?” asked Bruce casually.

“Anything,” said Julia. “Rugby. Business. Politics. Anything you like. He’s very easy. In fact, you could talk to him about property things. You know a lot about that, being a surveyor and all. Daddy has quite a bit of commercial property.”

Bruce hesitated a moment. “Commercial property?”

“Yes,” said Julia. “You know those shops in Queensferry Street?

He has quite a few there. And George Street too. He has some there.”

“Interesting,” said Bruce.

“Not to me,” Julia said. “I find all that talk of square metres and rents and stuff like that really boring.” She paused.

“Anyway, I’m really glad that you and Daddy are going to get on so well. And now I’m going to go and start to get things ready.”

She left Bruce and went into the kitchen. He stood up and Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point 269

walked to the window of the flat, looking down onto Howe Street. He was very comfortable here, and Julia was not all that bad; if she went on, one could simply turn off and let it all wash over. And she was certainly attractive in her dim, rather vacuous sort of way. In fact, she was a real head-turner, now that one came to think of it, and there would be no shame involved in walking into a wine bar with her. A wine bar . . .

There were wine bars in George Street, and she had said that her father had commercial property there. It would be interesting if it turned out that he owned a wine bar. Very interesting.

80. Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point Julia ushered her father into the flat. “Every time I come here,” said Graeme Donald, “I find myself thinking – they really understood the need for space, those Georgians. I was in one of those new flats the other day – you know those ones down the road there. Tiny. And quite a price, too. Ridiculously expensive.”

He was a tall, well-built man with an air of easy self-assurance about him. He kissed his daughter on the cheek, almost absentmindedly, and cast a glance towards the open door of the drawing room. “In there?” he whispered. “This young man of yours?”

Julia nodded. “Yes. And you will do what we discussed? Is that all right, Daddy?”

He looked at her. “Is that what you want? Are you sure he’s the one? Because there’ll be plenty of time to be sorry if . . .”

“Believe me, Daddy. We just click. He’s lovely.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Anything that makes my girl happy.

Anything.”

Julia took him gently by the arm. “Just make sure that he won’t say no,” she said, her voice still low.

270 Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point

“Well, as long as he’s reasonably well-disposed, then I think I can make things attractive enough for him.”

“Good.”

They entered the drawing room, where Bruce was sitting by the window. As they entered, he rose and crossed the floor to shake hands with Graeme.

“So you’re Bruce.” Graeme took Bruce’s hand and shook it warmly.

“Sir.”

“Please call me Graeme.”

Julia moved to Bruce’s side and linked her arm in his. “You two will have lots to talk about,” she said, gazing at Bruce.

“Daddy, Bruce used to be a surveyor.”

“Macauley Holmes etc.,” said Bruce.

Graeme nodded. “Good firm. I’ve had dealings with them.

Nice chaps, the Todds.”

“Yes,” said Bruce, less than enthusiastically.

“Why did you leave?” asked Graeme.

Bruce’s answer came readily. “Challenge,” he said. “I needed to get my teeth into something new.”

Graeme nodded appreciatively. “Always a good idea.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Bruce spoke. “You’re in commercial property yourself, Julia tells me.”

“Yes,” said Graeme. “Mostly here in Edinburgh. Shops. I prefer them to offices, you know. I felt that you’re more at the mercy of the economy if you have office space on your hands. But if you have retail property in a good area, then there’s always somebody prepared to take on a lease. Or that’s what I’ve found. The triumph of hope over commercial experience.”

Bruce laughed. “George Street?” he asked. “Julia said something about George Street.”

Graeme nodded. “I have a wine bar there,” he said. “You may know it.”

Bruce did know it. It was one of the more fashionable wine bars. He and Julia had been there together and she had Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point 271

said something about her father, but he had paid no attention.

“A great bar,” said Bruce. “It must do very well.”

“It could do better,” said Graeme. “I need to get somebody to take it in hand. Somebody who . . .” He trailed off. He was watching Bruce, and he saw the slight movement of the brows.

I can see what she sees in him, Graeme thought. And what a relief, with all that riff-raff around these days; at long last she’s come up with a young man about whom I can be enthusiastic; somebody who shares my values. Bit dim, I suspect, but obviously capable of producing grandchildren, and nothing in the least artistic about him, thank heavens, unlike the last one: talk about barking up the wrong tree with him! No, she’s quite right; this is more like it.

He looked at Bruce. “Would you mind if I had a frank talk with you?” he asked suddenly. “I’ve never been one to beat about the bush – I don’t see the point. Man to man. Much better.”

Bruce froze. She’s told him, he thought. She’s gone and told him.

“You see,” said Graeme, “we’re not a big family. I lost my wife, as you may know, some time ago.”

Bruce thought of Julia’s mother, lost at the Iguazu Falls. He nodded.

“And so I’m very close to Julia,” Graeme went on. “And the one thing I want is her happiness. That means more to me than anything. Can you understand that?”

Bruce nodded. This was going to be very embarrassing.

“So if there’s a young man who’s keen to marry her,” said Graeme, “then that young man . . .” he paused for a moment, fixing him with a direct stare, “whoever he might turn out to be, will find himself very . . . how should I put it? . . . very well provided for. In fact, he would find himself in the business, as a director. And Julia, of course, would end up with a very nice share of the business, too – the whole lot, eventually. For instance, that wine bar in George Street. The young man would probably rather like being the . . . being the owner of that. And 272 Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point there are two parking garages that go with it, you know. He would need somewhere to park the little run-about that would go with the job. Not that a Porsche needs all that much space, of course!”

For a few moments, there was complete silence, at least in the drawing room. In the kitchen, there was the sound of a mixer whirring and then a metal spoon scraping against the side of a pot.

Bruce had been taken aback by the directness of the approach, but at least Graeme had made his position clear. And why shouldn’t he? Bruce asked himself. He was making an offer, and what point was there in making the offer less than clear?

Bruce did a rapid calculation. A wine bar in George Street would be worth well over a million. And that was without the other things that Graeme had hinted at. Life was a battle, Bruce thought, and here was he with nothing very much to show for the last six years. Look at Neil in that flat in Comely Bank, stuck there for the foreseeable future, struggling to make ends meet on what was probably a perfectly good salary. How long would that mortgage be? Twenty-five years? Anything would be better than that, anything.

He looked at Graeme, who was smiling at him nervously.

“You . . . you’ve spelled it out,” said Bruce. “Nobody could excuse you of . . .”

“Being oversubtle?” supplied Graeme.

“Well . . .” said Bruce.

Graeme raised a hand. “Julia seems very fond of you.”

“And I’m fond of her,” Bruce said, which he was, in a way.

He was reasonably fond of her, for all her . . . all her empty-headedness. No. Time to call it quits. Every bachelor has to face it, he thought. And this was, after all, a magnificent landing.

“All right, if I have your permission,” said Bruce, “I’d like to ask Julia to marry me.”

“You have it,” said Graeme quickly. He reached out for Bruce’s hand and shook it. “I think she’ll be very pleased.”

“Good,” said Bruce. “I’ll . . .”

A Clean Break – Not Without an Argument 273

“Go through now,” said Graeme. “Go and speak to her. I’ll stay here. But you go and pop the question.” He paused, rubbing his hands together. “And tell me, when’s the happy day to be?”

“The wedding? Well, I don’t know . . .”

“No, not that,” said Graeme. “You know what I mean.”

81. A Clean Break – Not Without an Argument On the day on which Bruce’s situation became so dramatically better, Matthew, whose long-term prospects had improved markedly on his meeting with Miss Harmony, now faced short-term discomfort in his relationship with Pat. He had decided to make a clean break with Pat even before he had so fortuitously met Elspeth Harmony, so nobody could accuse him of trading one woman for another. But even if he had not been disloyal, he still felt uncomfortable about the actual process of ending the relationship. On several occasions, he had rehearsed what he would say, trying various scripts, fretting over the degree to which each might be thought either too heartless or too ambiva-lent. Nothing sounded quite right.

And when the time came, it sounded flat, sounded phoney.

“Pat,” he began. “You and I need to talk.”

She looked up from a letter which she was in the process of opening. “Talk? All right. But about what?”

“Us,” said Matthew. “That is, you. Me. Us, as a . . . a couple.”

She saw that he was blushing, and this worried her. She had hoped that he would have forgotten what he had said that evening, at the Duke of Johannesburg’s party, but he evidently had not. Oh dear, she thought, I’m going to have to hurt his feelings. Poor Matthew! And he’s wearing his distressed-oatmeal sweater too.

“Yes,” Matthew went on, averting his gaze. “I’ve been having a serious think about us, and I think that we need to go back 274 A Clean Break – Not Without an Argument to being friends. Just friends. You know that I’m very fond of you, you know that. But I think that we’re in different places.

We have different plans. I want to settle down and you . . . you, quite rightly, don’t really want that, do you? You’re younger. It’s natural.”

Pat listened attentively. Her reaction was one of immense relief, but she did not want Matthew to see that. She hoped that she sounded sufficiently concerned.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

She sighed. “You’ve been very kind to me, Matthew. And always thoughtful.”

Matthew blushed.

“But you’re probably right,” Pat went on quickly. “You need something I can’t give you.”

“I’m glad you understand.” He paused. “So you’re not too upset?”

“No . . . I mean of course I’m sorry, but I’ll get over it. And I really think it’s for the best.”

His relief was palpable. It had been far easier than he had imagined.

“And I hope that you find somebody else, Matthew. I really hope that. You deserve somebody nice, somebody who wants what you want.” She looked at him. Poor Matthew. He would find it hard to get somebody else.

Matthew hesitated. He had not been sure whether he should mention Elspeth to her, but now it struck him that it would be almost dishonest not to do so, now that she had mentioned the possibility. “In actual fact,” he ventured, “I’ve met somebody.

Just a few days ago.”

Pat gave a start. “You’ve met another girl?”

“Yes. She’s a teacher. She came into the gallery, and, well, it just happened. We fell for each other.”

Pat said nothing for a moment. For each other? Or was it more a case of Matthew doing the falling? The problem, she thought, was that nobody would fall for Matthew just like that.

A Clean Break – Not Without an Argument 275

He was very kind; he was very gentle; but he was not the sort for whom women fell – they simply did not. The thought was a disloyal one, and she tried to put it out of her mind. So she asked Matthew who she was.

“She’s older than you are,” said Matthew. “She’s about my age, or even a year or two older. I don’t know exactly. And she’s called Elspeth Harmony.”

Pat nodded. “Go on.”

“Well, I don’t really know too much about her,” Matthew continued. “Except that she likes china. I bought her a Meissen figure, in fact. From The Thrie Estaits down the road.”

Pat stared at him. “You bought her a Meissen figure?”

“Yes. She loved it. And it was really special.”

Pat’s voice was now considerably quieter. “And me?” she asked.

“What did you ever buy me?”

Matthew was taken aback by this question. “Look,” he said,

“I didn’t know we counted presents.”

“No, we don’t,” she said. “But if I did count . . . well, it wouldn’t come to much. It would come to nothing, actually.”

“Don’t be ridiculous . . .”

“Oh, you think that’s ridiculous?” There was new spirit in her voice. “I’m being ridiculous in thinking that it’s a bit strange that you know her for – how long? – two days, and you buy her a Meissen figure. You know me for over a year, two years really, and you buy me nothing. Nothing. When’s my birthday, Matthew? Go on, tell me when my birthday is.”

“You mean you’ve forgotten?”

“Don’t try to be funny,” she said, her voice now raised. “You can’t pull it off, Matthew. Sitting there in that beige sweater, trying to be funny.”

“It’s not beige,” said Matthew sharply. “It’s distressed oatmeal.”

“Distressed oatmeal!” Pat countered. “Distressed beige. That’s your trouble, Matthew. I’m sorry, but your clothes . . .” she paused, seeming to search for the right term. “Your clothes, Matthew, are tragic, really tragic.”

Matthew looked away. “You think I’m tragic, do you?”

276 A Clean Break – Not Without an Argument Pat did not think about what she was saying. But she was smarting over the question of presents. “Yes, I do. And she must be really tragic, this Elspeth Meissen.”

“She’s not called Meissen,” he said. “The figure was Meissen.

And if I’m tragic, then what does that make you? The girlfriend of a tragedy?”

“That’s really childish!”

Neither said anything. Both were surprised by the sudden exchange of insults. And both regretted it. Suddenly, Pat reached out and put her hand on Matthew’s arm. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“We’re being really silly about this. It’s my fault.”

Matthew turned and gave her hand an affectionate squeeze.

“No, it’s mine. And I’m sorry too.”

Pat smiled. “I’ll never say anything like that to you again. I promise.”

“Me too,” Matthew responded. “And I’d like to give you something to . . . to make up for my insensitivity.”

He rose to his feet and looked about the gallery. On the wall opposite him was a painting that Pat had admired. He walked across the room and took it off the wall. He gave it to her.

She said, “This is far too expensive. You can’t give this to me.”

He shook his head. “Yes I can. I want you to have it.”

She took the painting from him. It was heavier than she had imagined it would be – heavy in its expansive gilt frame. Guilt frame, she thought, his – or mine?

82. A Shopping Trip for a Special Dinner Date When Matthew locked up the gallery and went out onto Dundas Street that evening, he felt almost light-headed with relief. He had dreaded the break-up with Pat. He had imagined that there would be recriminations, threats, tears, and there had been none of that, unless, of course, one counted the brief and really rather silly exchange over beige and distressed oatmeal. And one should not really make much of such an adolescent flare-up, in which nothing really hurtful was said, and which led, anyway, to immediate apologies.

After Matthew had given Pat the painting – which was a rather nice little Stanley Spencer watercolour, a generous present by any standards – they had finished their conversation with what Matthew described as housekeeping matters.

Pat should not feel that she should give up her part-time job at the gallery; that position had nothing to do with their relationship, and he did not think it would be at all difficult for them to continue to see one another as colleagues and friends.

Pat agreed, but thought that she would consider it anyway. Her university work was becoming more pressing, and she was not sure how much time she could devote to working in the gallery.

But if she did find that she had to give the job up, or do fewer hours, she had a friend in the same degree course who was currently doing bar work and who would love to have a change.

Matthew thanked her for this. “You’ve never let me down,” he said. “Never.”

With that disposed of, the rest of the morning had passed in amicable companionship, with only the occasional reference to their new situation.

“You’ll find somebody else,” said Matthew at one point.

“There are plenty of boys. Plenty.”

“Not all of them are nice,” said Pat. “In fact, some of them are really awful.”

Matthew nodded. “Wolf, for example.”

278 A Shopping Trip for a Special Dinner Date Pat said nothing.

“And others,” said Matthew quickly. “But there are some nice ones. And you’ll meet them, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know if I want to,” said Pat. “I think I might have a boy-free time for a while. It’s nice to be single, you know. It’s

. . . it’s uncluttered.”

Matthew was not so certain about that. He had endured long periods of being uncluttered, and, on balance, he preferred to be cluttered. He thought of Elspeth Harmony. He would see her that night – he had asked her to have dinner with him and she had agreed. He would cook something special – he had a new risotto recipe that he had mastered and he would give her that.

And champagne? Or would that be a little bit too much? Yes, it would. Perhaps they would have a New Zealand white instead.

Or something from Western Australia. Margaret River, perhaps.

And what would he wear? That was more difficult, as he obviously could not wear his distressed-oatmeal sweater – not after those remarks that Pat had made. It was not beige! It was not!

But there was no point in going over that – it was obvious that distressed oatmeal was not a colour of which every woman approved, and in that case he would wear . . .

“Pat,” he said. “What should I wear? I mean, what should I wear for special occasions?”

She guessed at what he was talking about. “For when you’re seeing what’s-her-name? Elspeth Harm . . .”

“Harmony.”

“Yes, her. Well, let me see. Don’t think that . . .”

“I won’t wear my sweater. Don’t worry.”

“Good. Well, look, Matthew. You have to decide what your colour is. Then go for that. Build around it.”

Matthew looked interested. “Build around my colour?”

Pat looked at him intensely. “Yes. And your colour, I would have thought is . . . ultramarine.”

Matthew stared at her. “As in Vermeer?”

“Yes,” said Pat. “Do you know how Vermeer got that lovely shade of blue? By crushing lapis lazuli.”

A Shopping Trip for a Special Dinner Date 279

“Of course I knew that,” said Matthew.

“And that’s why there’s that terrific light in his pictures. The girl with the pearl earring, for instance. That blue in her head-scarf.”

“Do you think I should wear that exact blue?”

Pat nodded. “I think so. But you shouldn’t wear everything in that blue, of course. Maybe a shirt in that blue and then get some trousers which are . . . well, maybe blackish, but not pure black. Charcoal. That’s it. Charcoal trousers, Matthew, and an ultramarine shirt.”

“And a tie?”

“No, definitely not. Just the shirt, with the top button undone.

And don’t, whatever you do, have a button-down collar. Just have it normal. Try to be normal, Matthew.”

Pat went off to the university at lunchtime, leaving Matthew to spend the afternoon in the gallery by himself. He closed early, and made his way up to Stewart Christie in Queen Street. The window was full of brown and green clothes – a hacking jacket, an olive-green overcoat with corduroy elbow patches, green kilt hose – but they were able to produce several blue shirts which struck Matthew as being close to ultramarine. He chose two of these, along with a pair of charcoal trousers and several pairs of Argyle socks, which he needed anyway. Then he made his way down Albany Place, crossed Heriot Row, and was in India Street, where his flat was.

India Street was, in Matthew’s view, the most appealing street in the New Town. If he thought of the streets in the immediate vicinity, each of them had slight drawbacks, some of which it was difficult to put one’s finger on, an elusive matter of feng shui, perhaps, those almost indefinable factors of light or orien-tation that can make the difference between the presence or absence of architectural blessedness. This, he thought as he walked down his side of the street, is where I want to live – and I am living there. I am a fortunate man.

And he discovered, as he thought of his good fortune, that what he wanted to do more than anything else was to share it.

280 The Matthew He Wanted Her to Know In recent days, he had given two valuable gifts, and the act of giving had filled him with pleasure. Now he would give more; he would sweep Elspeth Harmony up, celebrate her, take her from whatever place she now lived in, and offer her his flat in India Street, his fortune, himself, everything.

He looked at the parcel he was carrying, the parcel in which the ultramarine shirt and the charcoal trousers were wrapped. He saw himself in this new garb, opening the door to Elspeth Harmony, ushering her into the flat. In the background, the enticing smell of cooking and music. I have to get this right, he thought. If this doesn’t work, then there’s no hope for me.

He climbed the stairs to his front door and let himself in. On the hall table, a red light blinked insistently from the telephone: somebody had left a message.

He dropped the parcel and pressed the button to play the message. It will be from her, he thought.

It was.

83. The Matthew He Wanted Her to Know Matthew listened to the message left for him by Elspeth Harmony. In the rather sparsely furnished hall of his flat in India Street, the recorded voice, with its clear diction – it was, after all, the voice of a teacher – echoed in the emptiness. And it seemed to Matthew that the chambers of the heart were themselves empty, desolate, now without hope.

“I’m really very sorry,” Elspeth began. “It was very sweet of you to ask me to dinner, but I can’t make it after all. I’m a bit upset about something and I don’t feel that I would be very good company. I’m so sorry. Maybe some other time.”

He played the message through and the machine automa-tically went on to the next message, which was from a company that had tried to deliver something and could not. The company spoke in injured tones, as if it expected that people The Matthew He Wanted Her to Know 281

should always be in to receive its parcels. Matthew ignored that message; his thoughts were on what Elspeth had said.

Women had all sorts of excuses to get out of an unwanted date: family issues – my mother’s in town – I’d much prefer to be seeing you, but you know how it is. And then: I’ve had a headache since lunchtime and I think I should just get an early night, so sorry. He listened again to what Elspeth had to say. There was no doubt that the tone was sincere, and from that Matthew took a few scraps of comfort. This was not a diplomatic excuse concealing a simple reluctance to have dinner with him; this was the voice of somebody who was clearly upset, and for good reason.

He switched off the machine and stood up from the crouching position in which he had been listening to the message. How he reacted to this would, he thought, determine whether he saw Elspeth again. If he did nothing, then she might think that he simply did not care; if, on the other hand, he tried to persuade her to come, in spite of everything – whatever everything was – then he might appear equally selfish. He decided to call her.

As the telephone rang at the other end, Matthew tried to imagine the scene. Her address was on the other side of town, in a street sandwiched between Sciennes and Newington, and he thought of her flat, with its modest brass plate on the door, harmony, and its window box with a small display of nasturtiums. Or was that mere romanticism? No, he thought, it is not.

Her name is Harmony, and there’s no reason why she should not have a window box with nasturtiums, none at all.

“Elspeth Harmony.”

The voice was quiet, the tones those of one who had been thinking of something else when the telephone had rung.

“It’s Matthew here. I got your message. Are you all right?”

There was a momentary pause. Then: “Yes, I’m all right. But I’m sorry about tonight. I just couldn’t face it.”

Matthew’s heart sank. Perhaps it had just been a lame excuse after all. “Oh,” he said. “But . . .”

282 The Matthew He Wanted Her to Know Elspeth interrupted him. “It’s nothing to do with you. Please don’t think that.”

He imagined her sitting in a chair in the kitchen, looking out at the nasturtiums.

“Has something happened?”

“Yes,” she said. And then, after a momentary hesitation, “I’ve lost my job. Or rather, I’m about to lose my job.”

Matthew gasped.

“Yes,” Elspeth went on. “There was an incident at the school yesterday and . . . and, well, I’m afraid that I’ve been suspended, pending an inquiry. But they think that it might be best for me to go before then. I’m rather upset by this. Teaching, you see, has been my life . . .”

She broke off, and Matthew for a moment thought that she had begun to cry.

“I’d like to come and see you,” he said firmly. “If I get a taxi now, I’ll be at your place in ten, fifteen minutes.”

She sounded tearful. “I don’t know. I really don’t . . .”

“No, I’ll be there,” said Matthew. “Ten minutes. Just wait for me.”

He put down the receiver and went into his bedroom to change into a new ultramarine shirt. But then he stopped. He looked at the shirt that he had laid on the bed. No, that shirt was not him, that was Pat’s idea of what she thought he should be. The real Matthew, the one that wanted to go and help Elspeth Harmony in whatever distress she was suffering, was not the Matthew of ultramarine shirts and charcoal trousers; it was the Matthew of distressed-oatmeal sweaters and crushed-strawberry trousers; that was who he was, and that was the person whom he wished Elspeth Harmony to know.

The taxi arrived promptly, and Matthew gave the driver instructions. They travelled in silence and, in the light traffic, they were there in little more than ten minutes.

“Number eighteen?” asked the driver, as they entered the small cul-de-sac. “I had an aunt who lived at number eight.

Dead now, of course, but she used to make terrific scones. We The Matthew He Wanted Her to Know 283

used to go there for tea as children. There were always scones.

And she made us kids eat up. Come on now, plenty more scones.

Come on!”

Matthew smiled. There used to always be scones. The taxi driver was much older, but even Matthew’s Scotland had changed since his own childhood, not all that many years ago. Things like that were less common – aunts who made scones. There were career aunts now, who had no time to bake scones.

They stopped outside number 18 and he looked up towards the third floor, where Elspeth Harmony lived. There were window boxes at two of the windows and a small splash of red.

Nasturtiums. He smiled.

She let him in, and he could tell that she had been crying.

He moved forward and put an arm around her shoulder.

“You mustn’t cry,” he said. “You mustn’t.”

“I feel so stupid,” she said. “I feel that I’ve let everyone down.”

“Tell me exactly what happened,” said Matthew.

She told him, and he listened carefully. When she had finished, he shook his head in astonishment. “So all you did was give her a little pinch on the ear?”

Elspeth nodded. “There was really no excuse,” she said. “But there are one or two of the children who are seriously provocative. There’s a boy called Tofu, who really tries my patience.

And then there’s Olive, whose ear . . . whose ear I pinched.”

“It’s entirely understandable,” said Matthew. “Teaching is so demanding, and you get so little support. That pinch will have done Olive no harm – probably a lot of good.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes,” said Matthew. But then he went on, rather sadly, “But I suppose that’s not the world we live in, with all these regula-tions and busybodies about.” He paused. “I think you’ve struck a blow for sanity. Or rather, pinched one.”

She thought this very funny and laughed.

“I’m rather fed up with teaching anyway,” Elspeth said.

Matthew thought: if you married me, then you’d never have to work again. Unless you wanted to, of course.

84. A Tattooed Man Stirs Up a Painful Past Dr Hugo Fairbairn, author of that seminal work of child psychotherapy, Shattered to Pieces: Ego Dissolution in a Three-Year-Old Tyrant, was walking in from his flat in Sciennes, on the south side of Edinburgh, to his consulting rooms in Queen Street. It was as fine a day as Edinburgh had enjoyed for some weeks, with the temperature being sufficiently high to encourage shirt-sleeves, but not so high as to provoke some men to remove their shirts altogether. A few more degrees and that would, of course, happen, and many men who should, out of consideration for others, remain shirted, would strip to the waist, treating passers-by to expanses of flesh that was far from Mediterranean in its appearance, but was pallid and perhaps somewhat less than firm. After all, thought Dr Fairbairn, this was what Auden had described as a beer and potato culture – in contrast to the culture of the Mezzogiorno, which he had then been enjoying; and beer and potatoes led to heaviness, both of the spirit and of the flesh.

Of course, it was not every male who felt inclined to strip down in the better weather; lawyers did not, and for a moment Dr Fairbairn imagined the scene if lawyers, striding up the Mound on their way to court, were to take off their white shirts in the same way as did building workers; such a ridiculous notion, but it did show, he thought, just how firmly we are embedded in social and professional roles. He, naturally A Tattooed Man Stirs Up a Painful Past 285

enough, did not dress in a manner which in any way showed an acceptance of imposed roles. His blue linen jacket, with matching tie, could have been worn by anybody; it was class-less garb of the sort that said nothing about him other than that he liked blue and linen. And that was exactly as Dr Fairbairn wanted it.

He had been looking down at the pavement; now he looked up, to see a young man approaching him, without his shirt. The psychotherapist suppressed a smile: never believe that you will not see something, he thought – because you will. This does not mean that the thing that you think you will not see will crop up – what it does mean is that you may think that you have seen something which you actually have not.

But this young man, walking along the pavement in the slanting morning sun, was real enough, as was the large tattoo on his left shoulder. It was an aggressive-looking tattoo, depicting what appeared to be a mountain lion engaged in mortal combat with what appeared to be a buffalo. Or was it a wildebeest? Dr Fairbairn imagined himself stopping and asking the young man if he could clarify the situation. Is that a wildebeest? One might ask, but such questions could be misinterpreted. As Dr Fairbairn knew, men could not look too closely at the tattoos of others, without risking misunderstandings. But it was a mistake, he knew, to assume that somebody who provided the canvas for such a scene of combat would have an aggressive personality. This was not the case; a real softie might have a tattoo of a mountain lion for that very reason – he was a real softie.

These reflections made him remember that Wee Fraser, the boy whose analysis he had written about in Shattered to Pieces, had a tattoo, even though he was only three years old. He had had inscribed in capital letters across the back of his neck Made in Scotland, just below the hairline. When he had first noticed it, Dr Fairbairn had been astonished, and had wondered if somebody had written this in ballpoint ink on the boy’s skin, as some form of joke. But closer examination had revealed that it was a real tattoo.

286 A Tattooed Man Stirs Up a Painful Past

“You have something written on the back of your neck, Fraser,”

he had said gently. “What is it?”

Fraser had replied in very crude terms, indicating that it was no business of Dr Fairbairn’s, using language which nobody would expect so young a child to know; but then, Dr Fairbairn reflected, he would have heard these words on the BBC, and so perhaps it was inevitable. And some people had always wanted their children to speak BBC English and were now getting their wish fulfilled in this unusual way.

“You mustn’t talk like that, Fraser,” he said. “Those are bad words. Bad!”

At the end of the session, Fraser’s father, a fireman, had appeared to collect his son and Dr Fairbairn had taken the opportunity to ask why Fraser had Made in Scotland tattooed on the back of his neck.

“Because he was,” said the father simply, and had winked at the psychotherapist.

That encounter was never mentioned in Shattered to Pieces.

Nor was that fateful occasion on which Dr Fairbairn had smacked Wee Fraser after the boy had bitten him, an episode which Dr Fairbairn had attempted to forget, but which kept coming back to haunt him, reminding him of his weakness. Indeed, the memory came back to him now, as he walked past the tattooed man, but he put it out of his mind, muttering, “We do not go back to the painful past.”

Dr Fairbairn was looking forward to the day ahead. He had a few hours to himself at the beginning, which would provide an opportunity to deal with correspondence and to do some further work on a paper that he was preparing for a conference, in collaboration with a well-known child psychotherapist from Buenos Aires. The conference was to be held in Florence, and for a moment he reflected on how pleasant it would be to be in Florence again, enjoying the always very generous hospitality of the Italian Association for Child Psychotherapy, an association whose corpulent president placed great emphasis on the importance of elaborate conference dinners and a good A Dangerous Turn in the Conversation 287

cultural programme. At the last such conference, when Dr Fairbairn had given his paper on early manifestations of the Oedipus complex, the delegates had been taken to a restaurant on the banks of the Arno where, as the sun set, they had been treated to a chocolate pudding borne in on a trolley, the pudding being in the shape of Vesuvius (the chef was a Neapolitan). The pudding’s very shape had been enough to draw gasps of admiration from those present, which turned to exclamations of surprise when fireworks within the chocolate crater had erupted into incandescent flows of sparks, like bright jets of lava, like tiny exhalations of fiery gold.