Unbearable Lightness of Scones

11. A Spoiled Secret

Matthew and Elspeth had left their wedding party in Moray Place Gardens not in a car, but on foot, which gave their going-away not only an intimate, but also a contemporary conservationist feel. Matthew, of course, was modest and would have eschewed any ostentation; he ridiculed the appearance in the streets of Edinburgh of stretch limousines and had no car himself, instead preferring to walk or take a bus wherever possible. For her part, Elspeth had a car, but only a small one, which had a permanently flat battery and was therefore little burden on the environment.

They did not have far to walk. India Street, where Matthew – and now Elspeth – lived, was only two blocks away, down Darnaway Street and along a small section of Heriot Row. They were to go there when they left the wedding party, now winding down after the ceilidh band had packed up their instruments and the dancing had stopped. Then, on the following day, they were to leave for their honeymoon, to a destination Matthew had kept steadfastly secret from Elspeth.

When they reached the front door of his flat on the third floor, he fumbled for the key in the pocket of his kilt-jacket.

“You should keep it in your sporran,” said Elspeth, “along with all the other things that men keep in their sporrans.”

Matthew looked at her in surprise. “But what do men keep in their sporrans?” he asked. He had no idea, but he knew that his was always empty.

“Oh, this and that,” said Elspeth. She had only the haziest notion of what men did in general, and none, in particular, of what they kept in their sporrans. Indeed, as she looked at Matthew standing before the door of their new home, it occurred to her that she had done an extraordinary thing – or at least something that was extraordinary for her – that she had married a man, and that this person at her side – much as she loved him – was, in so many important ways, quite different from her. He would look upon the world through male eyes; he would think in a masculine fashion; he was something else, the other.

“You could look in my sporran if you like,” Matthew said.

She looked down at the leather pouch and very gently reached down to touch it.

She said nothing; both were somehow moved by what was happening; this sharing of a sporran was an unexpected intimacy; ridiculous, yes, but not ridiculous.

“I’ve found my key,” said Matthew, after a while. “Here.”

He slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. Inside, at Matthew’s request, and placed there by his best man a few hours before the wedding, a large bunch of flowers dominated the hall table, red and white carnations.

“Thank you for marrying me,” Matthew said suddenly. “I never thought that anybody…”

“Would marry you? But there must have been lots of girls who…”

“Who wanted to marry me?” Matthew shook his head.

She said, “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true. Nobody. Until you came along and then we knew, didn’t we? We just knew.”

Elspeth smiled. “I suppose that’s right. I thought that I was on the shelf. I thought that I would spend the rest of my days teaching Olive and Bertie and… Tofu.” She gave an involuntary shudder: Tofu. “But you took me away from all that.”

Matthew took her hand, moved by the frankness of what she had said. These words, he felt, were like an act of undressing. “You took yourself away.”

He dropped her hand and walked across the hall to switch on a light. “Is your suitcase all ready?”

She nodded.

“And your passport?” Matthew asked.

She laughed. “Do we need that for Arran?”

“I wouldn’t mind going to Arran,” said Matthew. “We used to go over there when I was a boy. My uncle had a house near Brodick and we would go there in the summer. It was mostly Glasgow people and there was a boy there whom we called Soapy Soutar and who threw a stone at me because I was from Edinburgh. He said I deserved it and that if I came back next summer it would be a rock. I remember it so clearly.”

“So it’s not Arran. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Because I want it to be a surprise.”

She reached out and slipped her hand back into his. “You’re a romantic.”

“If you can’t be a romantic about your own wedding,” he said, “then what can you be romantic about?”

“So no clue at all?”

He thought for a moment. “A tiny one… maybe. All right. A tiny clue.”

She looked at him, searching his expression. She hoped that it would be Italy; that he would say something like “where there’s water in the streets” or “the Pope lives nearby” or hum a few bars of “Return to Sorrento.”

“It’s a big place,” said Matthew at last.

So they were going to America (or Canada, or Russia, or Argentina).

“You’ve got to tell me more than that. You must.”

Matthew looked at her teasingly. “I really want it to be a surprise. So that’s all I’m going to say.”

“Texas. Texas is big.”

Matthew frowned. If she insisted on guessing, sooner or later she would come up with the right answer and he was not sure that he would be able to remain impassive when at last she did.

“So it’s not Texas.”

“No. It’s not Texas.”

She moved forward and kissed him gently on the cheek. “It’s Australia, isn’t it?”

She knew immediately that she was right, and at the same time she immediately regretted what she had done; now she had spoiled it for him. They had been married for less than twenty-four hours and she had already done something to hurt him. How would that sound at marriage counselling?

Mind you, there had been brides who had done worse than that. She had recently read of the wife of one of the Happy Valley set in Kenya all those years ago. She was said to have had an affair with another man on her honeymoon, on the boat out to Mombasa. That took some doing; took some psychopathology.

She put her arms round Matthew. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to spoil it for you. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that…”

“What?”

“It’s just that you should have asked me where I wanted to go, Matthew. What if I didn’t want to go to Australia? What then?”

Matthew turned away. It was spoiled – already.