Unbearable Lightness of Scones

57. Uncle Jack’s Visit

Matthew and Elspeth returned to Edinburgh on a morning flight from Heathrow Airport. They had again broken their journey with two nights in Singapore, staying once more at Raffles. There, sitting before dinner in the Long Bar, under the swaying, hypnotic movement of the ceiling punkahs, Matthew had turned to Elspeth and said: “I find this very strange. This is the one place in this country where you can drop things on the ground with impunity. And yet I can’t do it. I just can’t bring myself do it.”

Elspeth glanced down at the layer of discarded peanut shells, inches deep in places, that covered the floor in every direction. At the far end of the room, a teenage boy in a sarong swept away at this detritus, a modern Sisyphus.

“It provides release,” she said. “A lot of these people spend their day working in… what? Banks and trading firms and places like that.”

“I had an uncle who lived here,” said Matthew. “He came out here when he was twenty-four and he only came back to Scotland once. My father came here to see him, but he wouldn’t talk about it when he returned. I was about eight then. I remember it quite well.”

Elspeth was intrigued. “He said nothing?”

“He talked to my mother about it. I heard them. But when they realised I was listening they stopped. You know how parents do that – and it only makes you all the more eager to hear what they were talking about.”

“What happened to him?”

“I forgot all about him. Until the time he came back. I was about thirteen then.”

Elspeth took a sip of her drink and reached for a few of the unshelled peanuts in the dish before her. She would only eat one or two, she thought; in that way she would not have to drop the shells on the floor. And yet she wondered why she and Matthew should feel inhibited about dropping the shells – everybody else was doing it. Was it something to do with coming from Edinburgh? Were Edinburgh people the only people who held back from dropping peanut shells on the floor of the Long Bar?

She looked back at Matthew. “And?”

“He turned up virtually without warning. My father suddenly said to me: ‘Your Uncle Jack’s coming for dinner tonight.’ And he did. I went into the drawing room when I came back from school – I had been at a rugby practice – I remember that because a boy called Miller had tackled me and caused a nose-bleed. I had stuffed a bit of cotton wool into my nostril and it was still there. You know how blood dries and the cotton wool makes a sort of plug? It was like that.”

Elspeth knew about nose-bleeds. Occasionally the children had them – Hiawatha, in particular, had been susceptible – and she had been obliged to deal with them. “You have to be careful about that,” she said. “You can breathe the cotton wool in. I think it’s better to let the blood form a natural plug.” She paused, struck by the intimacy of the conversation. And this, she supposed, was what marriage entailed – all sorts of intimate conversations – about nasal matters, for example – that one would not normally have with others. And yet there must be some barriers, she thought. There must be some things that married couples did not talk about between themselves; some areas of reticence. Or was that just Edinburgh again?

“But this uncle of yours,” she said. “What happened when he came to dinner?”

Matthew closed his eyes. He had a good visual memory; he could not remember music, for some reason, but he could remember seeing things. And now he saw himself again, at thirteen, going into the drawing room of his parents’ house. And he thought: My mother is still alive, and he felt a momentary twinge of regret. He had not loved her enough. He had been keen to cut the apron strings, to prove that he was his own person, and he had not returned her love. And then the apron strings had been cut for him, decisively and swiftly, by an aggressive tumour, and he had a lifetime to regret his unkindness.

He opened his eyes and reached for Elspeth’s hand, which he held in his, gently. She looked surprised. “Is something wrong?”

“Just remembering.” He let go of her hand. “I went into the room, and my Uncle Jack was there. He was sitting in a chair near the window, and when I came in he stood up. He was unsteady on his feet, and I thought that he was going to fall over, but he had hold of the back of the chair and he straightened himself.

“He was a tall man and he seemed to me to be very thin. But what I really remember was his hair – he had very neatly brushed hair, parted down the middle, and slicked down, like those hairstyles you see on the men in black-and-white films. Thirties hairstyles. He was smoking – he had a cigarette holder, a short black cigarette holder with a mother-of-pearl band across it. I remember that so well.

“Then he said to me, ‘Come here, young man, so that I can get a good look at you.’ And he took hold of my arm and pulled me over towards the window. I looked down at the floor; I was embarrassed. When you’re thirteen, and a boy, you’re embarrassed about everything. And I had that bit of cotton wool in my nose, you see.

“He looked at me for what seemed like a very long time. I heard his breathing. And I smelt the nicotine that must have covered him. All those nicotine particles.”

Elspeth shivered. “And then?”

“And then he let go of me and he turned to the window, without saying anything. And my father came in and whispered to me, ‘Your Uncle Jack gets very easily upset. He’s a nice man. But he gets easily upset. Just leave him now.’”

Matthew became silent.

“And that was all?” Elspeth asked.

“I had dinner in the kitchen. I didn’t see him again.”

“And that’s all you know about him?” asked Elspeth. It occurred to her that he might still be alive, might still be there in Singapore.

Matthew hesitated. “I’ve just looked in the Singapore phone book up in the bedroom,” he said. “While you were having your bath. I looked under his name.”

“And was he there?”

“Yes.”