Love Over Scotland (37 page)

107. Wur Planets are oot o’ alignment

Big Lou looked down at Lard O’Connor’s hand, resting on hers. Then, very politely, she lifted it with her free hand and placed it back on the counter. Lard O’Connor continued to smile.

“Thank you for what you’ve done,” she said. “But we hardly…”

“Aloysius O’Connor,” said Lard.

“Thank you, Mr O’Connor. I have no idea how you persuaded Eddie…” Lou’s voice tailed off. It was hard to utter the name. She had loved him, and in a way she still did. Why had he treated her as he had? She had imagined that she might change him, that he would not need to see those girls, but it had been hopeless. Everybody says that about these things, she told herself. They are just too deeply embedded. And he hadn’t cared about her feelings, not in the slightest.

Lard looked grave. “It’s amazing what direct talking will achieve,” he said. “The trouble with this side of the country is there’s not enough direct speaking. All that blethering. No direct speaking.”

“Well, you’ve been very helpful to me, Mr O’Connor.”

“Please…Aloysius.”

“Aloysius.”

“That’s better.”

Big Lou took a step backward. “Well, I have to get on with my work,” she said. “Maybe some day we’ll…”

“Aye,” said Lard. “Mebbe.”

From their table, Angus, Matthew and Pat watched as Lard left the coffee bar. He nodded curtly to Matthew as he made for the door, and shot a glance at Angus, who quickly looked away.

Lard was almost at the door when he hesitated and looked back towards Matthew. Then slowly he walked over to the table and leant down to whisper to him.

“Tell Stewie everything’s tickety-boo,” he said. “But wur still a wee bit skew-wiff on this deal, pal. No quite eexy-peexy. Wur planets are oot o’ alignment like. So I’ll be on your case for a wee bit of reciprocation. Understaund?”

Matthew sat quite still. He looked up at Lard and blinked. He was silent. Lard then winked at him and made for the door.

“That was a most interesting face,” said Angus. “I wonder if he might sit for a portrait one of these days. What a mug! Did you see it, Pat? Ever seen anything like it?”

“What did he mean by reciprocation?” asked Pat. “Do you think that…?”

Matthew waved her question aside. Reciprocation could mean only one thing: he would be expected to participate in something illegal–launder money, perhaps, or hide a weapon. He thought for a moment. Could he pay Lard off instead? Could he offer him ten thousand pounds instead of a favour, or would that just whet his appetite for more? And what if Lard got wind of the fact that he had four million pounds in the bank? It hardly bore thinking about.

He looked at his watch. “It’s time to get back to the gallery,” he announced. “Let’s go, Pat.”

They crossed the road, Matthew still deep in thought.

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” said Pat.

Matthew nodded. “It’s occurred to me that I’ve already broken the law,” he said miserably. “I incited this awful man to beat Eddie up. If Eddie goes to the police, then I’m implicated.”

“Eddie won’t go to the police,” said Pat. “They would want to know why Lard beat him up. He would have to tell them that he took Big Lou’s money.”

“But she gave it to him,” said Matthew. “Eddie’s done nothing illegal.”

“He won’t go,” said Pat. “Eddie probably has other things to hide from the police. There’s that club of his. And the girls and the rest. He won’t go.”

They opened the gallery in silence. Pat was aware of Matthew’s anxiety and was worried about what she had to do next, which was to tell him that she was moving out of the flat in India Street. There was a good reason for this, of course, and she could not put off telling him any longer. That afternoon, a friend was coming to help her move her things back to her parents’ house in the Grange, and she would have to let Matthew know about this before she made the move.

She waited. One or two people came into the gallery and one of them bought a painting. That seemed to cheer Matthew up, and Pat decided that the moment had come.

“Matthew,” she began. “There’s something I must tell you.”

Matthew stared at her. I should have realised, he said to himself. I should have realised that it could never last. It never does. How long has it been? Three days? Four days?

“I’m going to have to move out of India Street,” Pat said. “I’m going this afternoon.”

Matthew’s face crumpled. “This afternoon? Today?”

“Yes,” said Pat. “I’m sorry.”

Matthew nodded. Pat noticed that he was looking at the floor, tracing an invisible pattern on the carpet with the toe of his shoe.

“You see…” Pat began to say.

Matthew cut her short. “It’s all right,” he said flatly. “I understand.” And he thought: girls just don’t like me. Well, they may not actively dislike me–they tolerate me–but they don’t find me interesting, or exciting, or anything really. And there’s nothing I’ll ever be able to do about that. I really like this girl–really like her–but she doesn’t like me. And who can blame her?

“I don’t think you do understand,” said Pat. “What I was going to say is that since you and I…well, since you and I are an item, then I don’t think that we should be flatmates too. It complicates matters, doesn’t it? And I need my space, just as you do.”

Matthew stared at her. When people talked about needing space they usually meant that they wanted the maximum space between you and them. This was different. Was it still on?

“You mean that you’re not wanting to get rid of me?” he stuttered.

“Of course not,” said Pat, moving over to his side. “I don’t want that. Do you?’

“No,” said Matthew. He looked at her and thought: I have found myself in you. Bless you. And then he thought: what a strange, old-fashioned thing to think. Bless you. But what other way was there of saying that you wanted only good for somebody, that you wanted the world to be kind to her, to cherish her? Only old-fashioned words would do for that.

108. On the Stairs

Now that Domenica had indicated that she was returning to Scotland within a few days, Antonia Collie took steps to conclude the lease on the flat across the landing–the flat once occupied by Bruce and Pat and which had been sold to a young property developer. This person had developed the property by painting it and by installing a new microwave and a new bath before deciding to offer it for rent. Antonia was indifferent to the fresh paint, the microwave and the bath, but keen on the view from the sitting room and the prospect of having Domenica as a neighbour. Negotiations for the lease had been swift and Antonia now had the keys to the flat and could move in at any time she wished.

Antonia, having gone out to purchase one or two things for the kitchen, returned to No 44 to discover a small boy sitting on the stone stairs, staring up into the air. She had seen this small boy once or twice before. On one occasion she had spotted him walking up the street with his very pregnant mother (he had been trying to avoid stepping on the lines and was being roundly encouraged by his mother to hurry up), and on another she had seen him in Valvona & Crolla, again with his mother, who was lecturing him on the qualities of a good olive oil. She knew that he belonged to No 44 and she thought she knew which flat it was, but apart from that she knew nothing about him, neither his name, nor how old he was, nor where he went to school.

“Well,” she said as she drew level with him on the stairs, “here you are, sitting on the stairs. And if I knew your name–which I don’t–I would be able to say hallo whoever you are. But I don’t–unless you care to tell me.”

Bertie looked up at Antonia. This was the lady who lived upstairs, the woman whom his mother had described as “yet another frightful old blue stocking”. Bertie had been puzzled by this; now here was an opportunity for clarification.

“I’m called Bertie,” he said politely.

“And I’m Antonia,” said Antonia.

Bertie squinted at Antonia. “I think my Mummy must be wrong about you,” he said.

“Oh yes?” said Antonia. “What does Mummy say about me?”

“She said that you wear blue stockings,” said Bertie. “But I don’t think you do, do you?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Antonia. “Oh really?” she said. “You’re right. Mummy has got it wrong.” She paused. “Tell Mummy that you asked me about that, and I said to tell her that I don’t wear blue stockings. Will you tell her that?”

“Yes,” said Bertie. “If she listens. Sometimes she doesn’t listen to what I say. Or what Daddy says either.”

Antonia smiled. “That’s sad,” she said. “But surely somebody listens to you, Bertie. What about at school? Surely your teacher listens to what you have to say.”

Bertie looked down at his feet. “Miss Harmony listens sometimes,” he said. “But not always. She didn’t listen to me when I said that I didn’t want to be Captain von Trapp in
The Sound of Music
. She made me be Captain von Trapp.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Antonia. “But perhaps there wasn’t anybody else who wanted to play the part. Maybe that’s why you had to do it.”

“But there were plenty of people who wanted to be Captain von Trapp,” said Bertie. “There’s a boy called Tofu. He really wanted to be Captain von Trapp. But she wouldn’t let him.”

“But I’m sure that he would understand.”

Bertie shook his head. “No,” he said. “He didn’t. And there’s a girl called Olive. She wanted to be Maria, but wasn’t allowed to be. She didn’t understand either.”

“Dear me,” said Antonia. “But I’m sure everything will go well in the end.”

“No it won’t,” said Bertie. “And now Tofu and Olive both hate me.”

Antonia stared down at Bertie. He was a most unusual child, she thought; rather appealing, in a funny sort of way, and she found herself feeling sorry for him. These little spats of childhood loomed terribly large in one’s life at the time, even if they tended to disappear very quickly. It was not always fun being a child, just as it had not always been fun being a medieval Scottish saint. Poor little boy!

“Well, cheer up, Bertie,” said Antonia. “Even if things aren’t going well in
The Sound of Music
, isn’t Mummy going to have a new baby? Doesn’t that make you excited? You and Daddy must be very pleased about that.”

Bertie shook his head. “I don’t think that Daddy is pleased,” he said. “He said that the new baby is a mistake. That’s what he said. I heard him telling Mummy that.”

Antonia raised an eyebrow. “Oh well,” she said. “Everybody will love him or her. I’m sure they will.”

“And then Daddy said we should call the new baby Hugo,” went on Bertie.

“That’s a nice name!” said Antonia quickly.

“Because that’s the name of Mummy’s friend,” said Bertie. “He’s called Dr Fairbairn. Dr Hugo Fairbairn.”

Antonia bit her lip. Oh goodness! One should not encourage this sort of thing, but she could not resist another question, just one more question.

“And Dr Fairbairn,” she asked. “What does he think of all this?”

“He’s mad,” said Bertie. “Really mad.”

“I see,” said Antonia. “Well I suppose that…” She tailed off. It was easy to imagine him being angry, he probably did not plan for things to work out this way.

Now Bertie, who was enjoying his conversation with Antonia, came up with a final piece of information. He had been told of his mother’s pregnancy one day in the Floatarium. Irene had been in her flotation chamber, speaking to Bertie, who was sitting outside, and that was where she had told him of the imminent arrival of a new sibling. Bertie, whose understanding of the facts of life was rudimentary, had misinterpreted her and had concluded that his mother had become pregnant in the flotation chamber itself.

“Mummy became pregnant in the Floatarium,” Bertie now explained. “That’s where it happened.”

Antonia picked up her shopping bag. This was wonderful. She had a great deal to tell Domenica when she came back. Why did she bother going to the Malacca Straits when all this was going on downstairs? Anthropology, she thought, like charity, surely begins at home.

109. In the Ossian Chair

Antonia entered Domenica’s flat and thought about her encounter with Bertie on the stair. It had been a strange experience–amusing, of course, with all those innocent disclosures–but there was something more to it, and that was puzzling her. At one level their conversation had been exactly the sort of talk that one might expect to have with a boy of–what was he? six, at the most, she thought–and yet there had been another level to it altogether, and this had made her feel an extraordinary warmth towards him. Yes, that was it: the warmth.

She made her way into the kitchen, dropped her shopping bag on the floor near the cooker, and sat down in the chair near the window. It was a high-ish chair, plain in its lines, and covered with a Macpherson tartan throw. Domenica was not a Macpherson, but a Macdonald. Why should she have a Macpherson throw? Was it the sheer prettiness of that particular tartan with its soft greys and wine-red stripe? But then it occurred to her that there was another reason. Domenica had many enthusiasms, but one of them, Antonia recalled, was for the works of Ossian, or, should one say, the works of James Macpherson. That must be it.

Antonia sat back in the Ossian chair and remembered. It had been right there–in that very spot–eight or nine years ago–and she had been in Edinburgh to look something up in the National Library; something to do with early Scottish monastic practices, if she remembered correctly; but the memory of what it was, like the memory of the early Scottish monastic practices themselves, had faded. After her visit to the Library she had come here, to Scotland Street, to drink a cup of coffee with Domenica and to seek solace. Antonia’s marriage was not going well then and she had wanted to talk about that, but had not raised it in the end because Domenica had been in full flight about Ossian.

“In the scrap between Dr Johnson and Macpherson, I’m on Macpherson’s side,” pronounced Domenica. “He had seen the subjugation of his world. The burnings. The interdiction of the kilt, language, everything. All he wanted to do was to show that there was Gaelic culture that was capable of great art. And all those dry pedants in London could do was to say: where are the manuscripts?”

“Well, I suppose if one claims to have discovered a Homer, it might be reasonable to ask…”

“Not a bit of it,” said Domenica. “The poetry was there, passed from mouth to mouth. Not everybody worships the written word, you know. And that Dr Johnson…Do you know what he said about the stick that he carried down in London? He said that it was just in case he should bump into Macpherson and would have the chance to wallop him with it! What a thing to say! A typical Cockney bully.”

“Macpherson could look after himself. All that money he made…”

“No different from the money anybody else made. Better, in fact. Look at the fortunes that were to be made from slave-trading and Jamaican sugar plantations and all the rest. Macpherson’s fortune was less tainted than the fortunes of many of those strutting Highland grandees. Why begrudge him his Adam mansion? And, anyway, even if he invented most of the Ossian stuff, it was great literature by any standards. Does it matter whose pen it came from?”

They had moved off the subject of Ossian and on to other controversial cases: to that of Grey Owl, the bogus Indian chief who was really only Archie Belaney from Sussex, or somewhere like that; to Lobsang Rampa who claimed to have been a Tibetan monk, but who was really a man called Cyril Hoskins, from Devon; to Budu Svanidze and his memoirs of his Uncle Joe (Joseph Stalin).

Such conversations! Hour after hour they had passed together–Antonia and Domenica–and much of what had been said had been forgotten, or remembered only in part. When her friend came back, as she shortly would, then they would doubtless have many more such discussions, especially as they would now be neighbours. And they usually agreed with one another in the end, even after great differences of opinion had been discovered.

She thought back to that little boy, to Bertie, and now she saw what it was about him that made him so appealing: he spoke the truth. Candour was so attractive because we were so accustomed now to obfuscation and deceit, to what they called spin. Everything about our world was becoming so superficial. All around us there were actors. Politicians were actors, keeping to a script, condescending to us with their brief sound-bites, employing all sorts of smoke and mirrors to prevent their ordinary failings from being exposed. And rather than say yes, things have gone wrong and let’s find out why, they would side-step and weave their way past the traps set for them by equally evasive opponents.

Light, clarity, integrity. Every so often one saw them, and in such surprising places. So she had seen it in that peculiar conversation with the little boy on the stair. She had seen candour and honesty and utter transparency. But you had to be a child to be like that today, because all about us was the most pervasive cynicism; a cynicism that eroded everything with its superficiality and its sneers. And a little child might remind us of what it is to be straightforward, to be filled with love, and with puzzlement.

She arose from the chair and looked out of the kitchen window. The sky was perfectly empty now, filled with light; the rooftops, grey-slated, sloping, pursued angles to each other, led the eye away. When Domenica came back, Antonia thought, I shall do something to show her how much I value our friendship. And Angus Lordie, too. He’s a lonely man, and a peculiar one, but I can show him friendship and consideration too. And could I go so far as to love him? She thought carefully. Women always do this, she said to herself. Men don’t know it, but we do. We think very carefully about a man, about his qualities, his behaviour, everything. And then we fall in love.

She thought about Angus Lordie, standing as she was in front of the window. And then, at exactly half past four, she came to her decision.