“Oh, I’m sure I shall,” said Domenica. His description of her accommodation had cheered her slightly. A small, cool house in the shade sounded as if it would be perfect.
“And there is another house beside it,” Ling went on. “The woman from that house will be your friend. She speaks a little English–not much–but a little. And she is making her sons learn English too. They are just boys, but they will speak to you too.”
Domenica liked the sound of that. Ling made it seem no more than moving to a new suburb–a suburb with friendly neighbours.
“This woman,” she asked. “She’s married to…” She paused, unsure as to whether the term pirate seemed a bit extreme, ungenerous perhaps.
“To a pirate,” said Ling. “Yes, her husband is a big pirate. He is called Ah, and her name is Zhi-Whei. They have called the boys after ships which…which he seized. The older one is called Freighter and the other is called Tanker. They have Chinese names, too, but that is what they are called in the village. They are a good family, and they will be kind to you.”
They continued with their journey. As they progressed, the vegetation thinned. The trees, which had towered above them at the beginning, now became sparser. The dense undergrowth, too, was broken up by patches of grass and thinly-covered sand. And as the tree cover diminished, the light changed. There was open sky now, and the air seemed fresher. There was a smell of the sea.
“We’re not far now,” said Ling eventually. And as he spoke, Domenica heard a snatch of music somewhere in the distance; a radio playing. Then, a little later, she heard a voice–a woman’s voice, calling to a child perhaps.
Suddenly the path turned sharply to the right and descended. Ling stopped and pointed ahead. “That is the village,” he said.
Domenica looked at the place which was to be her home for the next few months. It was a small settlement–much the same as the village through which they had passed at the beginning of their journey. There was one difference, though: the houses in this village all faced a small bay, the blue waters of which now caught the early afternoon sun. It seemed to Domenica to be idyllic; the sort of place that Gauguin had found on his south sea islands; the sultry shores which he had painted in those rich colours of his; sexual, beguiling landscapes.
“That is your house just over there,” said Ling. “You see that one? The one near that big tree? That is your place.”
Domenica looked in the direction in which he was pointing. They were not far from the house, and she could make out the details clearly. It seemed to her that it was quite ideal. It was constructed of wooden planks, all painted off-white, and the windows were secured with green, slatted shutters. There was a veranda, too, with what looked like an old planter’s chair on it, and a lithe young man in a sarong standing near the front door.
“Who is that young man?” asked Domenica.
Ling turned to look at her. “That is the young man who will be looking after you. He will cook for you and carry things. I will tell you what to pay him.” He paused, and added: “He is utterly at your service. You will see.”
49. The Story of Art
“Now,” said Matthew firmly, as he opened the door of the taxi for Pat, “you’ve made your decision and you must stick to it! You’re unhappy there. Of course you can’t continue to live with that ghastly girl.”
“You haven’t met her,” pointed out Pat, as she sat back against the cheerful Royal Stewart rug which the taxi driver had placed on the seat. It was a curious thing about Edinburgh taxis: insofar as they carried rugs, for some reason these were almost always Royal Stewart tartan.
She looked at Matthew, who was leaning forward to give instructions to the driver. It annoyed her that he seemed so ready to make judgments about people whom he had never met. He had done that with Wolf, whom he had disliked instantly, and now he was doing it with Tessie, her flatmate.
Matthew fastened his seat belt. “But of course she’s ghastly,” he said. “You yourself told me…”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Pat. “Let’s change the subject.”
Matthew nodded. “Yes,” he said. “You have to look forward, Pat. Going to that awful flat was a mistake. A bad mistake. You should have stayed in Scotland Street.”
He’s doing it again, thought Pat. Matthew had never seen the flat in Spottiswoode Street, and yet he was calling it awful. There was actually nothing awful about it. It was a typical Marchmont student flat–rather nicer, in fact, than many, and she would miss it. But he was right about the need to move. Tessie was ghastly, whichever way one looked at her. She was aggressive. She was suspicious. And she had as good as threatened Pat with physical violence over Wolf.
They travelled up the Mound and made their way along George IV Bridge. On their right, just before they branched off beyond the Museum, they passed the Elephant House, the café where she had first talked to Wolf and where she had subsequently had that intriguing conversation with Sister Connie. “That place,” said Matthew, as they drove past. “I had lunch there once.”
It was the sort of inconsequential thing that Matthew sometimes said. When she had first gone to work for him, Pat had expected these remarks to lead somewhere, but they rarely did. In another taxi, a long time ago, he had once said to her: “The Churchill Theatre” as they had driven past it, but had said nothing more. Now, as the taxi shot past the little bronze statue of Greyfriars Bobby, Matthew simply said “Dog”. Pat smiled to herself. There was something rather reassuring about Matthew. Wolf, and Tessie, and people like that were fundamentally unsettling; Wolf, for his physical attractiveness, and Tessie for her aggression. Matthew, by contrast, was utterly comfortable, and she felt for him a sudden affection. He might not be anything special, but he was a good friend and he was predictable. She would feel safe living with Matthew in India Street, although…There were doubts, but this was not the time to have them, just as she was about to leave Spottiswoode Street.
They reached their destination. Matthew insisted on paying the taxi fare, although Pat offered. Then, with Matthew behind her, Pat went up the common stair to the door of her flat.
“Is she likely to be in?” whispered Matthew, as Pat inserted the key.
She was unsure. Tessie kept strange hours; Pat had heard her going out in the early hours of the morning and had often found her in during the afternoons. And then, late at night, she had sometimes heard the sound of raised voices emanating from her room.
“She might be,” she answered. “But I hope we don’t see her.”
Matthew shuddered. “Me too. Horrible girl.” He paused. “What about him? Monsieur Loup? Will he be here?”
Pat shrugged. She did not want to see either of them at the moment, she thought, although when it came to Wolf–well…
They entered the hall. Tessie’s door was closed, but there were faint sounds of music coming from within. She pointed to the door and raised a finger to her lips.
“Hers?” whispered Matthew.
“Yes.”
Her own door was slightly ajar, which puzzled her. She always closed it when she left the flat and she thought that she must have done that morning. She hesitated. Could Tessie have done something to her room? The thought crossed her mind, but she tried to dismiss it immediately. That sort of thing did not happen in Edinburgh, in real life, in ordinary student flats in Marchmont, in broad daylight.
She pushed the door open cautiously. Everything inside seemed to be as she had left it. There was Sir Ernst Gombrich’s The Story of Art on the desk. There was her hairbrush and her sponge-bag. There was the picture of the family cat, Morris. There were the trainers she had been about to throw out, their frayed laces in a tangle.
Matthew pointed at the two suitcases balanced on the top of the wardrobe.
“Those?” he said.
Pat nodded and he reached up to retrieve the suitcases. She had fitted everything in those two cases when she had moved in, and so there was no reason why they should not do the move in a single trip. Matthew
placed the suitcases on the bed and opened them. Then she began to bundle clothes from the drawers into the cases. She noticed that Matthew turned away and looked out of the window while she did so, and again she felt a rush of fondness for him. It was such a nice, old-fashioned thing to do, the sort of thing that a modern boy would not think of. Modern boys would stare.
Soon the suitcases were filled. It proved to be a tight fit, and the trainers, and one or two other items were ignominiously consigned to the wastepaper bin. Sir Ernst Gombrich would not fit in, but Matthew agreed that Pat should carry him under her arm; he would be able to manage both suitcases, he said, as they would balance one another out.
Pat looked about her. She was sorry to be leaving the room, which she liked, and in which she had been comfortable. But it was too late now to have second thoughts, as Matthew was manoeuvring the cases out of the door, as silently as he could, lest he attract the unwelcome attentions of Tessie. He need not have worried about being quiet, though, because there were now sounds coming from Tessie’s room, strange sounds, rather like howls.
50. Bad Behaviour
When they heard the noise coming from behind Tessie’s closed door, Pat and Matthew, on the point of leaving the flat, stopped. Lowering the two heavy suitcases to the floor, Matthew looked at Pat in astonishment.
“What on earth…?” he began to whisper, but Pat, still holding Sir Ernst Gombrich’s The Story of Art under her arm, did not reply. Creeping forward, she inclined an ear to the door. Matthew, embarrassed by such obvious eavesdropping, but curious nonetheless, quickly moved forward to join her at the door.
The howls which they had heard–if they were indeed howls, and it sounded like that to them–had now stopped, to be replaced by a peal of laughter. Then there was a voice, not raised at all, but still audible from outside.
“I wish you wouldn’t howl quite so much.” It was Tessie.
“Why not? If it makes me happy.” There was a pause, and then: “And I know what makes you happy.” That was Wolf.
Matthew glanced at Pat. There was something indecent in standing outside somebody’s bedroom door and listening to what went on within. He was about to gesture to Pat that they should leave, but then Wolf could be heard again.
“And, as you know, I like to make girls happy. It’s my role in life. We all need a hobby.”
Tessie snorted. “You’re lucky I’m not the jealous type. Most people wouldn’t hack it, you know. You’re lucky that I don’t mind.”
“That’s because you know I don’t mean it,” said Wolf. “You know that you’re the one. You know that.”
“Yes,” answered Tessie. “But how are you getting on with her over there? Pat. God, what a name! I’m fed up with acting jealous, by the way. All to keep you amused.”
“I need another week. She’s in lurve with me. Big time. But it’ll be another week or so before…” There was laughter.
It was as if Pat had been given an electric shock. She moved back quickly from the door, reeling, nearly dropping Sir Ernst Gombrich from under her arm. Matthew, visibly appalled, made to support her, but she drew back, humiliated, ashamed.
“Quick,” whispered Matthew, picking up the suitcases. “Quick. Open the door.”
Out on the landing, the flat door closed firmly behind them, Matthew rested the suitcases on the floor and reached out for Pat’s arm.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen. I know how you must feel. But there’s no reason for you to feel bad. It’s not your…” He looked at her. She had turned her face away from him and he could see that she had begun to cry. He put down the suitcases and reached out to her.
“No,” she mumbled, starting down the stairs. “I just want to go.”
There were a few awkward moments at the front door, as they waited for the arrival of the taxi which Matthew had ordered. Matthew wanted to talk–he wanted to reassure Pat–but she told him that she did not want to discuss what they had heard.
“All right,” he said. “We won’t talk about it. Just forget him. Put him out of your mind.”
They stood in silence. Matthew, looking up at the wispy clouds scudding across the sky, thought of something he had read in a magazine somewhere, or was it a newspaper?–he was unsure–of how Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had entertained themselves with stories of their conquests. He had been appalled by the story, and it had confirmed his prejudice against a certain sort of French intellectual, who deconstructed other people; who played games with people. One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists–indeed, that was what existentialism was all about, was it not?–but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.
Matthew looked down the street, which was quiet and taxiless. A black and white cat was sauntering towards them and had now stopped a few yards away, staring at Matthew. An elderly woman, laden with shopping bags, was catching her breath a little distance away, holding onto a railing for support. It was a very ordinary street scene in that part of Edinburgh, and yet it seemed to Matthew that the moment was somehow special and that what it spoke to, this moment, was agape, the selfless love of the other.
Such moments can come at any time, and in unexpected circumstances, too. Those who travel to a place of pilgrimage, to a holy place, may hope to experience an epiphany of some sort, but may find only that the Ganges is dirty or that Iona is wet. And yet, on their journey, or on their return, disappointed, they may suddenly see something which vouchsafes them the insight they had wished to find; something glimpsed, not in a holy place, but in very ordinary surroundings; as Auden discovered when he sat with three colleagues on the lawn, out under the stars, on a balmy evening, and suddenly felt for the first time what it was like to love one’s neighbour as oneself. The experience lasted in its intensity, he later wrote, for all of two hours, and then gradually faded.
Matthew felt this now, and it suppressed any urge he might have had to speak. He felt this for Pat–a gentleness, a cherishing–and for the cat and for the elderly woman under her burden. And he felt it, he thought, because he had just witnessed cruelty. He would not be cruel. He could not be cruel now. All that he wanted was to protect and comfort this girl beside him.
He looked at Pat. She had stopped crying and she no longer avoided his gaze.
“Thank you, Matthew,” she said.
He smiled at her. “You’ll be much happier in India Street. You really will.”
“You must tell me how much rent I need to pay,” said Pat.
Matthew raised his hands in protest. “None,” he said. “Not a penny. You can live rent free.”
Pat frowned. “But I have to pay something,” she said. “I can’t…”
“No,” said Matthew. “No. No.”
Pat was silent.
51. Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Cyril was not accustomed to travelling in a bus–nor indeed in any vehicle. Angus Lordie had no car, and so Cyril’s experience of motor transport was limited to a few runs he had enjoyed in Domenica’s custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz. From time to time, she invited Angus to accompany her on a drive into the country, to Peebles perhaps, or Gullane for lunch at the Golf Inn. Cyril was allowed to come on these outings, provided that he remained on a rug in the back, and he would stick his nose out of the window and revel in the bewildering range of scents borne in on the rushing air: sheep, hayfields, burning stubble, a startled pheasant in flight; so many things for a dog to think about.
But now he was on a bus, bundled under a seat amid unfamiliar ankles and shoes. He did not like the experience at all; he did not like the smell of the air, which was stale and acrid; he did not like the vibrations in the floor and the rumble of the diesel engine; he did not like the young man who had dragged him away from his tethering place. He looked up. The young man was holding the end of his leash lightly in his hand, twisting and untwisting it around his fingers. Cyril began to whimper, softly at first, but more loudly as he saw that the young man was not paying any attention to him.
As the
whimpering increased in volume, the young man looked down at Cyril. For a few moments, dog and man looked at one another, and then, without any warning, the young man aimed a kick at the underside of Cyril’s jaw. It was not a powerful kick, but it was enough to force Cyril’s lower jaw up against the upper, causing him to bite his tongue.
“Haud yer wheesht,” the young man muttered, adding: “Stupid dug.”
Humiliated, Cyril shrank back under the seat. He knew that he did not deserve the kick, but it did not occur to him to retaliate. So he simply stared up at this person who now had control of him and tried to understand, but could not. After a few minutes, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. It was at least warm in these strange surroundings and he was now becoming used to the throb of the engine. Perhaps things would be different when he woke up; perhaps Angus would be there to meet him wherever it was that they were going, and they would make their way back to Drummond Place by way of the Cumberland Bar.
He woke up sharply. The young man had tugged on his leash, and now tugged again, yanking Cyril’s neck backwards as he did so. Cyril rose to his feet and looked expectantly at the young man, who now began to make his way towards the front of the bus, pulling him as he went. The bus slowed, and then stopped. The doors opened and there was a sudden rush of new smells as fresh air flooded in.
Cyril followed his captor outside, standing just behind him as the bus pulled away in a swirl of fumes: diesel, burnt oil, dust. The dog closed his eyes and then felt the pressure on his collar as the young man pulled him away from the side of the road. There were human voices; the sudden smell of a cat off to his right; the acrid odour of sweat from a passer-by; so much for a dog to take into account, and now hunger, too, and thirst. He opened his eyes and saw off to one side a building rising up against the sky. It made him dizzy to look at it. There were gulls wheeling in the air, white wings against the grey of the sky, tiny black eyes trained on him, a mewing sound.
Love Over Scotland Page 17