He looked at Todd, who was running a finger around the rim of his whisky glass. “It’s a very comfortable room,” he began. “But that wall … would it not have been a supporting wall? I suppose that you had an engineer look at it?”
Todd snorted. “Engineer? Just for a partition wall in a bungalow? Good heavens, no. I looked at it myself. It was absolutely fine. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t load-bearing.”
Bruce looked back at the ceiling and at the bulge. “Are you sure?” he said. “Hasn’t there been a bit of movement?”
Todd frowned. “What exactly are you saying? Are you suggesting that the house is going to fall down about our ears?”
Sasha picked up the tension which had arisen between the two men, and made an attempt to defuse it. It was bad enough, in her view, to have Lizzie behaving like a sulky child without having an atmosphere develop between her husband and Bruce.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mean that,” she interjected. “Heavens no!”
Lizzie now spoke. “If your ceiling did come down,” she said, “you would have lost a room, but you would have gained a courtyard. Think of that.”
Sasha turned her head to stare at her daughter and Bruce, who now regretted raising the issue of the possible collapse of the Todd house, started to cross his legs, but stopped in embarrassment, and brought his knees together sharply. Lizzie, however, had been looking at him – or so he feared – and he saw her surprised expression. This made him blush, and Sasha, thinking him embarrassed by Lizzie’s general attitude, reached over and touched him lightly on the sleeve.
“Everything will be fine,” she whispered.
The conversation resumed, avoiding surveying issues, and focusing instead on Scotland’s prospects in the forthcoming rugby season. Todd revealed that he had debenture seats at Murrayfield and spent some time extolling the virtue of their position in the West Stand. There then followed some disparaging remarks about dirty play by the French and the Italians. Bruce agreed with Todd’s analysis of this, which seemed to relieve the tension considerably, and earlier remarks about structural unsoundness seemed now to be forgotten, or at least shelved.
When Todd looked at his watch and declared that it was time for them to start off for the Braid Hills Hotel, Bruce rose to his feet, carefully. Could he visit the bathroom quickly before they left? Of course, of course; down the corridor. Last door on the left.
He made his way down the corridor. The bathroom, which he noted had hunting prints on the wall, was more or less what he had expected, and he took the opportunity of looking at himself quickly in the mirror. This restored his confidence. One might have no underpants on, but what did it matter if one had the looks? Not at all. You don’t really need underpants if you have the looks, Bruce thought to himself, and almost laughed out loud at the very idea.
He walked back down the corridor. The door next to the bathroom was open, with the light switched on. It was a drying room, with washing machine and tumble dryer, and a clothes-horse. On which there were several pairs of underpants.
55. Discovered
As he peered into the Todds’ drying room, Bruce felt more than the normal curiosity (mild in the case of most) which we feel when we look into the drying rooms of others. After all, a drying room is hardly Chapman’s Homer … nor is it a peak in Darien. This drying room, in fact, was of little interest, apart from the fact that there were at least four pairs of underpants on the clothes-horse and Bruce was conscious of the fact that social embarrassment might await him at the ball in his current state of incomplete dress. A simple solution would be to borrow – and it would just be borrowing – a pair of these underpants, obviously Todd’s, slip into them when some suitable opportunity presented itself at the ball, and then return them, laundered, a few days later. This would not be theft; it would be borrowing of an entirely understandable and justifiable sort.
Of course the means of return would have to be considered. Borrowed items could normally be returned openly, but those that were borrowed informally, or borrowed with implicit consent, might have to be returned in a more discreet way. The clothing could be put into the post, perhaps, with an anonymous thank-you note – or with one signed in an illegible hand – or it might just be slipped into Todd’s in-tray in the office when nobody was looking.
Bruce looked over his shoulder. The corridor was quite empty and he could hear the murmur of conversation coming from the drawing room. It was highly unlikely, he thought, that anybody would come this way: they were waiting for him to return before setting off for the Braid Hills Hotel. He could take as long as he liked, and be quite safe.
He stepped forward into the drying room and reached for a pair of underpants from the clothes-horse. As he did so, he saw that the pair which he had chosen had a large hole in the seat; how mean of Todd! It was typical of him – he was mean with stationery supplies in the office and he was always going on about keeping costs down. So he applied that philosophy to his clothing as well!
Bruce replaced the rejected pair of underpants on the clothes-horse and reached for another pair. This was better. Although the garment was certainly too large, the elastic would hold it in place. So he quickly folded the pants, stuffed them into his sporran and turned to go back out into the corridor.
He stopped. There, standing in the doorway, was Todd, an empty whisky glass in his hand.
Bruce swallowed. “Todd,” he said, in strangled tones. “Todd.”
Todd was staring at him, and Bruce noticed, for the first time, how the whites of his eyes were unnaturally large.
“Yes,” he said.
Bruce swallowed again. “Well, I’m more or less ready to go,” he said. “We don’t want to keep people.”
Todd blinked. “The bathroom is further along,” he said. “This is the drying room.”
Bruce laughed. “Oh, I found the bathroom all right,” he said airily. “I took a wrong turning on the way back and ended up …” He paused, and then gestured around the drying room, “here. I ended up in here.”
Todd moved back from the doorway in order to allow Bruce to come out into the corridor. “A rather odd mistake to make,” he said. “After all, this is not a particularly confusing house. The corridor runs fairly straight, wouldn’t you say? It goes up there, and then comes back. Frankly, I don’t see how one can get lost in this house.”
Bruce smiled. “I have a very bad sense of direction,” he said quickly. “Terrible, in fact.”
Todd said nothing, and so Bruce, forcing the best smile he could manage, began to walk back down the corridor towards the drawing room. His insouciance was misleading; the encounter had been deeply embarrassing. It was bad enough to be found in the drying room, but he wondered whether Todd had seen him pocket, or sporran, the underpants. Would he have said anything, had he seen him? The answer to that was far from obvious. If he had seen him, then one could only speculate as to what he would have thought. Presumably he would have thought of him as being one of those unfortunate people who steal the clothing of others for reasons too dark, too impenetrable, to discuss. That would be so unjust: the thought that he might harbour a trait of that sort was inconceivable. After all, he was a rugby enthusiast, a recently-admitted member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and … It was difficult to put one’s finger on other badges of respectability, but they were certainly there.
Well, there was nothing that he could do about it. What did it matter if Todd thought that of him? He reached the drawing room before he managed to provide himself with an answer to that question.
“Bruce got lost,” said Todd in a loud voice, behind him. “He ended up in the drying room.”
Sasha, who had been talking to Lizzie, looked up in surprise.
“Lost in our house?” she exclaimed. “How did you manage that?”
“I took a wrong turning,” said Bruce. He turned to look reproachfully at Todd. A host had no excuse to embarrass a guest like this, even if the host was the guest’s boss.
“Very strange,” said Lizzie, looking coolly at Bruce. “So you ended up among all the family underwear?”
Sasha’s head swung round sharply, and Lizzie found herself fixed with a hostile stare from her mother. Bruce, who was now blushing noticeably, turned to look out of the window.
“I hope it doesn’t rain,” he said.
56. At the Braid Hills Hotel
“The nice thing about this job,” observed the functions manager of the Braid Hills Hotel, “is that it has its surprises.”
His assistant, surveying the room in which the South Edinburgh Conservative Association Ball was to be held, nodded his agreement. The room, although well-decorated with several sprays of flowers, had only two tables, one with four chairs around it and one with two. And even if the hotel had fielded its best napery – starched and folded to perfection – and chosen bright red glassware – there was a distinctly desolate feel to the almost-empty room.
“You’d think that they would have sold just a few more tickets,” said the assistant, adding, “in an area like this.”
The manager shrugged. “I’m sure that they did their best. Still, I cannot understand why they’ve insisted on keeping the tables apart. Surely it would have been much better for all six of them to sit together – somehow less embarrassing.”
When Sasha had called round earlier that day to review arrangements, he had suggested to her that the tables be put together, but she had firmly refused.
“I wouldn’t mind in the least,” she said. “But my husband has views on the matter.”
So the tables had remained apart, and they were still apart when the first guests, Ramsey and Betty Dunbarton, arrived in the hotel bar, several minutes before the arrival of the Todd party.
Ramsey Dunbarton was a tall, rather distinguished-looking man who was only now beginning to stoop slightly. He thought of himself as being slightly on the Bohemian side, and had been a stalwart of amateur dramatic circles and the Savoy Opera Group. On more than one occasion he had appeared on the stage of the Churchhill Theatre, most notably – and this was the height of his stage career – as the Duke of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers.
Betty Dunbarton was the daughter of a Dundee marmalade manufacturer. She had met Ramsey at a bridge class at the Royal Overseas League, and they had ended up marrying a year or so later. Their marriage had been childless, but their life was a full one, and the Conservative Ball was just another event in a busy social round. The following day they were due to go to lunch at the Peebles Hydro; the day after that there was a meeting of the Friends of the Zoo (with lunch in the Members’ Pavilion); and so it went on.
Ramsey and Betty were standing near the bar when the Todd family, accompanied by Bruce, came in. Ramsey noticed that Todd did not smile at him, which was hurtful, he thought. That man doesn’t like me, he said to himself. I’ve done nothing to deserve it, but he doesn’t like me. And as for that daughter, that Lizzie, she was such a fright, wasn’t she? What could one say about her? – one could really only sigh.
Introductions were made and drinks were bought before they went through to the function room.
“It’s a pity there are not more of us,” said Ramsey Dunbarton, looking at Todd. “Perhaps we should have made more of an effort with the tickets.”
Todd glared at him. “Actually, we did our best,” he said. “Not that we had much help from the rest of the committee, or from any members, for that matter.”
“There are some things you just can’t sell,” muttered Lizzie.
They all looked at her, apart from Bruce, who was staring at the line of whiskies behind the bar. One way through the evening would be to get drunk, he thought, but then again …
“It doesn’t matter that there are so few of us,” said Sasha breezily. “The important thing is that we have a good time. And there’ll be lots of room to do some dancing.”
“A sixsome reel?” asked Lizzie.
This time, Bruce looked away from the bar and caught her eye. She doesn’t want to be here either, he thought. And who can blame her? He smiled at her, encouragingly, but she did not respond.
They moved through to the room itself.
“Oh look!” exclaimed Betty Dunbarton. “Look at that pretty glassware. Just like the cranberry-ware which my cousin used to collect. Remember those glasses, Ramsey? Remember the jug she had in the display cabinet in Carnoustie – the one which was shaped like a swan? Remember that?”
“I always thought it was a duck,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “In fact I could have sworn it was a duck.”
“No,” said Betty, turning to Sasha, as if for support. “Its neck was too long for it to be a duck. It was a swan. And when you poured, the liquid would go all the way down the swan’s neck and out of its beak.”
“Wonderful,” said Todd. “But look, we’d better get to our tables. I think that’s yours over there.”
Betty Dunbarton shook her head. “No,” she said. “They’ve arranged it in a very silly way. Let’s put the tables together so that we can talk. Ramsey, you go and ask that waiter over there to put the tables together.”
Ramsey complied. He was sure that it had been a duck; he was sure of it. But now was not the time.
57. The Duke of Plaza-Toro
Once seated, Ramsey Dunbarton leaned across the table to address Bruce. They were separated by one place, occupied by Lizzie, and by a plate of cock-a-leekie soup which the Braid Hills Hotel had decreed should be the first course.
“I always think that soup’s a good start to an evening,” he said.
Bruce looked at his bowl of cock-a-leekie. They had started every evening meal with soup at home, and when they went out, to the Hydro or to the Royal Hotel in Comrie, they had soup too. Soup reminded him of Crieff.
“There are some people,” Ramsey Dunbarton continued, “who don’t like starting a meal with soup. They say that you shouldn’t build on a swamp.” He paused. “They think, you see, that having soup first makes the swamp – only a figure of speech, of course. Not a real swamp.”
Bruce glanced at Lizzie, who was staring fixedly across the table at the arrangement of flowers. Had she noticed that he had no underpants? It was difficult to tell. And what did it matter, anyway? A certain level of recklessness sets in when one is not wearing underpants, and Bruce was now experiencing this. It was an unusual feeling to experience – in Edinburgh, at least.
“I had an aunt who was a wonderful cook,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “I used to go and stay with her down in North Berwick, when I was a boy. We used to go down there in the summer. I was sent with my brother. Do you know North Berwick?”
Bruce shook his head. “I know where it is. But I don’t really know it as a place. You remember it, I suppose?”
“Oh yes,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “I remember North Berwick very well. I don’t think one would forget North Berwick very readily. I wouldn’t, anyway. North Berwick and Gullane too. We used to go to Gullane a great deal – from North Berwick, that is. We used to go and have lunch at the Golf Hotel and then we would go for a walk along the beach. There are sand dunes there, you know. And a wonderful view over the Forth to Fife. You can see places like Pittenweem and Elie. That’s if the weather is clear enough. But it’s often a bit misty. You get a bit of a haar sometimes. Do you know Elie?”
“I know where Elie is,” Bruce replied. “But I don’t really know Elie as a place.” He turned to Lizzie in an attempt to involve her in the conversation. “Have you been to Elie?”
Lizzie looked down at her soup, which she had yet to touch. “Where?” she snapped. Her tone was that of one whose train of thought had been wantonly interrupted.
“Elie,” said Bruce.
“Where?” Lizzie asked again.
“Elie.”
“Elie?”
“Yes, Elie.”
“What about it?”
Bruce persisted. She was being deliberately unpleasant, he thought. She’s a real … What was she? A man-hater? Was that the pro
blem? “Do you know it?” he asked. “Have you ever been to Elie?”
“No.”
Ramsey Dunbarton had been following the exchange with polite interest and now resumed with further observations on Elie. “When I was a bit younger than you,” he said, nodding in Bruce’s direction, “I used to have a friend whose parents had a place over there. They went there for the summer. His mother was quite a well-known figure in Edinburgh society. And I remember I used to go over there with my friend and we’d stay there for a few days and then come back to Edinburgh. Well, I always remember that they had a very large fridge in the basement of their Elie house and my friend opened it one day and showed me what it contained. And what do you think it was?”
Bruce looked at Lizzie to see if she was willing to provide an answer, but she was looking up at the ceiling. This was unnecessarily rude, he thought. All right, so this old boy was boring them stiff but it was meant to be a ball and it was probably the highlight of his year and it would cost her nothing to be civil, at least.
“I really can’t imagine.” He paused. “Explosives?”
Ramsey Dunbarton laughed. “Explosives? No, goodness me. Furs. Fur coats. If you keep them in the fridge the fur is less likely to drop out. The fridge was full of fur coats. People used to buy them from the Dominion Fur Company in Churchill. This lady had about ten of them. Beautiful fur coats. Mink and the like.”
“Well, well,” said Bruce.
“Yes,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “The Dominion Fur Company was just over the road from the Churchhill Theatre. We used to do Gilbert and Sullivan there. First in the University Savoy Opera Group and then in the Morningside Light Opera. I played the Duke of Plaza-Toro, you know. A wonderful role. I was jolly lucky to get it because there was a very good baritone that year who was after the part and I thought he would get it. I really did. And then the casting director came up to me in George Street one day, just outside the Edinburgh Bookshop, and said that I was to get the part. It was a wonderful bit of news.”
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