Espresso Tales 4ss-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

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  chin and neck. For a few moments he was unsure, and then he became convinced that it was true. Janis had undergone plastic surgery.

  Matthew looked at the skin about the edge of the eyes. It was tighter than it should be, he thought, and the smooth, rather stretched appearance of the skin carried on down to the side of the nose itself. It was as if it had been pulled back somewhere, tightened, and then polished in some way. He saw, too, the make-up that she had applied there; heavier on one side than on the other, but insufficient to fool the close observer, which he now was. She suddenly stopped talking about lilies. She had noticed his stare. Well, what can she expect? thought Matthew.

  If one gives in to vanity, then one can only expect others to notice. Mutton dressed up as lamb.

  Janis looked at him. “Did your father tell you I had an accident?” she asked.

  47. Information

  Some evenings are just not a success, and Matthew’s dinner with his father and his father’s new friend, Janis, undoubtedly fell into that category. The conversation limped on until the arrival of the cheese, when it faltered altogether and the three of them sat energetically eating their Stilton, not wishing to put off any longer the moment when they could leave the table and go through to the morning room for coffee. The drinking of coffee, as it happened, did not take long.

  “I have an early start tomorrow,” Gordon said, looking at his watch. “It’s been most enjoyable.”

  “Yes,” said Janis. “I enjoyed that.”

  They looked at Matthew, who nodded. “Me too,” he said.

  “Very enjoyable.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then Matthew rose to his feet. “I’m going to get my coat,” he said. “I’ll see you in the lobby.”

  154 Information

  He made his way to the cloakroom, noticing as he left the morning room that his father and Janis had immediately huddled in conversation; discussing me, he thought. Well, it had been a disaster, the whole thing, but what could his father expect? Did he expect him to welcome this woman, with her transparent motives? Is that what he expected? He went into the cloakroom and took his coat off the hook. A sleeve had become turned in upon itself and he busied himself for a few moments disen-tangling it. As he did so, he heard a voice from the basin area round the corner.

  “Dramatic results, you know. Quite dramatic.”

  A tap was turned on and something was said that he did not quite catch. Then the first voice spoke again.

  “They’re desperately short of cash, so they’re having to go back to the market for a couple of million. But they’ll have to do this before the results of this research are confirmed. So they’ll still seem pretty shaky when they go for the cash.”

  The other man spoke. “AIM? They’re still on the AIM

  market, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the new shares will be pretty low until . . .”

  “Until the research results get the stamp of approval and then

  . . . well, it’s a major breakthrough. The shares will go through the roof. Of course, we’re advising them on the whole business and so keep this under your hat, of course. I only mentioned it because you know Tommy, of course, and you’ll be pleased for him.”

  “Of course. He’s still chairman?”

  “Yes. But they’re moving from that place of theirs out of town. They’ve taken one of those new buildings down near the West Approach Road.”

  “Oh.” A tap was turned off. “You know, I must have a word with Charles about this soap . . .”

  Matthew took his coat and left the cloakroom, silently. His father was waiting for him in the middle of the lobby, Janis at his side. She looked at him encouragingly and he tried to return her smile. But it was difficult.

  Information

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  As they walked down the stairs together, Matthew turned to his father and stopped him. “I’ve just heard a very interesting conversation.”

  Gordon smiled. “In the gents? Suitable for mixed company?”

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “A commercial conversation.”

  As Matthew had suspected, this attracted his father’s attention. “Oh? What was it?”

  Matthew described what he had heard. For the first time that evening, he thought, my father is really listening to me.

  “Very interesting indeed!” said Gordon after Matthew had finished. “I can very easily find out who they’re talking about.

  It’s very simple to find out which Scottish companies have their shares traded on the AIM market. Very simple. In fact . . . you said the chairman was referred to as Tommy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I know exactly who they are then.” Gordon smiled at Matthew and patted him on the shoulder playfully. “I’ll get in touch with you about this, Matt.”

  Matthew winced. He did not like being called Matt, and his father was the only one who did it. “Why?” asked Matthew.

  Gordon smiled at him. “Information can be put to good use, Matt. The market’s all about information, and that sounds like a very useful bit of information. If it’s the company that I’m thinking about, then they’re a biotech company. The results must be a clinical trial or something of that sort. That can mean a great deal if it enables them to sell something on to one of the big pharmaceutical companies, for instance. Major profits all round.”

  “But why couldn’t they – the people who were talking – buy the shares and make the profits themselves?”

  Gordon shook a finger in admonition. “Tut, tut!” he said.

  “Insider dealing. Those chaps were obviously lawyers. They can’t use their private knowledge to make a quick buck on the market.

  Very bad! The powers that be take a dim view of that sort of thing.”

  “But can we . . . ?”

  Gordon made a dismissive gesture, and indicated that they 156 Information

  should continue to make their way downstairs. “Oh, we’re all right. We just happen to have heard a little snippet, that’s all.

  We can buy their shares. Nobody would associate us with insider information. Why should they? We’re perfectly safe.”

  Matthew was not sure about this. “But wouldn’t we also be taking unfair advantage of the people we buy the shares from?

  After all, we know something they don’t.”

  Gordon looked at his son, who saw in his father’s gaze something akin to pity, and resented it. “Life is hardly fair, Matt,”

  he said. “If I had scruples about this sort of thing, do you think for a moment that I would have got anywhere in business? Do you really think that?”

  Matthew did not reply. They had almost reached the front door now, and he could hear the low hum of the traffic outside.

  He glanced sideways at Janis, and for a moment their eyes met.

  Then she looked away. Matthew reached out and took his father’s hand, and shook it.

  “Thanks for dinner.”

  Gordon nodded. “Thank you for coming. And I’ll let you know about those shares. I may have a little flutter on them.

  Can’t do any harm.”

  Matthew opened the door and they stepped outside onto Princes Street, disturbing a thin-faced man who was standing near the doorway. He looked at them in surprise, as he had evidently not expected anybody to emerge from the unmarked door. The man looked tired; as if worn out by life. He had a cold sore, or something that looked like a cold sore, above his lip.

  Matthew felt ashamed. How did he look in the eyes of this man? And what would this man have thought had he known the nature of their conversation of a few moments ago? Matthew wanted to say: “Not me, not me.”

  Chapter title

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  48. Private Papers

  Pat hesitated at the door of Peter’s flat in Cumberland Street.

  It would be easy to turn back now, to return to Scotland Street and to call him from there. Something could have arisen to prevent her from seeing hi
m as planned – there were so many excuses to stand somebody up: a friend in need, a headache, a deadline to meet. If she did that, of course, then she would not see him again, and she was not sure whether that was what she wanted. She was undecided. Men complicated one’s life; that was obvious. They made demands. They changed everything. In short, the question was whether they were worth it.

  And what was it anyway? The pleasure of their company? –

  women were far more companionable than men. The excitement of male presence? – how long did that last, and did she want that anyway? She thought not, and was about to turn away when she remembered his face, and the way he had stooped to talk to her at that first meeting, and how physically perfect he had seemed to her then and was still, in the imagining of him.

  158 Private Papers

  She tugged at the old-fashioned brass bell-pull. There was a lot of give in the wire, but eventually there was a tinkling sound inside. Then there was silence. She tugged at the bell again and as she did so the door opened and Peter stood there. For a moment he looked puzzled, and then he raised a hand to his brow in a gesture of self-mockery over some stupidity.

  “I forgot,” he said. “I totally forgot.”

  Pat had not expected this. He had issued the invitation, after all; she was not self-invited. “I’m sorry,” she said lamely. “I’m sorry. We’d arranged . . .”

  Peter shook his head. “Of course, of course. We’d arranged it. I’m so damn stupid. Come in.”

  “If it’s inconvenient . . .”

  He reached out and gripped her forearm, pulling her in.

  “Don’t be silly. I was doing nothing anyway. Just come in.”

  She entered a hall, a large square room of similar propor-tions to the hall of the flat in Scotland Street. This was in markedly worse order, though, with scuffed paintwork on the doors and skirting boards. The floor, which was sanded, was made of broad Canadian pine boards, covered in part by frayed oriental rugs; the planks were uneven, and caused the rugs to rise in small ridges, like tiny mountain ranges.

  “This flat belongs to somebody who works in Hong Kong,”

  said Peter, waving a hand behind him. “An accountant, or something like that. He’s mean. He never fixes anything, but the rent isn’t too bad and it suits us. I’ve been here over a year.”

  “How many do you share with?” asked Pat.

  “There are three of us,” said Peter, pointing to a half-open door off the hall. “That’s the biggest room. Joe and Fergus live in that. And that’s my room over here. We’ve got a sort of sitting room, but it’s a tip and we hardly ever use it.”

  Pat looked at the half-open door. Joe and Fergus. Then she remembered. When she had seen Peter at the Film Theatre he had been with another young man, a boy who had stared at her while Peter had whispered something to him. I’m naive, she said to herself. I’ve missed the obvious.

  Private Papers

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  Peter gestured towards the door of his room. “Are you easily shocked?” he asked, smiling as he spoke.

  Pat thought quickly. She was not sure what to expect, but who could admit to being shocked these days? “Of course not,”

  she said.

  “Good,” said Peter. “Because it’s a bit of a mess. If I’d remembered, I would have tidied it up before you came.”

  Pat laughed. “I’m a bit untidy myself.”

  “Well,” said Peter. “That may be, but . . .”

  They went into the room, which was dimly lit by a single reading lamp on the desk near the window. The curtains, made of a heavy red brocaded material, were drawn closed, but did not quite meet in the middle. A thin line of orange light from the streetlights outside shone through the crack.

  Pat glanced about her. There was a bed in the corner, covered with a white counterpane, made, at least, unlike Bruce’s bed, which was usually in a state of dishevelment. Then there were two easy chairs with brown corduroy slipcovers; the seat of one of these was covered with a pile of abandoned clothing – a shirt, a couple of pairs of socks, some unidentified underclothes and a pair of jeans. Peter reached down, bundled the clothing up and stuffed it in a drawer.

  “This isn’t a mess,” said Pat. “Bruce – my flatmate – has a far messier room.”

  Peter shrugged. “Every so often I have a blitz on it. But the vacuum cleaner’s bust and it’s difficult.”

  “You could borrow ours,” said Pat. She spoke quickly, and immediately wondered whether this was the right thing to say.

  It was as if she was offering to clean up for him, which was not what she intended.

  “We’re all right,” said Peter, pointing to one of the chairs and inviting her to sit down. “We get by.”

  Pat sat down and looked at the walls. There could be clues there, just to confirm. A picture of . . . who were the appropriate icons? She realised that she was not sure. There was a poster above the bed, a film poster of some sort; but it was for a Japanese film and she had no idea what that signified.

  160 Private Papers

  And above her head, behind the chair, was a framed print of American Gothic, the Midwest farmer, pitchfork in hand, and his wife, standing grimly in front of a barn. Again, that conveyed nothing, except some sense of irony perhaps.

  Peter rubbed his hands together. “I’ll go and make coffee,”

  he said. “How do you like it?”

  Pat told him, and he went off to the kitchen, leaving her alone in his room. Once he had gone, she looked at his desk. There was a pile of books – a Jane Austen novel, a book of critical essays, the Notebooks of Robert Lowell, a dictionary. Behind the books was an open file into which what looked like lecture notes had been inserted. She rose to her feet and went over to the desk. Yes, they were his lecture notes. He had written the title of a lecture at the top: Social expectations and artistic freedom in Austen’s England: Tuesday. There was a pile of papers on the edge of the desk – a couple of opened letters and what looked like an electricity bill.

  She moved the letters slightly; of course she would not read them, she was just looking; a foreign stamp: Germany. And underneath the letters, two or three photographs, turned face downwards. She hesitated. She should mind her own business; one did not go into another person’s room and look at his photographs. But at least she could examine the writing on the back of one of them, the photograph on top of the pile. It was not very distinct, as the ink had smudged, but she could just make it out. Skinny-dipping, Greece, with T.

  Pat looked over her shoulder. She should not look at his private papers – they were nothing to do with her. But then, he had invited her into his room and the photographs were lying around and how could anybody resist the temptation to look at a photograph with that inscription written on the back?

  If you left photographs lying about then you were more or less giving permission for people to look at them. It was the same as sending postcards: the postman was entitled to read them.

  And Pat was human. So she turned the photograph over and looked.

  Chapter title

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  49. Australian Memories

  Holding two cups of steaming coffee, Peter came back into his room. “I don’t have anything else to offer you,” he said. “Not even a biscuit. We often run out of food altogether. And I find that when I buy some, Joe and Fergus eat it. I’m not sure if they know what they’re doing. They just eat it.”

  Pat was not hungry, and did not mind. Peter had made real coffee, she noticed, and it smelled good, like strong . . . strong what? Coffee was complicated now, with all those americanos and mochas and double skinny lattes with vanilla. This was a bitter coffee, which Pat liked, and made for herself in the flat, although Bruce always turned his nose up at it. Shortly after she had moved in, Bruce, uninvited, had taken a cup of coffee from her cafetière and had spat it out after the first mouthful.

  But Bruce was Peter’s polar opposite – unsubtle, uninterested in literature (he had once asked if Jane Austen was a
n actress), and quite without that willowy charm that Peter had in such abundance. She reflected briefly on this, and ruefully too, because she was now sure that Peter had nothing more in mind than casual friendship. How naive she had been to imagine otherwise: he was far too handsome to be interested in girls. There was that quality of sensitivity, that look in his eyes that told her, and everybody else who cared to look for it, that he understood, but, at the same time, that he was elsewhere.

  Peter sat on the bed; she sat on the chair from which the pile of clothes had been moved. He sat there, with his bare feet on the counterpane, his cup of coffee cradled in his hands; she sat with both feet on the ground, her cup of coffee sitting on the table beside her. For a few moments they looked at one another. Then Peter smiled, and she noticed his teeth, which were perfectly straight, either by nature, or through the efforts of orthodontists. There was something familiar about these teeth and she struggled to recall what it was; then she remembered – Pedro, the doll whom she had loved so much, had had teeth painted on the fabric of his face, and these teeth were 162 Australian Memories

  just like Peter’s. Had Pedro, the doll, been interested in girl dolls, or did he prefer the company of other boy dolls? As a girl, she had thought that Pedro had loved only her, but that might have been a mistake. Pedro might have wished for something else altogether but had been obliged all his woolly life to be with her, like the captive he was. Such a ridiculous thought, and she smiled involuntarily at the thinking of it.

  Peter smiled back.

  They both began to speak at that same time.

  “I . . .” said Pat.

  And he said, “I . . .” and then, laughing, “You go ahead.”

  “No, you go,” she said. “Go on.”