Espresso Tales 4ss-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Chapter title

  181

  55. At the Burrell

  They drew into the grounds of Pollok House, and drove up the drive towards the building that housed the Burrell Collection.

  Lard O’Connor, sitting in the back of his green Mercedes-Benz, with Bertie at his side, was impressed by the sylvan setting.

  “Crivvens!” he exclaimed. “Who would have guessed that we had this in Glasgow! Right under our noses! You’d think we were in Edinburgh, wouldn’t you?”

  “You have some fine museums over here,” said Stuart. “Very fine.”

  Lard listened carefully. “Fine museums, you say, Stewie? Well, that’s good to hear.”

  Gerry parked the car and they walked over to the entrance to the Burrell. Guidebooks were bought – Stuart insisted on paying, as a thank-you for the finding of his car – and Lard and Gerry graciously accepted. Then they made their way into the first of the exhibition halls. There, hung on a wall, was a giant Flemish tapestry depicting a hunting scene, complete with dogs.

  “Jeez,” said Lard. “Look at those dugs on that carpet.”

  “It’s a tapestry, actually,” said Stuart.

  Lard looked at him. “That’s what I said,” he muttered. “You trying to show me up, Stewie?”

  Stuart paled. “Certainly not. I was just . . .”

  “Because some people think,” Lard continued, “that just because you haven’t had much formal education, then you don’t know anything. You wouldn’t be one of those, would you, Stewie?”

  “Of course not,” said Stuart. “There are a lot of educated people who know very little about the world.”

  “You hear that, Gerry?” asked Lard. “Stewie here says that there lots of folk in Edinburgh who don’t know anything about anything. That’s what he said.”

  Stuart laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said.

  “Well, I would,” said Lard.

  They moved on to look at a small series of bronze figures in 182 At the Burrell

  a glass display case. Lard signalled to Gerry and the two of them bent down to look at the display. As they did so, Lard ran his fingers over the lock which prevented the glass doors from being opened. He threw an inquiring glance at Gerry, who smiled.

  “Easy,” he said. “Dead easy.”

  Lard nodded and straightened up. “A very interesting little collection of . . . of . . .” he said. “Very nice taste this Wally Burrell had. Shipping man, you said he was, Stewie?”

  Stuart nodded. “He was a great collector,” he said. “He kept very good records of what he bought. And he searched all over the world for objects for his collection.”

  Bertie was studying his guidebook closely, checking each object they saw against its entry. They moved into the Hutton Castle Drawing Room, the room which Burrell had used as his principal place of display and which had been re-created in the gallery. They stopped in front of a French stained-glass Annunciation scene. Lard nodded to Gerry and the two men crossed themselves quickly.

  “I’m glad to see that Wally Burrell was a Celtic supporter,”

  said Lard.

  Stuart smiled. “Sometimes the fact that one has a stained-glass representation of the Virgin does not necessarily mean . . .”

  He tailed off, having intercepted a warning glance from Lard, who now moved over to a small window and appeared to be taking a close interest in the catch. “Bertie,” he called. “Come over here a wee minute.”

  Bertie joined Lard at the window and looked outside. “This is a nice wee window, Bertie,” said Lard. “I wonder whether a boy your size, you even, would be able to squeeze through it?

  Not now, of course. Just wondering.”

  Bertie studied the window. “I think so, Mr O’Connor,” he said.

  Lard smiled. “That’s good to know. Mebbe some time we could come in and have a look at this place in the evening when there are no crowds. It would be more fun that, don’t you think?

  We could take a better look at Wally Burrell’s things. What do you think, Bertie?”

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  “That would be very nice, Mr O’Connor,” said Bertie.

  “Good,” said Lard. “But that’s just between you and me.

  Understand?”

  Bertie nodded, and the party then moved on. There was much more to see – great urns, Greek antiquities, paintings – all of it much appreciated by Lard and, although to a lesser extent, by Gerry.

  “Do you think they have anything by your man Vettriano?”

  Lard asked at one point.

  Stuart thought not. “Sir William Burrell died in 1958,” he said. “Jack Vettriano is our own contemporary.”

  Lard fixed Stuart with a glare. “You trying to tell me something, Stewie?” he said. “You think I don’t know all that?”

  Stuart made a placatory remark and then looked at his watch. “I wonder if we shouldn’t be getting back to Edinburgh now,” he said. “Bertie’s mother will be wondering what’s keeping us.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we, Bertie?” said Lard.

  Bertie was silent. It was exactly what he wanted, but he thought it best not to say it to Lard. So they left the gallery and returned to the car. A short time later they were back outside Lard’s house, where their own car, the shabby red Volvo, was ready to be driven back to Edinburgh. Farewells were said and telephone numbers exchanged. Then, waved to by Lard and Gerry, who stood at the gate to see them off, Bertie and Stuart drove back down the road, back in the direction of the motorway that would bring them home to Edinburgh.

  “It feels great to be back in one’s own car again,” said Stuart as they left the outskirts of Glasgow behind them.

  “Yes,” said Bertie. “I wonder how Gerry managed to find our car so quickly.”

  Stuart smiled. He would not disabuse Bertie of his touching faith in humanity. He would not spell it out to him that strong-arm tactics had undoubtedly been used to wrest their car back from the people who had stolen it. He would let him believe in the goodness of Gerry and Lard. But what a bunch of rogues!

  “Daddy,” said Bertie suddenly. “This isn’t our car.”

  184 Domenica Meets Pat

  Stuart looked down at Bertie, who had been examining something on the door panel.

  “Nonsense, Bertie,” he said. “I looked at the number plate.”

  “Yes,” said Bertie. “But look at the door handles. Ours had round bits at the end. These are straight. And look at the radio.

  It’s a different make.”

  Stuart glanced quickly, fearfully, in the direction indicated by Bertie. Then he swallowed. “Don’t tell Mummy, Bertie,” he said.

  “Please don’t tell Mummy.”

  56. Domenica Meets Pat

  It was a time to take stock – not that any of those who lived under the same roof at 44 Scotland Street knew that it was such a time.

  But had they been considering their position, then they might have realised that there were metaphorical crossroads ahead.

  Irene and Stuart Pollock, parents of that gifted six-year-old, Bertie, might have realised, but did not, that their marriage was going nowhere – if marriages are meant to go anywhere, of course; there are many people who are very happy in marriages that show no sign of movement in any direction, neither forwards, backwards, nor indeed sideways. Such people are often contented, not realising, perhaps, that they are going in that direction in which we all go – downwards.

  Irene and Stuart, though, were about to face a fundamental trial of strength, in which Irene, who thought that she made all the decisions in the marriage – and did – would have to deal with Stuart’s new determination to do something about the way in which Bertie was treated. Stuart had realised that he had not been a good father to Bertie, and had resolved, in the course of those luminous moments on the Glasgow train, those moments when he had held his son’s hand and discussed friendship, that he would play a much greater role in Bertie’
s upbringing. And if this meant a clash with the iron-willed Irene, armed as she was with a great body of knowledge and doctrine on the subject Domenica Meets Pat

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  of child-raising, and supported to the rear by her ally, Dr Fairbairn, the renowned psychotherapist, author of the seminal volume on the analysis of Wee Fraser, the three-year-old tyrant, then so be it. Or rather, to reflect Stuart’s weakness, then so might it be. (Wee Fraser, incidentally, now almost fourteen, had been spotted recently crossing the road at the end of Princes Street, heading in the direction of South Bridge. He had been seen by Dr Fairbairn himself, who had stopped in his tracks, as Captain Ahab might have sighted Moby Dick and stood rooted to the deck of his whaler. In this case, though, there had been no pursuit.)

  Even if his parents were not consciously taking stock of their position, Bertie still reviewed his plight from time to time, with a degree of insight which was quite remarkable for a six-year-old boy. He was quite pleased with the way things were going.

  There had been setbacks, of course, his ill-fated attempt to enrol at George Watson’s College being one, but that was compensated for by his discovery that Steiner’s was where he wanted to be.

  Friendship had been an area fraught with difficulties. Adults sometimes glimpse only in the dimmest way the intensity of the child’s need for friends; this need is profound, something that seems to the child to be more powerful and pressing than any other need. And Bertie felt this. Jock, brave Jock, with whom his first meeting had been so very promising, had proved to be callous and disloyal. That had been very hard for Bertie. But then he had almost made a friend, in the shape of Tofu, although it was sometimes difficult to get Tofu’s attention, engaged as that boy was in a constant attempt to secure the notice of all around him through displays of bravado and scatological comment. But the few scraps of attention that he did obtain were worth it for Bertie, and made it easier for him to bear his psychotherapy sessions with Dr Fairbairn, his yoga in Stockbridge, his advanced Italian, and his preparation for his grade seven saxophone examinations.

  Pat’s life was one in which there were no such significant saliences. She was about to begin her course at university, and 186 Domenica Meets Pat

  was looking forward to the student life. It would have been marginally better, she thought, if she were sharing a flat with other students, rather than with Bruce, but Scotland Street was convenient and she had become fond of it. And now, of course, she had met Peter, the part-time waiter from Glass and Thompson, who was also a student of English literature and given, she had surreptitiously learned, to skinny-dipping.

  She was not sure what to make of Peter, and wanted to discuss him with Domenica, whom she had not seen for some time, but whom she now encountered while turning the corner from Drummond Place into Scotland Street. There was the custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz being manoeuvred laboriously into a parking place which was almost, but not quite, too small for it.

  Pat waited while her neighbour extracted herself from her impressive vehicle.

  “Everything,” began Domenica, as she locked the door behind her, “is getting smaller and smaller. Have you tried to sit in an aeroplane seat recently? Legs, it would appear, are to be left behind, or carried, separately, in the hold. Houses are getting smaller, ceilings are being lowered. Offices too. Everything. Not just parking spaces.”

  Pat smiled. Domenica had an endearing way of launching straight into controversy. There was never any warming up with remarks about the weather or inquiries after health. “I suppose you’re right,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Domenica. “Not that I wish to complain.

  There is nothing worse, in my view, than people of my age –

  which is not unduly advanced, I hasten to point out – nothing worse than such people complaining all the time. O tempora, O

  mores! That sort of thing. That comes from seeing the world changing and not liking it simply because it’s different. We must embrace change, we’re told. And I suppose that’s a sensible thing to do if the change is worthwhile and for the better. But why should we embrace change for its own sake? I see absolutely no reason to do that. Do you?”

  Pat did not, and said as much as she accompanied Domenica down the street.

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  “The problem,” said Domenica, “is that the cost-cutters are in control. They are the ones who are setting the tone of our age. They are the ones who are insisting that everything be cheap and built to the barest specifications. Nobody can do anything which is large and generous-spirited any more, because a cost-cutter will come along and say: Stop. Make everything smaller.”

  Pat said nothing. She had been thinking about Peter. Perhaps it would be an idea to discuss him with Domenica. “I’m thinking about a boy,” she said suddenly.

  “How interesting,” said Domenica. “Interesting, but often a terrible waste of time. Still, come up with me, my dear, and we shall talk about boys in the comfort of my study. How delicious!”

  57. The Natural Approach

  “Well,” said Domenica, perching on the edge of her chair. “Tell me, then. You went to see him? That rather handsome young man whom we jointly encountered? You went to see him?”

  Pat thought the question rather pointed. She had forgiven Domenica her tactless attempt to introduce the two of them, through the transparent device of offering to lend Peter a book of Rupert Brooke’s verse. She had even laughed, in retrospect, over the obviousness of the ploy. But in view of her neighbour’s somewhat heavy-handed, not to say socially clumsy, behaviour, she did not think that she was in a position to criticise her going to Peter’s flat. “He did ask me,” she said, defensively, and went on to explain to Domenica about the meeting at the Film Theatre and the invitation which Peter had extended to her. He had meant it, she said, even if by the time she went to see him he had forgotten that he had invited her.

  “And did it go as planned?” asked Domenica.

  “I had no plan,” said Pat. She frowned. What did Domenica imagine she had intended to do once she got to Peter’s flat?

  Sometimes people of Domenica’s generation, in an attempt to 188 The Natural Approach

  be modern, missed the point. Young people no longer bothered about engineering seduction. It happened if they wanted it. And if they did not, it did not. People were less coy about all that now.

  Domenica provided the answer. “But you must have gone hoping to find something out – to learn a bit more about him?

  Did you?”

  Pat nodded. “I learned a bit,” she said. “But I’m not sure about him. I’m just not . . .”

  Domenica waved a hand. “The most important thing these days is whether he . . . whether he’s interested. There are so many young men who just aren’t interested these days. It never ceases to surprise me.”

  Pat studied her neighbour. It embarrassed her slightly to have this conversation with a woman so many years her elder

  – even if circumlocution was employed. Interested was such an old-fashioned way of putting it; laughably so, she thought.

  And yet Domenica was a woman of the world; she had lived abroad, lost a husband, done anthropological fieldwork in South America. She was no innocent. Why did she need circumlocutions?

  “Of course, the terminology has changed,” Domenica went on, waving a hand airily. “In my day we used to refer to men as being musical. That was a code word. The other words came in, and now, of course, everybody spells it out. Is he, do you think?”

  “Is he what?”

  “You know. Cheerful?”

  “You mean gay?”

  Domenica blushed. “Yes.”

  “I don’t know,” said Pat. “I really don’t.”

  Domenica laughed. “But you must. Any woman can tell. We can just tell.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Pat. “Do you think men can tell when a woman isn’t interested in men?”

  Domenica did not hesitate. “Of course they
can’t,” she said.

  “But that’s because men aren’t as perceptive as women. Men The Natural Approach

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  don’t pick these things up. They just don’t notice the obvious.”

  “And the obvious is?”

  Domenica picked her glass up off the table beside her chair.

  “Trousers,” she said. “Big, baggy trousers, and boots. Certain tattoos. Subtle clues like that.” She paused. “But tell me – is he available, so to speak?”

  “I think so,” said Pat. “I get the impression that he is, but . . .”

  Domenica’s eyes widened. “There was something?”

  Pat looked down at the floor. She would not emerge very well from this story, but she wanted to tell it to Domenica, and so she continued. “There was a photograph,” she said. “It had something written on the back – skinny-dipping in Greece with T.

  And I had a quick look at it when he was out of the room. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Entirely understandable,” said Domenica. “Anybody would have done the same. Anybody.”

  “Well, I did. And it was a picture of him, of Peter, standing in the sea. It looked as if it had been taken on a Greek island somewhere. He was a little bit off the shore and so the water came up almost to his chest. It was a perfectly respectable photograph.”

  Domenica sighed. “How disappointing.”

  Pat was not sure what to make of that. There was something racy about Domenica, something liberated. And yet at the same time, she was in no sense coarse. There was no scatological language of the sort that is so casually pumped out by the foul-mouthed, for whom the obscene, predictable expletive is an obsessive utterance. And yet there was a complete lack of prudery. It was contradictory – and puzzling.

  “T must have taken it,” said Pat. “But I didn’t know who T

  is.”

  Domenica shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “Well, I think it may,” said Pat. “If T is Tom, for example, then perhaps Peter wants me just to be a friend. But if T is Theresa or Tessa, then, well, it could be different.”