Espresso Tales 4ss-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Gordon had arrived at his son’s gallery without notice, had saun-tered in, and indicated that he wanted to talk to his son. And Matthew, embarrassed by the memory of his churlish behaviour over dinner – behaviour which he somehow had seemed just unable to control – had said: “We must have coffee, Dad. I usually go about this time to a place over the road.”

  “Anywhere, son,” Gordon replied. “You know my feelings about coffee.”

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  Matthew frowned. “I don’t, actually,” he said. “I didn’t know you had views on coffee.”

  “It’s a racket,” said Gordon. “All these fancy alternatives.

  Skinny latte with vanilla. Double espresso. Americano. So on.

  It’s all just coffee, isn’t it?”

  Matthew thought about this. “But what about your malt whiskies?” he said. “You go on about fifteen-year-old this and twenty-year-old that. It’s all just whisky, isn’t it?”

  Gordon looked at his son with pity. “That’s different, Matt,”

  he said, adding: “As you well know.”

  Matthew had said nothing in response to this. He had never been able to argue with his father, whose tactic of defending a position was to imply that the other side knew full well that what he, Gordon, said was right. And there was no time for argument anyway, as they were now entering the coffee bar and Matthew had to introduce his father to Big Lou. A thought occurred to him, and made him smile: Big Lou would now be able to say of him, I ken his faither. This was a useful thing to be able to say in Scotland, as it could be used with devastating effect to cut somebody down to size. And cutting others down to size, Matthew knew, was at the heart of Scottish culture. What better way of suggesting that the other person was just a jumped-up wee boy than to say that one kent his faither?

  Matthew did not choose his usual table, as he was concerned that they might be joined by Angus Lordie, if he came in, or that vague woman from the flat above the coffee bar, that woman whose name he could never remember and who tried, unsuccessfully, to appear mysterious. Matthew knew that he had to talk to his father. He had to express the fears which had been preying on him since he had first met Janis and which would not go away. He was convinced that the florist was primarily interested in his father’s money, and Matthew wanted to protect him from this, but until then he had been unwilling to broach the subject with him directly. Yet it could not be put off forever.

  Used they not to say in marriage ceremonies: Speak now or forever hold your peace? He would have to speak now.

  They sat down together while Big Lou prepared the coffee.

  322 Younger Women, Older Men

  She had smiled at Matthew’s father and shaken his hand, and Gordon had responded warmly. “Nice woman, that,” he had whispered to Matthew. “Lots of hard work in her.”

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “Lou has certainly worked hard.”

  “There’s nothing like hard work,” said Gordon thoughtfully.

  “That’s what makes money, you know, Matthew. Hard work.”

  Matthew pursed his lips. There was censure in his father’s words, but he resisted the temptation to respond in kind. If they had an argument, then he would be unable to raise the issue of Janis. Of course, now that Gordon had mentioned money it gave him his opportunity.

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “You’ve worked hard for your money.

  Everybody knows that. I do.” He paused, watching his father.

  Gordon sat impassively. Of course he had worked hard for his money, and he did not need his son to point that out to him.

  “And that’s why I wouldn’t like to see anybody take it away from you,” Matthew went on. He spoke hurriedly, rushing to get the words out.

  Gordon frowned. “Naturally,” he said. “But why do you think anybody would try to get my money away from me?”

  Matthew’s heart was thumping wildly within him. It was too late to stop now; he would have to complete what he had to say.

  “Well,” he said. “There are some people who try to marry others for their money. Gold-diggers, you know.”

  Gordon’s eyes narrowed as Matthew finished. “I take it that you are referring to Janis,” he said icily. “Am I correct? Are you?”

  Matthew lowered his eyes. He had always found it difficult to hold his father’s gaze, and now it was impossible. And of course he knew that this made his father consider him shifty and elusive, which was not the case. But he could not look into those eyes and see the reproach which had just always seemed to be there.

  “Look, Dad,” he began. “All I’m saying is that when a younger woman gets in tow with a . . . with a slightly older man, then one has to be a bit careful if the older man happens to have a lot of smackers. Which, I’m afraid, rather applies to you, doesn’t Janis Exposed

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  it? You’re not exactly on the bread line, are you? And the problem is that there have been one or two things in the press about how much you’re worth. Eleven million, isn’t it? Something like that?

  Janis can read.”

  Gordon was about to reply, but was interrupted by Big Lou bringing their coffee to the table.

  “Here you are, boys,” she said breezily. “One double espresso.

  One South American roast with double low-fat milk.”

  Gordon reached for his coffee, thanking Big Lou politely.

  “Does my son here patronise your business regularly?” he asked.

  “Every day,” she said. “He comes in every morning.

  Sometimes stays for hours.”

  Matthew tried to catch Big Lou’s eye, but the damage was done.

  “Oh yes?” exclaimed Gordon, glancing at Matthew. “Sits here for hours, does he?”

  Big Lou realised her tactlessness and looked apologetically at Matthew. “Not really,” she laughed. “That’s wishful thinking on my part. I’d like him to sit here for hours, but he doesn’t really.

  Just a little joke.”

  Big Lou now went back to her counter, leaving the two men seated opposite one another, one glaring at the other.

  “Let me get this straight,” hissed Gordon. “Are you calling Janis a gold-digger? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “I am.”

  99. Janis Exposed

  Now I’ve done it, thought Matthew. I’ve very specifically accused my father’s girlfriend of being after his money, and the accusa-tion has gone down more or less as I thought it would.

  And in that, Matthew was right. Gordon’s face had coloured with anger.

  “Tell me exactly why you have this low opinion of my friend,”

  324 Janis Exposed

  Gordon said. “If you’re going to make allegations like that, then presumably you have some basis for them. Tell me, what is it?

  What evidence do you have? Or do you just throw things like that – insulting things – throw them about on the basis of suspicion or, and I’m sorry to say this, jealousy?”

  Matthew thought. What evidence did he have? Now that he thought of it, none at all. So what was it? And at that point he realised that the reason why he took this view was simple. It was simple, but true. Janis did not love his father. You can tell when somebody loves another. It shows in the eyes; the attitude. There was none of that feeling in this case, thought Matthew. Any overt signs of affection on her part just did not seem to ring true. She was a gold-digger; it was obvious, and yet his poor father, infatuated because an attractive younger woman had shown an interest in him, simply could not see what her real motive was.

  Matthew wondered whether he should tell his father this. It was a hard thing for anybody to hear – that love was unreciprocated. Many people would simply not believe that if they heard it. And yet, his father was an adult (offspring often have to remind themselves of that hard fact) and could not be protected from uncomfortable knowledge. So he looked at his father, met his gaze, and said: “Dad, she doesn’t love you. I can tell.”
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  At first, Gordon did nothing. He stared at his son, as if uncomprehending, and then reached for his coffee cup and took a sip of his espresso. He’s struggling, thought Matthew.

  He’s struggling with his dented pride (poor man) and with his amour-propre. This is very painful. This is very hard.

  “So,” said Gordon quietly. “So she doesn’t love me, you say.”

  Matthew nodded. “She doesn’t love you.”

  “And so when I asked her to marry me,” went on Gordon,

  “and she accepted – that meant nothing, did it?”

  Matthew sighed. “You’ve gone and proposed?” he asked. “Oh, Dad, Dad, Dad! You’re making a big mistake. Mega-disaster all round. Oh, no, no, no!”

  “Give me your evidence,” said Gordon grimly. “Give me one Janis Exposed

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  single shred of evidence you have that she doesn’t love me. Show me. Just show me.”

  “But can’t you see?” said Matthew, raising his voice. “Can’t you see that there’ll be no evidence as such? You sense these things. You know them. You can’t necessarily find any evidence.”

  Gordon held up a hand to stop his son. “Right,” he said.

  “You’ve said enough as far as I’m concerned. You’ve insulted the woman I love. I’m not going to stand for it, Matthew. I’m just not.”

  “I’m only trying to help you,” protested Matthew. He reached out to touch his father, but Gordon sat back, out of reach.

  “Look,” went on Matthew. “Try to think. Have you told her about your money? Did she ask you?”

  “I’ve spoken to her,” said Gordon. “She raised it with me.”

  Matthew’s eyes widened. “She raised it?” he asked. “She did?”

  “That’s correct,” said Gordon. “She asked me some fairly searching questions. And I gave her perfectly frank answers.”

  “Well, there you are!” cried Matthew. “It’s just exactly as I said. She’s interested in getting her hands on your cash. It’s glaringly obvious.”

  Gordon shook his head. “You stupid boy,” he said. “Sorry, but that’s what you are, Matthew. She raised the issue because she wanted to talk to me about divesting myself of a large part of it.”

  “To her, I suppose,” observed Matthew wryly. “Great tactic.”

  “No,” said Gordon patiently. “You’re one hundred per cent wrong there, Matthew. You see, Janis has persuaded me to set up a charitable fund. I thought I might set one up for golfers in distress. Then she has urged me to transfer a considerable amount of money to you, as it happens. She’s suggested that I should, in fact, give away about seven million. Three to the fund and four to you.”

  Matthew was silent. He stared at his father. And then he bit his lip.

  “Yes,” said Gordon. “Do you know, when you were a wee boy you used to bite your lip like that whenever you were in the wrong over something. You just bit your lip.

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  “And I see you doing it right now. It’s funny, isn’t it? – how we keep these little mannerisms over the years.”

  “Dad,” Matthew began. “I didn’t . . .”

  “No,” said Gordon, “you didn’t know. Well, as they say, ye ken noo.”

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “I ken noo.”

  “And can you think of any reason,” Gordon asked, “why I should not reverse my decision to transfer that money to you?

  After all, you have such a low opinion of my fiancée. I wouldn’t want to force a decision of hers upon you, would I?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Matthew. “I really am. I’m sorry.”

  Gordon stared at his son. My son has never been a liar, he said to himself. He has been lazy, maybe, and a bit weak, but he has never been a liar. And so if he says that he is sorry for what he said, then he is. And the least I can do is to accept that apology.

  Gordon stood up. “Stand up, Matthew,” he said. Matthew, shamefacedly, stood up, and Gordon walked round the side of the table and faced his son.

  “That’s fine by me,” he said. He leaned forward, so that nobody else might hear what he had to say. “And do you know something, Matthew? Well, here’s something you should know: I’m proud of you. I never told you that, and I should have. I’m proud of what you are. I’m proud of the fact that, unlike me, you’ve never trodden on anybody else, or even considered doing that. And that makes you more of a man than I am, in my book.”

  Matthew could not say anything. So he stood there with his father, and Gordon put his arm about his son’s shoulder and left it there, to reassure him, to show what he felt but could not find the words to say.

  100. Big Lou

  Big Lou watched as Matthew and his father went their separate ways, Matthew to his gallery over the road and Gordon up the hill in the direction of Queen Street. It had been obvious to her Big Lou

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  what was going on: a reconciliation of some sort between father and son. That pleased her; Big Lou did not like conflict and estrangement – what was the point, she thought, in being at odds with those whom we should love when our time on this earth was so very short?

  She stared out of the window onto the steps that climbed up to Dundas Street. The coffee bar was now empty, but a customer would no doubt soon appear. Angus Lordie, perhaps, with that dog of his, or one of the antique dealers from down the road, from the Three Estaits, who would entertain Lou with news from the auction rooms.

  But it was the postman who arrived, a thin-faced man who came from Dundee and always asked Big Lou about Arbroath, although she had nothing to tell him. This morning he extracted a couple of letters from his sack and placed them carefully on the counter.

  “Arbroath,” he said, looking at Big Lou’s face with searching eyes. “Did you know some people called McNair? He was a joiner there, a long time ago. Then they moved to Dundee.”

  Big Lou shook her head. “Sorry, Willy. It’s been a long time.”

  She glanced at the letters. Was it? Yes, it was.

  “They had a daughter who went to Glasgow,” continued the postman. “I think she trained as a nurse at Yorkhill.” Scotland was like that; long stories, endless links, things that half-happened.

  Big Lou was staring at the letters. “Oh yes,” she said. “I didn’t know anybody called McNair. They might have been there while I was, but you know how it is when you’re younger. You just think of yourself.”

  “That’s it,” he said. “You’re right there, Lou.”

  Big Lou looked down at the letters and then glanced at her watch.

  “Won’t keep you,” said the postman. “Cheerio, Lou.”

  As he turned to leave, she reached for one of the letters and slit the envelope open with a bread-knife. The postmark had told her who it was, and now she unfolded the letter within and saw his characteristic handwriting, the same writing that had 328 Big Lou

  been on the letter which she had cherished for all those years, the years of his absence.

  “Dear Lou,” she read, “you know, don’t you, what a bad letter-writer I am. This is not because I find it difficult to write things down – I don’t. It’s just because I find it hard to write to you, because I have treated you so badly. Well, maybe I haven’t treated you badly, exactly, but I have not been very good about telling you things. And then there were all those years in which I never wrote to you at all although I knew that you must have been wondering what I was doing and when I was going to come back to Scotland.

  “Well, I let you down on that, didn’t I? When I wrote to you and told you that I was going to be in Edinburgh you must have wondered whether I was going to remember my promise to invite you over to Texas. And I had not even had the decency to write to you and tell you that I was married and that I had moved to Mobile. I’m sorry about that, Lou. I should have told you. Men sometimes don’t think about these things and then they are surprised when women are upset about it. I want you to know that I’m sorry about that.

  “I told you, didn’t
I, about how I had moved to Mobile and opened a restaurant which I was running with my wife? Well, we ran that restaurant for six months and then I discovered something really hard for me. My wife was carrying on with one of the waiters. I had no idea that this was happening until I discovered them together at a fun-fair. She had said that she was going to see her aunt and I believed her. But then I telephoned the aunt and she said that she wasn’t there. So I knew that she was lying.

  “I went out for a drive. It was a way of calming my anger that she should have lied to me, and by chance I found a fun-fair on a bit of wasteland near this big causeway that we have in Mobile. I don’t know why I stopped, but I’m glad that I did, as I found the two of them going round and round on the great wheel. I got into one of the cars behind them and up and round we went. They had not seen me, but I could see them and I could see him put his arm around her and kiss her. That was hard, Lou – it was very hard.

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  “I did nothing for a while, and then I shouted out: I can see you!

  “She turned round and spotted me up above them and I thought she was going to fall out of the car. But she did not, and when they went down again they signalled to the operator to let them out and they ran off to the car park and climbed into his van. That’s the last I saw of her. I shouldn’t have married her, Lou. She was too young for me. Sixteen’s too young for a girl to marry.

  “So I divorced her and now I’m coming back to Scotland and I want to know two things. The first is whether you will be prepared to see me again. And the second is whether you will agree to marry me. That is what I want to know. I hope you do, Lou, because you are the lady I have always loved, even when I told myself that I loved somebody else. I didn’t. I loved you. That’s all, Lou. That’s all there is to it.”

  Lou put the letter down, and then, fumbling with the strings, she tore off her apron, picked up a sign that said CLOSED, and half walked, half ran, out of the coffee bar and up the steps to the road above. She had to tell somebody, and Matthew would do. He would not be particularly interested, she knew, but she would tell him anyway. She had to share her joy, as Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.