Love Over Scotland 4ss-3

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Pat reached out and took his hand. “Because it would be awkward,” she said. “Because you’re a man and I’m a girl, and

  . . . you know.”

  Matthew sighed. “But you don’t fancy me. I know that.

  Nothing could ever happen, because you don’t fancy me.

  Nobody does.”

  There was no self pity in his voice; he merely spoke with the air of one stating a fact.

  “That isn’t true,” said Pat vehemently. “A lot of people fancy you.”

  “Name one,” said Matthew flatly. “Name just one.”

  Pat did not have the time to answer the question, which she could not have answered anyway. But at that moment, with the question still hanging in the air, the doorbell rang and the conversation came to an end.

  59. A Person from Porlock

  The arrival of an unexpected visitor has ruined many an important conversation and at least one great poem. When Coleridge started to describe his vision of Kubla Khan’s Xanadu, he had, we are told, the words in mind to describe what he saw. But then came the person from Porlock, who by chance knocked at the door at precisely the moment that the poet was committing his vision to paper, and it was lost. Thus began Porlock’s long career as a symbol of that which interrupts the flow.

  Pat might have been able to reassure Matthew that he was appreciated, had she had the chance to do so. But she was not to have that chance. As Matthew rose to his feet to answer the door, he gave her a look which said, very clearly, that what he said was irrefutable, and that she should not even bother to dispute it. Pat made a gesture of hopelessness, the meaning of which was similarly clear: if that’s your view of yourself, then nothing will persuade you otherwise, will it?

  While Matthew was answering the door, Pat poured herself a cup of coffee. She felt unhappy about the disappointment that she had caused Matthew; she liked him – she liked him a great deal, in fact, as he had always been kind to her. But there was no mistaking the difference between the affection she felt for Matthew – a rather sister-like affection – and the feelings which Wolf had aroused in her. She could hardly bear to think about Wolf now, but she had to admit that what she had previously felt for him was far from sisterly. The thought of that disturbed her, and she found herself wondering whether she was the sort of woman who was invariably attracted to the wrong sort of man. She had seen that behaviour in others, the stubborn refusal to acknowledge the worthlessness of some man. And it was always the same men who benefited from that; handsome, charming men who knew how to exploit women; men like . . .

  like Bruce and Wolf.

  The solution to that problem was obvious: pick a man who was not handsome and not, on the face of it, charming; some-184 A Person from Porlock

  body like Matthew, somebody quiet and decent. But could she ever be attracted to somebody quiet and decent? And what, she wondered, had quiet and decent men to offer? They made good husbands, perhaps; they would wash the car and help with the children, but that was hardly what Pat, at her age, was interested in. She wanted romance, excitement, the sense of being swept away by something, and Matthew, for all his merits, would never be able to give her that. Matthew would never be able to sweep anybody away; it was impossible.

  There was the sound of voices in the hall – Matthew was speaking to somebody, and now he walked into the kitchen with a young woman behind him.

  “This is Leonie,” said Matthew. “Leonie, this is Pat.”

  There was a moment of silence as the two young women looked at one another. Pat noticed Leonie’s hair first of all, which was cut short, in an almost masculine style, and her black jeans, low on the hips. She’s the type to have a tattoo, she thought, somewhere; somewhere hidden. And what is she to Matthew?

  Is she . . . ?

  For her part, Leonie merely thought: interesting.

  “Leonie’s an architect,” said Matthew as he pulled out a chair for the guest. “We met . . .”

  “In the Cumberland Bar,” supplied Leonie. “A few weeks ago, wasn’t it, Matthew?”

  Matthew nodded, and busied himself with pouring coffee.

  “An architect,” said Pat.

  “Yes,” said Leonie. She turned to Matthew. “I’ve done a few sketches for you, Matthew. Remember? You said that you might do something with this place?”

  Matthew frowned. “Yes, well, I hadn’t really decided. Not definitely.”

  “They’re just sketches,” said Leonie. “And I’ve made a card model. It gives you an idea of how things might feel.”

  Matthew looked at Pat. It was, she thought, a mute plea for help. “Is there anything wrong with this flat?” she said. “It seems pretty nice to me.”

  Leonie, who had addressed her remarks to Matthew, now A Person from Porlock 185

  turned to Pat. “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it,” she said.

  “But we can make much more of things, you know. Just about anywhere can be improved if you take a hard look at it. Made more user-friendly, if you see what I mean.”

  “But this isn’t meant to be user-friendly,” said Pat, gesturing towards the hall. “This is Georgian. This is what it’s meant to be like.”

  Leonie smiled. “We don’t have to live in museums,” she said.

  “That’s the trouble with this town. It’s a museum.”

  “Maybe you could show me the sketches,” Matthew interrupted. “Then we could see.”

  Leonie reached into the large black folder that she had brought with her. “Right,” she said. “Here we are.” She took out a large piece of paper and unfolded it. “Here’s something.”

  They stared at the neatly-traced sketch, drawn on draughtsman’s paper.

  “Here’s the hall,” said Leonie, pointing to the sketch. “That’s the welcoming space. At the moment, you come in and what do you see? Nothing. The hall leads nowhere.”

  “But is a hall meant to lead somewhere?” asked Matthew.

  “Well, what else should it do?” asked Leonie. “You don’t live in it, do you? Unused space.” She tapped the paper. “You’ll see that I suggest that we take down this wall here, which allows the hall to flow into this room here, to absorb it. You get a much better sense of being drawn into the living space, you see. The spaces will talk to one another.”

  Pat stared at the sketch. It was a short while before she established the orientation of the plan, but once she had done that she realised that the room which was being absorbed into the hall was her own. “My room,” she said quietly.

  “What was that?” asked Leonie.

  “I said, my room,” Pat replied.

  Leonie looked to Matthew for an explanation.

  “Pat’s staying with me,” he explained. “For the time being.”

  Leonie took her hands away from the plans. “I see.” She looked at Pat in a curious way. There was something about her look which made the younger girl feel unsettled. It was not an 186 An Invitation to Dinner

  unfriendly look, but it was not uncomplicated. The best word to describe it, she thought, was bemused.

  “These are just ideas,” said Leonie after a few moments.

  60. An Invitation to Dinner

  Feeling uncomfortable sitting in the kitchen with Matthew and Leonie, Pat retreated to her room with the excuse that she had more unpacking to do. Leonie smiled at her as she left, but it was a puzzling smile, and she found it hard to interpret.

  “So,” said Leonie after Pat had left. “So, Matthew, who’s our young friend?”

  Matthew blushed. “She works for me,” he muttered. “In the gallery.”

  Leonie raised an eyebrow. “And the room goes with the job?”

  Matthew did not reply immediately. He had not expected Leonie’s visit and now he found himself resenting her arriving without warning. He had met her only once before, on that occasion when he had invited her back to India Street for a pizza. They had got on reasonably well on that occasion and had made a vague agreement to meet again. Telephone numbers had been
exchanged, but he had not called her, and she had not called him. He had toyed with the idea of doing so once or twice, but had decided against it. He was just not sure that he liked her. Perhaps he did; perhaps not.

  They had talked on that occasion about possible renovations to his flat, but he had not encouraged her in any way. And now here she was, with a set of unasked-for drawings, expounding about rooms talking to one another and fluid spaces. What business was it of hers who stayed in his flat? What precisely was she suggesting anyway? That he was taking advantage of a vulnerable young employee? It was all a bit too much.

  “She had a bit of trouble in her last flat,” he said evenly. “I’m helping her out.”

  Leonie took a sip of her coffee. Matthew noticed that she An Invitation to Dinner 187

  was looking at him over the rim of her mug. Her expression, he thought, was one of scepticism.

  She lowered her mug. “Nice for you,” she said. “Very nice.”

  Matthew looked away with mounting irritation. “Look,” he said. “I’m not sure that I’m all that keen on doing any structural alterations to this place. I didn’t think that you were serious back then.”

  Leonie sighed. “They’re just some ideas I had,” she said.

  “Nothing more than that. I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything.”

  “No,” said Matthew. “Well, thanks anyway. Thanks for going to the trouble.”

  Leonie folded up the plan and slipped it into her case. Her manner was cool. “That’s fine,” she said. “I enjoyed doing it.

  You get a bit bored designing extensions for boring little houses in the suburbs. It’s nice to imagine doing something more challenging.”

  She had abandoned her plan so readily that Matthew felt slightly sorry for her. Australians were direct speakers, and perhaps she had not meant to sound snide when she referred to Pat’s presence. Perhaps there would be the possibility of a friendship here – nothing more than that, of course, at this stage.

  “Have you been back to the Cumberland Bar?” he asked politely.

  Leonie shook her head. “No. I had a long weekend in London and then a friend from Melbourne dropped by. She stayed for a week. You know how it is when you have friends staying. Busy.”

  “Yes, of course.” Matthew hesitated. Leonie’s visit had made him forget his disappointment over Pat’s rebuff – for that is how he thought of it – and now the thought of asking Leonie out to dinner seemed attractive. It would make up, too, for any disappointment she might feel over the rejection of her drawings.

  “I’m sorry about the plans,” he said. “You must have spent a lot of time doing those. And then I . . .”

  “Don’t think about it,” said Leonie reassuringly. “If you knew how many times drawings of mine have been torn up, you 188 An Invitation to Dinner

  wouldn’t think about it for a moment. It happens. Architects are used to it.”

  “Well, at least let me take you out to dinner,” said Matthew.

  “As a thank-you.”

  Leonie laughed. “I thought you were never going to ask,” she said. “Yes. Dinner would be nice.”

  Matthew rubbed his hands together. “I’ll book a table for two somewhere,” he said.

  “Make it three,” said Leonie. “Would you mind very much?”

  “Three?” Matthew wondered whether she thought that Pat would be included, but why should she imagine that? Surely he had made it clear enough that although he and Pat were living together, that was all they were doing together.

  “My friend,” said Leonie quietly. “My friend, Babs.”

  Matthew was perplexed. “Your friend from Melbourne? Is she still staying with you?”

  Leonie laughed. “No, not her. She’s gone off to Denmark.

  Babs is my friend here. You know. My friend.”

  Matthew saw her bemused expression and realised that he had not been very perceptive. Mind you, how was one to tell?

  After all, she had accepted his invitation when they had met in the Cumberland Bar; she should have told him, or given him some indication, rather than relying on him to pick up the signals which were, anyway, non-existent as far as he could make out.

  He made a quick recovery. That, at least, sorted that out. It would indeed remain a simple friendship. “Of course. That’s fine. The three of us. Now where shall we go? What sort of place do you like?”

  “I’m easy,” said Leonie. “But Babs is wild about Italian. Do you think we could . . . ?”

  “Of course. Italian.”

  Leonie seemed pleased. “Babs lived in Italy for a year, you see. She worked in Milan. She’s a designer. Milan’s the place for designers.”

  Matthew nodded. He had not thought that anyone called Babs would be artistic. Babs was a name full of old-fashioned brisk-Beside the Canal 189

  ness. What would somebody called Babs do? Perhaps work with horses.

  Leonie looked thoughtful. “How about . . . Well, why don’t you invite that girl through there? What’s her name again?”

  “You mean Pat?”

  “Yes. Pat. Let’s invite her too. You said that she had had a bit of trouble. An Italian restaurant would cheer her up.”

  Matthew looked out of the kitchen towards Pat’s room. Her door was closed. “I’m not sure,” he began. “She may not . . .”

  “Just ask her,” Leonie interrupted. “She may be keen to come.”

  Matthew felt that something odd was going on. A simple invitation to dinner, extended to Leonie, had been expanded to include her friend, Babs, and now was about to embrace Pat as well. Why was Leonie keen for Pat, whom she had barely met, to be included? Perhaps she was just being friendly, in the way in which Australians often are. Besides, they were, he remembered, inclusive people.

  61. Beside the Canal

  Cyril trotted along the canal, his head held high into the wind, his tail swinging jauntily behind him. On that section of the towpath, between the aqueduct and the turn-off for Colinton Village, there was nobody about, and the only sign of life was a family of eider ducks moving in and out of the reeds. Cyril stopped briefly to inspect the ducks, giving a low, warning bark.

  It would have been a fine thing to eat a duck, he thought; to sink his teeth into those soft breast-feathers and shake the annoying bird out of its complacency. But there was no time for that now. Scores like that could be settled once he had found Angus again, for that is what he yearned for, with all his heart.

  He had to find Angus.

  After a few minutes, the path narrowed and now he felt hard stone beneath his feet. He slowed down and advanced cautiously.

  190 Beside the Canal

  There were railings to his left, like the railings he knew in Drummond Place, but through these he could make out an emptiness, a falling away, a current of cool air; and on the air there was the smell of water, different from the smell of the canal, a fresher, sharper smell. He stood still for a moment, his nose twitching. This was something he recognised, something he remembered from a past which now survived only in scraps of memory. This was a smell that he had encountered on the Hebridean island where he had started his life, the scent of running water, of burns that had flowed through peat. And the river carried other things on it, which were familiar; traces of sheep, of lanolin from their wool, and the acrid odour of rats that had scurried over stones.

  He continued on his journey. The river had not helped; it had been too powerful, too evocative, and the distant smells that had been drawing him on were even fainter now. But they still lay somewhere ahead of him, layered into a hundred other smells, and he knew that this was the direction in which he should go.

  A short distance further along, Cyril came upon a group of boys. There were three of them standing by the edge of the canal, under the shelter of a footbridge, fishing rods extended out over the water, the lines dropping optimistically into the unruffled surface. Cyril liked boys for several reasons. He liked the way they smelled, which was always a little bit off, li
ke a bone that had been left out on the grass for a day or two. Then he liked them because they were always prepared to play with dogs.

  The boys looked at Cyril.

  “Here’s a dug,” said Eck, a small boy with a slightly pointed head.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Eck’s older brother, Jimmy. “Is he running away, do you think?”

  “No,” said Bob. “There are some dugs just wander aboot.

  They dinnae belong to anybody. They’re just dugs.”

  “I’ve always wanted a dug,” said Eck. “But my dad says I cannae have one until I’m sixteen.”

  “You’ll never be sixteen,” said Bob. “You’re too wee. And that Beside the Canal 191

  pointy heid of yours too. All the lassies will have a good laugh, so they will.”

  The boys looked at Cyril, who sat down and wagged his tail encouragingly. He half-expected them to throw something for him, but they seemed unwilling to do this, and after a few minutes he decided that it was time to move on. He took a step forward, licked one of the boys on the hand, and continued with his journey.

  There were more people now. A runner, panting with effort, came towards him and Cyril moved obediently to the side to let him past. Then a woman walking a small dog that cowered as Cyril approached. Cyril ignored the other dog; he had picked up that scent again, slightly stronger now, even if still distant.

  He began to move more quickly, ignoring the distractions that now crowded in upon him. He paid no attention to a practice scull that shot past him, the two rowers pulling at the oars in well-rehearsed harmony. He paid no attention to the swan that hissed at him from the water’s edge, its eyes and beak turned towards him in hostility.

  There was a bridge, and traffic. Cyril stuck to the path that led under the bridge. He saw trees up ahead, great towering trees in autumnal colours, and behind them the sky that Cyril saw as just another place, a blue place that was always there, far away, never reached.

  He turned his nose into the wind. It was stronger now, the smell that he had been following. It was somewhere close, he thought, and he slowed to walking pace.