Pianos and Flowers

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Bruce said, “This burn has a name, but I always forget what it is. It’s in Gaelic. We had a keeper who spoke Gaelic. He knew all the names and what they meant. Often they’re very simple. The big glen. The small burn. That sort of thing. All in Gaelic. This is called the white glen, you know.”

  David looked up to where the hills reached the sky. “Why the white glen?”

  “Because of the light. It just looks white. You often see a layer of cloud halfway up the hill. It moves across like a white line. I think that may be the reason.”

  The pony hesitated, but then continued.

  “Come on, Billy,” urged Bruce, tugging at the rein. “You’re doing well. Come on.”

  “Do animals ever think they’re going to die?” David asked.

  Bruce shook his head. “I don’t think so. They want to avoid being hurt, I suppose. They’re frightened of that. But they don’t know about actually dying, I’d say. They don’t understand they won’t go on forever.”

  “And is that better, do you think?”

  Bruce shrugged. “Probably. Knowing something can be hard. Sometimes it’s best not to know.” He glanced at his friend. “Do you want to stop? We could rest, if you like.”

  David shook his head. He wanted to get down to the house. He was thirsty but did not want to drink from one of the burns because people said you could get ill that way.

  “No, let’s carry on.”

  “They’ll have something ready for us when we get down,” said Bruce. “Sandwiches. A bottle of beer.”

  “Are you allowed? I mean, do your parents let you?” There was envy in David’s voice.

  “Yes, they said that when I turned sixteen I could. Only beer, though. Which doesn’t worry me – I can’t stand whisky. Can you?”

  “The smell’s too strong. It’s like that stuff you use for model aeroplanes.”

  “Dope? To make the paper tight?”

  “Yes.”

  Bruce patted the pony’s nose. “It’s so soft,” he said. “A pony has a soft nose. Like very supple leather. Something like that.”

  They continued to walk, moving down the contour lines until the house came into sight, ringed by the trees that had been so conspicuously absent on the bare, higher ground. The pony was left at the steading, handed over to a man who took charge of it and its burden, the finished stag.

  “Good work,” he said. “Good work, lads.”

  “They’ll put the stag in the deer larder,” Bruce explained. “Over there. See that building? That’s the deer larder. There are big hooks. Do you want to see?”

  David shook his head. He did not want to look at the stag, with its still open eyes and its useless legs. “No. No thanks.”

  “Well, in that case we can go back to the house. We can get out of these wet things.” There had been rain – not heavy, but intermittent and almost imperceptible, in the way of Highland rain. Now their tweeds – lent them by the keeper from a store of clothing – were damp, weighty with the moisture of the air.

  Bruce’s parents were in the house, along with several guests. Tea was being served in a drawing room, and the adults crooned compliments: The conquering heroes return; our dinner is secured; Dick Dead-Eye and his friend, no less. Bruce smiled wanly, glancing at David, as if to apologise. Parents are inexplicably embarrassing to sixteen-year-olds – they always have been.

  “Who took the shot?” Bruce’s father asked.

  “I did,” said Bruce.

  “And you didn’t have a stalker with you!” marvelled one of the guests. “I’d never manage.”

  “He knows his way round,” said Bruce’s father proudly.

  “Always has,” added his mother.

  They drank a cup of tea and then left the room. Dinner would be in two hours, they were told. They should wear their kilts, with black tie. David would find the things he needed laid out on his bed. He had brought his kilt, but did not have the black jacket and tie. Again the clothing store would come to his rescue.

  “Is it always like this?” he asked Bruce.

  “Like what?”

  “Like a sort of hotel.”

  Bruce nodded. “Mostly. When we have guests in the stalking season, that is.”

  “Who are they?”

  This was answered with a shrug. “Friends of my parents. That thin chap with the glasses runs a shipyard down in Glasgow. My father sells him steel.”

  “I see.”

  Bruce looked at him. “Come and keep me company.”

  “I need to change. And I need to take a bath.”

  “You’ve got plenty of time,” said Bruce. “Come when you’ve changed. My room’s down there, at the end.”

  After his bath and his change into the kilt, he made his way to Bruce’s room. The door was ajar, but he knocked and waited until he was invited in. Bruce was sitting on the edge of the bed, struggling with a cuff link.

  “Could you do this for me?” he asked. “If you don’t get these things in before you put your shirt on it can take hours.”

  He helped push the reluctant cuff link through the button hole. He noticed that it was inscribed with initials.

  “My grandfather’s,” Bruce explained. “I’ve got all his engraved stuff because my initials are the same as his.” He pointed to a chair. “You can sit down over there. That chair. Talk to me.”

  He did not know what to say.

  “Go on,” Bruce repeated. “Talk to me. Surely you’ve got something to say. Tell me about South America.”

  “I know nothing about South America. I’ve never been there.”

  Bruce laughed. “Neither have I. But talk to me about where we’ll go – you and I – when we go off to South America.”

  “Are we going?”

  “Why not? I’m fed up with school. Aren’t you? We can go to … to Colombia, perhaps. Or Peru.”

  “I’d like that, I suppose.”

  “So would I,” said Bruce. “And the Andes. We’d see the Andes.”

  He entered into the spirit of it. “Of course. You wouldn’t want to go to South America without seeing the Andes.”

  “No.”

  There was a brief silence. Bruce said something that David did not hear.

  “What was that?”

  “University. I said university.”

  “What about it?” David asked.

  “Have you decided?”

  David sighed. “I’m trying to. I know we’ve got a bit of time …”

  “Not much.”

  “No, not much. But I suppose we can still change our minds without anybody going off at the deep end about it.” David paused. “They keep saying ‘make up your mind’ – not just about this, but about a lot of things. But what they’re really trying to do is to make up your mind for you.”

  Bruce laughed. “Yes. I know exactly what you mean.”

  David thought of the conversation with his English teacher, who talked to him, constantly it seemed, about the Oxford college he called The House. “You must go there, David,” the teacher said. “It’s the obvious place for you.” But it was not explained to him why this was the case, although he thought it was something to do with the fact that his teacher had been a contemporary there of a highly-regarded poet. Wystan said this, Wystan said that – they mocked him for his enthusiasm.

  Bruce interrupted his train of thought. “St Andrews,” he said.

  “You’ve decided?” asked David. “St Andrews?”

  “Yes. My father wants me to go there. He’s not putting it that bluntly, but I can tell that he’ll … he’ll die if I went somewhere else. Particularly England. No, not really. But he really wants me to because he was there himself. He said he’d buy me a car if I go there.”

  David drew in his breath. A car. And felt a pang of envy, which he knew was wrong. He had been brought up to believe that you were never envious of the good fortune of others. And yet, why was envy so bad if it was so natural a feeling? Most of our feelings had some point to them, surely; we fell i
n love because we needed to keep the species going; we felt angry when provoked because we needed to protect ourselves; we felt disgust over things that smelled rotten because if we did not, and ate them, then we might die. It was all very natural.

  He looked at his friend, and then looked away. Why did we feel friendship for others? What was the point of it? Loneliness, perhaps. We did not like to be by ourselves too much. Yes, friendship was important for that reason, but there must be others. There must be something that converted the feeling into something noble, something that you might want to paint or write a poem about. But he was not sure about what it was that made things that important; perhaps if he went to The House he would be admitted to that secret, whatever it was.

  “You wouldn’t think of coming to St Andrews?” Bruce suddenly asked. “With me?”

  He said the first thing that came into his mind. “I never considered it.”

  “Apparently, it’s a great place. There’s something called the Kate Kennedy. They have a procession …”

  David tossed his head back. “You don’t swallow all that, do you? Come on, Bruce.”

  Bruce looked disappointed. “I’m not saying that all tradition’s a good thing. Some, though.”

  “I don’t believe in any of that. Sorry. And, anyway, do you really need a car?”

  David regretted the question the moment he had posed it. It was cutting, and snide, and he did not wish to hurt his friend. It was envy, he thought, that had prompted him to talk about the car that way. If anybody had offered him a car he would have accepted with alacrity. We belittle the things we secretly want ourselves. He remembered somebody telling him that, but he could not remember who it was. “I’m sorry,” he said. ‘I didn’t mean to sound like that.”

  But Bruce had not taken offence. “Like what? Sound like what?”

  “Forget it. Nothing.”

  “I suppose we’d better go down for dinner,” said Bruce. “Have you got everything you need?”

  He had.

  “Then I’ll see you at seven. They like us to be punctual. My dad in particular is keen on that. He says that punctuality is the greatest of the virtues. He can even say that in Latin.”

  David thought: he has a father who can say things in Latin. He has this place. He has his own rifle.

  Later, going back to his room after collecting his watch from the bathroom, where he had inadvertently left it, he heard voices coming from behind the door of Bruce’s room. Something made him slow down, then stop.

  “… anyway, how well do you know him?”

  That was Bruce’s father.

  “Pretty well. He’s in my house at school. Same year.”

  There was a short silence. Then, “You say you don’t think he likes stalking?”

  “No. I don’t think he does.”

  The father again, “There’s something about him I’m not quite sure of. Is he one of those boys, do you think? I don’t want you associating with that sort of boy.”

  David felt his heart beat fast within him.

  “No, of course not.”

  “You understand what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes. Of course I do.”

  “Good.”

  David moved away, the back of his neck hot with shame. Did Bruce’s father not see it? So he thought that of him. That’s what he thought, and all the time he should be looking at Bruce. Or not. How could you tell?

  He tried to put the overheard conversation out of his mind. At the dinner table, he sat next to the wife of the thin man who ran a shipyard. She talked to him about books she had read. Had he tried Buchan? He really should. There was something for everybody in Buchan. And she liked poetry too; she liked Wilfred Owen and Walter de la Mare. And Benson. He was very funny, Benson. He should certainly try Benson.

  He looked at Bruce’s father, who smiled at him, as if he had said nothing. He looked away.

  At ten o’clock he and Bruce left the party. In the corridor, Bruce said, “I don’t think you enjoyed this evening, did you?”

  He looked down at the floor.

  “Or the stalking?” Bruce continued.

  He shook his head.

  There was silence. Then Bruce said, “Neither did I.”

  “Why?”

  “I felt sorry for the stag. You may think that odd – because I shot it – but I felt sorry. They made me do it.”

  “Them – your parents?”

  “Yes.”

  And suddenly Bruce reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. “Could we go and see it?” he asked.

  David nodded. “If you want to.”

  “I do.”

  They went out into the darkness. Outside the deer larder door there was a light switch. A dim bulb was illuminated within.

  They saw the stag, hung up on its hook. Underneath it, on the concrete floor, was a small dark pool of blood.

  Bruce stepped forward. He touched the animal’s coat. Then, drawing closer, he pressed its flank. The carcase moved slightly. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  He turned to face David. “I’m so ashamed,” he said. “I’m so ashamed of this …” He gestured behind him, to the stag.

  “No,” said David. “Don’t be.”

  “And of myself. I’m ashamed of myself.”

  “Because …”

  “Because of things I can’t tell you about.”

  David hesitated. “But what if I were to tell you that I already knew. And that it doesn’t matter. Nothing like that matters, you know. It’s not a big thing.”

  Bruce stared at him. “You’re kind,” he said.

  They left the deer larder, and made their way back to the house. There was still a glow of light in the sky, as they were in the far north, where it stayed light almost until midnight. David shivered, although the summer air was warm. “That smell,” he said. “That coconut smell.”

  “Gorse bushes,” said Bruce. “The flowers smell just like coconut.”

  “And that sound?” asked David.

  “That’s the waterfall. The burn behind the house has a waterfall. We could go and see it if you like.”

  David shook his head. “I think I should turn in.”

  Inside, they said goodnight, and David returned to his room, which was at the end of a long and dimly-lit corridor. On the walls there were engravings of Blackface sheep – portraits of champions. There was an oil painting of a man launching a boat on a Highland loch.

  He lay down on the bed. It was too warm for blankets. Above his head, in the coombed ceiling, there was a rooflight. The moon inched its way across the glass. It was so large, so close. He muttered to himself, My dear friend, my dear friend.

  Eight years later, in 1943, David was among a small group of men who met in a house in the Greek village of Petrana. The men with him were members of a resistance group, ELAS, involved in the sabotage of railway bridges. Two of them were drunk and were being roughly disciplined by their leaders, one of whom seemed to have broken a man’s jaw. David stood by; he did not like the methods of these people, but they were not under his command. He knew, and disapproved of, their methods. He knew that they shot their German and Italian prisoners, because he had been warned about that by Paddy Leigh Fermor himself, when they had shared a drink in Cairo. But he could not interfere. “You can try to get them to fall into line,” Leigh Fermor said, “but ultimately these men will do what they want. They’re a pretty tough bunch.”

  They were due to make contact with another SOE officer, who was arranging the delivery of explosives. The beating of the drunks suddenly stopped, and one of the ELAS men came to tell him of the arrival in the village of the expected officer. He would be brought to the house shortly.

  David waited. His mind was on their mission. Timing was important, as the railway line needed to be attacked at five or six points to render it unusable. There would be reprisals – there always were, but the ELAS men knew it. It would be their brothers and cousins who would be arbitrarily rounded up and
shot.

  He hated the war. He hated the discomfort and the moments of sheer terror that came when you reflected on the fact that if captured you would not be treated as a combatant, even if you were wearing uniform, as the SOE did. He hated the distrust and the animosities of the Greeks, who disliked each other, it seemed to him, every bit as much as they disliked their occupiers.

  He longed to speak English. He longed to have even a few moments with somebody with whom he could share a joke about the flea-ridden beds and the difficulty of shaving and the squabbles of the Greeks.

  He asked for something to eat. He had not had a meal for over twenty-four hours, and hunger was gnawing at him. They brought him a bowl of olives, wrinkled and excessively salty, and a chunk of goat’s milk cheese, on which mould had grown and had to be dusted off. There was a flask of wine, raw, murky, and dark red. He looked at the wine in his glass, and thought of something that had not crossed his mind for a long time. Homer described the sea as being wine-dark. That had lodged in his memory. How could the sea be wine-dark? Did the Ancient Greeks see colour in a different way from the way we saw it? Or did they not care very much and would accept any description that fitted the metre?

  It was while he was thinking about this and eating the cheese, that into the room, escorted by a tall bearded ELAS man, came Bruce.

  For a moment they did not recognise one another, and then they did. David stepped forward first and threw his arms around his friend. He shouted, but did not know what he shouted. He did not care.

  “You know one another,” said the ELAS man, and smiled.

  They sat down. The ELAS people had made coffee. A raid on an Italian transport a few weeks earlier had resulted in distribution of coffee through various networks; some had reached them.

  They quickly established where they had been. Neither knew that the other was serving in the same theatre of operations.

  “I thought you were in Cairo,” said David.

  “I was. They recruited me there. SOE.”

  “Because you’d done some Greek at St Andrews?”

  Bruce smiled. “The Army never fully understood the difference between Classical and Modern Greek.”

  They talked about their experiences. “I’ve been in Macedonia,” Bruce said. “Liaison work for the most part – arranging drops. Arms. Radios. Gold sovereigns to fund the whole thing. And trying to keep the Greeks from killing one another.”