Pianos and Flowers

by Alexander McCall Smith

  David knew of the hatreds, of the plans that the Communists had to take over once the Germans left and the determination of others to thwart them. “What they don’t seem to grasp,” Bruce went on, “is the fact that once you let the Communist Party in you’ll never get them out. The commissars themselves know that, but the average man doesn’t. They see somebody offering them relief from hopeless poverty – and that’s enough for them. And who can blame them, when all you have is a herd of goats and a few olive trees?”

  “And a procession of priests and stony fields …”

  Bruce shook his head. “Don’t underestimate the priests. I saw one standing in front of a house that the Germans were trying to burn. He was waving an icon at them, but the Germans pushed him out of the way. He got to his feet but the Germans knocked him down again.”

  “You were watching?” asked David.

  “From a house on the other side of the village square. It was too dangerous to get out at the back. I had to stay and see them set fire to one building after another.”

  There was more. There was more death. “I’ve become used to it, you know,” said Bruce. “It took me a little time, but you get used to its presence. Death is like the weather. It just happens. And you know something else? I feel I’ve been doing this forever. I can’t imagine what it must be like not to be on the run, hiding, in a different house virtually every night.”

  “I suppose you do get used to it. I suppose you get used to anything.”

  “You get used to any sort of life,” said Bruce. “You take what’s on offer.” It was the sort of observation that seemed to be prompted by their circumstances. You talked about life when you knew it could be taken away from you at any moment.

  Two hours passed. There was business to be done – explosives had been hidden on a hillside above the village – but they could not move until after dark.

  “I don’t like this waiting,” said Bruce. “I don’t mind the actual work – laying the charges, that sort of thing. But this waiting gets to me.”

  “Of course it does,” David agreed. “I close my eyes and try to think of other things. I try to remember the road between Edinburgh and Inverness, imagining every twist and turn. Or I try to remember a novel I’ve read. I’ve been remembering some of Scott. That seems to have stuck.”

  “I never liked Scott,” said Bruce. “I could read Stevenson, but not Scott. He takes so long.”

  David smiled. “They had a lot of time then.”

  Then Bruce said, “I don’t know how to say this.”

  David looked away. “You don’t have to.”

  “But I think I do. Because it could be tonight, you know. They might be waiting for us. Or tomorrow morning, after the line’s gone up. They’ll be searching for us. And it could happen very quickly. In a moment or two it could be over – for either of us.” He paused. “I wouldn’t want it to be you, you know.” His voice became a whisper. “I’d cry buckets at your funeral.”

  David did not say anything.

  Then Bruce continued, “I’ve thought about you just about every day. Every day.”

  There was silence. Then David said, “I’m glad.” He looked down at his hands. The war was on them.

  “That’s all I wanted to say,” said Bruce.

  “It’s all right,” said David.

  One of the ELAS men brought them a fresh cup of coffee.

  “For your nerves,” he said as he gave it to them.

  They saw one another in Greece twice after that. David was brought home after being injured in a road accident. It was an ignominious injury, he said: a drunken ELAS driver had gone into a tree when they were on a mission to deliver aid. David was briefly concussed, and during his concussion the gold sovereigns he was carrying as aid to a beleaguered village were stolen from him. Bruce was brought home slightly later. He was awarded the MC for conspicuous bravery. David married two years after the end of the war. His wife was a primary school teacher. They had no children, although there had been a still birth. Bruce took over the running of his father’s estate, but sold it shortly afterwards. He met an American woman, an artist from Minneapolis, and they married six months later. She liked Scotland and encouraged Bruce to buy a farm near Melrose, in the Borders. They had two daughters, one of whom played hockey for Scotland.

  If David or Bruce were asked whether they were happy, both would have replied yes, they were, although there might have been a moment’s hesitation before that reply was given. But if you only have to hesitate for a moment in considering that question, then you are probably happy enough, which is as much as most of us can expect.

  Their school organised a reunion, at which both Bruce and David were present. The school pipe band played in the quad, although it had started to rain, the soft, intermittent rain of the Scottish Highlands. As he watched the boys marching past in their kilts, the Highland pipes vocal in their lament, David thought: nobody is going to ask these boys to go to Greece; nobody is going to expect of them what was expected of us. And what was that? To do what needed to be done because a monstrous evil had shown its face? Or because humanity had simply behaved in the way in which it had behaved throughout history, and had squabbled and fought over grubby issues of territory? No, he thought, that is too cynical: it was not like that. It had been far simpler. It had been about bullying and cruelty and the strutting of dark gods.

  Bruce stood beside him. David said, “Do you remember something?” Bruce waited. “You said in Greece one day that you’d cry buckets at my funeral. Do you remember?”

  Bruce smiled. “Did I say that?”

  “Yes. You did.”

  “Well, I suppose I would.”

  David felt the rain upon his face. “I meant to say the same thing,” he said. He paused. In the lives of most of us, the list of unsaid things was, he thought, a long one.

  Sphinx

  SHE WAS TWENTY-SIX YEARS OLD, THE DAUGHTER OF A greengrocer from a town on the Firth of Clyde. Her mother had died when she was twelve – a sudden, acute appendicitis – and her father had brought up her and her younger brother with the help of his unmarried sister, a district nurse. Her brother had taken a job in the shipyards when he was sixteen. “He’s just a boy,” she said. “He’s just a wee boy and there he is with all those men. It’s such a pity.” Her father had sighed. “Pity or not, he’s lucky to have anything these days,” he said. It was 1931.

  She was called Margaret, which had been her mother’s name. Her father said that she had grown into the image of her mother. “She was a fine-looking woman,” he said. “Just like you, my darling – just like you.”

  She blushed at the compliment. There was no vanity in her; she used make-up, but not very much. “Lilies need no gilding,” said her aunt. “You have good skin. Good skin is one of the greatest gifts, you know, and you don’t need to try to improve it. Remember that.”

  The aunt knew all about poverty, and its effects on even the strongest and most determined. She had done her training at the Victoria Infirmary, and then been sent to the Gorbals, where she was attached to a partnership of two doctors, both Highlanders who had spent their working lives in the slums of Glasgow. “You get used to the smell of poverty,” one of the doctors said to her. “After a while, you don’t notice it so much. But it’s always there.” The aunt listened to this, and told her niece that only hard work stood between her and the world of those Gorbals streets. She was very conscious of status and respectability. “People laugh at these things,” she said, “but they wouldn’t if they saw what I saw every day of the week.”

  The advice was heeded. Margaret was diligent at school and found a place at a secretarial college in Glasgow. “That’s a good start,” said her aunt. “But she could do even better than that. With her brains – and her looks – she could get somewhere.”

  Her father smiled. “She’ll find some nice fellow to marry,” he said. “Or he’ll find her, rather. Somebody who’s made something of himself. Somebody with a good trade – m
aybe a little business.”

  “Possibly,” said the aunt. “They say good looks marry up, don’t they?”

  “Perhaps,” said her father, and then added, “Except sometimes.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” cautioned the aunt.

  After she had finished at the secretarial college she took a job in a bank in Glasgow. She was there for four years, during which she lived as a lodger in a house in the West End. Her aunt approved, as the address was a respectable one. “I think I know the street,” she said. “You’ll like it there.”

  The landlady was the widow of a dentist, who had drowned on a fishing trip to the Upper Clyde. The dentist’s widow was kind to her, and full of advice. She chided her gently for not doing more to find a husband. “The best men are taken early,” she said. “Wait too long and you’re left with the alsorans.” Margaret listened politely, but explained that she had no desire to rush things. “I’ll know,” she said. “I’ll know the right man when he comes along. I’m waiting for him, you see.”

  “As long as the ship hasn’t already sailed,” replied the widow. “That’s all I’m saying, Margaret.”

  The manager of the bank, a thin-faced man with a recalcitrant cough, told her one day that he had heard of a vacancy in a London bank. “This is a very good job,” he said. “One of their top men – and I mean top – is looking for a replacement for the secretary who’s been with him for twenty-seven years. Her eyesight is going and she’s retiring. He needs somebody with the right skills. I know him because he’s married to my cousin. I could put in a word for you, if you like.”

  London! But then she wondered where she would live. London was intimidating; you could not just go down to London and find a dentist’s widow with a room to let. She was sure it would not be that simple. The manager, though, had anticipated her concern. “My cousin knows a woman from Glasgow. She lives in a place called Notting Hill and takes lodgers. Well-brought-up girls, of course. Two or three of them, I think. My cousin says she could fix you up there.”

  Her father encouraged her. “It’ll be different,” he said. “There’s a lot to do in London, I’m told. I’m not saying that there’s not a lot to do in Glasgow, but London’s bigger, you know. More people. More people means more things to do.”

  “There are many opportunities in London,” said her aunt. “But you have to be careful. The English can be lax, you know.”

  Margaret took a day or two to decide. Then she told the manager that she would be happy to move; could he have a word with his cousin’s husband? “I already have,” he said. “The job’s yours if you want it.”

  She went down to London a month later. The room in Notting Hill was light and clean, with curtains made of thick linen. There was a gas fire that was controlled by a coin-fed meter. A hot bath was available on prior notice to the landlady, who had a measuring stick to ascertain the depth of the water with which it was filled. “Some people think you need to wallow,” she said. “I don’t.”

  The job in the bank was more demanding than the position she had filled in Glasgow. Her employer spoke quickly when he dictated letters, and he did not like repeating himself. She worked at improving her shorthand, and after a week she was able to keep up with him without too much difficulty. He was courteous, and appreciative of her work. “You Scots know how to work,” he said.

  “We do our best,” said Margaret.

  “I can tell that,” he replied.

  She wondered about his home life. She knew that he was married, and that he lived in a place called Islington. In order to satisfy her curiosity, she had one Saturday taken a bus to his part of town and found the street on which he lived. She knew the number of his house, and walked past it, but on the other side of the road. She looked up as she drew level with the unremarkable terraced house and saw that he was standing in the window, looking down on the street. She immediately averted her eyes, but she was sure that he saw her. Burning with shame, she hurried down the street.

  On the following Monday he asked her how she had enjoyed her weekend. She was flustered, and it took her a few moments to reply. Then she said, “I went for a long walk – all around London – places I had never been to before.” She paused. “Even your part of town, I think.”

  He looked at her sideways, obviously uncertain as to how to respond. Then he said, “That’s right – I saw you. Or at least I think I saw somebody who looked a lot like you.”

  She affected surprise. “Really?”

  “Yes, I thought you walked by my place – on the other side of the street.”

  “Possibly. I walked for miles.” She made a show of insouciance. “Probably about fifteen miles altogether. I checked up on a map.”

  He smiled at her. “You don’t want to overdo things,” he said.

  One afternoon, several months later, she was given time off by her boss. He had to go to a meeting in Manchester and the office was quiet. “You can take the afternoon off,” he said. “You worked late yesterday and you deserve it.”

  She left the office shortly after twelve. There was a corner house where she would have lunch – perhaps taking longer over it than she normally would. Then she would go off to Oxford Street to look at the shops. She needed new shoes, and would be able to take her time in finding just the right pair.

  The corner house was busy, and she had difficulty finding a table. But then a young man who was already seated indicated that she could take the spare seat opposite him. She thanked him and sat down.

  She saw that he was gazing at her.

  “I’m called Robert,” he said. “Friends call me Bob.”

  She told him her name.

  “I knew a Margaret once,” he said. “She sang like a nightingale. She really did. A gorgeous voice.”

  “I can’t sing,” said Margaret. “I’ve tried, but I can’t. I think you have to train your vocal cords.”

  Robert nodded. “Maybe we could go for a walk after lunch,” he said. “Down to the river. It’s such a fine day.”

  They walked slowly. Down on the embankment, the sun was on the river, lending it a ripple of gold. Some small boys were throwing stones into the water, shouting out, making the explosive sounds that boys do. A barge was making its stately progress upstream. A ship’s horn sounded.

  Margaret looked at Robert – a sideways glance. She liked him, and in a sudden moment of insight she said to herself: this is the man. This is the man I’ve been waiting for. This is the one.

  They came to the Needle and the two attendant sphinxes. “I love coming here,” he said. “I’ve always liked the idea of ancient Egypt. Pyramids, sphinxes, what have you. I’ve always loved that sort of thing.”

  She gazed up at the sphinx. “You wonder what it’s thinking,” she said. “It looks as if it knows something, but you can’t really tell what it is, can you?”

  “That’s how they’re meant to look,” he said. “Enigmatic.” He paused. “Yes, I come here just about every week. I look at the hieroglyphs and wonder what they mean.”

  “Does anybody know?” she asked.

  Robert shrugged. “Professors maybe. They know, I think, but the rest of us just have to guess.”

  She pointed at the characters. “Maybe that just says: this way round.”

  He laughed. “That’s very funny,” he said. “You make me laugh, you know. Oh, in a good way, of course. You’re fun.”

  She blushed.

  Then he said, “I have to get back to the office. I’m going to be working late tonight, which is why I’ve been able to take this time off. But can you give me your address – I’ll write to you, if you say you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t,” she said, hoping that she did not reply too quickly.

  She gave him the address in Notting Hill. “You have to write Care of Mrs Higgs. She’s the landlady, and she’s very particular about that sort of thing.”

  He wrote down the details in a notebook. “Care of Mrs Higgs,” he said. “Good. That’s it. I’ll send you a
postcard and then we can arrange to meet again.”

  “I’d like that,” she said, once again worrying that she might sound too eager. The dentist’s widow had advised against that. “Never let them think you’re too keen,” she said. “Men don’t like that. Take my word for it.”

  She waited anxiously for his postcard. A week passed, and then another one, and her hopes began to fade. After three weeks she decided that he was not going to write. Mrs Higgs noticed her mood, and asked what was wrong. After hearing the story, the landlady said, “I don’t think you should write him off, you know. He probably lost his notebook. Men lose things all the time, you know.”

  That thought preyed on her mind. Eventually she decided that she would go back to the sphinx. He had said that he went there almost every week, and if that were the case she could leave him a message. She would write a note and tuck it between the sphinx’s toes. Her message would be that she thought he might have mislaid her address. If he had, then here it was again and she would love to hear from him – only if he wanted to write, of course.

  She left the note in the sphinx’s toes for three Saturdays in a row, replacing it each week because the paper became damp, or washed away. Nothing happened. There was no postcard, no letter. He doesn’t want to see me again, she thought. I should take the hint.

  She remembered something her aunt had said to her. “Selfpity, if you ask me, is pitiful. If things go wrong, Margaret – and they will, from time to time – don’t mope. What you need to do is find something else to think about. I know you young people don’t like listening to advice, but that’s the truth, you know. Never indulge in self-pity. Never.”

  What, she wondered, would a person keen to avoid self-pity do in her circumstances? She had been disappointed by a meeting with a man. The answer to that, then, was to set about meeting another man. She would go to a dance. She had seen one advertised – a Saturday afternoon dance in a hall not far from where she lived. Refreshments would be served, she read, and music would be by a “rising band, talked about across half London”. She wondered who talked about bands, and why only half London was talking about this one. Why only half London? What about the other half?