Pianos and Flowers

by Alexander McCall Smith

  But into this quiet Scottish fastness came the news of impending disaster. In the fields of America it was the tips of missiles that bristled, not ears of wheat. And from the east, from behind that rigid curtain, came truculence tinged with fear. At sea, somewhere otherwise blue and distant, rival warships tracked each other’s movements, their torpedoes primed.

  “Oh, Jeanie,” said Brian. “I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid. This is going to end in disaster.”

  “Good sense will prevail,” said Jean, trying to reassure him. “It always does.”

  But Brian was not convinced. In the middle of the whin bushes there was a disused well. This had run dry years ago when the water table had altered. Now he spent hours down there, investigating it with his flashlight and constructing a system of ladders that led down into the shaft below.

  “What are you doing down there, Brian?” Jean asked.

  “I’m building a shelter, Jeanie,” he replied. “For you and me, and for any other folk who come and ask for admission. I don’t want to turn anybody away, as long as we don’t get too many.”

  The construction of the shelter involved excavation, and in this task Jean was called upon to assist. Here, in this photograph, taken by their neighbour, Queenie, the widow of a farm grieve, we see Jean sending down the bucket for a further load of earth. Brian is twenty feet below, scraping away at a tunnel that was planned to lead into a large central chamber, lit by twelve-volt tractor batteries.

  At the end of the day’s work, Brian would listen to the news. It was not good. The two super-powers, armed with sufficient weaponry to do the work of several hundreds of dinosaur-extinguishing meteors, faced one another in grim hostility. These reports made Brian shake his head further and remark on how he would have to speed up his efforts the following day.

  Then Queenie said to Jean, “Your man seems a bit low, Jean. A bit down in the dumps.”

  “Yes,” said Jean. “He is. He worries away at things. Mostly Cuba at the moment, but it’ll be something else in time.”

  Queenie looked thoughtful. “Have you tried St John’s Wort?” she asked. “It’s great for depression.”

  Jean looked doubtful. “I don’t think he’ll take anything,” she said.

  Queenie brushed this aside. “Oh, men often won’t take things,” she said. “All you have to do is put it in their tea. Works every time.”

  “You don’t have any, do you?” asked Jean.

  Queenie did have some. “I’ll show you how to use it,” she said. “And I’d give your man a muckle great dose, if I were you. He’s got a gae storm of worries flying away in that heid of his.”

  It took a few days for the St John’s Wort to work. But then, quite suddenly, Brian announced over breakfast, “I don’t think I’ll bother with the shelter today.”

  Jean held her breath. “No?”

  “No. I think they’ll sort something out over there. They don’t want to blow each other to pieces.”

  “No, they probably don’t.”

  She waited.

  “And I thought you and I might go out tonight.”

  Jean struggled to conceal her astonishment. “Out?”

  “Yes. We could go into Glasgow and see a film. Maybe stay overnight at Maggie’s.” Maggie was his sister, who lived off the Dumbarton Road.

  “I’d love that,” she said.

  And then she said, “Let me give you another cup of tea, Brian.”

  He smiled at her. “Very good stuff that.”

  She caught her breath. She had never lied to him – not once, in all their years of marriage. “That …”

  “Tea,” he said.

  Blackmail

  “THE GOOD THING ABOUT THIS JOB,” SAID NELL, “IS that you’re right at the bottom of the heap. After this, you can’t exactly fall any lower.” She leaned on her broom and pointed at the gutter. “Yes, we’re there already. That’s the great thing about being a street sweeper.”

  Harry agreed with her, and he was amused by her cheerfulness. He had been in the job for little more than a week, and had yet to accustom himself to the fall that had brought him to such a lowly occupation.

  Nell had sensed this. “I can tell that you’re embarrassed by your position, Harry,” she said, fixing him with an intense stare. “No need to be, you know.” She paused. “What were you before …”

  Before my fall, he thought. Before that fateful day …

  “I was in a pretty good job,” he said. “I had security and a good wage.”

  “Oh, we all were,” said Nell. “I was a bus conductress. That’s a good job, you know. But the public can be trying, and I’m afraid I lost my temper and hit a passenger. There was an awful fuss over it. He was the Chairman of the local Water Board. I lost my job as a result and could get no reference for another one. That’s my story.”

  She looked at him expectantly. He shifted his feet.

  “I was the chief financial clerk of a trading firm,” Harry said. “We imported timber. I handled all the incoming receipts.”

  Nell gave him a wary look. “And?”

  “And I … well, I got into debt. The usual story. I borrowed some of the firm’s money, fully intending to pay it back. There was a spot check and the figures didn’t add up.” He looked away, ashamed at the memory, the humiliation.

  “So that was it?”

  He nodded. “Yes, that was it. They were kind to me, though. They didn’t report it to the police and let me resign. Like you, though, I got no reference and couldn’t find anything else without a previous employer to vouch for me. And so here I am …”

  Nell smiled. “And now you regret what you did?”

  He did. “Oh yes, I regret it all right. I can’t pay it back, but I hope one day I’ll be able to do something that makes up for it, if you see what I mean.”

  She understood. “I regret hitting the Chairman of the Water Board,” she said. “He was smaller than me – a little mouse of a man, and it was bullying on my part. I think of it a lot.” She leaned on her broom and laughed. “So here we are, two lost souls, wanting to make up for something we did.” She looked thoughtful. “It’s odd, isn’t it, how a single mistake can change the whole course of a life. One foot wrong and the next thing you know is you’re sweeping the streets.”

  “Yes, I’ve often thought that too. It’s very odd.”

  Nell leaned on her brush again. “Almost unfair.”

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  Nell looked up. “Of course, you do realise that this job has its compensations.”

  He waited for her to expand.

  “Human interest is one of them,” she said. “This is one of the most interesting jobs there is.”

  He felt inclined to laugh. “What? Sweeping the streets? I’m sorry, I can’t see that.”

  Nell raised an eyebrow. “That might be because you haven’t opened your eyes to it. A lot of people don’t notice the interesting things around them. They go through life thinking everything’s very dull, and all the time it’s the opposite.” She stared at him. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Well no, not really.”

  “All right,” she said. “Let me spell it out for you. While you’re sweeping the streets …” She moved her brush along the gutter. “Sweeping like this, see. While you’re doing that, people are passing you by. They’re talking. You hear what they have to say – little snippets, mostly, but full of human interest. You know what I heard a man say yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “I heard him say, ‘I’ve decided to shoot him. I’ve had enough – I really have.’”

  Harry looked alarmed. “You heard that? Right here?”

  “Over there,” said Nell, pointing to the other side of the street. “I was working on a pile of leaves that was blocking a drain and I heard these two men talking. One of them said that – those very words.”

  “Did you go to the police?”

  Nell laughed. “Oh no, that wasn’t necessary. One of them, yo
u see, is a racehorse trainer. I know that because I see him with the racing paper tucked under his arm when he leaves his house in the morning. And Bert, who sells the papers, told me that he was a trainer. He was talking about a horse, you see. That’s not a police matter.”

  Harry shook his head. “Poor horse. He’s obviously playing up, but shooting’s a bit extreme.”

  “Oh, he won’t do it. I spoke to Bert about it and he says he’s just using it as a figure of speech. They’ll take him off the track and use him for something else.”

  “I’m relieved to hear that,” said Harry.

  “And then,” Nell continued, “I picked up a very amusing snippet. Laughed for a day, I did, as did my Joe when I told him about it. I came round the corner one day and there were two women standing on the pavement saying goodbye to one another. And the one said to the other, ‘Send me a postcard when the baby can say banana.’”

  Harry chuckled. “Well, well …”

  “Joe and I often say that when we take leave of one another. Send me a postcard when the baby can say banana.”

  She looked above the chemist’s shop further down the street. “We’d better get on with the job,” she said. “They’re not paying us to talk.”

  They worked together for fifteen minutes, finding that the swing of their brushes seemed to synchronise. It was companionable work, thought Harry, and considerably less stressful than being a chief financial clerk.

  They reached a lamp-post on the edge of a square, and Nell stopped. “Five minutes break,” she said. She lowered her voice. “Don’t make it too obvious, but look over there.”

  Harry followed her gaze. A tall, well-built man wearing a bowler hat was in conversation with a smaller, rather weasel-like man standing in front of him. The conversation was an animated one.

  Her voice lowered, Nell continued, “The gentleman in the bowler is called Eustace Potter. Billy, the waiter in the café over there, told me that.”

  Harry glanced at the café further along the square. A large Schweppes sign advertised its presence.

  “It’s a great place for people to meet, that café. They go there to meet their friends, but often it’s their lovers, you know.”

  Harry’s eyes widened. “Assignations?”

  “If that’s what you want to call them,” Nell snorted. “Yes, and that fellow, Potter, meets a young woman there every other day. I’ve seen them when I’ve been sweeping outside. Very lovey-dovey. And then one day – last Tuesday I think it was – in he comes with a different woman. And I think to myself Now then, Nell, she looks like a different cup of tea altogether. And she is, of course. She’s his wife.”

  Harry was following this with interest. “And the man he’s talking to?”

  “That,” explained Nell, “is one Norman Frye. He frequents that café too – oh yes, he does. Right regular is our Mr Frye.”

  “Meeting somebody as well?”

  Nell shook her head. “No. He’s there for professional reasons. Mr Frye, you see, is a blackmailer. That’s what he does. He sees these men meeting their mistresses and he writes it all down. Noses about a bit. Then he threatens to disclose it all to their wives unless the husbands pay what he’s asking. And his silence doesn’t come cheaply, I’m told.”

  Harry let out a whistle. “You really know your patch,” he said.

  Nell looked proud. “I keep my eyes open.” She pointed towards the two men in conversation. “I can tell you what’s going on there. Norman Frye has spotted Potter’s wife on the other side of the square. You see her? She’s coming over to talk to her husband.

  “Now Norman Frye has seen his opportunity. He’ll be saying to Potter that unless he pays him a certain sum immediately – on the spot – he, Norman Frye, is going to have something to say to his wife. And that will be all about the meetings that her Eustace has in the café with a certain young woman.” Nell gripped Harry’s arm. “Look. See what’s happening. Potter’s reaching into his pocket and … yes, that’s money that’s being paid over. See it?”

  Harry felt the back of his neck getting warm with indignation. Apart from one little incident of unauthorised borrowing – and he had intended it to be borrowing – he was an honest man. Blackmail, the crime that they had just witnessed, was something quite different. It was despicable. It involved fear. It involved taking advantage of the weakness of others. It was a loathsome way of earning a living – far worse than embezzlement or even armed robbery.

  They watched as Norman Frye slipped away, retreating into the café. They continued to watch as Eustace Potter greeted his wife, who had now arrived from the other side of the square.

  “Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth,” said Nell. “Hypocrite!” She paused. “But then most men are hypocrites … if you don’t mind my saying that, Harry. No offence, of course.”

  “None taken,” Harry assured her.

  “Let’s get on,” said Nell. “Break over.”

  They continued with their sweeping. A few minutes later, they were outside the café, able to look in from the pavement and see what was happening within. There was Norman Frye, seated at a table at the far end, reading a newspaper, evidently pleased with his morning’s work. And there were the Potters, nearer the window. Mrs Potter had obviously insisted on their going inside for tea, as her husband looked distinctly uncomfortable and was stealing the occasional glance at his blackmailer on the other side of the room.

  Suddenly Harry had an idea. “Come inside with me,” he whispered to Nell.

  “What are you planning?” she asked. “We don’t belong in there.”

  “Just come,” said Harry. “You’ll see.”

  Harry walked through the café to the table where Norman Frye was seated. “Norman Frye?” he asked.

  Norman Frye lowered his newspaper. “Yes.”

  “Detective Constable Harold Duffy,” he said. “Plain clothes department. Blackmail squad. And this …” he gestured towards Nell, “… is Woman Detective Constable Nellie Evans. We’ve been watching you, Mr Frye.”

  Norman Frye’s face drained of all colour. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came.

  Harry leaned forward. “However, you’re a very lucky villain, Mr Frye – a very lucky one.”

  Norman Frye stared up in terror.

  “Because,” Harry continued, “you happen to have come up against not only the most observant coppers in London, but also the most corrupt ones. So, if you’d kindly hand over all the money in your possession – not just the funds you have just extorted from Mr Eustace Potter, over there, but also the float that I believe you people often carry with you. Hand over the lot and you’ll hear no more from us – provided you clear out of this manor and are not seen back here again – ever. Understand?”

  It took Norman Frye not much more than a minute to disgorge a considerable amount of money. Then it took no more than a further minute for him to leave the café hurriedly, his coat collar pulled up to hide his evident fear.

  Harry turned around and walked over to the table where the Potters were seated.

  “Mr Potter,” he said.

  Eustace Potter looked up. “Yes?”

  “I’m from the bookmakers, sir,” Harry said. “That little wager you placed with us the other day – the horse romped home. You forgot to collect your winnings. So here they are.”

  Eustace Potter looked at Harry with utter incomprehension as a thick wad of banknotes was placed before him. “The bet you placed in the street back there with our Mr Frye,” Harry continued. “Mr Frye. Remember?”

  “Oh yes,” stuttered Eustace Potter. “That. Of course.”

  Harry straightened up and nodded to Mrs Potter. “Your husband has a fine eye for the horses,” he said. “Good day, Mrs Potter.”

  They left the café.

  “Well!” exclaimed Nell.

  “I needed to do that,” said Harry. “Remember what I said about making up for things. This job obviously has possibilities, don’t you think?”

&nb
sp; “Well!” repeated Nell.

  They went back into the street. Both were smiling.

  “I must be on my way,” said Harry. And then he added, “Send me a postcard when the baby can say banana.”

  Pogo Sticks and Man with Bicycle

  THEY BOUGHT HIM VOLUMES OF THE CHILDREN’S Encyclopaedia. He loved them. A subscription cost five shillings, but look what it gave you: how things work; the march of mankind from barbarism to the League of Nations; the wonders of the Ancient World; the waterways of France; how Mr Bernoulli solved the problem of flight; magnetism explained. And so much else, in volume after red-bound volume, with the name of Arthur Mee, the encyclopaedia’s tireless compiler, prominently embossed on the cover.

  Each volume arrived at an interval determined by Mr Mee, and addressed to: Master Francis Crick. The sight of his name on the packaging filled him with pride. Master Francis Crick – that’s me, he thought. Me.

  He lay on his bed and read the encyclopaedias from cover to cover.

  “You can’t read all night,” said his mother. “You’ll ruin your eyesight for one thing. And for another, a growing boy needs sleep.”

  Why we need to sleep was in fact the title of one of the articles. It seemed that scientists agreed with his mother: we needed to sleep.

  She came into his room at night and took the heavy volume off his chest, where it had dropped when he dozed off. She switched off the light and lingered, watching him fondly – her flesh and blood, whom she had made, fashioned from cells within her own body, hers. What words were there to make known that pride, that love? Or were these best expressed in a look, that look a mother gives her son when she finds him asleep, an opened volume of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia beside him on the bed?