And yet here he was, at precisely the stage of life in which little should disturb equanimity, experiencing real dread. Of course, he knew that even if Marchmont Herald found them, there was little he could do. This was the twenty-first century. Outside, in the street, cars moved in the light rain that had now set in, their tyres hissing over the cobblestones; streetlights blazed; rationality prevailed (to an extent, of course—there were exceptions); Scotland was not a dark place. But down below, in their world beneath a world, it felt quite different; only a short distance, a breath, a sigh, lay between them and the seventeenth century; only a touch away were the very walls they felt, those people who had plagues and witchcraft and all the rest to contend with.
There was no real reason for the Duke to be so afraid. The Lord Lyon and his staff would not be unreasonable—they could remonstrate with the Duke—warn him, perhaps, or write his name down in some notebook, but was there anything more to be feared? Surely not. And yet the ancient terror of the pursued at the mercy of the pursuer could not be ignored. Marchmont had the torch; they had only the darkness.
He strained to hear footsteps, but there was nothing.
“I think they might have given up,” whispered the Duke. “I can’t hear a thing—can you?”
Angus listened again. “Not a sound,” he whispered back.
“But they might just be standing still,” said the Duke. “They might be waiting for us to show our hand. That’s an old trick—I’ve seen it time and time again.”
Angus wondered what lay behind that remark. Could the Duke have been pursued in the darkness before? It was unlikely, and yet he claimed to have seen it time and time again. Perhaps he had been in intelligence work—the most unlikely people have turned out to have been spies in the past and the Duke was, in fact, a Maclean—and there had been plenty of Maclean spies over the years: Fitzroy Maclean had been a very brave and distinguished agent and then there was…well, working for the other side in the Cold War, Donald Maclean, one of the Cambridge spies who had defected to Moscow from the Foreign Office. Of course the Foreign Office had been full of spies at the time and so perhaps one should be understanding; perhaps being a spy for the other side was part of the career path, the cursus honorum…The Americans had been so angry when Philby and Maclean had revealed their hands, but then the Americans were a bit hazy on the concept of a gentleman and did not appreciate why nobody would have suspected a gentleman like Philby of being such a consummate liar…Hah! thought Angus—how times had changed: now everyone lied, it seemed…
The Duke interrupted these thoughts. “I think they may have gone,” he said, his voice slightly louder than before. “In fact, I’m going to stretch my legs a bit.”
Angus was more cautious. “They might still be lurking, you know.”
“I doubt it,” said the Duke, standing up and brushing down his suit. “Dusty place, this, don’t you think?”
Angus, who had been crouching, now stood up, feeling a momentary dizziness as he did so. “That’s a relief,” he said.
The Duke laughed, and lit a match. Angus half expected to see Marchmont standing in front of them, triumphant at the success of his ruse, but there was nobody. “You should get back to the party,” said the Duke. “I’m just going to have a quick stroll.”
“Are you sure?” asked Angus.
By the light of the fading match, he saw his companion nod. “Yes,” said the Duke. “I’m just going outside. I may be some time.”
Using a handful of matches given to him by the Duke, lighting the new from the old as they died, Angus made his way up and out of Mary King’s Close. Soon he was back at the Lord Provost’s party, where he found Domenica wondering where he had been.
“It’s a bit complicated,” he explained. “And a bit unlikely.”
“This whole city is unlikely at times,” said Domenica. She looked about her. “Where’s the Duke?”
Angus sighed. “I worry about him, you know. He appears to be on the run from the Lord Lyon’s people.”
Domenica gave Angus a sceptical look, but said nothing.
“He said that he was going for a stroll,” said Angus. “Outside. He said that he was just going outside and may be some time.”
Domenica frowned. “Did he now?” Her frown deepened. “There’s something familiar about those words, you know.”
Angus thought. “Captain Oates?”
“Yes,” said Domenica. “And look what happened to him.”
Angus laughed. “But that’s ridiculous,” he said.
Domenica made a gesture that implied that one should not too readily assume the unlikelihood of the ridiculous—that sort of gesture: eloquent, expressive, and ultimately persuasive.
And it was then that the Duke returned. He seemed jaunty, and immediately crossed the room to join Angus and Domenica.
“Bumped into Marchmont outside,” he said. “No problem. He made me sign a bit of paper about not claiming to be the Duke of Johannesburg. That’s all he wanted.”
“And you signed?” asked Angus.
“Of course,” said the Duke airily. “But he didn’t see me cross the fingers of my other hand. Hah! Old trick—I’ve seen it time and time again. Always works.”
Domenica made another gesture that might have meant anything, or nothing; Angus was not quite sure.
The Duke looked about him. “I must say that the Lord Provost gives rather a good party,” he said. “Taking all things into consideration.”
61. Friends and Others
The acquisition of his kilt had brought Bertie a promise from his grandmother that the following Saturday they would visit his friend, Ranald Braveheart MacPherson, in Church Hill. Ranald was Bertie’s particular friend; in fact, on one view of the matter, he was Bertie’s only friend. There were, of course, plenty of members of his class at school who claimed his friendship, but for one reason or another few of those were ideal. This was the case however much they were encouraged by his mother, Irene, who regarded it as her responsibility to choose suitable friends for her son.
“Mummy trusts you to make the right choice when it comes to friends,” Irene had said. “But all of us—myself included—can do with a bit of guidance in some of these important life decisions, Bertie.”
Bertie listened, but said nothing. He had learned that it was often best to say nothing when his mother spoke: should he protest, as he very much wanted to do, he knew this would simply provoke his mother into longer and longer explanations of what she really meant and of how he would, if he thought about it, come round to her way of thinking.
Irene particularly favoured Olive, mainly on the grounds that she was a girl and would therefore provide the feminine influence Bertie so clearly needed. The fact that Bertie appeared to detest Olive was of no real relevance; children of that age were often confused as to their real feelings, and persistence could always correct a fundamentally misguided antipathy. Bertie professed to find Olive bossy, but that was simply because his innate male desire to dominate was being thwarted by Olive’s strength of character. That was something that was fundamental to relations between the sexes and it was encouraging, thought Irene, to see the extent to which male dominance was being curbed by quite proper, indeed grossly overdue, female assertiveness. Men had to be taught their place, and it was undoubtedly best to start that process of education in the nursery…as it used to be called; Irene rejected the term, of course, as it was an entirely bourgeois construct. Who had nurseries these days? Certainly there was a room in the Pollock flat given over to the two boys, Bertie and his brother, Ulysses, but the room was never called a nursery—Heaven forfend (not that Heaven existed, it too being an archetypical bourgeois construct). The room in question was referred to by Irene as the Growth and Development Room, a name that expressed exactly what the point of the room was without any overtones of long-abandoned middle-class notions of the separation of children from the adult sphere.
In spite of the backing she received from Irene, Olive’s
role in Bertie’s life was minimal. He was a polite boy and replied to remarks that Olive addressed to him when the only alternative would have been a rude ignoring of her, but for the most part he simply pretended not to hear what Olive said to him. This worked—to an extent—but occasionally provoked Olive into shouting loudly into his ear. “I think your hearing is not what it might be, Bertie,” Olive yelled. “Wax, you know. Your ears are probably full of it. Shall I have a look for you?”
Such incidents understandably embarrassed Bertie, especially when at the school craft display Olive entered a small yellow-brown candle she had made under the heading: “Fully functioning eco candle made entirely out of wax retrieved from Bertie Pollock’s ears. 100% organic.”
This candle was removed by one of the teachers, but not before it had been seen—and admired—by half the school and Bertie had received several requests to save any further wax from his ears for other prospective candle-makers.
That was Olive. Then there was her lieutenant, Pansy, who, although less forceful than Olive, nonetheless provided her friend with additional firepower. Pansy tended to echo everything that Olive said, adding a certain edge by raising her voice at what she felt were appropriate points. Like Olive, she was quick to spot slights, which would be immediately reported to Olive for further action.
As for the boys in the class, these provided scant opportunities for friendship. Tofu was the boy with whom Bertie had most dealings, but this was at Tofu’s insistance rather than Bertie’s. Tofu’s main drawback as a friend was his tendency to spit at anybody, including those whom he regarded as friends or allies, when they said anything with which he disagreed. He also showed incipient criminal tendencies, running a regular protection racket to which the other children were invited to subscribe—“in order to avoid unnecessary difficulties” as he put it. His numbers racket, which he organised at the end of each week, was also more compulsory than voluntary, and was, on most occasions, won by Tofu himself, who had a seemingly uncanny ability to pick the number that he said had been reached by blind selection.
“It’s just the way things are,” Tofu said. “Some people are luckier than others. I can’t help that, can I?”
Then there was Ranald Braveheart MacPherson, who went to a different school, but whom Bertie had met in the Cub Scouts. Ranald was physically smaller than Bertie—they were roughly the same height, but Ranald weighed far less, mainly because of his spindly legs. He was, however, a loyal friend to Bertie and often telephoned him in the early evening for no particular reason other than to check up that Bertie was all right.
Irene discouraged Bertie’s friendship with Ranald on the grounds that Ranald’s father had conservative leanings and was possibly even a bourgeois nationalist.
“I cannot see myself going to that house,” said Irene to Stuart one evening. “I simply cannot bring myself to do anything that might encourage them.”
“I’m sure they’re okay,” replied Stuart. “I met him once and he seemed fine to me.”
Irene looked at him with scorn. “Fine—if you ignore his Weltanschauung.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Well, I do, Stuart, and I’m not having Bertie going to that house. You can imagine what he might pick up.”
“A report of the Adam Smith Institute?” said Stuart.
Irene’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not something about which one should make flippant remarks, Stuart. We’re talking about Bertie’s upbringing here.”
Stuart had sighed, but said nothing further. It was not for him to defend Ranald Braveheart MacPherson’s father. It was not for him to question Irene’s views of where Bertie should go or should not go. It was not for him to…He stopped. If there were so many things it was not for him to do, then what exactly was his role?
62. At the Scotch Malt Whisky Society
“Of course I’d be very happy to see you,” said the Duke of Johannesburg to Matthew over the telephone. “I’m happy to see anybody, as it happens.” He paused. “Tomorrow? I shall be in the Scotch Malt Whisky Society rooms down in Leith. The Vaults. You know them, I imagine.”
Matthew did, and at lunchtime the following day he found himself in the eighteenth-century claret vaults now occupied by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. The Duke was already there, seated in a red leather armchair, a copy of The Scotsman newspaper open on the table in front of him, a small glass of whisky at his side.
“My dear fellow!” said the Duke. “I do hope you don’t want your money back for the house or anything like that.”
Matthew laughed. “Not at all,” he assured him. “We’re delighted with it. There’s so much room—more room than we had imagined.”
He had not meant it, but it was an indirect way of referring to the discovery of the concealed room. He wondered whether the Duke would take the reference, but there was nothing in his demeanour to suggest this. He doesn’t know, thought Matthew.
The Duke rose to get Matthew a whisky. “Our own stuff,” he said. “You can’t get this in any old pub or wine merchant. This is just for members—single-cask whisky. There’s no mention of the distillery, just the numbers of the cask and the tasting notes. But you could join, you know—anybody can. You get this place and Queen Street and a place down in the City of London—not that I ever go there myself—but highly convenient for those who do.” He smiled. “I like the idea of London, Matthew, but the best prospect for a Londoner is undoubtedly the road to Edinburgh. I’ve always felt that.”
“The opposite of what Dr. Johnson said,” remarked Matthew.
“Not everybody likes this country,” said the Duke. “There’s no accounting for taste. But chacun à son goût. You know, when I was a boy I thought that meant everyone gets gout sooner or later. Such a misconception, although gout, I gather, is on the increase. More and more people are getting it because of unhealthy lifestyles.”
“I’ve heard that,” said Matthew. “I have an uncle who has it. He did nothing to deserve it.”
“Uric acid is not a matter of deserve,” said the Duke. “But people still laugh at gout. They think it a vaguely comic condition—which it isn’t. Mind you, I did hear of the existence of the UK Gout Society and I must admit I allowed myself a mental picture of the Gout Society’s annual dance—it wouldn’t be much fun, I thought.”
They sat down and the Duke raised his glass, “Slàinte!”
“Slàinte,” replied Matthew.
“So,” said the Duke. “You said on the blower that you wanted to speak to me about a delicate subject. I’ve been racking my brains to think of what delicate subjects are left, now that we can talk about everything so openly. We’ve abolished delicacy, I would have thought.”
Matthew went straight to the subject. “Did you know that the house in Nine Mile Burn has a concealed room?”
The Duke smiled. “Of course. Did the sale particulars not mention it?”
Matthew was deflated. “No…No, they didn’t.”
“Well, that’s my fault,” said the Duke. “I meant to put in something about it, but obviously didn’t. I never spoke about it, you know.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a bit tactless to speak about things that you have that other people don’t have,” said the Duke. “You have no idea how envious people can be. People don’t like others who have more than they have—of anything. I get quite a bit of that, you know, as a duke.” He looked down at the floor, almost apologetically. “Even if, as you know, I’m not quite the real thing. I had a run-in with the Lord Lyon’s men the other day. A bit of a close shave, if the truth be told, but there we are.”
“I see,” said Matthew. “So you closed off that room?”
“Yes,” said the Duke. “I built a bookcase in front of it. Or rather, I had a joiner do it. There was a very good man in Peebles who could make anything; dead these days, of course, as most people who can make anything are. But there we are. He made a very good job of it.”
Matthew took a deep breath. “I
found some paintings in it,” he blurted out. “Three rather good ones. One very good, in fact.”
“Oh those,” said the Duke. “I left some stuff in there because I couldn’t find anywhere for it and couldn’t be bothered. They aren’t any good, by the way—just some rubbish that my grandfather picked up. He was interested in the arts. He was a member of the Glasgow Arts Club for a long time. He knew Bunty Cadell and Peploe and some of the others. He had a good eye, but he also had a lot of stuff of no real interest.”
Matthew could barely believe what he was hearing. “But these paintings are wonderful,” he protested. “There’s a Vuillard.”
“Edouard Vuillard?” asked the Duke. “The Post-Impressionist?”
“Yes,” said Matthew.
“Oh,” said the Duke. “My mistake then.” He paused to take a sip of whisky. “What are you going to do with them? Sell them?”
Matthew’s heart stopped. “They’re not mine to sell.”
“Of course they’re yours,” said the Duke. “They’re not mine. You bought the house and the contents. They’re yours.”
“I can’t,” said Matthew.
The Duke smiled. “I knew it! I knew you’d be the sort to appreciate that not everything should be reduced to commerce. Good for you! So you’re going to keep them and enjoy them?”
Matthew hesitated. It was a moment of profound significance. The Duke was right: art should be above the marketplace. Art was about beauty and about being possessed, rather than possessing. “I thought I might share them with you,” he said. “You take…you take the Vuillard, and the Fergusson, and I’ll take the Cowie. Then we’ll both be able to enjoy them on our walls.”
The Revolving Door of Life Page 23