Love Over Scotland

  She thought for a moment. She could not let this happen; she would have to stop it. There was no point in falling in love with somebody else’s boyfriend, particularly a flatmate’s boyfriend. And yet, and yet…people fell in love with those who belonged to others. It happened all the time in fiction, and presumably in real life, too. And even if it often led to tears and disaster, sometimes, at least, it worked.

  She looked at Tessie. The other girl was shorter than Pat–appreciably shorter–and had rather fat calves, thought Pat. She looked at her hair. It was rather mousy-coloured, and was not, in Pat’s view, in very good condition. Split ends probably. As for her face, well, that was pretty enough–in an odd, irregular sort of way. There was something strange about her nose, which had the slightly angled look of a nose that had been broken. Men were generally improved by broken noses, which added character to the masculine face, but a broken nose could be more difficult for a woman.

  They looked at one another for several seconds, each lost in an assessment of the other. At length, Pat broke the silence.

  “That’s kind of you,” she said. “I must meet the others, too. You shared with one of them last year, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Tessie, as they made their way through to the kitchen. “I was at school with Donna–I’ve known her for yonks and yonks. But I didn’t know Jackie at all. She’s new–like you. She only arrived yesterday. She’s in her third year of medicine, I think. At least, I saw her with a stethoscope sticking out of her pocket.”

  They went into the kitchen, which was the largest room in the flat–and had the finest view, too, over the green and the rooftops towards Arthur’s Seat in the distance. The original floor of large flagstones had been preserved here, and this added to the charm of the room. There was also an old Belfast sink, with high arched taps, and a wooden draining board.

  “This kitchen’s a bit of a museum,” said Tessie. “But there’s always enough hot water to do the washing-up. You will wash up, won’t you, after you’ve done any cooking?” she added, looking over her shoulder at Pat.

  Pat slightly resented this question, and there was a tetchiness in her voice when she replied. “Of course I will,” she said. “I always do.”

  If Tessie picked up the irritation in Pat’s voice, she did not reveal this. She looked at Pat over her shoulder as she filled the kettle. “That’s just one of the rules about sharing a flat with other people,” she said. “Naturally, there are others.”

  Pat stared at her. “But naturally.”

  “Noise, for example,” went on Tessie. “Some people think that if they close their door, then other people can’t hear them playing their music. They’re wrong. Noise travels through wood quite easily. It also travels through stone walls.”

  “I know,” said Pat. “In Scotland Street there was a saxophone that…”

  “And then there’s the telephone,” said Tessie, cutting short the rest of Pat’s sentence. “Some people are dishonest when it comes to the telephone. They use it and they don’t write their calls down in the book. And then when the bill comes they say that it should just be split equally four ways or whatever it is. I hate that sort of thing.”

  Pat felt her irritation grow. This was unambiguously a lecture on how to behave, and she resented Tessie’s assumption that she needed to be told these things. “I have shared before,” she said. “I had quite a difficult flatmate, in fact, a boy…”

  “And that’s another thing,” said Tessie. “Boys. If anybody has a boyfriend, then the rule is that the boy is off limits to others. That’s the rule.”

  For a few moments there was complete silence. Pat looked at the floor. She tried to look at Tessie, but the sight of the other girl’s eyes glaring at her from either side of the broken nose was too disconcerting. What on earth did Wolf see in her? she wondered. Did he not mind those fat calves? Was he indifferent to the broken nose–and the split ends? She decided to speak.

  “Of course that could be a problem, couldn’t it?”

  Tessie gave a start. “A problem? Why?”

  Pat took a deep breath. She thought that she might as well continue. She hadn’t started this, after all. “Well,” she said, “what if the boy in question fell for somebody else–and that somebody happened to live in the flat? What if the boy in question suddenly went off his girlfriend because…well, because he decided that she had fat calves or something silly like that–what then? Why should the other girl turn him down if she felt the same way as he did?”

  Tessie reached for the kettle and began to pour the hot water into the coffee pot. “There’s a very good reason why the other girl shouldn’t allow that to happen,” she said quietly. “And that is because the first girl would kill her if she did. She could kill her, you know. Really kill her.”

  25. Matthew’s Friends

  Matthew had not planned to go to the Cumberland Bar that evening, but when six o’clock came round, he realised that he had nothing else to do. He could go back to the flat in India Street and make a meal for himself, but what could he do after that? The crowd, as Matthew called his group of friends, had not met for at least two weeks. One member of the crowd was on holiday, another was on a course in Manchester, and one had recently become engaged to a woman who not only was not a member of the crowd but who had little time for it. It had never entered Matthew’s head that the crowd would disintegrate, but that was precisely what it appeared to be doing.

  Matthew had other friends, of course, but he had rather neglected them over the last year or so. There was Ben, with whom he had been at the Academy. Matthew saw him from time to time, but now found his company somewhat tiresome, as Ben had become an enthusiastic jogger and spent most of his spare time running. He had finished in fifty-second place in the previous year’s Edinburgh Marathon and was now talking about competing in the next New York Marathon.

  He had met Ben for a meal at Henderson’s Salad Table, and the conversation had largely been about calories, energy levels and the benefits of Arnica cream for soft-tissue injuries.

  “I’ve got a really interesting story to tell you,” Ben said over their meal of mixed pastas and roasted red peppers. “I was running about two weeks ago–or was it three? Hang on, it was three because it was the week before I was due to do the Peebles Half-Marathon with Ted and the others. Anyway, I was doing a circular route up Colinton Road, past Redford Barracks, and then down into Colinton Village. You know how, if you turn right after the bridge, there’s a path that goes down and follows the Water of Leith? There’s an old Victorian railway tunnel there that you run through–they’ve lit it now; it used to be pitch dark and you just used to hope that you didn’t run into a group of neds or anything like that!

  “Anyway, I ran through there and then over the bridge that goes over the Lanark Road and then turned and ran along the canal. You know the aqueduct? Well, that’s where it happened. The path along the side of the bridge has setts or whatever, and I should have walked, but I didn’t and I twisted my ankle. I swear that I felt nothing right then–nothing at all. You know how you can tear things without feeling them? Except your Achilles’ tendon. If you tear that, you feel it all right. Cuts you down. Just like that.

  “I didn’t feel it, and I carried on running, but I knew by the time that I reached the Polwarth section of the canal that there was something wrong. You know that place where the Canal Society has its boathouse and there’s that guy who wears the kilt who looks after all the boats? You know the place? That’s where I found that I had to slow right down and then walk.

  “I said to myself: ‘First thing you do when you get home is rub Arnica cream into it.’ And I did. I put a lot on–really rubbed it in. You can also get it in homeopathic solution but, I’m sorry, I’ve never been convinced by homeopathic remedies. If you look at the dilution, how can such minute quantities have an effect? Right, so I rubbed it in, and you know what, Matthew? The very next day, I was running again. No trouble. And I didn’t feel a single thing.
r />   “And the next day I ran out to Auchendinny and back, and did it in a really good time. That’s quite a run, as you know. No trouble with that ankle. That’s Arnica for you.”

  There had been a silence after that. Matthew had looked at his pasta and at the ceiling, and tried to remember what it was that he saw in Ben all those years ago. He had liked him. They had been friends, and now this thing–this running–had come between them.

  There was another close friend from the Academy, Paul, whom he used to see and whom he now avoided. He had married young–they were both twenty-two at the time–and now had two young children. This friend now spoke only of issues relating to babies: of nappies, unguent creams, and feeding matters.

  “Here’s a tip for you, Matthew,” Paul had said to him the last time he had seen him. “When you put a baby over your shoulder to wind it, make sure you put a cloth underneath it, just where its mouth is. No, I really mean it. It’s important. I found that out the hard way when I was about to go to work when little Hamish was about four months old. He’d just had his feed and I put him over my shoulder and started to pat his little back. The wind came up very satisfactorily, but what I didn’t realise was that half the feed came up too and went all the way down the back of my suit jacket! I didn’t notice it and went off to the office. I went to a meeting–it was quite an important one–and I was standing next to one of our clients and I could see him sniffing and puckering his nose. And then one of the secretaries came and whispered in my ear and the penny dropped. So just you remember that, Matthew!

  “And here’s another thing. When you travel with a baby, make sure that you’ve got a good, strong bag to put the dirty disposables in. We went off to see some relatives of Ann’s who live at St Andrews. Stuffy bunch. We had to change the kids on the way there and we put the disposables in the same bag that we had put the flowers for Ann’s aunt. Now, you can imagine what happened when we took the flowers out of the bag and thrust them into her hand! Yes. So that’s another bit of advice for you. You don’t mind my giving you this advice, do you, Matthew? I know that you’re not at that stage yet, but it’ll come before too long and you’ll thank me. I’m sure you will.”

  26. Matthew Meets an Architect

  Depressed at the thought of his shortage of friends–or “viable friends”, as he put it–Matthew made his way that evening into the Cumberland Bar. He looked about him: there were one or two people he recognised, but nobody he knew well enough to go and join. So he bought himself a drink and sat at a table on his own. Sad, he thought; how sad. Here I am sitting in a bar, by myself, drinking; a situation in which I never imagined I would find myself. What lies beyond this? Drinking by myself in the flat? Of course, people drank by themselves; there was nothing essentially wrong in that–a glass of wine at one’s solitary table in the company of The Scotsman crossword or a book. There were worse things than that. It was hardly problem-drinking.

  He looked at his watch. He would sit there for perhaps half an hour, and if nobody he knew had come in by then he would go out and buy himself a pizza and take it back to India Street and eat it in the flat. India Street was not the sort of place where people sat and ate pizzas by themselves; it was dinner-party territory. Now, that was an idea! He would plan a dinner party and invite a group of brilliant guests. The wit at the table would be coruscating; the exchange of ideas vital and exciting. There would be elegant women and clever men, and people would go off into the night buoyed by the stimulation of the evening…

  But then he thought: where would I get the guests? Do I actually know any brilliant and witty people? He thought of his friends: none of the crowd by any stretch of the imagination could be described as brilliant company, and the crowd was breaking up now anyway. Then there was Ben, who would only talk about running–he had heard that Ben actually went to dinner parties in his running kit so that he could run there and run home again afterwards. There was Paul, who would only talk about babies, and who would only accept an invitation if it included the babies. So that ruled both of them out. Would Pat come? He would like it if she did, but now that she had that ridiculously-named boyfriend of hers, Wolf, she would probably not want to come without him, and Matthew could not face the prospect of entertaining that Wolf. What would one serve him? Raw venison? Wolves liked venison.

  He sighed, and looked at his watch again. Ten minutes had passed. If he bought another half pint of lager, then that would last him until the thirty minutes was up and it was time to go and order the pizza. Thirty minutes of loneliness in a place of society, he thought; thirty minutes to himself while everyone else in the bar was with somebody. A sudden, vaguely shameful thought struck him. Nobody else in this bar has four million pounds–nor even one million pounds–and yet I am alone. It was an absurd, self-pitying thought, a thought which implied that money brought social success, brought happiness, which it patently does not; and yet he thought it.

  He stood up and went to the bar, suddenly wondering whether his distressed-oatmeal cashmere sweater was right. Nobody else in the bar was in distressed oatmeal; in fact nobody else was in cashmere. Yet should it matter? Teenagers worried about whether their clothes were the same as everybody else’s; when you were safely into your twenties, that was not so important. You could wear what you like…Or could you? Could you get your colours entirely wrong and wear a colour that nobody else would wear? The colour of failure?

  When Matthew reached the bar, the barman was waiting for him. Matthew saw the man’s glance move quickly to the distressed-oatmeal sweater and then slide back again, discreetly, professionally. Or had he imagined it? Barmen saw everything; it was all the same to them. He ordered another half pint of lager and then, half turning, he saw a young woman standing beside him. They looked at one another almost inadvertently and one of them–and it was Matthew–had to say something, or at least smile.

  “It’s quiet,” he said. “I don’t know where everybody is.”

  “Wherever they are,” she replied, “it’s not here.”

  Matthew laughed. “Actually, this place gets quite busy. I don’t know…”

  “Oh, people go home sometimes,” she said, “if they’re really stuck.”

  Matthew gestured towards the barman. “Could I get you a drink?”

  He had expected a rebuff, but it did not come. Instead, there was ready acceptance, and after the barman had served him again they went together to the table which Matthew had occupied. She introduced herself, smiling at Matthew in a way which immediately lifted Matthew’s depression. She likes me, he thought. I can see it in her eyes.

  Her name, she revealed, was Leonie Marshall and she was an architect, barely qualified, but still an architect. Matthew listened carefully. The accent was difficult to place. “Australian?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Melbourne–originally. Until I was ten. Then we moved to Canada, to Saskatoon, and I lived there until I was eighteen. Then, when my parents went to live in Japan, I went back to Melbourne to uni, did my architectural degree there, and my office years, and then came and did my diploma year at Newcastle.” She paused and took a breath while Matthew, watching her, mentally compared their lives: Australia, Canada, Japan, England, Scotland (her); Scotland (him).

  “I finished in Newcastle,” she continued, “and had to decide what to do next. I could go back to boring old Melbourne, or I could get a job somewhere over here. There was a vacancy in a practice here in Edinburgh–a firm called Icarus Associates–and I applied and got it. So here I am.” She took a sip of her drink and looked at Matthew. “What about you?”

  Matthew stared at the table. Small rings of liquid had formed where the glasses had stood. He moved a beer mat sideways and mopped one up. Then, in the other, he traced a pattern with a finger.

  “I run a gallery,” he said. “I try to sell pictures. It’s in Dundas Street, near…” He stopped.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you like to come and have a pizza in my flat?”

  “Yes.”


  27. Leonie Talks

  They walked back towards India Street along Cumberland Street. “I really like this street,” said Leonie. “You see the windows? Look at those ones over there. Astragals. Perfect proportions. And the buildings themselves are not too big. A comfortable size.”

  Matthew had not paid much attention to Cumberland Street, but now, through Leonie’s eyes, he did. “This street is not as impressive as the next one up,” he said. “Great King Street has great big houses. It’s much higher.”

  “Social distinctions revealed in architecture,” said Leonie. “Big houses–big people. More modest houses–more modest people.”

  “Have you seen Moray Place?” asked Matthew. “It’s just round the corner from me.”

  Leonie nodded. “Yes, I know it. One of the people from Icarus took me round and gave me the architectural tour of the New Town. We had a look at Moray Place.”

  “And what did you think?” asked Matthew.

  “Well, I wondered who lived there,” she said. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Very grand people,” said Matthew. “The very grandest people in town.”

  She made a gesture of acceptance. “I suppose that’s no surprise,” she said. “It’s very classical. Grand people gravitate to the classical. I suppose one wouldn’t find any funky people there?”

  Matthew thought for a moment. Were there any funky people in Moray Place? He thought not. He was not at all sure whether there were any funky people in Edinburgh at all. Some towns were distinctly funky–San Francisco was an example–but Edinburgh was not one of them, he thought. He answered Leonie’s question with a shake of the head.

  “I thought not,” she said. “Mind you, Edinburgh has its groovy side. There are some quite groovy places.”