The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

  “Jolly good,” said Jack.

  59. Cat People

  Jack and Maria led Matthew and Elspeth into the Churchill Room. This was a large, wood-panelled dining-room with a dance-floor in the centre and tables arranged round the sides. A grand piano stood at the edge of the dance-floor, and a man in white tie and tails was playing this, while behind him two other musicians, a drummer and a guitarist, were fiddling with equipment.

  “One of the nice things about this club,” said Jack, “is the fact that you can always get a dance. Every night, more or less. And bridge too. We’ve got a jolly good card room. You can get a good game of bridge three days a week.”

  “Four, sometimes,” corrected Maria. “And Mah Jong one day a week.”

  “She likes her Mah Jong,” said Jack, smiling at his wife. “I don’t care for it myself. All that click-clicking as you put the pieces down. Gets on my nerves.”

  “Do you play Mah Jong?” asked Maria.

  “No,” said Elspeth. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Nor me,” said Matthew.

  There was a silence. Then Matthew spoke. “Do you mind my asking, Uncle Jack,” said Matthew. “Do you mind my asking what it is that you do out here?”

  “Import/export,” said Jack quickly. “Goods in. Goods out. Not that we’re sending as many goods out as we used to. China is seeing to that. They make everything these days. Everything. How can Singapore compete? You tell me that, Matthew. How can we compete?”

  It appeared that he was waiting for an answer, and so Matthew shrugged.

  “Precisely,” said Jack.

  A further silence ensued, broken, at last, by Maria. “Do you like cats?” she asked.

  Matthew looked to Elspeth, who looked back at him. “Yes, although I … we don’t have one.”

  “We like them a lot,” Jack said. “And I’m actually president of the Cat Society of Singapore. Not the Singapore Cat Club

  – they’re a different bunch. The Cat Society.” He looked down at the table in modesty.

  “Jimmy Woo was the president before Jack,” explained Maria. “He’s one of the big Siamese breeders here in Singapore. His father, Arthur Woo, was the person who really got the breed going here.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Well, that’s a matter of opinion, my dear. Old Dr. Wee was pretty influential in that regard. And there was Ginger Macdonald well before him. He shot his cats when the Japanese arrived, you know. Rather than let them fall into their hands.”

  Maria looked grave, and cast her eyes downwards, as if observing a short silence for the Macdonald cats. Then she looked up. “It’s a pity that you’re here this week rather than next,” she said. “We’ve got our big show then. People come from all over. Kuala Lumpur. Lots of people come down from KL just to see the show. Henry Koo, for instance.”

  “No, he’s Penang. Not KL,” said Jack.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. The Koos have that big hotel up there. And they breed pretty much the finest Burmese show cats in South-East Asia. A whole dynasty of grand champions.”

  Maria looked doubtful. “Then it’s another Koo,” she said. “The Koo I’m thinking of definitely came from KL. Maybe he was Harry Koo, not Henry.”

  The conversation continued much in this vein throughout dinner. Jack was keen to discover what Matthew thought of Raffles and Maria came up with shopping recommendations for Elspeth. Then, just as coffee was being served, the small band struck up and several couples at the other tables went out onto the dance floor.

  “I’d be delighted if you’d dance with me,” Jack said to Elspeth. He threw a glance at Matthew and then nodded in the direction of Maria. Matthew took the hint and asked her if she would care to dance with him.

  Jack was a good dancer, and Elspeth found herself led naturally and confidently around the dance floor. As they passed the other couples, polite smiles were exchanged, and Jack nodded to the men. “I’m very glad that Matthew phoned,” he said. “I’ve been out of touch, you know. It’s like that out here. You get caught up in your own life and you forget about family back home.”

  “You must have a busy time,” she said.

  “Oh we do. There’s never a dull moment. Especially when the show comes up.”

  They returned to the table and Maria suggested that Elspeth might care to accompany her to attend to her make-up.

  “We’ll meet you ladies back in the bar,” said Jack. “I’ll show Matthew the card room.”

  The women went off, and Matthew walked with his uncle back through the lobby.

  “What an enjoyable evening,” said Jack. “A jolly good evening. Good of you to get in touch, Matthew.”

  “I’m glad that we’ve met again,” said Matthew. “I recall your last visit, you know. I remember your cigarette holder.”

  Jack gave a chuckle. “Yes. One remembers the little details. I find that too.” He paused. “Tell me, Matthew, you’ll have heard the talk, won’t you?”

  Matthew looked puzzled. “The talk?”

  “Yes,” said Jack. “The talk. People said, you see … Well, you’ll know what they said. About you being … being mine rather than your father’s. That talk.”

  They had almost crossed the lobby. Matthew stopped in his tracks. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Jack took the cigarette-holder out of his pocket and started to fiddle with it. “The talk was that you were my son. I heard some of it myself.”

  Matthew found it difficult to speak. His throat felt tight; his mouth suddenly dry. “I don’t know what to say … I’m sorry. This is a bit of a surprise.”

  Now Jack became apologetic. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, old chap. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t know. But I do assure you, there was never any truth in it. Idle gossip. That’s all. Now, let’s go and take a look at the card room. They might be playing bridge, but we can take a peek and won’t disturb anybody. This way, old chap.”

  Later, in the taxi on the way back to Raffles, Matthew sat quite silent.

  “That didn’t go well, did it?” said Elspeth, slipping her hand into his.

  “Ghastly,” said Matthew.

  “You’re very quiet,” said Elspeth. “Has it depressed you?”

  Matthew nodded, mutely – miserably. He remembered the discussion between his parents: why had they lowered their voices; why had the visit of Uncle Jack been such a fraught occasion? Why had Uncle Jack looked at him so closely – scrutinised him indeed – at their earlier meeting? Suddenly it all seemed so clear.

  I am the son of the president of the Cat Society of Singapore, thought Matthew. That’s what I really am.

  60. Huddles, Guddles, Toil and Muddles

  While Matthew and Elspeth were returning to Raffles Hotel, back in Scotland Street, Domenica Macdonald, anthropologist and observer of humanity in all its forms, was hanging up a dish towel in her kitchen. Matthew and Elspeth had dined in the Tanglin Club, while Domenica had enjoyed more simple fare at her kitchen table: a couple of slices of smoked salmon given to her by Angus Lordie (rationed: Angus never gave her more than two slices of salmon) and a bowl of Tuscan Bean soup from Valvona & Crolla. She savoured every fragment of the smoked salmon, which was made in a small village outside Campbeltown by Archie Graham, according to a recipe of his own devising. Angus claimed that it was the finest smoked salmon in Scotland – a view with which Domenica readily agreed; she had tried to obtain Archie’s address from Angus, but he had deliberately, if tactfully, declined to give it. Thus did Lucia protect the recipe for Lobster à la Riseholme in Benson’s novels, Domenica thought, and look what happened to Lucia: her hoarding of the recipe had driven Mapp into rifling through the recipe books in her enemy’s kitchen. She might perhaps mention that to Angus next time she asked; not, she suspected, that it would make any difference.

  With her plates washed up and stored in the cupboard and her dish towel hung up on its hook, Domenica took her blue Spode teacup off its shelf and set it on the table. She
would have a cup of tea, she decided, and then take a position on what to do that afternoon. She could possibly … She stopped, realising that she actually had nothing to do. There was no housework to be done in the flat; there were no letters to be answered; there were no proofs of an academic paper to be corrected – there was, in short, nothing.

  The realisation that time hung heavily on her hands was an unsettling one for Domenica. She had always been an active person, and the only time that she could recall having too little to do was during the years of her marriage when, as Mrs. Varghese, she had lived in Kerala in a household dominated by her husband’s difficult mother. She had wanted to busy herself there with projects, but had been prevented from doing so by the strong expectation that a woman in her position did no work. And so she had endured hour after hour of enforced idleness, putting up with the constant chatter of her garrulous and petulant mother-in-law, until in a terrible flash – an accident in her husband’s small electricity factory – she had been propelled into widowhood.

  After that, Domenica had not known boredom. The province of an anthropologist is mankind, and mankind offered itself in all its manifold peculiarities. There had been more field-work, including an interesting and productive period amongst the Nabuasa of Timor, which had led to the publication of the book on which her career had been based. But who now had read, or even had heard of, Ritual Exchanges as Indices of Power in a Nabuasa Sub-Clan? Nobody, thought Domenica. I might as well have written those words on water.

  This melancholy contemplation of the transience of academic distinction could have plunged Domenica into something akin to despair. But it was not in her nature to mope, and her realisation that she had nothing to do simply had the effect of galvanising her into action. My friends, she thought, are those whose advice I should take, even if they are not with me at this precise moment. And what would they say? She thought of James Holloway, who was most certainly not one to sit and do nothing. James would say to her: “Get yourself a motorbike.” Indeed, he had once tried to convert her to biking and had taken her as a passenger on an outing to Falkland, where they had watched real tennis being played in a court in the gardens of the palace. Such a strange game, thought Domenica, with its curious cries and requirement that one should hit the ball off the roof. James had appeared to know the rules and had tried to explain them, but Domenica had a mental block about the rules of sports, and had not taken them in. It was every bit as complicated, she felt, as American football, which did not seem like a game at all, but an orchestrated fight. But that, of course, is what so many men want to do, or at least see done. They want to see conflict and competition, which was what sport was all about.

  No, James could keep his motorbikes as far as Domenica was concerned. And what would Dilly Emslie advise her? Dilly, of course, had no truck with motorbikes, but would probably advise her to take on another piece of research. That was good advice, but Domenica did not relish the thought of going off into the field again. The Malacca Straits had been enjoyable, in their way, but somehow she did not see herself summoning up the energy to set up a long trip of that sort. What would be required, then, would be something much more local – anthropology did not have to be performed among distant others; it could be pursued in the anthropologist’s back yard. Her friend, Tony Cohen, had gone to Shetland, which was not all that far away, and had written Whalsay: Symbol, Segment and Boundary in a Shetland Island Community. There were plenty of things worth studying in mainland Scotland or in its surrounding islands; enough to keep an anthropologist engaged for years. Something local, then, was the solution.

  Cheered by the thought that she might find a project that could be embarked upon from home, Domenica rose to her feet and crossed the room to the cupboard in which she kept her notebooks. One of these she called her Projects Book and it contained the jottings of various ideas that she had had over the years. Some of these jottings dealt with Scottish themes, and it was possible that she might find something to follow up in that.

  But that was not what she found. Rather, on opening the cupboard and reaching within for the pile of notebooks, her hand alighted on something smooth and cold to the touch; cold enough to chill the heart, with guilt, with sudden regret. A blue Spode teacup. The original one.

  Domenica had sought to catch a thief. In so doing, she had become one.

  61. Portrait of a White Lie

  Of course, she thought of Angus, and turned to him. That was the right thing to do; not only did he know the full background to the whole issue of the blue Spode teacup, but he had been actively involved in it. It was Angus who had removed the cup from Antonia’s flat, and that made him party to this unfortunate state of affairs; not that she would blame him for this in any way – he had merely acted on her instructions. She was not sure if she needed to reproach herself either – she had acted in good faith – but this absence of moral fault did not mean that she felt comfortable about the fact that she now had in her possession a teacup that did not belong to her. If one has in one’s possession an item which one knows belongs to another, then there is a clear obligation to return it to the rightful owner; holding on to it is theft.

  As Domenica wrestled with the moral implications of her unfortunate discovery, Angus Lordie settled down to an afternoon of painting. He had been looking forward to a spell of peace, he thought, as the previous few days had been unsettling in the extreme. There had been the business over the puppies – although he was trying to put that out of his mind; of course the puppies would be all right, why would they not be? Then there had been Big Lou’s disclosure that she was sheltering the Pretender in her flat in Canonmills. That had been very disturbing, as Angus felt strongly protective of Big Lou. The Pretender, whoever he was, would almost certainly be a charlatan, determined to take maximum advantage of the kindness and hospitality of others. And Big Lou was kind to a fault; everybody knew that.

  But what had unsettled Angus more than anything else was that curious meeting with Lard O’Connor in Glass and Thompson and the entrusting by Lard into his hands of the picture he had brought to show Matthew. The moment he had said goodbye to Lard, with a promise to telephone him once Matthew arrived home from his honeymoon, Angus had left Glass and Thompson and made his way back to his flat in Drummond Place, bearing the large, wrapped parcel in which the painting was concealed. If people knew what I was carrying, he thought, how surprised they would be. A portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn no less; but not just any Raeburn …

  He met nobody in Abercromby Place or Nelson Street, but when he turned into Drummond Place itself, and was only a few hundred yards away from home, he bumped into Magnus Linklater.

  Magnus was clearly in the mood for a chat. “Well, Angus,” said Magnus. “That’s an interesting-looking parcel you’ve got there. One of your own?”

  Angus thought quickly. He would have loved to reveal to somebody else – anybody else – what he thought he had, but Magnus was a newspaper editor, and would it be a good idea to reveal to the world just yet that a Raeburn portrait of Burns had at last turned up? No, thought Angus, it would be premature. He could not be absolutely sure that this was Burns by Raeburn. He could not be absolutely sure even if this was anybody by Raeburn. There were plenty of Raeburn imitators, inferior artists who painted in the style of the master. Indeed, there were Russian factories, Angus believed, that would turn out a Raeburn today for a few hundred pounds. Could this, he wondered, be a Russian Raeburn?

  He had to say something to Magnus, who was looking at him politely while at the same time glancing sideways at the painting. Angus noticed that the top of the wrapping had slipped and had revealed the upper edge of the frame.

  “My own? Well, not really,” he replied vaguely. “Somebody else’s painting. I’m just … just looking after it for him.”

  “Nice frame,” observed Magnus. “What’s the painting like? It’s not a MacTaggart, by any chance?” He pointed to a door behind them; they were standing directly outside the house once owned by S
ir William MacTaggart.

  Angus laughed. “No. Nothing like that. Nothing of any real consequence.” He felt himself blushing as he spoke; Angus, a direct speaker, had never found it easy to lie, and rarely did so.

  “Well,” said Magnus. “It’s good to see Cyril. And how are Cyril’s puppies? I haven’t seen them in the gardens recently.”

  Angus blushed again, more deeply this time. “I’m sure that they’re all right,” he said. “They’ve gone off to a good home.”

  Magnus smiled. “Well, that’s good news,” he said. “I had been wondering how you would find homes for all of them. But you obviously did. And one can’t be too careful, apparently. I was reading the other day about somebody whose puppies were stolen and sold to a restaurant. Would you believe it?”

  Angus swallowed hard. “That’s bad,” he said. His voice sounded distant.

  “Oh well,” said Magnus. “I mustn’t linger. And you’ve got your Raeburn to get back to the studio.”

  Angus gave a start. “Raeburn?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s not that,” said Magnus. “But one might live in hope.”

  Angus forced a laugh. “I wish I owned a Raeburn,” he said. He did not blush this time; he did not own a Raeburn, even if he happened to be carrying one. He did not own this portrait of Burns; that was the important point. Lard O’Connor owned it, or … perhaps somebody else.

  He completed his journey to the flat and carried the painting carefully into his studio. Then, setting it down against a wall, he carefully slit the paper down one side and removed it. For a few minutes he did nothing other than stand in front of the painting, absorbing every detail: the well-kent face, with its finely sculpted, intelligent features; the dark hair; the prominent eyebrows; the white, pleated neck stock. And behind it the colours: the dark reds, the rich blacks against which Raeburn painted his sitters, although in this painting there was a table behind the sitter and on this table there was a large, decorated jardinière.