The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

  Angus adjusted his tie uncomfortably. “Glasgow,” he said, looking thoughtfully out of the window. They were not there yet, but then he muttered, “The dear green place.”

  “Yes,” said Matthew. “It’s a great place. Great people. But then you get characters like Lard …”

  “If they wanted a slogan,” mused Angus, “they could have said, ‘One Country, Two Cities.’” How about that, Matthew? Wouldn’t that have said it all?”

  Matthew reflected on this. “Poor Lard,” he said.

  Angus nodded. “He’ll get a good send-off, though. They go in for those things in Glasgow. Big flowers.”

  “And a wake?”

  Angus brightened. “Oh yes, that’ll be quite an occasion,” he said. “Mind you, I’m not sure if we should attend. I’m not being stand-offish, but do you realise who’ll be there, Matthew? All those big Glasgow gangsters. Ice cream franchise people. I rather suspect that you and I will be out of our depth. This won’t be like an opening at your gallery, you know.”

  “Let’s wait and see.”

  There followed a long period of silence. Then, as they neared Glasgow, Angus remarked, “It must be difficult for the minister. Or in Lard’s case, the priest. He must know the score. He must know what Lard was like.”

  Matthew agreed. And yet, was that not the whole point? That sins were forgiven? That each of us, whoever we were, however imperfect, was loved? And was that not what he and Angus were saying, in going across to Glasgow in these suits, these black ties; were they not saying that ultimately we are all brothers and sisters, united in our humanity? He was imperfect; Angus was imperfect (and fusty too); Lard was imperfect. But was it not all these flaws, manifold and diverse, that united us all, made us one?

  The Edinburgh to Glasgow train is a place of many thoughts; these were Matthew’s as they drew slowly into Queen Street Station.

  80. Let Us Now Praise a Rather Infamous Man

  Angus, crammed into a crowded pew with Matthew and eight other people, watched as an elderly man in a black suit walked up to a lectern and cleared his throat.

  “I have been asked,” said the man, “to say a few words about the man to whom we have all come to say farewell: Aloysius Ignatius Xavier O’Connor. RIP.

  “I was Aloysius’s teacher and that is why I am standing here talking to you today. It is not something, I should point out, that any teacher relishes – that he should speak at the funeral of one of his pupils. It should be the other way round. But life has a way of turning things on their heads, and the old may on occasion have to say goodbye to the young.

  “Young Lard – I mean, Aloysius – well, perhaps I should call him by the name that everybody knew him by. And I don’t think that he would mind unduly. So I shall call him Lard. Young Lard was a funny wee boy when I first taught him. He had that look in his eye that you get to know as a teacher – the look that says: I’m going to be out of the ordinary. Many of you will remember Father Joe, such a character himself, and a good man. I remember his saying to me, ‘That wee boy will make his mark, so he will.’ And he did, of course.

  “Lard was not always easy when he was a wee boy – and I think he’d be the first to admit that. He was very keen on borrowing things, and I often had to go round to the O’Connor house and remind him to return things he had borrowed from the school. But he always helped me to carry them back to the school, and his mother always made me a fine cup of tea when I called on those errands.

  “He was very popular with the other boys, and he remained well-liked by others for the rest of his life. When he was at Polmont, he always helped the younger boys find their way about the place and settle in. He could not abide bullying, and there was many a bully who was hospitalised by Lard. But he always took them flowers in the hospital afterwards, which shows the sort of man he was. In that great frame of his there beat a generous heart.

  “And how many people benefited from Lard’s generosity? When I retired from the school, years after Lard had left it, he came round to the school office and left me a present. It was a set of keys to a car, which he wanted me to have for my retirement. What a gesture that was. And the fact that there was a small dispute later about that car in no way took away from his thoughtfulness and his generosity. That was Lard all over.

  “Some people may have had their differences with Lard over the years. There are some who say he cut corners. All that may be true, but on a day like this, we should not remember the bad things a man may have done, but we should remember the good. If Lard has anything to answer for – and, like the rest of us, he was not perfect – then he will answer for it in another place. He will no doubt ask for forgiveness and he will receive it, for that is what we are taught, and that is what we believe. So let none of us go from this place thinking ill of Aloysius Ignatius Xavier O’Connor, but thinking rather of his many acts of kindness, his humour, the joy he brought to those who loved him. And may there grow on his grave spring flowers from those memories. Spring flowers.”

  There was complete silence as the teacher stepped away from the lectern and made his way back to his seat. At the back of the church, which was filled to the very last pew, a man cleared his throat, coughed. The priest stood up, and the rustle of his vestments was amplified by the microphone he wore attached to his front. Angus looked at Matthew; both had been moved by this oration. Matthew thought: What a kind man that teacher is, and Angus thought: That is what makes this city.

  They stood to sing a hymn, and the priest said a final prayer. Then it was over, and Lard, resting on a trolley bedecked with flowers, was wheeled out of the church, out into the light.

  Waiting while the crowd of mourners filed out of the church, Matthew looked at the faces. There were a number of scars: scars across cheeks, nicks across the forehead. There were signs of all the hardness to which parts of Glasgow were well-accustomed; which it joked about and made light of, even in a perverse way; but which had cut deep, deep into its soul. This was the funeral of a gangster who happened to be Catholic; the funeral of a Protestant gangster would have involved the same sort of people: no difference.

  And outside, people stood and chatted, shook hands, comforted one another. The light was bright, shafts of sunlight shone through clouds that had parted to bathe the city in patches of silver and gold. In a few minutes rain might drift in over the Atlantic, veils of it falling over this place, but for now it was dry.

  Lard lay in glory in a glass-sided hearse to which a black, plumed horse had been yoked. He lay surrounded by flowers, great wreaths spelling out messages from friends and family. LARD said one; and another, BIG MAN, and QUALITY. And then there was the biggest wreath of all, which simply said: DEID.

  “I think that we should get back to Queen Street,” said Angus.

  Matthew agreed. He had been strangely moved by the service and he did not want to break the spell.

  They started to move down the path that led from the church to the road, but they were stopped by a squat man in a black overcoat.

  “Youse ra boys frae Edinburgh?” he asked.

  “We are,” said Angus.

  “Youse still got Lardie’s painting?”

  Matthew glanced at Angus. “Yes, I suppose we have.”

  The squat man seemed relieved. “Well I’m Frankie O’Connor, Lard’s wee brother. I’ll come through and pick it up next week, if that’s all right wi’ youse. Better be.”

  “Of course,” said Matthew. “And I’m sorry about your brother.”

  “Thank you,” said Frankie. “But he had it coming to him, so he did.”

  81. Best-Laid Plans

  By unspoken agreement, Angus and Matthew did not talk about Lard O’Connor’s painting in the taxi back to Queen Street station. They had been moved by Lard’s obsequies, and by the eulogy delivered by his former teacher. And, as is always the case on such occasions, they had been reminded of their own mortality. I must paint my great painting, thought Angus; time is running out. And perhaps I should get married too,
if anyone will have me. Domenica? She would be ideal – at least she knows what I’m like – but there’s the problem with Cyril, which is irresoluble. Could he live on the landing, in some sort of heated kennel? Antonia would veto that, although with her drug-dealing she’s hardly in a position to criticise anybody for anything.

  “You know that woman,” he said to Matthew, once their train journey had started. “You know that woman who lives opposite Domenica?”

  “Not really,” said Matthew. “Domenica introduced me to her once at the end of Cumberland Street. She said something about saints.”

  “She’s meant to be writing a book about Scottish saints,” said Angus. “She goes on about them. All these peculiar saints who lived in places like Whithorn. Apparently virtually everyone was called a saint in those days. You just had to put a few stones together, call it a church, and you became a saint.”

  Matthew did not think it was that easy. Nothing was easy in those days. “Life was pretty hard,” he said. “There was a great deal of darkness. In the metaphorical sense, of course.”

  “And now?” asked Angus. “No darkness?”

  “Oh, there’s darkness,” said Matthew. “We happen to live in a country where there isn’t – at the moment. But it could change. All that would be needed would be for people to become ignorant again. And they are.”

  Angus looked around the carriage. Virtually everybody was reading. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Well,” said Matthew, “did you see that survey published in the papers the other day where people were asked if they believed Winston Churchill ever existed? A quarter of them said they thought he was mythical.”

  Angus reflected on this for a moment. There had also been the question of Scottish history. There were surveys all the time which showed that people had no idea who they were or why they were there. Perhaps he should execute a great painting – a great allegorical painting – entitled Who Am I? which would show the link between past and present. But nobody painted like that any more. He would be laughed at in the Royal Scottish Academy. He would be ridiculed. Paintings today had to reflect nothingness and confusion, not order and intellectual coherence.

  He decided to return to the subject of Antonia. “That woman may be writing about saints, but …” He leaned forward to address Matthew confidentially. “She’s a drug-dealer. A big one.”

  Matthew looked startled. “In Scotland Street? Under Domenica’s nose?”

  “Yes,” said Angus. “I overheard her placing a big order. She talked about the stuff being cut to her satisfaction. She talked about being careful, as she did not want to go to prison. It was perfectly obvious what was going on.”

  For a few moments Matthew said nothing. Then, “The problem in these cases is always: what do you do?”

  Angus snorted. “That’s the problem in life in general, surely.”

  “Perhaps. But do you go to the police? And what about us, Angus? What do we do about Lard’s painting?”

  Angus sat back in his seat. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. But first things first: should we really call it Lard’s painting? Was it ever his?”

  “He brought it to us.”

  “Of course. But do you think for one moment that it belonged to that aunt of his in Greenock?”

  Matthew had to agree that this was unlikely.

  “So it’s stolen property,” said Angus. “Every bit as stolen as the Duke of Buccleuch’s da Vinci was – before they recovered it.” He paused. “And you can’t just sit on stolen property.”

  Matthew took the point. “So what do we do? We know that the painting must have been stolen. Do we take it to the police?”

  “I see no alternative,” said Angus. “They’ll see if it’s on their list of stolen paintings.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  Angus shrugged. “I suppose they give it back to the O’Connor family. To Frankie O’Connor.”

  Matthew greeted this with silence.

  “And yet,” Angus conceded. “And yet. The painting isn’t theirs. It really belongs to the nation, in my view – that is, if no proper owner comes forward.”

  Matthew was thinking. “If we give it to the police, we still have a problem. Frankie O’Connor. He’s not going to take kindly to that. And those people, you know what they’re like … We’re in danger, Angus.”

  Angus had to agree: Frankie O’Connor would certainly not take kindly to hearing that the painting had been given to the police. Unless … “He’s only expecting a painting,” Angus said suddenly. “He won’t have the first clue which painting. The old switcheroo, Matthew!”

  Matthew waited for further explanation.

  “I have plenty of portraits in my studio,” said Angus. “We merely put one of these in the frame that currently holds the Raeburn. Mr. Francis O’Connor will be perfectly happy. In fact, we can offer to buy it from him. The new Raeburn, that is.”

  Matthew was not immediately convinced, but as their journey continued, Angus managed to persuade him that this was their best course of action. “I have the perfect candidate for the switch,” he said. “I have a portrait of Ramsey Dunbarton in the studio that I really don’t know what to do with. His widow, Betty, didn’t want it – she claimed that she didn’t want her memories of Ramsey to be disturbed by a painting. So we’ll pass that on to Frankie.”

  “But does he look at all like Burns?”

  “No,” said Angus. “But I’ll touch it up a bit. I’ll use acrylic. Dries in an instant. I’ll give him the Robert Burns treatment. Poor old Ramsey.”

  “Who was he?” asked Matthew.

  “He was a lawyer in Edinburgh. A very fine man, in his way. He was terrifically proud of having played the Duke of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers at the Church Hill Theatre.”

  “We all have something,” mused Matthew. And what, he wondered, was he proud of? Elspeth Harmony, he decided. He was proud that he had married Elspeth Harmony, that she had thought him worthy of her. And Edinburgh. He was proud of Edinburgh too, and of Scotland; and why not? Why should one not be proud of one’s country – for a change?

  82. Lessons in Leadership

  Bertie had now attended two sessions of the First Morningside Cub Scouts in their meeting place in the Episcopal church hall at Holy Corner. The first session had involved a bitter disappointment, when Olive had turned up too. That was bad enough, but her immediate promotion to sixer had made things far worse.

  “It’s very unfair,” Bertie had observed to Tofu. “She knows nothing about cub scouts. In fact, Olive knows nothing about anything. She’s the one who said that Glasgow was in Ireland. I remember her saying it.”

  “Stupid girl,” said Tofu. He himself was not sure about the location of Glasgow, but he was not going to reveal that. “Girls are really stupid, Bertie. Particularly Olive.”

  Bertie, who was fair-minded, felt that he could not let this pass. “They’re not all stupid,” he said. “Look at Miss Harmony. She used to be a girl. And she’s not stupid.”

  Tofu looked pensive. “Maybe. But then, look at your mother, Bertie. Look at her.”

  Bertie changed the subject. “And she’s going to throw her weight around, now that she’s a sixer. She said that we’re going to have to pull up our socks.”

  Olive had issued this warning at an early stage. Indeed, no sooner had Akela gone to deal with another preliminary administrative matter than Olive had turned to Bertie and Tofu and delivered a stern admonition.

  “Let’s get one thing clear right at the beginning,” she said. “My six is going to be the best-run and most successful six in the pack. Understand?”

  Tofu had glowered. Bertie had looked at the floor.

  “So,” Olive continued, “I don’t want any arguing. If I say something is to be done, then it is to be done. And here’s another thing. From now on, you don’t call me by my name, you call me ‘Sixer.’ Is that quite clear?”

  Bertie and Tofu had remained silent, but an extremely small boy, diminuti
ve indeed, who had been allocated to their six, nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, Sixer,” he said.

  Olive turned to this small boy. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Ranald,” said the boy in a thin, piping voice. “Ranald Braveheart McPherson.”

  Bertie and Tofu looked at him in astonishment, but Olive merely nodded. “You can be my assistant, Ranald,” she said.

  “You can’t just choose your assistant like that,” protested Tofu. “Akela has to choose.”

  “I think Tofu’s right,” agreed Bertie. “I don’t think that sixers have all that much power, Olive.”

  Ranald stepped forward, on spindly legs. “We mustn’t argue,” he said. “We mustn’t argue with the sixer.”

  This discussion on constitutional arrangements might have continued, but it was time for activities, and for the rest of the session the issue of Olive’s power did not arise. Fortunately, the games played were such as to take Bertie’s mind off the Olive problem, and at the end he decided that it might be possible largely to avoid Olive by simply ignoring her. This expedient, however, did not work so well at the second session, the following week, when Olive had watched Bertie and Tofu closely, criticising their every step and saying that they would have to do better.

  “We don’t need to be quite so critical, Olive,” Akela had warned. “A good sixer encourages the others. So you should praise people as well as tell them where they’re going wrong.”

  Olive had listened, but her expression was resentful, and Bertie wondered if she had internalised the message. He had read about internalising messages, and he decided that this was something that Olive was not very good at. But such reflections were soon to be abandoned when it was announced that the following Saturday afternoon the entire pack would decamp to the Meadows in order to practise map-reading and navigation skills. Compasses were issued and a fascinating hour was spent in learning how to hold a compass and how to read a map.