“I don’t want to pry,” she said, “but have you ever changed a small child before? You know . . . ”
James nodded. “I learned how to do it for my Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award programme. I remember how to do it. No problem.”
“Because not everybody likes doing it,” said Elspeth. “You know how . . . ”
“I don’t mind,” said James. “We’re all human.”
Elspeth smiled. “But somehow, small children are more human than the rest of us. Not all the time, of course, but at times they are.”
Then she showed him around the kitchen. “I love cooking,” he said. “I’ve got all the books – well, not all of them, but quite a few. Delia, of course, but also Jamie. And Ottolenghi – you know his books – all that couscous and olives and stuff.”
“Yes, I like them,” said Elspeth.
“And I do Scottish dishes as well,” James continued. “I’ve got that book about cooking on Mull and the one about cooking on the puffer – the steamship. I do a lot of their recipes. And that book by that guy who was a medical student but who made fantastic bread.”
“Well!” exclaimed Elspeth.
James looked at her earnestly. “So I’d like to do most of the cooking, if that’s all right with you.”
“Is that all right with me?” echoed Elspeth. “It most certainly is. When do you want to start?”
“This evening?” said James.
Elspeth hesitated. “Are you sure? You’ve only just arrived.”
James indicated that he was perfectly sure. “I’d like it to be special this evening,” he said. “I’d like to cook a dinner just for you and Matthew – to have by yourself. With candles. I’ll have a snack beforehand. This will just be for the two of you: à deux. I’ll do the lot – after I’ve put the boys to bed.”
Elspeth looked at him in astonishment. “But . . . ”
“No buts,” said James. “You don’t need to do a thing. Honestly, you don’t.”
She sat down. She felt weak. She had hoped for relief, but had never dared imagine that relief would come on this scale. She looked at him, and he smiled back at her. He was perfection incarnate, she thought. She could gaze at him for hours. She could put him on the mantelpiece and stare at him with wordless appreciation.
She decided to have a rest while James entertained the boys in their nursery. There were shrieks of childish joy; whoops of delight as some game was devised and played with gusto. After that, there was bathtime, accomplished in record time, but with no protest from the triplets; then a story, read by James with a great deal of expression; and thereafter silence as the triplets appeared to go off to sleep without protest.
James appeared in the sitting room off the kitchen, where Elspeth was half-dozing, a barely-opened magazine across her lap. He was holding a kitchen towel in one hand, a recipe book in the other.
“May I use anything I find?” he asked. “In the kitchen, I mean.”
Elspeth made a permissive gesture. “Of course. Anything at all.” She paused. “There’s not an awful lot, I’m afraid.” In her exhaustion she had let things slip; the trip to the supermarket she had intended to make three days ago had never quite got off the ground, and as a result there were empty spaces on the larder shelves. There were no eggs, she remembered, and the last of the oats she used for making porridge had been used up that morning.
“I’ve had a look around,” said James. “And there’s quite a lot. I could go to the supermarket for you tomorrow, if you like.”
Elspeth asked him if he drove. “I’ve passed my driving test,” he said. “But I could go by bike; I saw some bikes in the shed.”
“But how would you carry everything?” she asked.
“My rucksack,” he said. “Honestly, it would be no trouble.”
She smiled. “You’re very kind,” she said. “I can drive you there. Once we get you on the insurance you’ll be able to take the car.”
He nodded. “And in the meantime, I’m going to start your dinner,” he said. “I’ve found some salmon steaks in the freezer and some new potatoes. Do you and Matthew like mustard?”
“We like everything,” said Elspeth.
“I like to use mustard for potatoes,” said James. “It’s a recipe I saw in one of Delia’s books.”
A sudden feeling of deep satisfaction came over her. This young man, so eager and so charming, was going to cook. He was going to entertain the triplets. He was going to tidy things up. Now, at last, after over a year of servitude – a year of interrupted sleep and struggling to cook while at the same time watching three toddlers; a year of washing and drying and ironing and scrubbing – she would have time to do the things that she used to do. She could read; she could see friends; she could go out into the garden and simply smell the roses, if they had any. She had not even had the time to explore their garden, to find out whether there were any roses that were just waiting for somebody with enough time to sniff them.
She went upstairs to run a bath and change. From the window of their bedroom, she saw James in the garden. She watched him idly, wondering what he was doing out there. He glanced up at one point, as if looking over his shoulder towards the house, but he did not seem to see her, as she was well back from the window. She wondered whether he was worried about being observed. What was he going to do?
She watched him wander down the path that led towards the main clump of rhododendrons. Now her curiosity was fully engaged. He said that he was going to start cooking, yet he seemed now to be going off on some sort of errand – into the woods.
On impulse, she decided to follow him. She did not stop to consider whether it was a good idea to follow one’s newly employed au pair boy into the woods; for all she knew, he was simply going for a stroll before he started to work in the kitchen; for all she knew he was merely looking for a better place for a signal for his mobile phone; for all she knew, he was merely exploring his new surroundings. But she followed him nonetheless, slipping out through the kitchen door and making her way along the path that led to the dark, secret passages of the clustered rhododendrons and the woods beyond.
Through her mind ran a line from a song she had begun to sing to the triplets. It came complete with a nineteen-thirties big-band backing, and it warned you that if you went down to the woods today you were sure of a big surprise.
The End of Bruce
She sat with Matthew in the dining room. It was on the cold side of the house, away from the evening sun that was now, at nine-thirty, just beginning to sink beneath the horizon.
“Our lovely summer evenings,” said Matthew, looking out of the French doors that gave onto a small section of lawn. “Geographical luck: I feel so sorry for people who have a swift nightfall and no lingering evenings in which . . . well, to linger.”
“Everywhere has its consolations,” said Elspeth. She sighed. “You know, I still can’t quite believe it.” She gestured, with a toss of the head, in the direction of the kitchen. “Him through there – I just can’t believe it. Am I dreaming?”
Matthew shrugged. “It’s early days yet. In fact, it’s day one.”
“Yes, but still . . . What did you think of that soup?”
Matthew made a gesture that conveyed his appreciation. “He made that in what? Half an hour?”
“Yes,” said Elspeth. “Including picking time. I saw him, you know. I was looking out of our window and I noticed that he was going off on that path – you know, the one that goes to the rhododendrons.”
Matthew looked interested. “What was he doing?”
“Well, that’s exactly what I thought. So I followed him.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “Followed?”
“Yes, I know it sounds a bit melodramatic, but I decided to follow him – keeping a discreet distance, of course.”
“Of course.”
Matthew was eager to hear more. “And then?”
“He went through the rhodies – you know that sort of tunnel that goes right through
. He followed that, and then you get to that bit of ground where there’s that fireweed and that old shed. And you know what he was doing?”
Matthew shook his head.
“Picking nettles,” said Elspeth. “There’s a patch of nettles there and he was picking them. He had gloves on – I hadn’t noticed that before. He was picking nettles for this soup.”
“Did he see you?” asked Matthew.
“No, I turned around and came right back. I felt really rather ashamed of myself. It was as if I were some sort of voyeur.”
Matthew laughed. “Picking nettles – about as innocent an activity as one can imagine.” He glanced around the dining room. “And it looks as if he’s been gathering flowers too.”
There were several flower arrangements around the room, one on the mantelpiece, another on the sideboard. The flowers were interspersed with random sprigs of greenery – sprigs of honesty, a prickle of gorse, willowy blades of self-seeded wheat.
Matthew shook his head in astonishment. “Amazing,” he said. “And how old is he? Eighteen?”
“Yes.”
They lapsed into silence. Two candles, placed in the middle of the table, cast a flicker of light on their wine glasses.
Then Matthew said, “This morning – after that business with Mrs. Patterson Cowie – I had a long talk with Pat. When we got back to the gallery, she really opened up. It all came out. Everything – with tears too.”
“Her love life?” asked Elspeth.
“Bruce.”
Elspeth sighed. “Him. What’s she thinking of? He’s the worst possible news for her – or for anyone, for that matter.”
“He has this strange power over her. She’s like a rabbit caught in the headlights.”
“Stupid girl.”
Matthew felt that he had to defend her. “No, she’s not stupid – because she knows that he’s wrong for her. She understands the situation completely.”
“Well, then, she’s due for a lot of heartache. And tears too.”
“Was due,” said Matthew. “By the end of our conversation, I think things were sorted out. I helped her with a letter to him. I dictated part of it – I feel rather proud of myself.”
“And what did it say?”
“The usual thing. It told him that she thought it would be best for her never to see him again. It asked him not to phone her or e-mail her, or anything. It cut things off.”
Elspeth waited for more.
“She was tremendously relieved. It was as if she had confessed to a bad habit – which, I suppose he was, in a way. It was as if she had suddenly signed a pledge or whatever – as if she had given up smoking or drinking or something like that.” Matthew paused. “I felt as if I were some sort of Bruce Survivors Support Group. She clung to me – literally.”
Elspeth said nothing, but her eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly.
“She was weeping,” said Matthew. “She clung to me. I calmed her down eventually.” He hesitated. “Mrs. Patterson Cowie walked down the street. She saw us through the window.”
Elspeth still did not say anything. And Matthew thought: what more can I say? It was innocent. Pat’s just Pat. I was comforting her. And then Mrs. Patterson Cowie comes along and she must think that Pat and I . . . What else could she think? And I’d just told her during our conversation in Big Lou’s, when she was asking me all about what had happened to me since I left George Watson’s, I had told her about Elspeth and having the triplets and now . . .
He decided to change the subject. “She told me about Bruce’s latest plans. I could hardly believe them.”
“I can believe anything of him,” said Elspeth. “So, what now?”
“You know the National Monument on top of Calton Hill? That version of the Parthenon – those pillars?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Bruce has got in tow with a group of investors who want to make it into a hotel.”
Elspeth shook her head. “Did I hear that right? A hotel?”
“Yes,” said Matthew. “They want to build in between the columns and then out the back. They say it would have a fantastic façade.”
Elspeth did not know what to say. In her mind’s eye she saw it, though, those high Grecian pillars with windows between them now and doors and lights, and taxis drawing up outside.
“I thought at first it was utterly absurd,” said Matthew. “But then I realised that with the way things are going these days there are plenty of people who would probably love the idea. They want hotels everywhere, after all. What use is a half-finished Parthenon? Much rather have the Edinburgh Parthenon Hotel.”
“He’s just a Philistine,” said Elspeth.
“Yes,” said Matthew. “I suppose he is.”
They looked at the flickering candles, at their light, which was so subtle, so gentle, like the faltering light of the spirit that had once infused their city.
The Pygmies Arrive
They were ready in good time. Dilly had helped Domenica to heat up the risotto she had made the previous night and then to prepare the salad with its optional chicken. Then she had laid the table while Domenica made a jug of iced lemonade that would be served to the officials from Creative Scotland and their two pygmy guests. The pygmies, they had been told, were artists and would be in Scotland for two weeks, during which they would visit not only Edinburgh, but also Glasgow, Mallaig, Inverness and Airdrie.
“It really is a bit odd,” said Domenica as they waited. “I’m very much out of touch with Rwanda. I was there years ago, doing some fieldwork, and I suppose the Creative Scotland people must have got wind of that somehow. But I would have thought it would have made far more sense for them to take these particular visitors to see somebody involved in the arts.”
“Well, I’m sure they’ll enjoy having a varied programme,” said Dilly. “Is there reciprocation? Are we sending somebody over there?”
“I believe we are,” said Domenica. “A couple of installation artists from Glasgow are on their way out. Heaven knows what the pygmies will make of them.”
The bell rang. “Well, here we go,” said Domenica, as she made for the front door.
The Creative Scotland officials were a man and a woman, the man dressed in a blue linen suit, with no tie, and the woman in a pair of elegant jeans, a white blouse, and a green silk scarf.
“Mrs. Macdonald?” the man asked.
“Yes. You’re Creative Scotland?”
“Well,” said the man, smiling. “Part of it. My name is Andrew and this is my colleague, Valerie. It was Valerie who wrote to you.”
Domenica looked towards the stair behind them. “I thought you were bringing your visitors,” she said. “Have I got the wrong day . . . ?” She broke off. The two officials, who had been standing close together, parted to reveal two small people behind them; Domenica had simply not seen them.
“Oh,” she said, trying to cover her embarrassment. “I didn’t see . . . I mean, there you are. Please come in, everybody.”
The visiting party entered the flat. As they did so, Domenica glanced at the two pygmy visitors. They were not tall – not by any stretch of the imagination – but they had about them a charming conciseness. They were neat – even perjink – one man and one woman, dressed in formal, slightly old-fashioned clothes. The man wore a tie, and the woman a hat.
“I’d like to introduce our visitors from Rwanda,” said Andrew. “They arrived in Scotland only two days ago.”
Domenica smiled at the two visitors. “Only two days ago? Well, I do hope that our weather is going to be kind while you’re here.”
Andrew smiled. “I’m sure it will be. And, well, there’s something I need to tell you: I’m afraid our visitors don’t speak any English.”
Domenica frowned. “None at all?”
“Not a word,” said Andrew.
“French?”
Andrew shook his head. “As you know, French is spoken in those parts, but I’m afraid our visitors don’t speak it. Nor Swahili.”
Domenica absorbed this information. “And I take it that neither of you speaks any language known to them?”
Andrew glanced at Valerie. “I have to admit, we don’t. We rather hoped that with your experience with hunter-gatherers in Central Africa you might have a smidgen of local language.” He looked at her hopefully, as if, even at this late stage, an undisclosed linguistic gift might save the situation. “I gather that it’s Efé.”
“It is,” said Domenica. “But I’m afraid I don’t speak it. There was an Efé dictionary compiled some years ago. Jean-Pierre Hallett did it, but I don’t have a copy.”
Valerie looked disappointed. “We were hoping that you’d be able to help us communicate. I suppose we should have arranged an interpreter, but our budget didn’t quite stretch to that.”
“And you’d never find one,” said Domenica briskly. “Theirs is a very isolated culture, you know – and a fragile one too.”
“Perhaps we should give them some lemonade,” suggested Dilly.
The Creative Scotland team seemed pleased with the suggestion. This, at least, was something positive.
Domenica led them into the sitting room, where – by way of gestures – she invited the guests to sit down. Dilly produced glasses of lemonade, which the pygmies accepted graciously, with smiles and small nods of their heads.
“Is this their first visit to Scotland?” asked Domenica.
“It’s their first visit anywhere,” said Andrew. “As far as we know, but . . . ”
“But we can’t really tell,” added Valerie.
There was a silence. The pygmies were looking at Domenica and Dilly. The woman turned her head and stared at them with wide, expressive eyes. Then, putting down her glass of lemonade, she rose from her seat to stand next to Dilly. She took Dilly’s hand in hers, and held it – gently, as one might hold a bird, a dove. Nothing was said.
After a while, Domenica broke the silence. “Their world is being destroyed, you know. They are gentle, loving folk, these forest people, but their forests are being cut down and they’re being relegated to so-called settlements. The canopies above their heads will be concrete, not the leaves of the forest canopy.”