Love Over Scotland (11 page)

29. On the Machair

The idea of spending several months in Edinburgh appealed to Antonia. Novels–and other works of the imagination–are sometimes best written in unfamiliar surroundings, where the mind can wander without being brought back to earth by the constant interruptions of one’s normal life. In Domenica’s flat in Scotland Street, separated from St Andrews by the green waters of the Firth of Forth, she felt quite free of distraction. She knew one or two people in Edinburgh, it was true, but she had not told them that she was there and there was no reason why they should find out. If she walked up Scotland Street, if she wandered about Dundas Street, which was about as far as she intended to go, nobody would know who she was nor have any reason to speculate. Of course there was Angus Lordie, who had let her into the flat. She was not sure about him: she had not encouraged him, but one never knew with men. They could become interested without receiving any invitation, and some of them were very slow to take the hint. Really, men were most tedious, she thought, and a life without them was so much simpler.

When Harry had first gone off with the Dress Shop Assistant she had missed him painfully; but that feeling of loss had faded remarkably quickly and had been replaced by a feeling of freedom. She felt somehow lighter–it was as if Harry had been a burden who had been lifted off her. And what was there to miss? His physical presence? Certainly not! His conversation? Hardly. And anyway, if one were to miss the sound of his voice, there was always Radio Four, with its comfortable chattiness. How many lonely women the length and breadth of Britain found Radio Four a very satisfactory substitute for a man? And Radio Four could so easily be turned off, just like that, whereas men…

Antonia’s novel was set in that period which interested her most, the sixth century. This was a time when missionaries from the Celtic Church made their perilous journeys into the glens and straths of Scotland, brave Irishmen who lived in windswept settlements on the edge of Scottish islands and who shone the light of their teaching into the darkness. It was a moment of civilisation, she thought; it was as simple as that–a moment of civilisation.

Now, at the desk in Domenica’s study, Domenica’s papers pushed to the side, she sat before a sheet of lined paper, pen in hand, and closed her eyes. She was on the machair of a Hebridean island. The flowers of early summer grew amidst the grass, and there, to either side of her (the island was a narrow one), were waves coming in upon the shore; glassy walls of water which seemed higher than the land, toppling and crashing upon the rocks…

“Here, in this place,” thought St Moluag, “I am under the sea. I am under the water just as surely as that Irish brother who lived under the river in a holy place, who could, miraculously, breathe and live under water as ordinary men live upon the land.” He turned his head to the north. Another man, a man whom he recognised, was walking down the strand towards him, his crook in his hand.

Antonia wrote: “Oh dear,” thought St Moluag. “Oh dear. Here comes St Columcille. And I’ve never really liked him.”

She lifted her pen from the paper and looked at the sentence she had written. Was there something vaguely ridiculous about it? Would early saints have thought about one another in this way? Would they have harboured animosities? Of course they would. The point about the early saints–and possibly about all saints–is that they were human in their ways. They felt uncharitable thoughts in the same way as anybody else did. They had their moments of pettiness and their jealousies. Had not St Moluag and St Columcille been particularly at odds over who reached Lismore first? And had this not led to St Moluag cutting off his little finger and throwing it onto the land before St Columcille could reach the shore? By virtue of the fact that his flesh had touched the land first, then it was his–or so the story went. These tales were often apocryphal, but there must have been some ill-feeling for the legend to take root and persist as it had.

Of course, part of the problem, thought Antonia, was that it was necessary to express the thoughts of the saints in English. If one were to put their thoughts into p-Celtic, or whatever it was they spoke (and Moluag was a sort of Pict, she thought, who probably spoke p-Celtic), then it would not sound so patently ridiculous. He would not have said “Oh dear,” for instance, nor would he have said “I’ve never really liked him.”

No, that was not the problem. It was the mundane nature of the thought; it was the fact that the thought was one which an ordinary person would have entertained, and not a saint. So she scored out the line she had penned and wrote instead:

“The tall man, his hodden skirts flapping about his legs in the wind from the sea, stood on the sand. Another man came towards him, a man familiar to him, a man with whom there had been strong words exchanged. And he reached out to this man, the wind about them, and he gave him his crook, his staff which he had brought with him from Whithorn. And the other man gave him his staff in exchange, and they embraced and then walked off together, and the tall man thought: We must not fight in these times of darkness; for if we fight, then the darkness comes into our hearts.”

Antonia rose from her desk. She walked over to the window of Domenica’s study and looked out. Above the grey slated roofs, the clouds moved high across the sky, clouds from the west, from those airy islands, from the world which she had just been trying to evoke. Somewhere out there was machair, and wild flowers, and the same darkness of the spirit against which those brave, now largely forgotten men had battled. Their enemy had been very real. And ours? she thought.

30. Schadenfreude

When Stuart returned from work that evening, his one thought was to finish the crossword which he had unwisely started in an idle moment at the office. Stuart was a skilled crossword solver, having cut his teeth on
The Scotsman
before progressing to the heady realms of the puzzles with which the Sunday newspapers tormented their readers. These crosswords relied on additional gimmicks to add a higher level of complexity. All the words might begin with a particular letter, for example, or, when lined up in reverse sequence might make up a perfect Shakespearian sonnet; there was nothing so simple as an ordinary clue. He conquers all, a nubile tram: Tamburlaine, of course, but far too simple for this sort of puzzle.

Irene was in the sitting room when he returned, a half-finished cup of coffee on the table at her side, an open book on her lap. From within the flat somewhere, the sounds of a saxophone could be heard; a difficult scale, by the sounds of it, with numerous sharps. And then, abruptly, the scale stopped, and there could be heard the first notes of ‘Autumn Leaves’, Bertie’s new set-piece.

Irene looked up when Stuart entered the room.

“I’m reading an extremely interesting book on Schadenfreude,” she remarked. “It’s a very common emotion, you know–pleasure in the suffering of another.”

Stuart glanced at the book on her lap. His mind was still on his unfinished crossword, and Schadenfreude was no more than a diversion. He wondered how one might conceal such a word in a crossword clue. It would lend itself to an anagram, of course; most German words were good candidates for that, and this was a gift: Freud had…No, that wouldn’t work. Sacred feud hen?…Sudden face her?

“The question is this,” went on Irene. “Why do we feel pleasure in the suffering of others?”

“Do we?” asked Stuart.

“Yes we do,” snapped Irene. “Not you and I, of course. But ordinary people do. Look at the way they clap and cheer when somebody they don’t like gets his come-uppance. Remember how the papers crowed when that man, that annoying person, was sent to prison. They loved it. Loved it. You could more or less hear the church bells in London ringing out.”

“That’s because he played such a great pantomime villain,” said Stuart. “And anyway, that’s simply justice, isn’t it? We like to see people being punished for what they’ve done. Is that really Schadenfreude?”

Irene’s answer came quickly. “Yes. If it weren’t, then punishment would be handed out with regret.”

“This hurts me more than it hurts you?” said Stuart. “That kind of thing?”

Irene nodded. “Precisely. It’s interesting, you know. I’ve never felt the desire to punish anybody. And I’ve never felt any pleasure in the discomfort of others.”

Stuart looked at her. Crossword clues were forming in his mind. All colours out on this monument, except one (whited sepulchre). Or, more simply: Sounds like one recumbent, teller of untruths (liar).

“Are you sure?” he said mildly.

“Of course I am,” said Irene. “I, at least, know what I think.”

Stuart thought for a moment. There was much he could say to this, but there was no point in engaging with Irene when he was tired after the office. His head was reeling with the statistics with which he had wrestled during his day’s work, and there was an unfinished, and possibly unfinishable, crossword in his briefcase. He decided that he would have a shower and then he might play a card game with Bertie before dinner. Bertie always won the games because he had invented them, and the rules inevitably favoured him, but Stuart enjoyed these contests between a mind of thirty-six and one of six. The advantage, he thought, was with six.

There was to be no time for a shower.

“That’s the bell,” said Irene. “Would you answer it, Stuart? You’re closest.”

Stuart went to the front door and opened it. Two burly policemen, radios pinned to their jackets and belts weighed down by truncheons, stood on the doorstep. Stuart looked at them in surprise. Had Bertie been up to some sort of mischief? Surely not. Irene…? For a brief moment he felt fear brush its wings against him. Yesterday was the day that Irene had gone to report the theft of their car, and she had lied. She had lied to the police. A quinquennium within, just punishment? he thought: five years inside.

“Mr Pollock?”

He felt the relief flood within him. They did not want her; they wanted him, and he had never lied to the police.

His voice sounded high-pitched when he answered. “Yes. That’s me.”

“Your car, sir,” said the policeman. “We’ve found it.”

Stuart smiled. “Really? That’s very good of you. Quick work.”

The policeman nodded. “Yes. We found it this morning, up in Oxgangs. It was parked by the side of a road. It would seem that whoever took it had abandoned it.”

“I’m surprised,” said Stuart. “It’s a nice car…”

“Old cars like that are often abandoned,” went on the policeman. “Not worth keeping.”

“I see.”

The senior policeman took out a notebook. “Perhaps you can explain, though, sir,” he said. “Perhaps you can explain why, when we searched this vehicle, we found a firearm hidden under the driver’s seat? Perhaps you have something to say about that?”

Stuart was vaguely conscious of the fact that Bertie had slipped into the corridor and was standing immediately behind him. Now Bertie stepped forward and tugged at his father’s sleeve. “Tell him, Daddy,” said Bertie. “Tell him about how we got that car from Mr O’Connor. Tell him about how we can tell that it’s not really our car at all.”

“Not now, Bertie,” whispered Stuart. “Go and finish your scales.”

The policemen looked keenly at Bertie. “What’s that, son?” one asked. “What do you mean when you say that it wasn’t your car?”

“It wasn’t,” said Bertie. “Our car had five gears. That one had four. It was a car which Mr O’Connor gave us.”

“Interesting,” said the senior policeman. “A Mr O’Connor gave you a car. Then a firearm is found in it which I imagine you’re going to say you know nothing about.”

“I don’t,” said Stuart. “I had no idea.”

“It must have belonged to this Mr O’Connor then?” asked the policeman.

“Yes,” said Bertie. “It must be his. Or his friend Gerry’s.”

The senior policeman smiled. “I think I’d like to ask a few questions,” he said, adding, and looking at Bertie as he spoke, “from you first.”

31. Bertie Makes His Statement

“Now then, Bertie,” said the policeman, as he took his seat in the kitchen. “When we talk to youngsters we like to check up that they know the difference between the truth and…”

He was cut short by Irene. “Of course Bertie knows the difference,” she snapped. “He’s a very advanced…”

The policeman glowered at her. “Excuse me, Mrs Pollock,” he said. “I’m talking to this young man, not to you.”

Irene opened her mouth to say something more, but was gestured to by Stuart, who raised a finger to his lips.

“Thank you,” said the policeman. “Now then, Bertie, do you know what I mean when I say that you must tell the truth?”

Bertie, perched on the edge of his chair, nodded gravely. “Yes,” he said. “I know the difference. I know that you mustn’t tell fibs, although Mummy…” He was about to point out that Irene told a whole series of fibs at the police station, but decided that it would be impolitic, and he stopped himself.

“Well,” said the policeman. “Perhaps you’d care to tell us about your car. Is it your car, or is it somebody else’s?”

“Well, really…” snorted Irene, only to be silenced by a warning look from the policeman.

“We used to have a car,” said Bertie. “Mummy and Daddy were always arguing about it.”

“Oh?” said the policeman. “Why was that? Was it anything to do with where it came from?”

“No,” said Bertie. “It wasn’t that. It was just that they used to forget where they parked it. Daddy left it in Tarbert once, and then he forgot that he had driven through to Glasgow and he came back by train.”

“Leaving the car in Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.

Bertie glanced at Stuart. “He didn’t mean to leave it there,” he said. “He forgot. Maybe it’s because he’s forty. I think you begin to forget things when you’re forty.”

The two policemen exchanged a glance. Irene was staring at Bertie, as if she was willing him to stop, but Bertie had his eyes fixed on the buttons of the policeman’s jacket. It was easier talking to this policeman, he thought, than to Dr Fairbairn. Perhaps that was because this policeman was not mad, unlike Dr Fairbairn. It was hard to talk to mad people, thought Bertie. You had to be very careful about what you said. By contrast, you could tell policemen everything, because you knew you were safe.

He wondered whether the policeman knew Mr O’Connor. He thought that the two of them would get on quite well if they met. In fact, he could just imagine the policeman and Mr O’Connor driving off together to the Burrell Collection in Mr O’Connor’s green Mercedes-Benz, talking about football, perhaps. Would they support the same football team? he wondered. Perhaps they would.

“So you went off to Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.

“Yes,” said Bertie. “Daddy and I went off to Glasgow together.” And for a moment he remembered; and recalled how he had been happy in the train with his father, with the ploughed fields unfolding so quickly past the window and the rocking motion of the train upon its rails, and the hiss of the wind. And they had talked about friends, and how important friends were, and he had not wanted the journey to end.

“And you found the car where Daddy had left it in Glasgow?” asked the policeman.

Bertie shook his head. “No. Our car had gone. And that’s when Gerry invited us into Mr O’Connor’s house. And Mr O’Connor said…”

The policeman held up a hand. “Hold on,” he said. “This Mr O’Connor–can you tell me a wee bit about him?”

“He’s very fat,” said Bertie. “Fatter even than you. And he was no good at cards. I won lots of money off him. But then he told Gerry to go and find our car, and Gerry did. He came back with our car. But it wasn’t exactly the same car. It was another car just like ours, but a bit different.”

The policeman looked thoughtful. “And did Daddy know it wasn’t your car?”

Bertie hesitated. He was not sure about that. He knew that adults often knew things but tried to pretend that they did not, and he thought that this might be such a case. On the other hand, his father had asked him not to tell his mother, which suggested that he knew that the car was not theirs all along.

What should he say? He should not tell the policeman any fibs because that would be wrong, and, anyway, if you told lies it was well known that your pants went on fire. But his father had never actually said that he thought it was somebody else’s car; he had never actually said that.

“No,” said Bertie. “He didn’t know that it wasn’t our car. I was the only one who knew that. You see, the handles on the door…”

The policeman looked rather disappointed. Off the hook, he thought. It was typical. These types always get themselves off the hook. Reset–having stolen goods in one’s possession–was a difficult crime to prove. You had to establish that the person knew that the goods were stolen (or should have known, perhaps), and it would be difficult to get anything to stick in this case. But there was still this O’Connor character to deal with, and this might just be a very good chance to sort him out. It was Lard O’Connor that this wee boy was talking about–that was pretty clear. Lard O’Connor, also known as Porky Sullivan. That was him. Strathclyde Police would love to get something on him, and they would be pretty sick if it came from Lothian and Borders! Hah!

“Well, Bertie,” said the policeman, snapping shut his notebook. “You’ve been very helpful. This Mr O’Connor character, I’m afraid, is not a very nice man. I fear that he might have given your Daddy a stolen car.”

Bertie swallowed. He liked Mr O’Connor and he was sure the policeman was wrong. It was Gerry who had stolen the car, not Lard. Surely if Mr O’Connor could be given the chance to explain then all would be made clear. Gerry is the fibber, thought Bertie. He’s the one whose pants will go on fire.

“I’ve got Mr O’Connor’s address,” said Bertie brightly. “I wrote it down. You can go and talk to him.”

The policeman reached out to shake Bertie’s hand. “Well done, son,” he said. “We’ll do just that.”

Stuart closed his eyes.