Love Over Scotland (24 page)

68. The Rootsie-Tootsie Club

Matthew had spent only a very short time in the company of Big Lou’s fiancé, Eddie, but had decided that he did not like him. It was not one of those dislikes that develops with time, matures as more and more is learned of a person’s irritating habits and faults; it was, rather, a dislike based on an immediate assessment of character, made on first meeting and never thereafter doubted. We make such judgments all the time, often on the basis of appearance, bearing, and, most importantly, the look of the eyes. Matthew’s father had instilled this habit in his son and had defended it vigorously.

“Take a look at the eyes, Matt,” he had said. “The old adage that they are the windows of the soul is absolutely dead right. They tell the whole story.”

“But how can eyes, just bits of tissue after all…?”

Gordon had interrupted his son’s protest. “They can. They just do. Shifty eyes–shifty chap. I’ve found it time after time in my business career. All the human failings are there–and the good qualities, too. You only have to…sorry, this is unintentional, keep your eyes open to pick it up.”

“Give me some examples,” said Matthew.

His father thought for a moment. “All right. Richard Nixon. President of the United States for a good long time. If the voters had looked at his eyes, they would have realised. Scheming. Untruthful.”

“But that’s because you knew what he was like,” said Matthew. “If Nixon had been a saint, you would have thought his eyes looked saintly.” He paused. “You’ve heard of phrenology, have you, Dad?”

Gordon frowned. “It sounds familiar, but…”

Matthew was accustomed to filling in the gaps in his father’s knowledge. “They were the people who looked at the head. At the bumps. At the face, too.” Gordon looked interested. “Well? What’s wrong with that?”

“Because the shape of your head has nothing to do with what you’re like inside,” said Matthew. “Character comes from…” He hesitated. Where did character come from? The way you were brought up? Genes? Or a bit of both? “From the mind,” he said. “That’s where character comes from.”

Gordon nodded. “And the mind shows itself physically, doesn’t it? Well, don’t shake your head like that–which, incidentally, proves my point. Your shaking head shows a state of mind within you. Yes, it does. It does.”

Matthew sighed. “Nobody believes in phrenology any more, Dad. It’s so…so nineteenth century.”

“Oh is it?” challenged Gordon. “And you think they knew nothing in the nineteenth century? Is that what you’re saying? Well, I’m telling you this: I judge a man by the cut of his jib. I can tell.”

The argument had fizzled out, and later that day Matthew had stolen a glance at himself in the mirror, at his eyes. They had flecks of grey, of course, a feature which some girls had found interesting, and attractive, but which now seemed to Matthew to say something about his personality: he was a grey-flecked person. He knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice–based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudices and muddled folk wisdom–how their opinions are subsequently borne out by our own discoveries and sense of the world, one after one. And as this happens, we realise with increasing horror that proposition which we would never have entertained before: our mothers were right!

Had the scorned phrenologists got their hands on Eddie, they would have reached much the same conclusion as had Matthew. Eddie had a thin face–not in itself a matter for judgment–but a thin face combined with shifty, darting eyes and topped with greasy, unwashed hair conveyed an impression of seediness. It was, quite simply, not the face of an honest person–or so Matthew had concluded on first encountering Eddie.

And combined with this impression of unreliability–backed up, of course, by Matthew’s knowledge of Eddie’s past–was the conviction that Eddie was planning to take advantage of Big Lou by getting her to back his restaurant endeavour. Matthew had been horrified to discover that Big Lou was proposing to lend Eddie the money to buy a restaurant without anybody even looking at the accounts. Matthew may not have been a conspicuously successful businessman in the past, but his gallery now turned a profit and he knew the importance of keeping a good set of books.

When Eddie entered the coffee bar, Matthew was carrying his cup back from the counter to his accustomed seat by the wall.

“Good morning, Eddie,” Matthew said politely.

Eddie nodded, but did not return the greeting. “Lou, doll,” he said. “Big news!”

Big Lou leaned over the counter to plant a kiss on Eddie’s sallow cheek. He smelled of tobacco and cooking oil and…She drew back. There had been another smell–that cheap, cloying perfume that teenage girls like to use. That was there too. “What’s the news, Eddie?” she asked.

“We’re going to be a club,” Eddie announced. “Not a restaurant after all. This boy came round–this boy I know from the old days–and he’s putting in a bit of money too, on top of what you’re subbing me, and we’re going to make it a club.”

Big Lou was silent. A club for whom? she wondered.

“There’s money in clubs,” Eddie went on. “And it’s less work just serving drinks. Less overheads. Although you have to pay the waitresses and the dancers.”

Big Lou’s voice was faint. “Dancers?”

Eddie reached for a stool and drew it up to the counter. Matthew, who had been listening while pretending to read the newspaper, glanced at him as he sat down. He’s a funny shape, he thought.

“Aye,” said Eddie. “Pole dancers. Not every day, but maybe once or twice a week. There’s lassies very keen to develop a career as a pole dancer. We’ll give them their chance.”

Big Lou picked up her towel. “Well, that’s nice for you, Eddie,” she said. There was a sadness in her voice, a resignation, which Matthew picked up and which tugged at his heart. She does not deserve this, he thought. She does not deserve this man.

“What will you call the club, Eddie?” she asked.

“The Rootsie-Tootsie Club,” said Eddie. “How’s that for a name, Lou, hen? See yourself there?”

69. An Unfortunate Incident

Waking in her bungalow in the pirate settlement overlooking the Straits of Malacca, Domenica looked out at the world through the white folds of her mosquito net. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was almost seven o’clock; the dawn had come some time earlier and already the sun was over the top of the trees around the village clearing.

Pushing aside the net, Domenica rose from her bed and stretched. The air was warm, but not excessively so. In fact, the temperature, she thought, was just perfect, although she knew that this would not last. If she felt fresh and exhilarated now, by the end of the day she would be feeling washed out, drained of all energy by the heat. So if anything had to be done, it would be best to do it in the first few hours before the sun made everything impossible and nobody could venture outside. That was the folk wisdom so neatly encapsulated by Noel Coward in ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ they were the only ones to be seen out in the midday sun. Well, Domenica knew better than to do that sort of thing.

She crossed the room to where her clothes were draped over a chair. She donned her blouse and her light-fitting white cotton trousers, and then, picking up her shoes–a pair of light moccasins which could be worn without socks–she slipped first her right foot in and then the left, and then…And then she screamed, as the sharp jab of pain shot into the toes of her left foot. Instinctively and violently, she tore the shoe off her foot and dashed it onto the floor. Out of it, half crushed and limping from the encounter, a dark black scorpion emerged and began to drag itself away across the boards.

Domenica stared in fascination at the creature that had stung her. It was so small by comparison with her foot; not much bigger than her large toe, and yet it had caused such pain. As it scuttled away, its curved stinging tail held up like a little question-mark, she felt an urge to throw a shoe at it, to crush it and destroy it, and she bent down to retrieve a shoe to do this. But then she stopped, shoe in hand. The scorpion, exhausted perhaps by its own injuries, had paused, and had turned round in a circle. Now it faced her, as if to stand up to the threatened onslaught, although it could not possibly have seen her with its tiny eyes. If it had, she must have been a mountain to it, the backdrop to its minute, floor-level world.

She watched as it turned again and continued its limping escape. She did not have the heart to kill this little thing, this scrap of creation, which was, after all, no more predatory than anything else and considerably less so, when one thought about it, than we were ourselves. We, as homo sapiens, packed a mighty sting; a sting capable of blasting the miniature world of such arachnids into nothingness. And all it had done was to try to defend itself in its recently-discovered home against a great threatening toe. That was all.

And suddenly she remembered the lines of D.H. Lawrence about his encounter with a snake. A snake came to his water trough, a visitor, he said, from the bowels of the earth somewhere, and he threw a stone at it. Afterwards, he felt guilty, sensed that he had committed a pettiness. That was what she would feel if she crushed this small creature. She would feel petty.

She watched as the scorpion completed its retreat and disappeared over the edge of the veranda. That would have been a terrible tumble for it, falling three feet or so to the ground below, but arachnids did not seem to be injured by great falls. That was because they were so light; whereas, we, great leaden creatures, fell so heavily.

She looked down at her foot. The place where the scorpion had stung her was now inflamed and, she thought, had begun to swell. And it was painful too, the stinging having been augmented by a throbbing sensation. She bent down and felt that place. It was hot to the touch, the surface with that parchment-feel of damaged skin.

She stood up and gathered her thoughts. She had been stung by a scorpion once before, in Africa, but it had been a very small one and it had not been much worse than a bee sting. This had provoked a reaction of a completely different nature and it occurred to her that she might even need medical treatment. She remembered reading somewhere that scorpions’ stings could be fatal, or could lead to the loss of a limb. Where had that been, and what sort of scorpions had they been talking about?

Domenica suddenly felt afraid. She was normally courageous, and accepted the risks of living and working in the field, but now she was frightened. It would take hours to get to a doctor, possibly a whole day, and how would she be able to walk up that path to the other village if she lost the use of her left leg?

Very tentatively, she put her weight on the affected foot. It was sore, but she could still stand, and now she walked slowly out onto the veranda. She would have to find Ling and get his help.

There was very little happening in the village. A few children were playing under a tree and a woman was washing clothes in a small plastic bucket outside her house. Domenica decided to walk over towards the woman. If she spoke English, then she could explain to her what had happened. If not, she could ask for Ling.

The woman watched Domenica approaching. As she got closer, she noticed that her visitor was limping, and she immediately dropped the clothes back into the bucket and ran over to Domenica’s side.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in English. “What’s happened to you?”

“I’ve been stung by a scorpion,” said Domenica. “Look.”

The woman’s eyes widened as Domenica pointed out the angry bite. “That is very sore,” she said. “But you will not die. Don’t worry. I was stung by one three weeks ago, and look, I am still alive.”

She touched Domenica lightly on the shoulder, in a gesture of reassurance. “Come inside,” she said. “You must not stand in the sun. Come inside and I will give you an antihistamine.”

70. Mrs Choo’s Tale

The woman to whom Domenica had gone in her pain and distress introduced herself as Rebecca Choo. Putting her arm around Domenica to help her limping neighbour up the steps, she led her into the front room of her house. There, Domenica lowered herself into the chair indicated by Mrs Choo and looked about her as her hostess went off into another room to find the promised antihistamine. The pain from the scorpion sting seemed to have abated somewhat, and when she looked down at her left foot she saw that the swelling also seemed to have subsided. She felt a strong surge of relief at this; obviously the scorpion was not too toxic, and she was not going to die, as she had feared earlier on.

The room in which she found herself sitting was plainly furnished and there was nothing on the walls–no pictures, no photographs, no religious symbols.

Domenica was still looking about her when Mrs Choo returned with a glass of water and a small white pill.

“This is an antihistamine,” she said, dropping the pill into Domenica’s outstretched hand. “It helps with stings and bites.”

“It was my own fault,” said Domenica, as she swallowed the pill. “One should never put on one’s shoes without looking into them first. I completely forgot where I was.”

Mrs Choo nodded her agreement. “You have to be careful,” she said. “All sorts of things breed in the mangrove. Scorpions like it to be a bit drier, but we do get them from time to time.”

Domenica finished the rest of the water and handed the glass back to Mrs Choo. “You have been very kind to me,” she said.

“But you are our guest,” said Mrs Choo. “We have a tradition of hospitality here. We look after our guests.”

Domenica found herself wondering how many guests the pirate village received. She had assumed that not many people ended up here, but then she remembered the story of the Belgian anthropologist. He had been a guest too. She looked at Mrs Choo. Perhaps this was the time to start asking a few questions, now that she was seated comfortably and Mrs Choo was offering to make the two of them tea.

“Is your husband,” she began. “Is Mr Choo a…a pirate?”

Mrs Choo laughed. “Yes, I suppose he is,” she said. “It sounds very odd to say it, but I suppose he is.”

Domenica frowned. It was a rather insouciant answer that she had been given and she wondered whether this was the right moment to begin her research, but Mrs Choo seemed happy to talk and it might be useful to clear the ground before she started to make detailed charts of relationship and social function.

“Has he always been a pirate?” she asked.

Mrs Choo shook her head. “Choo used to be a train driver,” she said. “Then he met the headman of this village in a bar in Malacca and he invited him to come down and look at their business. That’s how he became involved.”

Domenica nodded her encouragement. “And you were married at the time?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Choo. “Choo and I had been married for eight years.”

“Were you not worried that he was going to be doing something illegal?” asked Domenica. “After all, it’s a dangerous job.”

“Not all that dangerous,” said Mrs Choo. “I sometimes think that it’s more dangerous to be a train driver or virtually anything else. Most jobs have their dangers.” She paused. “We haven’t lost any of the men over the last five years. Not one.”

Domenica expressed surprise at this. Pursuing large ships on the high seas could hardly be a risk-free occupation, she thought. After all, some of the vessels would return fire these days. “But what about the illegality?” she pressed. “Aren’t you worried that the men–and that would include your husband–may be arrested?”

Mrs Choo waved a hand in the air. “There’s very little danger of that,” she said. “Nobody has been arrested so far.”

Domenica changed tack. “But do you approve?” she asked. “Do you think that piracy is right?”

The question did not appear to embarrass Mrs Choo. “I’m not entirely happy about it,” she said. “After all, I come from a very law-abiding family. My father was the headmaster of a school. And my mother’s people were a well-known mercantile family from Kuala Lumpur. But it’s not as if Choo is involved in anything too serious. Just a little piracy.”

Domenica decided that she would not press the matter at this stage. But she would return to it in future, she thought. There must be substantial dissonance of beliefs there; it would be fascinating to investigate that. There was, though, one question that she wanted to get out of the way now, and so she asked Mrs Choo about the Belgian anthropologist. Had she known him, and how had he died?

She asked the question and then sat back in her chair, awaiting the answer. But for a time there was none. Mrs Choo seemed to freeze at the mention of the Belgian. She had been sitting back in her chair before Domenica asked it; now she sat bolt upright, her hands folded primly at her waist. It was not body language which suggested readiness to talk.

There was silence for a good few moments before Mrs Choo eventually spoke. “That man,” she said coldly, “went back to Belgium. He went back to where all those other Belgians live. That is what happened to him. More tea?”

Domenica, an astute woman, even in unfamiliar social circumstances, guessed that the conversation was an end. It had been a mistake to stray into matters of controversy so quickly, she thought. People did not appreciate that, she reminded herself. They liked subtlety. They liked discretion. They liked the circumlocutory question, not the brutal, direct one. So she immediately made a superficial remark about the attractive colour of the orchids on the veranda. Did Mrs Choo know that one could buy such orchids in Edinburgh? They were imported, she believed, from Thailand and Malaysia.

“They are very attractive flowers,” said Mrs Choo, warming a bit. “I am glad that people in Scotland like orchids.”

“Oh, they do,” said Domenica. “They are always talking about them.”

Mrs Choo looked surprised. “I’m astonished,” she said. “Always talking about orchids? Even the vulgar people?”

Domenica smiled. It was such a strange expression, but she knew exactly what Mrs Choo meant. “Maybe not them,” she conceded.