The World According to Bertie (11 page)

28. So Who Exactly Is the New Man in Big Lou's Life?

Big Lou's customers could be divided into two groups. During the earlier part of the morning, between eight and ten, there were always the same twenty or so people who came in for a morning coffee on the way to work. These were people whom Big Lou described as her “hard workers,” in contrast to those who came in after ten–Matthew and Angus and the like–whose day was only just starting when the hard workers had already put in an hour or two at the office.

Coming from Arbroath, as she did, and from an agricultural background, Big Lou knew all about hard work. Indeed, unremitting labour had been Big Lou's lot from childhood. It had been natural for her to help as a child on the farm, dealing with lambs that needed attention–a pleasant job which she enjoyed–or helping to muck out the byre–not such a pleasant job, but one which she had always performed with good grace. And then there had been kitchen work, which again she had been raised to, and scrubbing floors, and dusting shelves, and carrying trays of tea to bed-bound elderly relatives. Big Lou had done it all.

“You don't know you're born,” she once said to Matthew.

Matthew smiled. “I'm not sure how to interpret that remark, Lou,” he replied. “At one level–the literal–it's patently absurd. Of course I know I'm born. I'm aware of my existence. But if you're suggesting…”

“You ken fine what I'm suggesting,” interjected Big Lou. “I'm suggesting you haven't got a clue.”

Matthew smiled again. “About what, Lou? You know, you really shouldn't be so opaque.”

“I mean that you don't know what hard work's all about.” Big Lou spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a particularly slow child.

“Ah,” said Matthew. “Now your meaning becomes clearer, Lou. We're on to that one again. Well, you're the one who needs a bit of a reality check. Work patterns have changed, Lou. Or they've changed in countries like this. We don't make things anymore, you may have noticed. Things are made in China. So we're doing different sorts of work. It's all changed. Different work patterns.”

Big Lou looked at him coolly. “China?”

“Yes. Everything–or virtually everything. Take a look at the label–it'll tell you. Made in China. Clothes. Shoes too now. All the electronic thingamabobs. Everything. Except for cars, which are made by the Japanese and occasionally by the Germans. That's it.”

Big Lou moved her polishing cloth across the bar. “A second industrial revolution. Just like the first. All the plants, all the equipment are set up in one country and that's where everything's made.” She paused. “And us? What's left for us to do?”

“We'll design things,” said Matthew. “We'll produce the intellectual property. That's the theory, anyway.”

Big Lou looked thoughtful. “But can't they do that just as well in the East? In India, for example?”

Matthew shrugged. “They have to leave something for us to do.”

“Do they?”

Big Lou waited for an answer to her question, but none was forthcoming. So she decided to ask another one. “Matthew, what do you think a fool's paradise looks like?”

Matthew looked about him. Then he turned to Lou. “Let's change the subject, Lou. Who's your new man?”

Lou stopped polishing for a moment. She stared at Matthew. “New man?”

“Come on, Lou,” said Matthew. “You know how news gets around. I've heard that you've got a new man. Robert? Angus told me. That's his name, isn't it?”

Big Lou hesitated for a moment. Then she resumed her polishing. “My affairs are my business, Matthew.”

Matthew smiled. “So you're not denying that there's somebody?”

“There might be.”

“In other words, there is.”

Big Lou said nothing. She had been embarrassed by the public way in which her break-up with Eddie had happened; she felt humiliated by that. And if anything similar were to happen with Robert, she did not want people to know about it. Nobody likes to be seen to be rejected, and Big Lou was no exception to that rule.

Matthew lifted his coffee cup and drained it. “I hope it works out this time, Lou,” he said. “You deserve it.”

She raised her eyes and looked at him. He meant it, she decided. “Thank you, Matthew. He's a nice man. I'll tell him to come in one morning so that you can meet him.”

“What does he do?” asked Matthew.

“Ceilings,” said Lou. “Robert does ceilings. You know, when you want to replace cornicing, you need moulds. Robert does that. And he makes new cornices. He's quite an artist.”

“Sounds good,” said Matthew. This was better, he thought, than Eddie, with his Rootsie-Tootsie Club and his teenage girls.

“Yes,” Big Lou went on. “He's very good at that. Architects use him. Historic Scotland. People like that. But his real passion is history. That's how I met him. I went to a lecture at the museum and I found myself sitting next to him. That's how it happened. It was a lecture by Paul Scott on the Act of Union. Robert was there.”

“Nice,” said Matthew. He knew this sounded trite, but he could not think of anything else to say. And it was nice, he thought, to picture Big Lou going to a lecture on the Act of Union and finding a man. There were undoubtedly many women who went to lectures at the museum and did not find a man.

Then Matthew thought of something else to say. He was fond of Big Lou; an almost brotherly affection, he felt, and brothers should on occasion sound a warning note. “You'll be careful, won't you, Lou?” he said quietly. “There are some men who…Well, I don't want to remind you of Eddie, Lou, but remember what happened there. I don't want your heart to be broken again, Lou.”

She reached out and put a hand on Matthew's forearm. They had never touched before; this was the first time. “I'll be careful,” she said. “And thank you for saying that.”

Matthew lifted up his cup. It was completely empty, without even any froth around the rim to lick off. He looked at the bottom of the cup, where there was a small mark and some printing.
China
, it said.

“Look,” he said to Big Lou. “See.”

Lou took the cup from Matthew and looked at its base. “But that's what it is,” she said.

29. That Chap Over There–Know Who That Is?

That evening, Matthew went to the Cumberland Bar. He was due to meet Pat at eight and had promised to take her somewhere exciting for dinner. That promise was beginning to worry him–not because he was unwilling to take her out, rather it was the difficulty of choosing somewhere which she would consider exciting. In one interpretation, exciting was synonymous with plush and expensive; in which case they could go to the Witchery or even Prestonfield House. But that, he thought, was not what Pat had in mind. An exciting restaurant for her probably meant a place where both the décor and the people were unusual, the sort of place where celebrities went. But where were these places, and were there any celebrities in Edinburgh anyway? And if there were, then who were they? The Lord Provost? Sir Timothy Clifford? Ian Rankin? Possibly. But where did these people go for dinner? Ian Rankin went to the Oxford Bar, of course, but you wouldn't get much to eat there. And the Lord Provost had her own dining room in the City Chambers. She probably had dinner there, looking out over the top of Princes Street, reading council minutes, wondering which streets could be dug up next.

Angus Lordie was in the bar, sitting morosely at his table, the place at his feet where Cyril normally sat deserted now. Matthew joined him.

“Where's your young friend?” Angus asked.

“She's got a name,” said Matthew. “Pat.”

“That's the one. Where is she?”

Matthew took a sip of his beer. “I'm meeting her later on. We're going out for dinner.”

Angus nodded at this information. He did not seem particularly interested, and indeed it was very uninteresting information, Matthew thought. That's my trouble, he said to himself–I'm not exciting.

“I haven't decided where to take her yet,” said Matthew. He looked at Angus quizzically. “Tell me, Angus, do you know any exciting restaurants?”

Angus shook his head. “Exciting restaurants? Not me, I'm afraid. I never go out for a meal, except for lunch at the Scottish Arts Club. Of course, I had a meal down in Canonmills once, but that place closed. And there's a nice Italian place round the corner, but the proprietor went back to Italy. Lucca, I think.” He paused. “Has that been any help?”

“Not really,” said Matthew. “Although I suppose it closes off certain possibilities.”

“Mind you,” said Angus, “there used to be some exciting restaurants in Edinburgh. There was the Armenian Restaurant, of course, which used to be down in that old steamie opposite the Academy. You won't remember it, but I used to go there from time to time. Then he moved up to that old place near Holyrood. He may still be there–I don't know. Very exotic place that–exciting too, if the proprietor got on to the subject of Armenian history.”

Angus looked down at Cyril's empty place. It was at this very table that, some time ago, he had been reunited with Cyril after he had escaped his captors. He looked up at the door through which Cyril had been led by his rescuer, the man who worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland. If only he would come back through that door again, with Cyril on a lead; idle thought, impossible thought; the state was a much more efficient kidnapper of dogs, and Cyril would be firmly under lock and key, conditions that would require a Houdini Terrier–if there was such a breed–to enable escape.

He looked up. “Why not make her dinner at your place? Candlelight. A nice bottle of something. That's what I would do if…” He broke off, his attention suddenly attracted by something he had seen on the other side of the room. “Interesting.”

“What?”

“That chap over there,” said Angus, inclining his head to the far side of the bar. “That one, with the grey jacket. Yes, him. You know who that is?”

Matthew looked at the person indicated by Angus. He was a man somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, neatly dressed, with dark hair. He was engaged in conversation with a couple of other men seated at his table. One of them was leaning forward to listen to him, while the other sat back and looked up at the ceiling, as if weighing up what was being said.

Matthew turned back to Angus. “Never seen him,” he said. “Who is he?”

Angus leant forward conspiratorially. “That, Matthew my friend, is Rabbie Cromach–Big Lou's new friend. That's who he is!”

Matthew turned back to stare at the man. “I see,” he said. “Well, that's interesting.”

“Yes,” said Angus. “But what's more interesting is the company he's in.”

Matthew's heart sank. It seemed that Big Lou was destined to choose unsuitable men–men who bordered on the criminal. Was she doing it again? He hardly dared ask. “Bad company?” he said finally.

Angus smiled. “Depends on your view of a number of things,” he said. “The Act of Settlement for one thing. The Hanoverians. General Wade. The list could go on.”

“I'm not with you,” said Matthew.

Angus leant forward again. “Sorry to be obscure, but you'll soon see what I mean. That man directly opposite Rabbie–the one with the blue jacket–him, yes him. He's an eighty-four-horsepower fruitcake, if I may mix my metaphors. Always writing to the papers. Got chucked out of the public gallery at the General Assembly a few years ago and out of the Scottish Parliament too. Shouting his heid off about Hanoverian usurpers. Get my drift?”

Matthew looked in fascination. “Jacobites?”

“Yes,” said Angus. “Those two–I forget the other one's name, but he's in it up to here–those two are well-known Jacobites–the real McCoy. They actually believe in the whole thing. King over the Water toasts and all that.”

Matthew looked at the three men in fascination. It struck him as odd that people could harbour a historical grudge so long–to the point of disturbing the succession to the throne. But then, the whole story was such a romantic one that people just forgot what the Stuarts, or many of them, were actually like. Of course they thought that the Hanoverians were German–and they were right.

Through Matthew's mind there suddenly ran a snatch of song, half-remembered, but strangely familiar. “Noo a big prince cam to Edinburgh-toon / And he was just a wee bit German lairdie / For a far better man than ever he was / Lay oot in the heather wi' his tartan plaidie!”

One could get caught up in sentiments like that. Perhaps it was not as ridiculous as it seemed.

Angus now patted Matthew on the forearm. “Matthew,” he said. “I want to tell you a story. About those characters. Interested?”

30. Things Behind Things in the Circular City

Matthew was interested. Angus Lordie's views on the world were often rather quirky–off-centre, in an unexpected way–but he had an extraordinary knowledge of things that were out of the experience of most people. This came in part from his unconventional background, and in part from his interest in what he termed “things behind things.”

On another occasion, when they had been talking to one another in the Cumberland Bar, Matthew had asked him: “And what exactly do you mean by ‘things behind things'?” To which Angus had replied: “It's all about what people really mean. Most people, you see, act on two levels–the public and the private. They have a public life, which anybody can see, and then they have a private life, which is what really counts. So take politicians, for instance; they all say more or less the same thing–utter the same slogans about improving services and so on–but what really counts is the private understandings they have with one another, with their backers. So things are not necessarily what they seem to be on the surface. You have to look at the networks.”

He had expanded. “And this city is a good example. It's full of understandings, connections, networks. Some of these are fairly open. Everybody knows who's in which political party and who their friends will be. So when a public job comes up, the rhetoric will be about who's best for the post and so on. But we all know that that is just rhetoric. What really counts is who knows the people in power. Which shouldn't surprise anybody, I suppose. That's how most places are run, isn't it? We like our friends; we trust them; we reward them.

“But if you think that it's all that open, then you need to think again. It's the connections beneath the surface that can be really important. If you go to some grand function or other, what do you find? I'll tell you, Matthew: everybody there knows one another, except you! Isn't that interesting? When I was on the Artists' Benevolent Committee, I would be thrown a few scraps of invitations to some of these official parties–receptions and so on–and what do you think I found? Everybody who came in the door immediately went off and chatted with somebody or other. Nobody stood around and looked spare. They all knew one another.

“Now, I'm not one of these people who imagine conspiracies, Matthew, but I'm not blind. And I'm also quite interested in what makes things tick, and so I had to ask myself: how did they all know one another? And what do you think the reason is?”

Matthew looked vague. He was thinking of how many people he knew, and he had decided that it was not very many. He was intrigued, though, and he wondered if Angus knew of some secret cabal. Was his father involved? he asked himself. His father seemed to know an awful lot of people, and Matthew had always assumed that this was because he was a Watsonian and had played rugby. But was there something more to it than that? He looked at Angus. “Are there…are there circles?”

For a moment, Angus appeared puzzled by the question. Then he leant forward and whispered: “Yes. There are circles.” And with that he had made a circular movement with a finger.

Matthew was not sure how to take this. So he simply repeated: “Circles.”

Angus nodded gravely. “Lots of them.”

“But what proof do you have?” Matthew asked.

“Look at the architecture,” said Angus. “And I don't just mean Rosslyn Chapel, although that's very interesting. Look at Moray Place. Start walking at one point and carry on, and where do you end up? Where you started! It's a circle, you see.

“And then there's Muirfield Golf Course, where the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers has its seat. What happens if you start on the first tee? You walk all over the place, but you end up more or less where you started–back at the clubhouse. Circular.”

“So what does all this mean?” asked Matthew.

“I would have thought it's pretty obvious,” replied Angus. “This is a city which is built on the circular. So if you want to understand it, you have to get into that circular frame of mind. And that frame of mind is everywhere. Look at an Eightsome Reel. How do people arrange themselves? In a circle. And that's a metaphor, Matthew, for the whole process. You get in a circle, and you work from there. You refer to others in the same circle. You don't think outside the circle.”

“You mean outside the box,” Matthew corrected him.

“No, I said circle,” insisted Angus. “And that's what I mean.”

And then Angus had become silent. Matthew wanted him to say more, but he had not, and he had been left with the uncomfortable conclusion that Angus was either slightly mad or…, and this was a distinct possibility, slightly circular. But the conversation had remained with him, and now, sitting again in the Cumberland Bar, again with Angus, he had reason to recollect it as they looked across the room at the small circle of men at the other table…circle…

“That,” said Angus quietly, “is a Jacobite circle. The one in the blue jacket is called Michael somebody-or-other and he's the one I've met before. I was in a pub over the other side of town, the Captain's Bar, in South College Street, near the university. It's a funny wee place, very narrow, with a bunch of crabbit regulars and a smattering of students. Not the sort of place one would have gone in the old days if one objected to being kippered in smoke. I was there with an old friend from art college days who liked to drink there. Anyway, there we were when in came that fellow over there, Michael, and another couple of people–a lang-nebbit woman wearing a sort of Paisley shawl and a man in a brown tweed coat. Jimmy, my friend from art college, knew the woman in the shawl, and so we ended up standing next to one another and a conversation started. It was pleasant enough, I suppose, and we bought each other a round of drinks. Then Michael looked at his watch and said that they had to go, but that we were welcome to go along with them if we had nothing better to do. Jimmy said: ‘I suppose you're off to one of your meetings.' And Michael laughed and said that they were, but that we would be welcome too. There would be something to eat, they said, and since we were both feeling hungry, we agreed to go.

“And that,” said Angus, “is how I became aware of that particular circle of Jacobites, and their strange interest in things Stuart. Would you like to hear about what they get up to? Will you believe me if I tell you?”

Matthew nodded. “I would like to hear, and yes, I will believe you. You don't embroider the truth do you, Angus?”

Angus smiled. “It depends,” he said.