44 Scotland Street Read online

  There were about twenty people in the bar and Pat quickly saw that Chris was not among them. She looked at her watch and checked the time. Had he said seven? She was sure that he had. And had it been the Hot Cool? She was sure of that too. It was not a name one would mix up with anything unless, of course – and this caused a momentary feeling of panic – he had meant the Cool Hot, which was in George Street, and was a very different sort of bar (non-minimalist). But the Cool Hot was ambivalent – was it not? – and this place was … She looked at the group of people closest to her. There were two men and two women: the men were standing next to one another and the women were … No, they were definitely not ambivalent.

  She moved over to the bar, and signalled to the bartender.

  “I was meeting somebody called Chris,” she said.

  The barman smiled at her. “Lots of Chrises here. Just about everybody’s a Chris this year. What sort of Chris is yours? Architect Chris? Advocate Chris? Media Chris? The Chris whose novel is just about to be published by Canongate? Actually there are lots of those. So which Chris is it?”

  She was about to say Police Chris, but stopped herself. This was, after all, the Hot Cool and it sounded inappropriate. So she said: “I’ll wait for him. And I’ll have a glass of white wine.”

  The barman went off to fetch a glass, and Pat, her hands resting nonchalantly on the counter, glanced at the other drinkers. They were mostly in their mid- to late-twenties, she thought; clearly affluent, and dressed with an expensive casualness. One or two older people, some even approaching forty, or beyond, were occupying the few available bar-stools, and were talking quietly among themselves; to the other drinkers in the bar these people were largely invisible, being of no sexual or social interest.

  The barman returned with her drink, which was served in a smoked-green glass, inexplicably, but generously, filled with ice. Pat sipped at the chilled wine and then glanced over her shoulder. A young man, wearing a cord jacket and open-neck black shirt, who was standing at the other end of the bar, caught her eye and smiled at her. Uncertain as to whether or not she knew him, she returned the smile. Having been at school in Edinburgh, she found that there were numerous people who remembered her vaguely, and she them; people she had played hockey with or danced with in an eightsome at the school dance. This young man seemed slightly familiar, but she could not think of a name, or a context. Heriot’s? Watson’s? It was difficult to tribe him. Was he one of these Chrises referred to by the barman?

  The barman walked past on the other side of the bar, drying a glass with a large, pristine white cloth.

  “I hope he’s not going to stand you up,” he said. “The number of people who are stood up, you wouldn’t believe. It happens all the time.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Pat. “I don’t particularly want to see him. I’m only here because I agreed to a drink. I wasn’t thinking.”

  The barman chuckled. “Don’t you like him, then?”

  “Not particularly,” said Pat. “It’s the way he says hah, hah. That’s the big turn-off. Hah, hah.”

  “Hah, hah!” said a voice behind her. “So there you are! Hah, hah!”

  44. Tales of Tulliallan

  Had he heard her? Pat felt herself blushing with embarrassment. It was that most common of social fears – to be overheard by another when passing a remark about that very person – but Chris gave no appearance of having heard. This, she concluded, was either because he had not heard, or because he wished to save her feelings. The barman, who had realised what was happening, gave Pat a sympathetic look and shook his head discreetly. This meant that in his view at least, Chris had not realised that he was being discussed. Pat felt the warm flush of embarrassment subside.

  “I’m very sorry I’m late,” said Chris. “I was late getting off duty. Something cropped up in the afternoon and it went on and on. Sorry about that.”

  “I don’t mind,” Pat said. “I was a bit late myself.”

  “Well, here we are,” said Chris breezily. “The Hot Cool.”

  He ordered a beer from the barman, who exchanged a knowing look with Pat.

  “What’s with him?” asked Chris, nodding his head in the direction of the barman as he went off to fetch the drink. “A private joke? Something I should be laughing at? Hah, Hah!”

  “It’s nothing,” said Pat quickly. “Nothing much.” She lifted her glass to take a sip of her drink and looked at Chris. In the descending minimalist light he was certainly attractive – more attractive than he had been in the uniform of the Lothian and Borders Police – but she was sure that she would not revise the opinion that she had formed earlier. There was something unsubtle about him, something obvious, perhaps, which frankly bored her. He’s of no interest to me, she found herself thinking. There could never be anything between us.

  Chris’s drink arrived, and he raised his glass to toast her. “Cheerio,” he said, and Pat winced. This was another point against him. Now there was nothing he could say or do that would rescue the situation.

  They spent the next fifteen minutes talking about that morning’s break-in. There was a counselling service for people who have been broken into, Chris explained. The council provided it free, and one could go for as many sessions as one felt one needed. “Some people go for months,” he said. “Some of them even look forward to being broken into again so that they can get counselling.”

  “And you?” said Pat. “Do the police get counselling after investigating break-ins?”

  “We do if we need it,” answered Chris. He had taken the question literally and frowned as he answered. “We were taught some counselling skills at Tulliallan.”

  “Tulliallan?”

  “The Scottish Police College,” explained Chris. “We all go there to be trained. Right at the beginning. But then we have courses from time to time. That’s where we had our Art Squad course.”

  Pat was interested in this, and asked him to explain.

  “It was quite a big course,” said Chris. “There were twenty people from other forces, and ten of us from Edinburgh, although not all of us were assigned to art afterwards. Some got traffic and one, who was really useless at art, was moved to the dog squad. But I did quite well, I think, and I got in, along with two others.

  “The course lasted a week. To begin with, they tested us for colour-blindness, and if you were too red–green blind they sent you back. We were all fine. Then they started on the lectures. We had five a day, and they were pretty tough, some of them.

  “We learned about forgery techniques and how to spot a fake. We learned about what they can do in the labs – paint analysis and all the rest. And then we had art appreciation, which was really great. I liked that. We had two hours of that every day and we all wished that we had been given more. We used Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation as our text book, but there were quite a few lectures on Scottish art. McTaggart. Crosbie. Blackadder. Howson. All those people. And a whole hour on Vettriano. That was the most popular session of the course.”

  “Vettriano?” asked Pat. “A whole hour?”

  “Yes,” said Chris. “And then, right at the end, we had a test. They dimmed the lights in the lecture room and flashed up slides on the screen. There were slides of Vettriano paintings and slides of Hopper paintings. You must know his stuff – Edward Hopper, the American artist who painted people sitting at the counters of soda bars or whatever they call them. You’d know them if you saw them.

  “So they flashed up these slides in any order and we had to call out Vettriano! or Hopper! Depending on which it was. It was great training. Good bonding too. I’d recommend it to anyone. I really would.” He was silent for a moment. Then he added: “I’ll never forget the difference – never. I can still tell, just with one look. Show me a picture by either of them – doesn’t matter what – and I’ll call out straightaway. Hopper! Vettriano! And I’ll always get it right. Every time.”

  Pat looked at him mutely. They had not bonded.

  45. More Tullial
lan Tales

  Chris was enjoying himself, talking about Tulliallan and his experiences there on the Art Squad training week. But there was more to come about that particular week.

  “On the final day,” he continued, “we had a visit from a really important person from the art world in Edinburgh. Really important. He came to speak to us on the Saturday afternoon, and we were told all about it the day before. The inspector who was in charge of the course said that we were very lucky to get him, as he was often away in places like Venice and New York. That’s where these people go, he explained. They feel comfortable in places like that. And that’s fair enough, I suppose. Imagine if they had to go to places like Motherwell or Airdrie. Just imagine.

  “He arrived in the afternoon, an hour or so before he was due to give his lecture, which was at three. It was a fine day – broad sunshine – and most of us were sitting out at the front after lunch, as we were off-duty until the lecture. The college had sent a car to fetch him from Edinburgh, and we saw it coming up the drive, with two police motorcycle outriders escorting it. They came to a halt outside the front of the main building and the driver got out to open the door. Then he stepped out and acknowledged the driver’s salute with a nod of his head.

  “When he came into the lecture room we all stood up. The inspector, who was introducing him, indicated for us to sit down and then he began to lecture. He started off by saying how agreeable the building was, but that it was a pity that it had not been decorated more sympathetically. He suggested ways in which this could be improved by restoring the original features of the house. He even suggested colours for the carpets and the wallpaper.

  “Then he said something about how the Scottish psyche had suffered from the iconoclastic doings in the Reformation. He said that there was a wound in the Scottish soul which came about from the denial of beauty. He said that the Scottish soul would only come to terms with itself if beauty were acknowledged. Then he said something about how Scottish police uniforms were dull, and that we could take a leaf out of the Italians’ book.

  “He said: ‘Look at the carabinieri, with their gorgeous, really gorgeous, cap badges. Those great burning flames. And all you people have is your black and white squares. How sad! How unutterably sad!’

  “We didn’t quite know how to take this, but we sat there entranced. He went on like this for an hour or so before he looked at his watch and nodded to the inspector. The inspector stood up and thanked him for his talk. He said that he had given us a great deal to think about and that Tulliallan would never be the same again. Then they went out and the police car which had been waiting for him took him back to Edinburgh. We talked in hushed voices for the rest of the afternoon. We felt that we had somehow been touched by greatness, and we were very grateful. It was almost as if Lord Clark himself had been there. Almost, but not quite.”

  Chris had now stopped, and Pat was silent. She looked at him, at the shadow on his face from the curious overhead lighting. She felt strangely moved by the story of this visit, and she wanted to say something to him, but she could not decide what it was that she had in mind. How strange the visit must have been; rather like the visit she had read about in an Italian short story that her father had drawn to her attention. An immensely aristocratic count visits an archaeological side with his aides and speaks in a voice so distinguished that nobody can understand a word of what he was saying. Beh andiatah reh ec brar … and so on. But in spite of the fact that nobody could understand, they were all impressed with the visitor and felt honoured that he had condescended to be there. This is how they must have felt on that day at Tulliallan.

  She stared at Chris, who looked back at her in silence. For a moment a smile played about his lips, and then he looked down at his glass of beer.

  “I heard what you said about me,” he said quietly. “This isn’t going to work, is it?”

  Pat said nothing. She was mortified that he had heard her unkind comments, and now she began to stutter an apology.

  “I didn’t mean it to sound like that,” she said. “You know how sometimes people say things that get on your nerves, for no real reason at all. It happens to all of us.”

  “Except that in this case there is a reason,” said Chris, his voice level and controlled. “I’m a bit of a joke to you, aren’t I, because I don’t fit in with your world. I just can’t. Every single person I’ve met in this art job – every single one – has condescended to me. Oh they’re nice enough, particularly if they need me to do something, but that’s about it. This is a city of snobs, that’s what it is. A city of utter snobs. And this place here is full of them. Wall to wall.”

  46. Humiliation and Embarrassment

  Pat did not stay long at the Hot Cool after Chris had made his self-pitying declaration. It had not surprised her that he had been offended by her dismissal of him – any dismissal was offensive to the one on the receiving end – but there was something uncomfortable about the way in which he had included her in his blanket condemnation of the Edinburgh art world. She realised that he must have imagined her to be part of that world – and she was part of that world, in a very attenuated sense – but he had no right to make such sweeping statements about the attitudes of other people. How did he know anything about her views, other than that she did not think that there was much chance of developing a relationship with him, and this on the grounds of her objection to the use of the expression hah, hah? Anybody might object to that, just as they might object to any overused phrase, and it seemed quite unreasonable for him to accuse her – and so many others – of being snobbish. It was not snobbish, she thought, to object to those who said hah, hah. That was an entirely personal reaction, and we were entitled, surely, to personal reactions to a mannerism. We did not have to like the way other people walked, or talked, or the way they drank their coffee or combed their hair. Or did we have to like everything? Was it inclusive to like everything?

  They had parted in a civil fashion. After a small amount of rather stiff conversation, Chris had looked at his watch and remembered another commitment, just seconds before Pat had been planning to recover from a similar lapse of memory.

  “Maybe we’ll meet again,” he had said, looking dubiously around at the décor of the wine bar and at the other customers. “You never know.”

  “Maybe,” said Pat. “And I’m really sorry if I offended you. I really am …”

  He raised a hand. “Water under the bridge. Don’t worry. It’s just that this place gets me down from time to time. It’s not your fault. Maybe I should go back to Falkirk.”

  “You can’t go back to Falkirk,” said Pat. She said this and then stopped: it sounded as if she was expressing a major truth about life, and about Falkirk, which was not the case.

  Chris looked at her quizzically. “Why not?”

  “Well, maybe you can. Maybe Falkirk’s all right to go back to, if you come from there to begin with, if you see what I mean. What I wanted to say was that in general, in life, you can’t go back.”

  He looked at his watch. “I actually do have to see somebody,” he said. “I really must go.”

  After Chris had gone, Pat stood by herself at the bar for a short while. The barman, who had observed the scene, came over towards her, casually wiping the bar with a cloth.

  “Chris gone?” he asked.

  Pat looked down into her glass. “He did hear,” she said quietly. “He heard what I said about his laugh. I feel terrible.”

  The barman reached over and touched her lightly on the wrist. “You shouldn’t. That was nothing. You should hear some of the things that are said in this place. Horrible things. Cruel things. What you said was nothing.”

  Pat looked at him. “But he was upset. He said that’s how people are in this city.”

  “He’s a bit marginal if you ask me,” said the barman. “I see all types in this job, and I know. He’s a cop, by the way. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, I did. But how did you know? Had you met him before?” />
  The barman winked at her. “I can tell a mile off. And it’s not a good idea to get too involved with cops. They can be difficult.” He paused. “Anyway, you see that guy at the end there, the one in the cord jacket? He’s been wanting to talk to you all evening. But take my advice, don’t.”

  Pat glanced at the young man, who had remained at his place further down the bar throughout her ill-fated encounter with Chris. He was picking at a small dish of olives before him, looking ahead, although now he glanced at her quickly, and then looked away again.

  “Why?” asked Pat.

  “Just don’t,” said the barman. “I know. Just don’t.”

  The barman turned away. He had customers to deal with and Pat, left by herself, finished the last of her drink, and walked out of the wine bar. She noticed that the young man in the cord jacket watched her as she left, but she kept her eyes on the door and did not glance in his direction. It was fine outside, and night was just beginning to fall. She looked up at the sky, which was clear. It was still blue, but only just, and in minutes would shade into darkness.

  47. Irene and Stuart: A Breakfast Conversazione

  It was a Saturday, and there was no need for Stuart to rush to catch the bus to work, yet he was an early riser and by the time that Irene got up he had already chopped the nuts and sliced the bananas for the Bircher muesli. He had also gone out to the newsagent for the papers, and was reading a review when Irene came into the kitchen.

  “Anything?” asked Irene, making for the pot of coffee on the edge of the Aga.

  “Practically nothing. A new biography of James the Sixth,” said Stuart. “It’s getting a good review here from somebody or other.”

  Irene opened the kitchen blind and looked out onto Scotland Street.

  “I have no idea,” she said, “no idea at all why people continue to write royal biographies. They go on and on. Even about the Duke of Windsor, about whom there was nothing to be said at all, other than to make a diagnosis.”