Espresso Tales Read online

Domenica waved a hand in the air. “Oh, there are various parts of the country where people haven’t washed a great deal. Probably because they didn’t have enough taps and baths in the houses. It’s all very well for the middle classes to go on about cleanliness, but people used to have a terrible battle.

  “Mind you, I had an aunt who was an officer in the Wrens during the war. She used to tell me that some of the recruits were charming, just charming, but she could never get them to wash. She had to force them into the showers. But I suspect that she was exaggerating. She had a slight tendency to egg things up a bit.

  “That aunt had wonderful stories, you know. When they sent her off to officer training school in 1940 she was in a batch of twenty women. They all slept in those long Nissen huts–you can still see some of them standing if you go up to Cultybraggen, near Comrie. Well, there they all were, all thrown together. And my aunt, who was from Argyll, was thrown in with people from all over the shop. The woman in the bed next to hers was terribly grand–her uncle was an admiral or something like that–and when she joined up she brought her lady’s maid. Would you believe that? It sounds absolutely astonishing today, but that’s what she did–and the Navy allowed it! The maid enlisted at the same time and was given a bed at the end of the hut. She cleaned her mistress’s equipment, polished her shoes, made her bed, and all the rest. It was an absolute scream, but apparently nobody batted an eyelid. It was a different country then, you know.

  “And apparently this grand person drank. Every night after lights were turned out in the hut, my aunt heard a bit of fiddling about in the next bed and then she heard ‘glug, glug…’ as she downed the gin. Every night! But there was a war on, I suppose, and people had to get by as best they could. Which they did, you know. They did just that and they very rarely complained. Can you imagine how we’d behave today if we had to knuckle down and deal with another fascist monster on our doorstep? We’d fold up in no time at all. We couldn’t do it–we simply couldn’t do it.” She paused, and for a moment, just a moment, looked doubtful. “Or am I simply making that great mistake, which everyone of my age makes, I suspect, and which leads us to believe that things have got worse? Are they worse, Pat?”

  Pat was glad to be given the chance to answer. “No, they aren’t. If you look at it from the perspective of people of my age, things are much better now than they were then. Much better. Think of colonialism. Think of what was done to people at the receiving end of that. You couldn’t do that today.”

  “That’s true,” said Domenica. “But since you mention these values–self-determination, human rights and the rest–my point is this: would we be able to defend them if push came to shove? Those young men who climbed into their Spitfires or whatever back then–many of them were your age, you know. Twenty. Some even younger. They knew the odds. They knew they were going to die. Would the boys you were at school with do the same thing, do you think? Would they do it now? Be honest. What do you think?”

  Pat was silent. She was not sure. But then the thought occurred to her: some of the girls would do it. Maybe that was the difference. Yes!

  6. Domenica Gets into Top Gear

  Deep in conversation on the subject of the defence of values, and courage, Pat and her neighbour, Domenica Macdonald, had now reached the point where Heriot Row becomes Abercromby Place. Domenica glanced at the Open Eye Gallery on the corner; a private viewing was in full swing and for a moment she wondered whether they should drop in and look at the pictures.

  “That’s Tom Wilson’s gallery,” said Pat. “He’s been very good to Matthew. He’s given him advice and helped him. He’s a very nice man. And he can draw, too.”

  “Well, that’s something,” said Domenica. “Very few artists can. They’ve stopped teaching people how to draw at the art colleges, with the result that very few of their graduates can represent the world they see about them. They can arrange it, of course–they can install the world–but they can’t represent it. At least not in any recognisable form. Do you think Mr Damien Hirst knows how to draw?”

  “I have no idea,” said Pat, gazing at the knot of people who had spilled out onto the front steps of the gallery, glasses of wine in their hands. “He may–I don’t know. But Tom draws very well. He does portraits of people by drawing the things they have. Bits and pieces that say something about their lives. Letters. Books. A favourite place. Things like that.”

  “Very interesting,” said Domenica. “I wonder how my life would be represented? Perhaps by the bed in Scotland Street in which I happened to be born, and in which I propose, in the fullness of time, to die.”

  “Or something from India? The house you lived in?”

  Domenica thought for a moment. “Too sad. I have a picture of my late husband’s electricity factory in Cochin. But I can’t bring myself to look at it. I really can’t.”

  “Do you miss him badly?” asked Pat.

  “Not in the slightest,” said Domenica. “I regret the hurt I caused him. And I regret his untimely electrocution–not that any electrocution, I suppose, can be considered timely. But I do feel a certain nostalgia for India itself, particularly for Kerala. For frangipani trees. For the sight of a man washing an elephant in the road. For the sight of a group of little boys sitting in an old Ambassador car, down on its springs, pretending to drive it. For overstated advertisements for hair products in lurid purple and green. For white-washed churches where they set off fireworks on saints’ days. Little things like that.” She looked at Pat. “Do you think Tom Wilson would be able to draw those things for me?”

  “I’m sure he could,” said Pat. “Ask him. There he is in the doorway. That’s him.”

  “I can’t intrude,” said Domenica. “Perhaps later.”

  They crossed the road, having decided that the opening at the gallery was too crowded to allow them a view of the fishing boats and pagodas.

  “We can stop over there for coffee,” suggested Domenica, pointing to the café immediately opposite the gallery. “Do you go in there very much? I rather like it.”

  Pat explained that she usually frequented Big Lou’s coffee house slightly further down the hill. It being a Saturday afternoon, Big Lou’s, of course, was closed. And on a Saturday afternoon in the Festival it was very closed, as Big Lou did not approve, in general, of Festival visitors: “Gey pretentious,” Pat had heard her muttering.

  “One must stick to what one knows,” observed Domenica. “I shall try Big Lou’s one day, but this is highly convenient for me and they have a very good range of olive oils. And as for their staff–well, you’ll see what I mean.”

  They found a table at the back–the café was very crowded–and Domenica glanced round at the other customers. A woman at a nearby table inclined her head slightly, and the man she was with nodded curtly in her direction.

  “That couple over there,” whispered Domenica, returning the greeting. “They’re very friendly with that awful woman downstairs, Bertie’s mother. I think that they go to the floatarium together, or at least she does. I bumped into her on the stair one day and then I overheard their conversation while I was looking for my key–you know how sound travels on that stair. It was exactly what you would expect. Exactly. All about some plan to start an orchestra for five-year-olds. To be called the Edinburgh Junior Symphony. Can you believe it?

  “And then, curiously enough, I met him when the two of them went to a talk at Ottakar’s Bookshop. Willy Dalrymple had just written a new book about India and was talking about it. It was wonderful stuff, and he told a marvellously funny story about a misunderstanding he had had with an official somewhere in India or Pakistan about the pronunciation of the name of that English cricketer, Mr Botham. The official pronounced this ‘bottom’, and this led to difficulties. Terribly funny.”

  Domenica stopped, and for a moment there was a silence. Then she leaned forward and whispered to Pat, “I mentioned the staff here. Look at them. Look at this young man who’s coming to serve us. Look at him. Doesn’t he look like Rup
ert Brooke? They’re all so tall–so willowy. But shh! Here he is.”

  Pat felt embarrassed–the young man might so easily have heard what Domenica was saying; not, Pat thought, that Domenica would care too much about that. But she–Pat–did.

  The waiter leaned forward to take their order, and Domenica smiled up at him.

  “We’re probably going to be really rather unadventurous and just order a couple of coffees,” she said. “Although some of those quiches over there look very tempting. Do you make them yourselves?”

  The young man smiled. He glanced at Pat. “I don’t. I just work here part-time. Someone else makes them in the kitchen back there.”

  “You’re a student?” asked Domenica brightly. “No, let me guess! You’re a student of…No, you defeat me! You’re going to have to help me. What are you a student of?”

  The young man laughed. “English,” he said.

  “I see,” said Domenica. “I should have guessed that. You see, I thought that you bore an uncanny resemblance to Rupert Brooke, the poet. I don’t suppose anybody studies him any more. Too light. You’ve heard of him, of course?”

  “Yes,” said the young man. “I’ve heard of him. I’ve not read him, though.”

  “Well, let me lend you one of his books,” said Domenica quickly. “Come round and have dinner with us some time and I’ll give you one. We live just round the corner–Scotland Street. You know it?”

  For a moment the young man hesitated. He looked quickly at Pat, who lowered her eyes, and blushed.

  “Yes, I know it. I live in Cumberland Street, you see.”

  “Perfect!” said Domenica. “Well, if you give me your name, I’ll leave a message for you here and we can arrange something. I’ll get the book out to give to you.”

  7. Anger and Apology

  When Pat eventually got back to her flat in Scotland Street, she still felt angry over what Domenica had done. Their cups of coffee in Glass and Thompson’s delicatessen and café had been drunk largely in silence.

  “I’ve done something to upset you, haven’t I?” said Domenica, after the silence became too obvious to remain unremarked upon. “Is it to do with what I said to that young man–what was his name again?”

  “Peter.”

  “Yes, Peter. A nice name, isn’t it?”

  Pat said nothing. Domenica looked at her, and frowned. “I’m sorry. I really am. I had no idea that you would be so…well, so embarrassed by all that. I did it for you, you know.”

  Pat looked up sharply. “You asked him to dinner, out of the blue, just like that–for me?”

  Domenica seemed surprised by this. “But of course I did! You don’t think that I go around picking up young men for my own sake, do you? Good heavens! I do have a sense of the appropriate, you know.”

  “And it’s appropriate to go and ask perfect strangers to dinner to meet me? Do you consider that appropriate? How did you know that I wanted to meet him anyway? Just because he looks like some ridiculous poet you’ve read…”

  Domenica put down her coffee cup–firmly. “Now wait a moment! I’m sorry if you think I’ve overstepped the mark, but I will not stand by while you refer to Rupert Brooke as a ridiculous poet. Have you read him? You have not! He wrote wonderful pastoral, allusive verse, and the story of his brief life–yes, his brief life–is really rather a moving one. So don’t call him a ridiculous poet. Please don’t. There are lots of ridiculous poets, but he wasn’t one of them. No.”

  There was a further silence. Then Pat rose to her feet. “I think we should go. I’m sorry if I got upset–and I’m sorry if I offended you. It’s just that…”

  They walked out of the delicatessen, passing Peter, working at the counter, as they did so. Pat looked away, but Domenica smiled at him, and he smiled back at her, although weakly, as one smiles at a new acquaintance of whom one is unsure.

  “Look, it’s not such a terrible thing I’ve done,” said Domenica, as they went out into the street. “And if it embarrasses you, I suggest that we just forget the whole thing.”

  She looked at Pat, who turned to her, frowning. “No,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

  Domenica raised an eyebrow. “Oh? So you’d like me to invite him after all? Do I detect…do I detect a slight mellowing?”

  Pat looked down at the ground. Her feelings were confused. She was irritated by the assumptions that Domenica had made, but there was something about Peter that interested her, and she had seen that he had looked at her too, that he had noticed her. There was something that her friends called “the look”, that glance, that second take, which gives everything away. One could not mistake the look when one received it; it was unambiguous.

  Peter had given her the look. Had she been by herself, she would have not known what to do about it. They might have exchanged further glances, but it was difficult to take matters further when you were working, as he was. You could hardly say: “Here’s your coffee, and what are you doing afterwards?” Perhaps people did say that, but it was not the most sophisticated of approaches and he would not have done that. And for much the same reason, she could hardly have said: “Thanks for the coffee, and what are you doing afterwards?” One did not say that to waiters, whatever the temptation.

  So the fact of the matter was that Domenica must have intuitively worked out that there was potential in that casual encounter and had acted with swiftness and ingenuity. She had set up a meeting which would enable nature to take its course–if that was the course that nature intended to take. They would meet for dinner at Domenica’s flat and if the look were given again, then they could take it further. No doubt Domenica would ease the way, perhaps by suggesting that they go out after dinner to the Cumberland Bar and then she would herself decline on the grounds of tiredness, leaving the field open for the two of them.

  I should be grateful to her, Pat thought, and now, back in her flat, she realised that she had been churlish. She wondered whether to cross the landing and apologise there and then, but she decided against that. An apology would lead to a conversation and she did not feel in the mood for further discussions. She felt slightly light-headed, in fact, as if she had drunk a glass of champagne on an empty stomach. She went through to her bedroom, lay down on her bed, and closed her eyes, imagining herself back in the café with Peter standing beside the table, staring at her. She remembered the way he stooped–like the other tall employees–and he put the coffee down in front of her and then looked up. What had he been wearing? She had hardly noticed, but it was a white shirt, was it not? And jeans, like everybody else. If one could not remember somebody’s trousers, then jeans were the safe default. Indeed, “defaults” was a good name for jeans. I put on my defaults. It sounded quite right.

  She got up off her bed and picked up her key from the table. Bruce was in the flat–she had noticed that his door was closed, which inevitably meant that he was in–but she had no desire to talk to him. Bruce was history in every sense of the word. He was history at the firm of Macauley Holmes Richardson Black, where he had lost his job as a surveyor after being found having an intimate lunch in the Café St Honoré with the wife of his boss–an intimate and innocent lunch, but not so to the outside observer, unfortunately in this case his boss himself.

  And he was history in Pat’s eyes, too, as she had quite recovered from her brief infatuation with him. How could I? she had asked herself, in agonising self-reproach. To which a Latinist, if there were one about, might have answered amor furor brevis est–love (like anger) is a brief madness. The most prosaic of observations, but, like many such observations, acutely true. And one might add: if love is a brief madness, then it is often also sadness, and sometimes, alas, badness.

  She left the flat and walked down to Henderson Row, where she bought a small bunch of flowers. This she subsequently placed outside Domenica’s door, where she might pick it up when next she opened it.

  8. An Exchange of Cruel Insults

  It was not that there was an atmosphere between Bruce a
nd Pat; relations, in fact, were quite cordial. Bruce was indifferent to the fact that she had rejected his advances (“her loss,” he told himself, “silly girl”). He knew, of course, that she had been besotted by him–any man would have realised that–and for Bruce it was nothing in the least unusual for a woman to feel like that about him. Indeed, it was the normal way of things, and Bruce would have been surprised if Pat had not found herself in this position, sharing the flat, as they did, when she had every opportunity to be in close proximity to him. Poor girl! It must have been hard for her, he thought; rather like living with a full fridge or store-cupboard when one is on a strict diet. One may look, but not touch. What a pity!

  There had been a brief period during which Pat had seemed to avoid him–and he had noticed that. However, he had been tolerant. If it helped her to stay out of his way for a few days, then that was her way of dealing with the situation and he would not force his company upon her. And after a while that awkwardness passed, and there seemed to be no tension in the air when they coincided in the kitchen, or when they passed on telephone messages to one another.

  Bruce was pleased that things had not become more fraught. His life over the past couple of months had not been particularly easy, and he would not have enjoyed having to deal with domestic difficulties on top of what he had been experiencing elsewhere. To begin with, there had been the problem with the job. He had been planning to leave the firm and to move on to something more satisfying even before the show-down with his employer, Raeburn Todd, joint senior partner with his brother, Jock Todd, of Macauley Holmes Richardson Black, Chartered Surveyors and Factors. But it was unfortunate, from Bruce’s point of view, that this departure should have been on Todd’s terms rather than on his own. That had been extremely irritating.

  What annoyed Bruce in particular about that episode was that when he was asked by Todd’s wife, Sasha, to lunch with her in the Café St Honoré, he had agreed to do this only out of charity. He had no particular interest in her, and he had certainly not been planning any involvement with her, although it had been perfectly obvious to him at the South Edinburgh Conservative Ball that she found him attractive. That was understandable, of course, but he had not expected her to do anything about this, and indeed that fatal lunch was hardly a romantic encounter at all. It was true that when Todd walked into the Café St Honoré unexpectedly, he had found his wife holding Bruce’s hand in hers, over the table, but that had been purely in the context of their discussion about tennis prowess and the importance of having a strong wrist. If he were going to hold hands with a married woman in an Edinburgh restaurant, then he would do so under the table, not above.