Unbearable Lightness of Scones Read online

  What did he know about Elspeth’s father, Jim Harmony, whom he had never met, and who existed for him merely as a photograph on Elspeth’s table?

  “My father, Jim,” she had said as they packed up the contents of her flat in preparation for her move to India Street.

  He took the small, silver-framed portrait and examined it. The frame was worn, with the silver-plating rubbed away across the top and sides, but the photograph inside seemed fresh enough.

  “That was taken in Bridge of Allan,” said Elspeth. “Years ago. They lived there then, and I did too, of course, until I was eighteen.”

  “Bridge of Allan,” muttered Matthew. It was the right place for her to come from; a reassuring small town of the sort that one found scattered throughout Scotland.

  “He worked for an insurance company,” said Elspeth. “He was a loss adjuster, and he used to cover Stirling, Linlithgow, Falkirk – places round there.”

  “Loss adjusters have to be tough,” said Matthew. He looked at the picture. Jim Harmony’s face was not a tough one. If one had to pick an adjective to describe it, then the best choice, he thought, would be kind.

  Elspeth shook her head. “He wasn’t tough,” she said. “He was the kindest man I ever met. A most trusting man too. I think that he approved just about every claim.”

  “I’m sure that’s right,” said Matthew, looking down at the picture again. “He has that sort of face.”

  “He had to retire early because he began to have problems with his eyes,” said Elspeth. “So they went up to live in Comrie when I came to Edinburgh to do my teacher training. They sold the house in Bridge of Allan and bought a small house in Comrie. They were very happy there.

  “My father had always been a keen amateur mechanic,” Elspeth went on. “My grandfather had been a diesel mechanic with MacBrayne’s, the ferry people. And he passed on some of that to my father, who was always tinkering with old cars he bought. He did them up and then sold them, not at much of a profit, but enough to fund the next one.

  “His favourite car was a Citroën. You know the sort of old Citroën, with a wide running board, that Inspector Maigret used to drive? That sort. The Citroën Traction. Well he had one of those, which he had made from two old Citroëns that had had an accident. He grafted the front of one onto the back of the other – so it was really two cars. It didn’t drive quite straight as a result; it drove almost sideways.”

  Matthew listened, fascinated. He had known none of this, and he found the story curiously poignant: Jim Harmony, the kind loss adjuster, going to live in Comrie with his wife and his crab-like double Citroën…

  “He was a biker too,” Elspeth continued. “He always had motorbikes. He had an old BSA 250 and a bike called an Aerial, or that’s what I thought it was called. It was painted grey and had a small badge featuring a pair of wings. I remember that badge from when I was a little girl.

  “When he lived in Comrie he stopped driving the Citroën so much and he took to using his bike. He used to go to rallies for veteran bikers. I went to one or two of these with him, and I remember the talks that they had in the evening. One which I particularly remember was: what sort of bike were you riding when President Kennedy was shot? That sort of thing. They saw the whole world through their bikes, you see.”

  She paused, gently took the photograph from Matthew, and slipped it into a packing case. “It was very hard for him, losing his sight. I thought that this would stop him from riding his bike, especially when it got so bad that he had to get a guide dog. But you know what he did? He trained the guide dog to run alongside the motorbike. That’s how he did it. That’s how he became the only blind biker in Scotland.”

  Matthew listened in astonishment. “Do you mean…”

  “Yes. The dog was called Rory and he used to run alongside the bike, with my father holding his lead in one hand and the other hand on the handlebars of the motorbike. Of course he couldn’t go all that fast, as Rory used to get tired after a while, but he once went all the way from Comrie to Crieff and back again.”

  “But surely it was illegal?” Matthew stuttered. “Surely you can’t use a guide-dog to lead a motorbike…”

  Elspeth shrugged. “I didn’t think it was very wise. My mother and I tried to persuade him to give it up, but he was very independent in his outlook and he loved biking. He really loved it.”

  Matthew did not know what to say. “Well…”

  “And it worked all right for about a year,” said Elspeth. “Then…”

  She left the sentence unfinished. “He was such a good man,” she said, her voice faltering.

  Matthew reached out and took her hand. “I’m sure he was,” he said. “I would have liked your father very much. I’m sure I would.” Even if I would not have ridden pillion with him – the unexpressed rider: no rider. He thought he knew how she felt. He thought he knew how it was to lose a father, although he had not lost his, not entirely. And what, he might have asked himself, but did not, what is it like when a whole society, a whole culture, loses its father?

  19. Heavenly Thoughts

  For Bertie, the departure of Elspeth Harmony from the Steiner School was the first real loss of his life, just as it was for many other members of the class. The child yearns for things to remain the same. He knows that this cannot be, that his little world contains within itself the seeds of its transformation into something else; but awareness of what is coming rarely softens the blow.

  Of course there was a great deal in Bertie’s life that he would have liked to change, and, had he made a list of these things, his mother would have headed it. Not that he did not love his mother; he loved her deeply, as every small boy must do, but he wished that she could somehow be a different person. That is not to say that he wished he had, for instance, Tofu’s mother, or Olive’s mother, as his own mother; he wanted to keep Irene in her external particulars, but nevertheless completely changed in attitudes, voice and register. He wished, then, that Irene would become a completely different person. And once that happened, this new person, this new mother, would not see the need for psychotherapy, would not converse in Italian, would not insist on yoga, and would rarely, if ever, mention the name of Melanie Klein.

  Bertie wondered how this transformation might be achieved. He was a little boy of wide reading, and had come across several examples of complete change. There was St. Augustine, for instance, who had, Bertie understood, been a bad man and had become a good one. But that entailed religion, and Irene had never shown any signs of religious belief; in fact quite the opposite. When Bertie had innocently asked her where she thought heaven was, Irene had replied that it was here and now, and that we could create it if only we brought into existence the right social and political arrangements, as advocated, she indicated, by the leading articles in The Guardian.

  “Heaven, Bertie,” she explained, “is not a place like… like Edinburgh or even Glasgow. Non c’e nessun paradiso esterno. Heaven is potentially within each of us. Don’t look for heaven anywhere else, Bertissimo.”

  Bertie had been puzzled by this answer to what he had thought was a simple question. He rather liked the idea of heaven being a physical place that one was let into if one deserved it. He thought that Miss Harmony would certainly get there, and Matthew, her new husband, as God would surely not want Miss Harmony to be lonely. And that nice lady who ran the coffee bar, Big Lou; she would go there, and maybe Mr. Lordie too, if you were allowed to take dogs. Perhaps you could if the dog had been good too, which would mean that Cyril would definitely get in. Olive, of course, would have to be turned away. It would be awful, he thought, to get to heaven and find her there, bossing everybody about – including God – for the rest of time.

  No, his mother’s transformation would never be achieved by any religious experience; for her there would be no blinding light on the road to Damascus, no sudden espousal of the Eightfold Way, nothing of that sort. There were other ways, of course, of changing, and Bertie had heard about these too. People s
ometimes changed, he had read, if they had some sort of shocking experience – if they saw something frightening, if they were kidnapped, if their hearts stopped, or something of that sort. Such people realised that they had wasted their time, or been wrong about things, and resolved that in future they would lead a better life. Not that it always happened that way: Tofu was a case in point. He had told Bertie that he had once received a strong electric shock when he put a knife into an electric toaster, and that his hair had stood up straight for half an hour after the experience. But there had been no other changes, unfortunately, and he had remained very much the same.

  Irene, Bertie reluctantly concluded, led far too sheltered a life to encounter a transforming traumatic event. The daily round of taking Bertie to school on the 23 bus, of going to psychotherapy, of spending hours in the Floatarium – all of these were unlikely to lead to the sort of experience that would make his mother a different person. And so he was stuck with her as she was, and had decided that the only thing to do was to endure the twelve years that lay between him and his eighteenth birthday.

  When eventually he left home, on the morning of that birthday, he would be free and it would not matter any more what his mother was like. He would write to her, of course, every six months or so, but he would not have to see her, except when he wanted to. And there was no law, Bertie reminded himself, which stipulated that you had to invite your mother to your flat once you had moved out of the family home; Bertie, in fact, was not planning to give her his address once he had moved out.

  But twelve years seemed an impossibly long time for a boy of six; indeed it was twice the length of his life so far, an unimaginable desert of time. In the meantime, he realised that he would have to negotiate such excitement for himself as he could, finding a place for it in the interstices of the psychotherapy and yoga and Italian lessons that his mother arranged for him.

  Tofu, for all his manifold faults, was a potential source of diversion for Bertie. His friend’s life was subject to constraints of its own – his father, the author of several books on the energy fields of nuts, followed a strictly vegan diet and insisted that his son do the same. This made Tofu extremely hungry, and explained his penchant for stealing other children’s sandwiches. But apart from that, Tofu was left to his own devices, and boasted of having gone through to Glasgow on the train several times with neither an accompanying adult nor a ticket. He had also attended a football match when he was meant to be at a Saturday morning art club favoured by his father and had spent the art class money on a pepperoni pizza. This was a heady example to Bertie of just what freedom might mean, as was Tofu’s suggestion to Bertie that together they should join a cub scout pack which had recently been established in the Episcopal Church Hall at the head of Colinton Road.

  “They need people like us,” Tofu said.

  20. Be Prepared for a Little White Lie

  “I can’t, Tofu,” said Bertie. “I can’t join the cubs.”

  Tofu was dismissive of Bertie’s protestation. “You can’t? Why? Is it because you think you’ll fail the medical examination? There isn’t one. That’s the army you’re thinking of. The cubs will take anyone – even somebody like you.”

  “It’s not that,” Bertie said miserably. “It’s just that…”

  “Well,” Tofu pressed, “what is it? Are you scared or something? You can be a real wimp, you know, Bertie.”

  Bertie glowered at Tofu. It was typical of the other boy that he should jump to conclusions – and, as was always the case with Tofu, he was wrong. “No, it’s my mother,” he said. “She found me reading a book about Mr. Baden-Powell and she said that I could never join the cubs or scouts. She doesn’t like them.”

  Tofu frowned. “What a cow your mother is, Bertie,” he said sympathetically. “But I suppose it’s not your fault.”

  Bertie said nothing. He did not like Tofu referring to his mother in those terms, but it was difficult to contradict him. The barricades in this life, his father had once observed, are often in the wrong place. Bertie had not been sure what this meant, but he felt that it might have some bearing on his dilemma in the face of anti-Irene comments from people such as Tofu.

  Tofu thought for a moment. “Of course, it’s a bit awkward that your mother thinks like that, but it shouldn’t stop you.”

  Bertie was puzzled. “But how could I go to cubs if she won’t let me?” he asked. “How could I? Don’t they wear a uniform?”

  He was not sure whether cubs still wore a uniform or not, but he very much hoped that they did. Bertie had always liked the thought of wearing a uniform, particularly since his mother had such strong views on them.

  “Yes, there is a uniform,” said Tofu. “But I could get hold of one for you. Your mother wouldn’t have to buy it.”

  “But she’d see it,” said Bertie. “I’d have to change into it and then she’d see it. She’d say: ‘What’s that you’re wearing…?’”

  Tofu was shaking his head in disagreement. “She needn’t see it,” he said patiently, as if explaining a rudimentary matter to somebody who was rather slow. “There’s a place nearby, a place where they sell coffee. It’s called Starbucks. We can go in there and change into our uniforms in the toilet. See?”

  Bertie was still not convinced. He was a truthful boy, and he would not lie to his mother; he would not mislead her as to where he was going, and it was inconceivable that he could just slip out of the house, as Tofu appeared able to do. He looked at Tofu with admiration and a certain amount of envy – what it must be like to have such freedom.

  “I’m sorry, Tofu,” he said. “I don’t like telling fibs.”

  “But I do,” said Tofu. “I’ll tell her that we’re going to a special club. I’ll get her to say yes.”

  Bertie felt quite torn. One part of him wanted no part of Tofu’s machinations; another was desperate to join the cubs, indeed was desperate to have any sort of life of his own. “But what will you say?” He asked. “What sort of club?”

  Tofu shrugged his shoulders. He saw no particular challenge in this deception; the name of the club was a minor detail. “I’ll tell her that it’s…” He paused. Bertie was listening carefully. “I’ll tell your mummy that it’s the Young Liberal Democrats Club.”

  Bertie’s eyes opened wide. The Young Liberal Democrats sounded almost as good as the Junior Melanie Klein Society, if such a thing existed. “She’ll like that,” he said. “It’s the sort of thing…”

  “Of course it is,” said Tofu nonchalantly. “Now all you have to do is to invite me to play at your house some afternoon and then I’ll talk to her. How about tomorrow?”

  Bertie swallowed. There was a very good reason why tomorrow would not be suitable, but all his other afternoons were taken up with Italian lessons and saxophone practice, and it was difficult to see how he could otherwise fit Tofu in. “There might be somebody else there tomorrow,” said Bertie. “But you can come too.”

  “That’s settled then,” said Tofu. And then, quite casually, he asked, “Who is this other person, by the way?”

  Bertie looked away. “It’s Olive,” he said shakily. “My mother invites her to play at my house. It’s not me, Tofu. I don’t invite her. I really don’t.”

  Tofu wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Olive! You actually let her into your house?”

  “I can’t stop her,” wailed Bertie. “It’s my mother, you see. She likes Olive.”

  “You have big problems, Bertie,” said Tofu, shaking his head. “But I suppose I’ll have to come anyway. Olive!”

  The conversation ended at that point and Bertie went away to think about what Tofu had said. His feelings were mixed. While he was excited at the prospect of joining the cubs – a uniform! – he felt anxious about the web of deceit that Tofu was so nonchalantly proposing to weave. The deception might work, but what if it did not, and his mother discovered that he had secretly enrolled in the cubs? There would be a most terrible row if that happened, and Bertie could just hear what his mother
would say: When you tell a fib, Bertie, you’re telling a fib to yourself. Did you know that? And why, Bertie, why ever do you feel the need to wear a uniform? Is there something missing in your life?

  Bertie shuddered. The dressing-down would be bad enough, but what would be worse would be the practical consequences. More psychotherapy. More Melanie Klein. More everything. More mother.

  But then suddenly his defeatism lifted. He remembered a few days ago he had bumped into Angus Lordie, who was walking Cyril – and some boisterous puppies – in the Drummond Place Gardens. It was shortly after Bertie had read the Baden-Powell book and he asked Angus Lordie if he had ever been a scout.

  “I was both a cub and a scout,” answered Angus. “And a great time I had too. I was kicked out of the scouts, of course, but I enjoyed it when I was in. Yes, you should join up, Bertie. Absolutely.”

  He remembered now. It had been such a humiliation being kicked out of the scouts. It was like being excommunicated from the Catholic Church, where a candle was ceremoniously snuffed out to signify the exclusion. In Angus Lordie’s case, the scout master had taken his woggle from him. Such humiliation. Dewoggled.

  21. Lost Opportunities

  Domenica Macdonald, anthropologist, native of Scotland Street, confidante of the portrait painter and detoggled scout Angus Lordie, was sitting somewhat morosely at her kitchen table. Before her on the table was an open copy of that day’s Scotsman newspaper. She had just finished reading the letters column, a daily task she set herself in order to keep abreast with what people were thinking about. Today it had all been rather tame, and she found herself thinking back nostalgically to the days when the Scotsman letter column contained a greater number of letters from regular correspondents with a sense of mission. There had been Anthony J. C. Kerr of Jedburgh, for instance, who had written a letter to the paper virtually every week, and sometimes more often than that. His letters had been well-informed and entertaining; perhaps just rather frequent. Then there was the late Major F.A.C. Boothby, an energetic writer of letters on the subject of Scottish nationalism – right up to the time of his unfortunate removal to prison for conspiring to blow up an electricity pylon. Such people certainly had things to say, but blowing up pylons had been no way to convince anybody, thought Domenica.