Betty Dunbarton was the daughter of a Dundee marmalade manufacturer. She had met Ramsey at a bridge class at the Royal Overseas League, and they had ended up marrying a year or so later. Their marriage had been childless, but their life was a full 146
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one, and the Conservative Ball was just another event in a busy social round. The following day they were due to go to lunch at the Peebles Hydro; the day after that there was a meeting of the Friends of the Zoo (with lunch in the Members’ Pavilion); and so it went on.
Ramsey and Betty were standing near the bar when the Todd family, accompanied by Bruce, came in. Ramsey noticed that Todd did not smile at him, which was hurtful, he thought. That man doesn’t like me, he said to himself. I’ve done nothing to deserve it, but he doesn’t like me. And as for that daughter, that Lizzie, she was such a fright, wasn’t she? What could one say about her? – one could really only sigh.
Introductions were made and drinks were bought before they went through to the function room.
“It’s a pity there are not more of us,” said Ramsey Dunbarton, looking at Todd. “Perhaps we should have made more of an effort with the tickets.”
Todd glared at him. “Actually, we did our best,” he said. “Not that we had much help from the rest of the committee, or from any members, for that matter.”
“There are some things you just can’t sell,” muttered Lizzie.
They all looked at her, apart from Bruce, who was staring at the line of whiskies behind the bar. One way through the evening would be to get drunk, he thought, but then again . . .
“It doesn’t matter that there are so few of us,” said Sasha breezily. “The important thing is that we have a good time. And there’ll be lots of room to do some dancing.”
“A sixsome reel?” asked Lizzie.
This time, Bruce looked away from the bar and caught her eye.
She doesn’t want to be here either, he thought. And who can blame her? He smiled at her, encouragingly, but she did not respond.
They moved through to the room itself.
“Oh look!” exclaimed Betty Dunbarton. “Look at that pretty glassware. Just like the cranberry-ware which my cousin used to collect. Remember those glasses, Ramsey? Remember the jug she had in the display cabinet in Carnoustie – the one which was shaped like a swan? Remember that?”
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“I always thought it was a duck,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “In fact I could have sworn it was a duck.”
“No,” said Betty, turning to Sasha, as if for support. “Its neck was too long for it to be a duck. It was a swan. And when you poured, the liquid would go all the way down the swan’s neck and out of its beak.”
“Wonderful,” said Todd. “But look, we’d better get to our tables. I think that’s yours over there.”
Betty Dunbarton shook her head. “No,” she said. “They’ve arranged it in a very silly way. Let’s put the tables together so that we can talk. Ramsey, you go and ask that waiter over there to put the tables together.”
Ramsey complied. He was sure that it had been a duck; he was sure of it. But now was not the time.
57. The Duke of Plaza-Toro
Once seated, Ramsey Dunbarton leaned across the table to address Bruce. They were separated by one place, occupied by Lizzie, and by a plate of cock-a-leekie soup which the Braid Hills Hotel had decreed should be the first course.
“I always think that soup’s a good start to an evening,” he said.
Bruce looked at his bowl of cock-a-leekie. They had started every evening meal with soup at home, and when they went out, to the Hydro or to the Royal Hotel in Comrie, they had soup too. Soup reminded him of Crieff.
“There are some people,” Ramsey Dunbarton continued, “who don’t like starting a meal with soup. They say that you shouldn’t build on a swamp.” He paused. “They think, you see, that having soup first makes the swamp – only a figure of speech, of course.
Not a real swamp.”
Bruce glanced at Lizzie, who was staring fixedly across the table at the arrangement of flowers. Had she noticed that he had no underpants? It was difficult to tell. And what did it matter, 148
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anyway? A certain level of recklessness sets in when one is not wearing underpants, and Bruce was now experiencing this. It was an unusual feeling to experience – in Edinburgh, at least.
“I had an aunt who was a wonderful cook,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “I used to go and stay with her down in North Berwick, when I was a boy. We used to go down there in the summer. I was sent with my brother. Do you know North Berwick?”
Bruce shook his head. “I know where it is. But I don’t really know it as a place. You remember it, I suppose?”
“Oh yes,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “I remember North Berwick very well. I don’t think one would forget North Berwick very readily. I wouldn’t, anyway. North Berwick and Gullane too.
We used to go to Gullane a great deal – from North Berwick, that is. We used to go and have lunch at the Golf Hotel and then we would go for a walk along the beach. There are sand dunes there, you know. And a wonderful view over the Forth to Fife. You can see places like Pittenweem and Elie. That’s if the weather is clear enough. But it’s often a bit misty. You get a bit of a haar sometimes. Do you know Elie?”
“I know where Elie is,” Bruce replied. “But I don’t really know Elie as a place.” He turned to Lizzie in an attempt to involve her in the conversation. “Have you been to Elie?”
Lizzie looked down at her soup, which she had yet to touch.
“Where?” she snapped. Her tone was that of one whose train of thought had been wantonly interrupted.
“Elie,” said Bruce.
“Where?” Lizzie asked again.
“Elie.”
“Elie?”
“Yes, Elie.”
“What about it?”
Bruce persisted. She was being deliberately unpleasant, he thought. She’s a real . . . What was she? A man-hater? Was that the problem? “Do you know it?” he asked. “Have you ever been to Elie?”
“No.”
Ramsey Dunbarton had been following the exchange with The Duke of Plaza-Toro
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polite interest and now resumed with further observations on Elie. “When I was a bit younger than you,” he said, nodding in Bruce’s direction, “I used to have a friend whose parents had a place over there. They went there for the summer. His mother was quite a well-known figure in Edinburgh society. And I remember I used to go over there with my friend and we’d stay there for a few days and then come back to Edinburgh. Well, I always remember that they had a very large fridge in the basement of their Elie house and my friend opened it one day and showed me what it contained. And what do you think it was?”
Bruce looked at Lizzie to see if she was willing to provide an answer, but she was looking up at the ceiling. This was unnecessarily rude, he thought. All right, so this old boy was boring them stiff but it was meant to be a ball and it was probably the highlight of his year and it would cost her nothing to be civil, at least.
“I really can’t imagine.” He paused. “Explosives?”
Ramsey Dunbarton laughed. “Explosives? No, goodness me.
Furs. Fur coats. If you keep them in the fridge the fur is less likely to drop out. The fridge was full of fur coats. People used to buy them from the Dominion Fur Company in Churchill.
This lady had about ten of them. Beautiful fur coats. Mink and the like.”
“Well, well,” said Bruce.
“Yes,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “The Dominion Fur Company was just over the road from the Churchhill Theatre. We used to do Gilbert and Sullivan there. First in the University Savoy Opera Group and then in the Morningside Light Opera. I played the Duke of Plaza-Toro, you know. A wonderful role. I was jolly lucky to get it because there was a very good baritone that year who was after the part and I thought he would get it. I really did. And then the casting director came up to me in George Street one day, just outside the Edinburgh Bookshop, and said that I was to get the part. It was a wonderful bit of news.”