76. Remembrance of Things Past
Neither Ronnie nor Pete had arrived at Big Lou’s when Matthew came in that morning. As Matthew approached the counter, Big Lou, who had been tidying the fridge, looked up and greeted him warmly. There was nobody else in the coffee bar – indeed Matthew was the first customer that morning – and she was pleased to have somebody to talk to.
She prepared Matthew’s coffee and brought it over, sitting down next to him in the booth.
“Those other two are late,” she said. “Not that I mind. They never have anything interesting to say – unlike you.”
“And I just have bad news today,” said Matthew, rather gloomily. “My Peploe?”
“Not a Peploe?” asked Big Lou. “Somebody’s looked at it?’
“It may be a Peploe,” said Matthew. “But whatever it is, it’s gone.”
212
Remembrance of Things Past
Big Lou drew in her breath. It did not take her long to work out that Pete must have heard the discussion about it going to the flat in Scotland Street, and must have stolen it from there.
She was sure that he was in league with that man, the man whom he described as John, but whom he then denied knowing. Well, she for one was not fooled by that.
“I’ll wring his neck when he comes in,” said Big Lou. “He’s your man. Pete’s taken it – or he’s mixed up in it.”
“It’s not him,” said Matthew. “It’s somebody from the South Edinburgh Conservative Association.”
Big Lou was trying to work out the meaning of this puzzling remark when Matthew explained about the tombola.
“That’s not too bad,” she said. “At least you know where it is
– and you’re still the owner.”
Matthew nodded. Everybody seemed confident about the recovery of the painting, and perhaps they were right. It was a stroke of good fortune that it had fallen into the hands of the Conservative Party, as they would always behave with honour and integrity. He wondered what would have happened if the painting had ended up at a Scottish Socialist Party function. They would have cut it up into little squares and shared it round all those present. The thought made him smile.
“Do you think that great art only comes into existence when there is surplus wealth?” he asked Big Lou.
Big Lou frowned. “You have to have time to create art,” she said. “If you’re busy surviving, then art probably doesn’t get much of a look in. Look at Proust.”
“Proust?”
“Yes,” explained Big Lou. “Marcel Proust wrote an awfully long novel. Twelve volumes, wasn’t it? Or there are twelve volumes in the set I have down in Canonmills. If Proust actually had to work – to earn his living – then he would not have had the time to write A la recherche du temps perdu. Nor, come to think of it, would he have had any of those people to write about if they had been obliged to do any real work.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. He had never read Proust, although he knew one quote which he had been able to use from time to Remembrance of Things Past
213
time. Proust, he had read, had said that steamships insult the dignity of distance, and Matthew had occasionally mentioned this to others, and had enjoyed their discomfort. He had said it to his father once, when he had been taking a close interest in one of his son’s failed business ventures – the travel agency, that was –
and that had stopped him in his tracks. Proust was useful that way.
“Should I read Proust, Lou?” he asked.
“Aye,” she replied. “If you’ve got the time. I’m on volume five now, and I like it. Combray reminds me of Arbroath.”
Matthew nodded. What was Proust about? He decided to ask Lou, as it was not the sort of question one could raise in the presence of Ronnie and Pete.
“A lot of things,” said Big Lou. “Not much actually happens in Proust, or rather it takes a long time to happen. Marcel writes a lot about things that remind him of something else. That’s what happened when he ate those little Madeleine cakes and the taste brought back to him the memory of Combray.”
Matthew sipped at his coffee. Did that remind him of anything?
He closed his eyes, and took another sip. Yes! Yes! He was transported back to a period of greater happiness, when he was twelve and was visiting his grandfather in Morningside. They had a house behind the Royal Edinburgh, a large house with a garden, the house now long since demolished and the garden built over with flats with ridiculous, inappropriate names like Squire’s Manor (built by an English builder who had no idea that squires and manors did not exist in Scotland). But it was not the flats that he thought of, but that house, that great, rambling Victorian house with its turrets and shutters and high ceilings.
His grandfather had sat with him in the morning room, which looked out over the lawn, and which smelled of nasturtiums and coffee and damp India paper of the books that lay out there on his reading trolley. And Matthew had listened, while the old man tried to talk. He had been badly affected by a stroke, and many of his words had gone from him, but he had managed to whisper to the boy, in a painfully slow fashion, each word punctuated by long silences, “Never trust anybody from Glasgow.”
And Matthew had looked at the old man, and smiled in disbelief,
214
Into Deep Morningside
and asked why should one not trust anybody from Glasgow. His question had brought a puzzled look to his grandfather’s brow, and this was followed by a further search for words.
“I can’t remember,” the old man had said eventually, disappointed at the loss of precious knowledge. “I can’t.”
And then Matthew had sipped at the coffee which his grandfather had given him – coffee which was stone cold, but strong
– and which tasted just like the coffee which Big Lou now served him.
“I’ve had a Proustian moment,” Matthew said, bringing himself back to reality.
“That happens all the time,” said Big Lou. “We all have Proustian moments, but don’t really know about it until we read Proust.”
77. Into Deep Morningside
Pat sat at her desk in the gallery, numbed by the effect of Bruce’s words. He hardly knew that girl, she thought. He had met her the day before the dressing-gown incident, which said something about the speed with which she had allowed the relationship to progress. What a tart!
And what exactly did he see in her, she wondered. She was Into Deep Morningside
215
undoubtedly attractive, but there were numerous girls just as attractive, if not more so. Bruce would only have to go into the Cumberland Bar and stand there for twenty minutes or so and he would be mobbed, yes mobbed, by girls who would be only too anxious to develop a closer acquaintance with him. So surely the mere factor of physical attractiveness would not be enough to make Bruce talk about marriage.
Was it something to do with her being American? Some people were impressed with that, because they felt that the Americans were somehow special, a race apart. That used to be how the British regarded themselves when they bestrode the world; perhaps it was not surprising that Americans should have a similar conceit of themselves now that they were the great imperial power – a special race, touched with greatness. And there would be people like Bruce who might share this self-evaluation and think that it would be something privileged, something special, to be associated with an American.
She thought of all this, her despair growing with each moment. I hate him, she said to herself. He’s nothing to me.
But then she thought of him again and she felt a physical lurch in the pit of her stomach. I want to be with him. I want him.
I’m ill, she thought. Something has happened to my mind.