Domenica broke the silence that followed Cyril’s extraordinary discovery. And it was Cyril’s discovery, as everybody later agreed
– one for which he should be given all due credit. Had he not barked to alert them to the change in the smell of the air, then they would have walked right past the largely-concealed mouth of the side-tunnel. But Cyril, detecting a new whiff, gave them warning, and when Domenica turned her torch in the right direction, they had seen the much smaller tunnel sloping off to the west.
“Peter Backhouse said nothing about this,” muttered Domenica, as she took a step towards the mouth of the smaller tunnel.
“It has no doubt been forgotten about,” said Angus Lordie, reaching out to twist off a piece of the board that had been used to block the entrance. The wood came away in his hand, and immediately another piece fell off the now-crumbling barrier.
“I suspect that this is a service tunnel of some sort,” said Domenica, directing the beam up the very much narrower passage.
“Shall we?” said Angus Lordie. “Would it be safe to walk up a little? Heaven knows what we might find.”
The idea of fresh exploration seemed attractive to Domenica and Angus Lordie – and immensely so to Cyril, who was straining on his lead to enter this territory of uncharted smells.
Pat was not so enthusiastic. It was one thing to walk down a well-known tunnel, and quite another to explore a tunnel which nobody appeared to know about. Again she worried about the possible failure of the torch. It would have been bad enough having to navigate down the central tunnel in complete darkness, but if they entered what might well be a warren of service tunnels, then they might be lost indefinitely, wandering around beneath the streets of Edinburgh until hunger and fatigue claimed them and they failed. There would be no prospect of rescue, then, as nobody knew that they had ventured into the Scotland Street tunnel in the first place. Their disappearance would thus be a A Further Tunnel – and a Brief Conversation About Aesthetics 267
complete mystery, rather like the disappearance of that party of Australian schoolgirls who were swallowed up by the earth at Hanging Rock. That had not been a successful picnic, on the whole.
“Do you think this is safe?” she asked. Her voice in the darkness sounded very weak, and she wondered whether anybody had heard her. But Domenica had, and she reached out and grasped her arm.
“Don’t worry. This won’t go very far. And if it were going to cave in, it would have done so a long time ago.”
“Quite right,” added Angus Lordie. “Safe as houses.”
They made their way down the side-tunnel, walking more slowly, as there was less room, and they could barely fit two abreast. The tunnel was not quite straight, and from time to time it veered slightly to the left or right, but its general direction was westwards.
Pat shivered. The air was cooler now, and she began to regret not having fetched a jersey or a coat from the flat before they began their expedition. But she had been unwilling to go into her flat in case she should disturb Bruce and Sally, and so she had come lightly dressed. Of course there was no reason to believe that Bruce and Sally would be there: they were probably still in the Cumberland Bar, for all she knew, or having dinner together, over a candle-lit table. Would they be talking about her? she wondered. Of course they would not – there was no reason for them to be interested in her. Bruce tolerated her –
that was all – and Sally disliked her. So she was nothing to them, and they would have no reason even to think about her, let alone discuss her.
She was aware of Angus Lordie walking beside her, while Domenica was a few steps ahead, the light from her torch bobbing up and down as she walked.
“What an adventure!” Angus Lordie whispered. “Did you imagine that we would find ourselves taking a subterranean promenade together?”
“No,” she said. “I did not.”
He sighed. “I am conscious, of course, that there are many 268 A Further Tunnel – and a Brief Conversation About Aesthetics others with whom you would prefer to take such a walk. That young man in the bar, for example.” He paused for a moment.
“Don’t throw your heart away, my dear. I recognise the signs so well. An impossible passion. Don’t waste your time on him.”
She was going to remain silent, but her answer slipped out, almost without her willing it.
“It’s not so easy,” she said. “I’d like to stop, but I find that I can’t. You can’t stop yourself feeling something for somebody else. You just can’t.”
“Oh yes, you can,” said Angus Lordie, his voice raised slightly.
“You can stop yourself from loving somebody perfectly well. You simply change the way you look at them. People do it all the time.”
Domenica now joined in. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you can’t really expect to have a confidential conversation in a tunnel. I have heard every word you’ve whispered, and I feel that I must agree with Angus. Of course you can change the way you feel about something or somebody. But it requires an effort of the will – a conscious decision to recognise what you have missed.”
“Precisely,” said Angus. “And this is exactly what the Professor of Aesthetics at Harvard did. She decided that she found palm trees beautiful – before that she thought them an unattractive sort of tree. Then she discovered that she liked the way that their fronds made striped light. And after that, palm trees were beautiful.”
This conversation on aesthetic theory might have continued, and indeed Angus Lordie was mentally marshalling arguments in favour of his position – and that of the Professor of Aesthetics at New York – when Domenica suddenly drew to a halt.
“Are we reaching the end?’ asked Pat. It was difficult to see what lay ahead, as the beam of the torch was, as she had feared, becoming rather weaker. But it seemed as if there was a blockage of some sort there.
“I think we are,” said Domenica. “Look, it seems to go fairly sharply upwards.”
They moved forward cautiously, Domenica playing the beam of the torch up towards the ceiling of the tunnel. Suddenly, and without warning, she flicked the switch of the torch and the beam An Interesting Discovery
269
of light disappeared. They were not in total darkness, though –
weak rays of yellow light came from above them, emanating from what appeared to be cracks in the roof above them. There was not a great deal of light, but it was sufficient for them to see one another’s faces, and to see the few chunks of fallen masonry that littered the tunnel floor around them.
Pat saw Domenica beckon them to her, and she and Angus Lordie drew near.
“We’re under a room,” said Domenica, pointing upwards.
They had been stooping as they walked, and now, by standing straight, their heads almost touched the roof.
“There’s something happening up there,” whispered Domenica.
“Let’s take a look. But do keep your voices down and, Angus, whatever you do, don’t let that dog of yours bark.”
“But where are we?” whispered Pat. They had walked some distance – perhaps the equivalent of two blocks on Princes Street
– but it was difficult to calculate distance in the darkness. They may have done many more chains than that.
“By my calculation,” said Domenica, sotto voce, “we are more or less directly underneath the New Club!”
94. An Interesting Discovery
Moving carefully, so as not to make any sound, Domenica, Angus Lordie and Pat took up positions directly under the cracks in the ceiling. It was not easy to see what was going on above, but by the careful placing of an eye to a crack – a manoeuvre which involved pushing the side of one’s face against the rough masonry, and suppressing the urge to sneeze that inevitably followed – they were able to see up into the room above.