A moment later he removes the print from the envelope he carries and studies it. The lawyer does the same with hers, then she says, “Talking of ambiguous remarks, was there no ambiguity in his, I will stay as I am?”
“None,” says the scientist. “Read this.”
He hands her his print. It shows the architect’s house at night, the sky above and surrounding pine trees in a variety of velvety blacks and greys, contrasting with bright rooms within the glass walls. The biggest room has a little self-portrait of the architect in his chair, shown from behind. The other rooms are crowded with nearly nude women wearing long black stockings, and men in evening dress with horned heads and scorpion tails growing from their bums. After the architect’s signature in the margin beneath is written in neat, forward-sloping letters the scientist’s name and the words, You have chosen rightly. Having read this the lawyer hands his print back with her own. After her name in the bottom margin the biologist reads, in meticulous backward-sloping letters, I accept Endon’s offer.
THE THIRD MISTER GLASGOW
MR MACBLEANEY, SLIGHTLY FUDDLED, came home by taxi after midnight. A young woman helped him out, helped him up four steps to the front door and, when he started fumbling with his keyring, removed it, unlocked the door, gave the keyring back and pushed him into the lobby. He stood for a moment trying to remember an invitation he had devised in the taxi — “Come in for a drink dear, surely you won’t leave an old man alone at this time of night?” — but before recalling these words he heard the front door shut firmly behind him, a distant car door slam and the taxi drive off. He sighed, trudged to the door of his apartment and fumbled in his pocket for the key until the lobby light went out. It had switched on automatically when the front door opened and was usually on long enough for him to unlock the door but now he could not see its keyhole. He trudged back in darkness to the front door, pressed the switch beside it and again there was light. With a pleased chuckle he noticed the apartment key on the ring in his left hand where the girl had placed it — silly of him to have forgotten it was there!
Back at the apartment door he carefully inserted the correct key, tried turning it left without success, then right without success, then jiggled it back and forward many times. For over a year this futile jiggling had lasted longer and longer each time he came home, always making him determined to do something about it, but when the lock yielded and door opened, the matter was no longer urgent. Tonight, after wrestling with the key for what seemed ten or fifteen minutes, Mr MacBleaney decided it would never turn: also his legs were tired. He sighed and leaned against the door, contemplating a rocking chair, the only furniture on the lobby’s chequered marble floor. His wife had loved that chair. Its emptiness by the fireside brought her so painfully to mind that he had shifted it to the lobby, and even now was shy of sitting on it. He sat on a low step of the staircase to the upper apartments, pondering.
The apartment key must be worn out by too frequent use, since the copy used once a week by his cleaners gave them no trouble. He seemed to remember his wife had given a spare copy to a neighbour, but that was twenty or thirty years ago. So many neighbours had since come and gone that now all were strangers whose faces he could not remember. Of course they certainly knew him — the third Mr Glasgow — but why should Mr Glasgow know them? As usual, MacBleaney avoided thinking about a difficulty by remembering his fame.
The first Mr Glasgow had been Jack House, a journalist who knew more about the city than anyone else — he had written books on it, The Square Mile of Murder, Heart of Glasgow and Pavement in the Sun. Jack had represented Scotland in Round Britain Quiz, a famous radio programme when there were only three British broadcasting channels, none of them commercial. Then had come the second Mr Glasgow — Cliff Hanley, another journalist. He wrote Dancing in the Streets and a song that was likely to be voted Scotland’s official national anthem by a large majority — Scotland the Brave! Or was it O Flooer of Scotland? Hanley’s catchphrase on a comedy programme, “Sausages is the boys!”, always raised a laugh — or had that been Jimmy Logan’s catchphrase? Anyway, House and Hanley were both nice men, unlike B … (MacBleaney’s mind recoiled from a name he did not wish to remember). Yes, House and Hanley had been nice friendly Mr Glasgows, he had cheerfully drunk and chatted with them several times during his three highly successful careers.
He had started as a footballer, and for two and a half years was Bully Wee Clyde’s mightiest outside-left, almost in the Charlie Tully league, though he said so himself. Clyde was not one of Scotland’s most famous clubs, but it was one of the most decent, unlike Rangers, whose followers were nearly all True Blue bigots — some of Celtic’s Emerald Greens were almost as bad. But early retirement was forced on Bully Wee MacBleaney by a torn ligament too many. A bad time followed when he nearly killed himself with the drink — no wonder his first wife walked out.
The shock of the divorce did him good. He quit drinking. Through Alcoholics Anonymous he met a television producer who needed an adviser for sport reports. MacBleaney turned out to be exactly the right man for Independent Scottish Television. He was soon, as a football commentator, almost as famous as Arthur Montford, though he said so himself. Being younger and handsomer than Montford he had appeared on television commercials and newspaper adverts promoting a brand of shaving cream. He took up golf as a hobby and met his second wife. Their marriage was a big news story with photographs in all the dailies. “Mr Glasgow Weds!” said the Daily Record, and “Golfing Gloria Hooks Scotland’s Most Eligible Bachelor”. This brought an angry postcard from his first wife asking how a divorced alcoholic could be an eligible bachelor. His career as a sports commentator had ended very strangely. For a short spell he had replaced Archie Macpherson in Scottish BBC, then he too had been replaced without learning exactly why. British broadcasting works in mysterious ways.
But by then he had appeared in Taggart, the epic Glasgow television detective serial. An episode had a crime during a football game between clubs called Glasgow Rovers and Saint Mungo United. For this he had both advised the writer (who knew nothing about football) and played himself — Rory MacBleaney — the famous sports commentator who helped Taggart solve the murder in the directors’ box of Hampden Park stadium. That episode had made television history, in Scotland if nowhere else. After that he had been given parts in several television films and one or two widely distributed London and Hollywood productions — small parts, admittedly, but when producers wanted the friendly sound of a good Scots voice they would often send for Rory MacBleaney, sometimes dubbing his voice onto a younger actor or a character in an animated cartoon. He had also been given a small important part in a film so horrible that, despite the low budget, every subsequent history of the cinema mentioned it. At the London showing a critic said to him …
Mr MacBleaney’s memories had been making him feel warm and happy, but now he felt the hard, cold step under his bum and felt tired of life because the critic had said, “You were quite good, but of course they only employed you because they couldn’t afford Billy Connolly.”
A storm of rage brought him to his feet, stamping up and down the lobby. Billy Connolly was better known than Rory MacBleaney for bad bad bad bad bad reasons. Connolly and his what — partner? second wife? — had been pally with Prince Charles and Diana before the royal divorce, what claim to fame was that? Connolly was not a bad comedian — not as good as Jimmy Logan, though still quite good — but he was not an actor! In his biggest film, Mrs Brown, he had played Queen Victoria’s Highland gillie with a Glasgow accent! It was the only accent he could do! The English and Americans didn’t mind because they think every Scottish accent is the same, but every Scot in the world knew Connolly’s voice was wrong in that part. Connolly must have known his voice was wrong! So he had only taken the part for the money and the fame. How could he stoop so low?