After they had talked for an hour or so, Domenica asked Henry about the pirates’ work. She explained that she had seen the men going off early in the morning, walking down the path that led to the sea. Was this them setting off to work?
Yes, said Henry. That was exactly it. He paused for a moment and then asked Domenica whether she would like him to take her – discreetly, of course – to watch what they got up to. They could follow them in his small boat, he said. Would she like to do that?
Domenica only hesitated for a moment before she said yes.
She had not imagined that she would get mixed up in piracy, but this offer was just too tempting to resist. And she would not actually participate in any illegal activities. That was out of the question. She would simply watch.
“Tumora moningtaim,” said Henry. “Samting sikispela.
Klosap haus bilong mipela” (Tomorrow morning, then. Around about six. At my house).
98. Poor Lou
“You look very pleased with yourself,” said Big Lou to Matthew as he entered the coffee bar that morning. “Have you sold a painting?”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Matthew, smiling broadly at Lou. “This very morning. A man came in and took a shine to those McCosh bird paintings I had. He said: ‘This man is the new Thorburn’, and bought all three of them.”
Big Lou wiped her cloth over the surface of the bar. “He saw a bargain,” she said. “Maybe you should have hung onto them.
There must be people who think that about their Hockneys and their Bacons.”
“But I don’t want to hold onto them,” said Matthew. “I want people to know about him. There he is, the finest wildfowl painter to come along for a long, long time. Right on our doorstep. Right outside Edinburgh. All those beautiful paintings. I want people to have them. I don’t want to sit on them.”
“Well,” said Lou. “They’ve gone now.”
Matthew smiled pleasantly. He was pleased about the sale of the paintings, but that was not the real reason for his positive state of mind. He looked at Big Lou, busying herself now with the mysteries of her coffee-making craft. Should he tell her?
“Actually, Lou,” he said. “I’m feeling rather happy.”
“Aye,” said Big Lou, without turning round. “Well, that’s good to hear, Matthew.”
“Aren’t you interested in hearing why, Lou?”
Lou laughed. “I’m going to hear anyway.”
“Pat,” said Matthew, simply.
“What about her?” asked Lou. “Is she coming over for coffee?”
“No, she has a lecture. She’s up at the university.”
Big Lou turned round with the cup of coffee. “Well, she is a student, after all,” she said. “I suppose that she has to show up there from time to time.”
Matthew did not take his cup of coffee to his table, but stayed where he was, at the bar. “Pat and I . . .” he began. “Well, Pat and I are going out together.” He paused, adding rather lamely: 308 Poor Lou
“I thought you would be interested to hear that.”
Big Lou reached for her cloth and began to polish the bar with vigorous circular sweeps.
“Are you sure about this?” she said.
Matthew seemed taken aback, almost crestfallen. “Sure? Well, yes, of course I’m sure. I’ve liked Pat a lot right from the beginning. When she first came to work for me . . .”
“That’s the point,” said Big Lou. “She came to work for you.”
“I don’t see . . .”
Big Lou put her cloth to one side and leaned over to take hold of Matthew’s forearm. “Matthew: that girl is younger that you. She’s a nice girl, sure enough, but there she is at the beginning of her time at university. She’s just starting. She’ll be looking for something very different from what you’re looking for. She will be wanting a bit of fun. Parties and so on. What do you think you’re looking for? You’re almost twenty-nine. You’re thinking of settling down. That’s when men start to think of settling down. You need somebody your own age.”
“There’s only eight years between us,” said Matthew. “That’s nothing.”
Big Lou shook her head. “Eight years can be a big difference at certain stages in our lives. It all depends on where you are.
There’s a big difference between being two and being ten, and between being ten and being eighteen. You see? Big differences.”
“I’m not Eddie . . .” Matthew began, and immediately regretted what he had said.
Big Lou looked at him. “I didn’t say you were Eddie,” she said quietly. “I didn’t say that.”
She looked at him, and Matthew saw that her eyes were filling with tears. She lifted her cloth and wiped at her eyes and cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Lou,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I wasn’t thinking . . .”
“I ken fine what he’s like,” sobbed Big Lou, her shoulders shaking. “I ken he’s no a guid man. But I loved him, Matthew.
I thought I could change him. You know how it is. You have somebody you think has some good points and you think that those will be enough.”
Poor Lou 309
Matthew waited, but Big Lou said nothing more.
“Have you seen him?” he asked gently. “Have you ended it with him?”
Big Lou rubbed at her eyes. “I have. I saw him and told him that I didn’t think that it would work. Not after this last business with those girls down at that club of his. He said that I was being unreasonable but that he didn’t want to carry on with a woman who would lock him away. That’s what he said. Lock him away.”
“You’re well rid of him, Lou. You really are. And there’ll be other men. There are lots of nice men in this town. There are plenty of nice men who would appreciate somebody like you, Lou.”
Lou shook her head. “I’ll be going back to Arbroath,” she said. “There’s an old cousin of my father’s who needs looking after. I’ve done that sort of thing before. I can do that.”
“But Lou!” said Matthew. “You can’t leave us! You can’t leave all this . . .” He gestured helplessly about the room. At the tables.
At the newspaper rack with its out-of-date newspapers. At the rickety stairs outside.
“I don’t want to,” said Lou. “But I don’t see what else I can do. You see, when Eddie and I got engaged, I made over a half share in the business to him. Now he wants the money for that, and I can’t pay him. So he’s going to insist on selling the coffee bar. And he can, according to the agreement that his lawyer drew up.”
Matthew stood quite still. He had heard about the money that Eddie had persuaded Lou to give him; this, though, was new, and more serious. But then he thought: I have four million pounds.
And if one has four million pounds there are occasions when one should use that financial power to make a difference to the lives of others. This, he thought, was just such an occasion.
“I’ll buy him out, Lou,” he said. “I’ll buy him out and we can get rid of him that way.”
Big Lou shook her head. “I could never accept that, Matthew,”
she said. “You’re a good boy. I’ve known that all along. But I can’t accept that from you. I just can’t.”
99. And Here’s the Train to Glasgow, Again For the rest of that day, after his conversation in the coffee bar, Matthew was preoccupied with thoughts of how he could contact Stuart. He knew that Stuart lived in Scotland Street, and he thought it was somewhere near Pat’s former flat. But he wasn’t sure of Stuart’s surname, nor of exactly where he worked, and Pat, who might be expected to know, for some reason was not answering her mobile phone.