44 Scotland Street (42 page)

Beauty, of course, has its moment, which may sometimes be very brief, but in Bruce’s case the looks which had driven so many of those girls in Crieff and surrounds to an anguish of longing, survived; indeed they mellowed, and here he was, he told himself, more attractive than ever before; a picture, he thought, of the young man at the height of his powers.

He moved closer to the mirror, and standing sideways, he pressed his right arm and side against its cold surface. This brought him closer to himself, like a conjoined twin. He moved his arm up, and his handsome twin’s arm moved up too. He smiled, and his brother smiled too, in immediate recognition. Then he turned round and faced himself in the mirror – so close now that his breath clouded the glass, a white mist that came and went quickly, and was strangely erotic. He moved his lips closer to the lips in the mirror, and for a moment they stayed there, almost, but not quite touching, united, for there was something that was beginning to worry Bruce. With whom, exactly, was he in love?

Sally, he said to himself as he turned away from the mirror – a wrench, of course, but he did turn away – with Sally, the girl he had even thought of asking to marry him. She would be keen on that, he imagined, and would naturally accept, but then he had thought that perhaps it was premature. Certainly he liked her – he liked her a great deal – but marriage was perhaps taking it a bit far.

He slipped out of the boxer shorts and then lowered himself into the water. Lying there, he could look up through the skylight and watch the clouds scudding across the evening sky. He liked to do this, and to think; and now he was thinking about his job and how the time had come to move on. He had decided that he had had enough of being a surveyor for Macaulay Holmes Richardson Black. He had had enough of working for Todd, with his pedantic insistence on set office procedures and his tendency to lecture. What a narrow universe that man inhabited! The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors! The world of clients and their selfish demands and complaints! Was this what lay ahead of him? Bruce found himself thoroughly depressed by the thought. He would not allow it. He was cut out for a wider, more interesting world than that, and he now had a clear idea of how he would achieve it.

He would have lingered longer in the bath, but the thought of that evening’s engagement stirred him. Hardly bothering with the mirror, he dressed quickly, gelled his hair, and went into the kitchen. He had eaten very little for lunch and made a sandwich for himself before going out: a piece of French bread sliced down the middle, into which he inserted a piece of the cheese which he had purchased the day before from one of Ian Mellis’s cheese shops. Bruce liked that particular shop; he liked the way one of the girls behind the counter smiled at him and offered him samples of cheese. Bruce leaned forward over the counter and allowed her to slip the slivers of cheese into his mouth, which she obviously enjoyed; and it was a small thing, really, giving her that thrill – no trouble to him and it clearly meant a lot to her.

There was no sign of Pat as he left the flat. Poor girl, he thought. He had seen her in the Cumberland Bar the other evening with that man who had the strange dog, but he had pretended not to see her, as he did not want her to feel any worse than she must already feel. It could not be easy for her – seeing him with Sally while all the time she fancied him terribly, even going to the extent, as she had, of lying on his bed when he was not there. That was amazing, but that’s how women behaved, in Bruce’s experience. He would never forget that girlfriend of his when he was eighteen – the one who had gone to India for three months and who had taken a pair of his boxer shorts with her so that she could sleep with them each night under her pillow. That was disconcerting, and Bruce had been embarrassed that she had written and told him about this on a postcard which anybody, including that nosy postman in Crieff, could have read. The postman had looked at him sideways, and smiled, but when Bruce had accused him of reading his postcards he had become belligerent and had said: “Watch your lip, Jimmy.” That was not the way the postal authorities were meant to behave when faced with a complaint, but the postman was considerably bulkier than Bruce and he had been obliged to say nothing more about it.

He left the flat and went downstairs. A friend at work had arranged the meeting for him, and now he was bound for the wine bar, where Will Lyons would be waiting. Will was the man to give him advice, he had been told, about the new career that Bruce had mapped out for himself. The wine trade. Smart. Sophisticated. Very much more to his taste – and waiting at his feet.

100. Bruce Expounds

Will Lyons had agreed to meet Bruce at the request of his friend, Ed Black. Ed knew a colleague of Bruce’s through Roddy Martine, who knew everybody of course, even if he was not absolutely sure whether he knew Bruce. There was a Crieff connection to all this. Roddy Martine had attended a party at the Crieff Hydro, which was run by the cousin of Ross Leckie, a friend of Charlie Maclean, who had been at the party and who had introduced him to Bruce, who knew Jamie Maclean, who lived not far from Crieff. It was that close.

Will knew about wine, as he had spent some years in the wine trade. Bruce had been told this, and wanted to get some advice on how to get a job. He was confident that this could be arranged, but he knew that contacts were useful. Will could come up with introductions, although he did not want to ask him for these straightaway. So this meeting was more of a general conversation about wine. Will would see that Bruce knew what he was talking about and the rest would follow, but all in good time.

Will was waiting for him in the wine bar. Although they had not met before, Bruce had been told to look out for the most dapper person in the room. “That’ll be Will,” Ed had said.

They shook hands.

“You must let me do this,” said Bruce, reaching for his wallet. “Glass of wine?”

“Thank you,” said Will, reaching for the wine menu.

Bruce picked up a copy of the menu and looked down it. “Not too bad.” He paused, and frowned. “But look at all these Chardonnays! Useless grape! Flabby, tired. Did you see that article in
The Decanter
a few weeks ago? Did you see it? It was all about those ABC clubs in New York – Anything But Chardonnay. I can see what they mean – revolting against Chardonnay.”

“Well,” said Will quietly, “there are some …”

“I never touch it myself,” said Bruce. “It’s fine for people who get their wine in supermarkets. Fine for women. Hen parties. That sort of thing. Fine for them. But I won’t touch it. May as well drink Blue Nun.”

“Do you like champagne?” Will asked politely.

“Do I like champagne?” replied Bruce. “Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course I do. I adore the stuff.”

“And Chablis?”

“Boy, do I love Chablis! I had the most marvellous bottle the other day. Fantastic. Flinty, really flinty. Like biscuits, you know. Just great.”

Will was about to point out that the Chardonnay grape was used to make both champagne and Chablis, but decided not to. It was fashionable, amongst those who knew very little, to decry Chardonnay, but it was still a great variety, even if its reputation had been damaged by the flooding of the market with vast quantities of inferior wine.

“Of course I’m much more New World than Old World,” Bruce went on, scanning further down the list. “France is finished in my view. Finished.”

Will looked surprised. “France? Finished?”

Bruce nodded. “Washed out. They just can’t compete with the New World boys – they just can’t. If you sit down with a bottle of good California – even a modestly-priced bottle – and then you sit down with a bottle of Bordeaux, let’s say, the California wins every time – every time. And a lot of people think like me, you know.”

Will looked doubtful. “But don’t you think that these New World wines wane after two or three mouthfuls?”

“No,” said Bruce. “Not at all.”

Will smiled. “But, you know, these New World wines give you a sudden burst of delight, but don’t you think that they rather drown the flavour? French wines usually are much more complex. They’re meant to go with food, after all.”

“You can eat while you’re drinking New World wines, too,” said Bruce. “I often do that. I have a bottle of California and I find it goes well with pasta.”

“Red or white?” asked Will.

“White with pasta,” said Bruce. “All the time.”

They both looked at the menu.

“Here’s one for me,” said Bruce. “I’m going to get a half bottle of Muddy Wonga South Australian. That’s a big wine – really big.”

Will looked at the Muddy Wonga listing. “Interesting,” he said. “I’ve never heard of that. Have you had it before?”

“Lots of times,” said Bruce. “It’s got a sort of purple colour to it and a great deal of nose.”

“Could be the mud,” suggested Will quietly, but Bruce did not hear.

“And you?” asked Bruce. “What are you going to have?”

“Well,” said Will. “I rather like the look of this Bordeaux. Pomerol.”

“A left bank man,” said Bruce.

“Actually, it’s on the right bank,” said Will quietly.

“Same river,” said Bruce.

Will agreed. “Of course.”

“Of course at least you’ll get it with a cork in it,” said Bruce. “None of those ghastly screw caps. Do you know I was at a restaurant the other day – with this rather nice American girl I’ve met – and they served the wine in a screw cap bottle. Can you believe it?’

“Screw caps are very effective,” Will began. “There are a lot of estates …”

Bruce ignored this. “But can you believe it? A screw cap in a decent restaurant? I almost sent it back.”

“Corked?” ventured Will.

“No, it had a screw cap,” said Bruce.

They ordered their wine, which was served to them in a few minutes. Bruce poured himself a glass and held it up to his nose.

“Superb,” he said. “The winemaker at Muddy Wonga is called Lofty Shaw. He had some training at Napa and then went back to Australia. Here, smell this.”

He passed his glass under Will’s nose.

“Blackcurrants,” said Bruce. “Heaps of fruit. Bang.”

Will nodded. “It’s a big wine,” he said.

“Huge,” said Bruce. “Muscular. A wine with pecs!”

Will said nothing for a moment. Then he asked Bruce about his plans.

“I’m fed up to here with surveying,” said Bruce. “So I thought I might try something in the wine trade. Something that will allow me to use my knowledge.”

Will looked thoughtful. “You have to work your way up,” he said. “It’s like any business.”

“Yes, yes,” said Bruce. “But I know the subject. I would have thought I could start somewhere in the middle and then get my MW in a year or so.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Will.

“Oh, I know,” said Bruce. “But I’m prepared to wait. A year, eighteen months, max.”

Will stared at Bruce. He was uncertain what to say.

101. Pat and Bruce: An Exchange

Bruce was quite pleased with the way in which the meeting with Will Lyons had gone. He had been able to set him right on one or two matters – including the primacy of New World wines – and he had also been able to change his mind, he was sure, about Chardonnay. It was strange, thought Bruce, that somebody like that should be prepared to drink Chardonnay when everybody else was getting thoroughly sick of it.

And the end result of all this was that Will had offered to speak to somebody and find out if there were any openings coming up in the wine trade. Bruce was confident that there would be such an opportunity, and had decided that he might as well hand in his resignation at Macaulay Holmes Richardson Black. He would probably have to work out a month or two of notice, but that would mean that he could take a holiday for a month or so before starting in the wine trade.

Todd would probably try to persuade him to stay, but he would refuse. He could just imagine the scene: Todd would talk about the training the firm had given him – “Does that mean nothing to you, Bruce? – and he would try to appeal to his better nature. But all that would be in vain.

“I’m very sorry,” he would say. “I’m very sorry, Mr Todd, but my mind is made up. I’ve got nothing against Macaulay Holmes and so on but I really feel that I need something more stimulating. Less dull.”

That would floor Todd – to hear his world described as dull. Bruce relished the thought. He might go on a bit, although he would not really want to rub it in. “Being a surveyor is all right for some,” he would say. “I’m sure that you’re happy enough doing it, but some of us need something which requires, how shall I put it, a little bit more flair.”

Poor Todd! He would have no answer to that. It would almost be cruel, but it needed to be said and it would make up for all the humiliation that Bruce had endured in having to listen to those penny-lectures from his employer. All that going on about professional ethics and obligation and good business practice and all the rest; no more of that for Bruce. And in its place would come wine-tastings and buying trips to California, and the opportunity to mix with those glamorous, leggy, upper-crust girls who tended to frequent the edges of the wine trade. What an invigorating thought! – and it was all so close. All that he needed to do was find the job.