The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (22 page)

The shutter clicked a few more times and then Nick straightened up and lowered the camera. “Have a break now, Bruce,” he said. “This is going really well.”

“You’re pleased?”

“Ecstatic,” said Nick. “I’ll show them these tomorrow, just to whet their appetites, and they’ll go wow, totally wow! Give us more of that face! Give us more! More!”

“So where have you been?” asked Big Lou. “Everyone seems to have been away. Matthew. You. The place has been deserted.”

“Matthew is on his honeymoon,” said Angus, directing Cyril to his accustomed place under the table. “And I have been painting. However, here I am now and ready to bring you up-to-date. So, fire away.”

“How are your dug’s puppies?”

Angus waved airily, for the second time that morning. “They’ve found a home. I’m sure that they are in very good spirits.” He did not want to prolong this conversation and so changed the subject. “You may recall that Domenica lost a tea-cup, a blue Spode teacup … ?”

But Big Lou was not to be diverted. “A home? Where? All together?”

“I believe so,” said Angus. “Now this blue Spode teacup …”

“Who in their right mind would take six puppies?” asked Big Lou. Then she laughed. “You didn’t sell them to a restaurant, did you, Angus?”

Angus looked down at the floor. Then he looked at Cyril, who was looking into the space immediately before his nose. That was the place where, on normal days, Matthew’s ankles were to be found, and Cyril was wondering where they were. There was something missing.

“What are you reading, Big Lou?” he asked, gesturing to a book lying open on the coffee bar.

Big Lou tipped coffee beans into the grinder. “Excuse the noise, Angus. There we go. That book? It’s about how to behave. How to write a letter to the Moderator or the Lord Provost. That sort of thing.”

Angus laughed. “Do you really need to know that sort of thing, Lou? Why would you need to write to the Moderator?”

“You never know,” said Lou.

“I suppose not.” Angus reached across for the book and began to page through it. His attention was caught, and when
Lou turned round he was studying a double-page spread with considerable interest.

“See,” said Lou. “You’re finding it interesting too.”

Angus tapped the open page with a forefinger. “This is the table of precedence in Scotland. Have you looked at it yet?”

Big Lou shook her hand. “I’m working my way through from the beginning. And I’m only as far as how to write letters.”

“Well, this is wonderful stuff,” said Angus. “It goes all the way down to 122. From number 1 – the monarch, of course – down to 122. Gentlemen. That’s me, I suppose. I’m at the bottom, Lou, and so are you, in the ladies’ table – you have a separate one, Lou, like a separate changing room. Mind you, Cyril’s probably even lower. 123 should be for dogs.”

“They could have a table of precedence just for dogs,” suggested Lou. “Useful dogs at the top and then dogs like Cyril at the bottom.”

Angus ignored the taunt. “This is fascinating stuff,” he said. “Did you realise that a Sheriff Principal ranks just below the Lord Lieutenant of a county, but only when he’s in his sheriffdom? When he’s not in his sheriffdom he ranks much lower. And the First Minister – do you know where he ranks? Number twenty. Which is just above the Lord High Constable of Scotland, who ranks twenty-third. That’s the Earl of Erroll. Still going strong, I see, at number twenty-three. Erroll was at Flodden, but I suppose that would have been another one, his father, perhaps. And look, Lou, the Lord Justice General is only thirty-sixth! And they put him below – below, Lou! – below the
younger sons of dukes. Don’t you think that’s ridiculous! And what about this, Lou. The Lord Lyon, King of Arms, is seventy-first, which is not much better than the position of Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, who are eighty-first. Now they should be much, much higher, Lou. There’s no doubt about that. And the same goes for the Lord Lyon. He should be right up there near the top. Surprising that he isn’t, of course, given that he probably draws this list up. But there you have the difference, Lou. The Lord Lyon is not like your pushy younger sons of dukes, who look after themselves. He stands back and says, ‘I think I’ll be seventy-first.’ How’s that for gentlemanliness, Lou?”

Angus suddenly gave a whoop of delight. “But look at this, Lou! I bet you never knew this. Guess who’s at number 120? Queen’s Counsel. That’s not so good, Lou, is it? That’s just one above so-called esquires (lairds, I suppose) and only three above dogs! Not such good news for all those chaps up at Parliament House with their strippit breeks. By the time they get to the sandwiches at the Garden Party all the best ones will be gone, Lou. Only a few bits of soggy cucumber for them! Lord Erroll will get pretty good sandwiches at number 23, of course, and the Duke of Argyll will be all right at number 24. He’ll be able to help himself to as many sandwiches as he likes. Which is reassuring. Except for people called Macdonald; you know how they refuse to forget the past.”

Big Lou finished with her coffee beans. “Did you say something, Angus?”

Angus looked up. “No, not really, Lou. Just talking to myself.”

“Well, you know what they say about that,” said Lou, sliding Angus’s cup of coffee over the bar towards him.

“Oh, I know,” said Angus wearily. “But who do I have to talk to otherwise, Lou? I talk to Cyril, of course, but he’s heard it all before. I suppose there’s Domenica, but she sits there while I’m talking and looks at me as if I’m of purely anthropological interest. And you, Lou; you’re a good listener. You let me talk.”

“Haud yer wheesht,” said Lou.

“No, you do, Lou. You’re very good.”

“Wheesht,” repeated Lou. “Drink your coffee, or it’ll get cold.”

Angus sipped at his coffee, and smiled at Big Lou. “How’s that man of yours, Lou. Robbie? Is he still doing away?”

Big Lou was wiping the surface of the bar with a cloth. At the mention of Robbie’s name, she began to wipe more vigorously. Angus noticed this.

“Is everything all right, Lou?” he asked. “You would tell me if anything …”

“Oh, Robbie’s fine,” said Big Lou. But then, almost immediately, “No, he’s not. I’m worried, Angus. I’m worried sick.”

“You tell me,” said Angus. “You’ve always been there for all of us, Lou. Now we must be there for you. Sorry to use a cliché, but there are times when clichés are just right, and this, I suspect, is one of them.”

Angus knew just what Big Lou had been obliged to put up with: of her trials with those various unsuitable men; of her struggle to make something of her life; of everything she had endured. She never, or rarely, complained, and so to see her
now in this state of distress was a real cause for concern. Of course he had known from the beginning that Robbie was, as Matthew had so succinctly put it, “bad news.” It was not as if Robbie were violent or drunken, or suffered from any of the other obvious defects to which the male was heir; it was not that. It was more a question of his being a man with a cause, and the cause in question being so … well, one would really have to say odd.

“Oh, Lou,” said Angus. “Tell me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

He reached out over the bar and laid his hand over hers. It was a gentle gesture; a gesture of fellow-feeling that was immediately appreciated. She looked at him.

“Robbie?” he asked. “He’s making you unhappy? Is that it?” Of course he was; what else could it be?

Big Lou bit her lip. “I’m very fond of him, Angus. You ken that. Very fond.”

“Of course you are, Lou. And I’m sure he’s fond of you.” But not as fond of you, he thought, as he is of Charles Edward Stuart and James VII and all that crowd.

Big Lou nodded. “I think he is. He tells me he is. But …”

“But what, Lou?” He hesitated. “Is it something to do with his Jacobitism? Is that the problem?” He knew that it was; of course it was. Robbie had a screw missing, as Matthew again had put it.

Big Lou confirmed that it was. “I understand what it means to him,” she said. “And I’ve tried to enter into the spirit of it. But now I think that they’re taking it too far. It’s all very well having an interest in history, but when you can’t seem to tell the difference between reality and fantasy…” She paused. “You know that they’ve been planning a visit from their pretender? Some Belgian who claims to be the successor of Bonnie Prince Charlie. They’re tremendously excited. And I think that they’re going to do something stupid. I really do.”

Angus’s first reaction was to laugh, but, with effort, he controlled himself.

“And when does the Pretender arrive?”

Big Lou looked towards the door, as if to check that the Pretender was not already there, waiting outside. Did Pretenders knock, Angus wondered, irreverently, or did they merely barge in?

Speaking in a whisper, Big Lou answered Angus’s question. “He’s already here.”

Angus’s eyes widened. “Here in Edinburgh? Or … or out in the heather?”

“Here in Edinburgh.”

There was a silence. The Pretender had been a joke when he had merely been a possibility. Now that he was real, and was in Edinburgh, it seemed different. Angus found himself clasping Big Lou’s hand more tightly when he eventually spoke. “Where, Lou? Where?” His voice was lowered; so might one covert Jacobite speak to another as Whig agents passed by.

“In my flat,” replied Lou. “Down in Canonmills.”

“Lou!” exclaimed Angus. ‘What on earth are you doing – sheltering a … a pretender?”

Lou sighed. “I didn’t invite him,” she said. “Credit me with more intelligence than that. Robbie did. Robbie brought him along after he had arrived. They came straight to my place. I couldn’t very well turn him away.”

Angus wondered how the Pretender had arrived. By boat from France? Perhaps he had come from the Zeebrugge ferry, if he was Belgian. That would have brought him in to Rosyth, and then there was a bus that crossed the Forth Road Bridge and would have dropped him off at St. Andrew Square bus station. But that was hardly a very romantic way for a pretender to arrive in his kingdom.

Big Lou confirmed this was, indeed, the way in which the Pretender had arrived. “Robbie met him at the bus station,” she said. “Along with others. They had a piper who played ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again’ and ‘Roses of Prince Charlie.’”

Angus smiled. “And then?”

“And then they walked with him down onto Queen Street
and hailed a taxi. There was a bit of an incident, though, before they left.”

“With the authorities? The authorities got to hear of it?”

“No,” said Lou. “It was nothing to do with that. It’s just that Michael – you know, the one who’s in charge of … of the cause … he dropped the Pretender’s duty-free whisky on the pavement and the bottles broke. Apparently the Pretender was furious and said that Michael would have to buy him some new bottles. He started to shout in Flemish, Robbie said, and only stopped shouting once Michael had agreed to buy the whisky on the way to my flat.”

Angus listened to this story in complete amazement. “And so now he’s staying with you, Lou?”

Lou nodded. “Yes. Robbie said that they looked into the possibility of a hotel, but the Pretender said that it would be more secure for him to stay with one of the supporters. I think he believes that there are more supporters than there really are. In fact, there are only eight or nine of them, as far as I can see.”

“But why can’t one of them put him up?” asked Angus. “It seems a bit unfair to land him on you when you’re not a real supporter.”

“Robbie said that it was best for him to stay with somebody who wouldn’t be known as a Jacobite. He said it would be safer that way.”

“And now what?”

Big Lou shrugged. “I have no idea. He’s sleeping in my kitchen, on a camp bed. And this morning he used all the hot water – every drop of it. And there were only two eggs in the fridge, but he ate both of them. Robbie says that we must cater to his every need. Those were his exact words. And the Pretender seems to think so himself. He never says thank you. He just looks at you as if it’s your job to wait on him hand and foot. He takes everything for granted.”

Angus frowned. Everybody took advantage of Big Lou’s kindness: customers at the coffee bar, demanding relatives,
boyfriends, pretenders … “You’ll have to put your foot down, Lou,” he said. “Tell Robbie that he’ll have to find somewhere else for the Pretender to stay. Send him up to the Highlands. To the Outer Hebrides. Anywhere.”

Big Lou began to polish the bar once again. “That’s what they’re planning,” she said. “He’s going up north. Robbie says they have a plan. But I have a bad feeling, Angus. A gey bad feeling.”

When Angus Lordie emerged from Big Lou’s coffee bar he had a great deal to think about. It had been an eventful morning, what with Lou’s surprise announcement, and the retrieval of Domenica’s blue Spode teacup. His artist’s eye detected a certain symmetry in these events – the welcoming of the Pretender represented an absurd, misguided attempt to rectify what was seen by some as a historical injustice; the restoration of the teacup was also an attempt – and a successful one at that – to set right a wrong.