The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (37 page)

Feeling uncomfortable in his dark suit – the trousers were a bit tight – Angus sat back in the seat of the ten-thirty ScotRail express to Glasgow. He had never felt at ease in suits, apart from the generously built one he had inherited from his father.
That suit, a voluminous green affair made of tweed woven on the hand-pedalled loom of a Harris weaver, had eventually fallen to bits from sheer old age, and was greatly regretted. The suit he was wearing now, by contrast, was sparing in its use of cloth, and felt like it.

“This suit of mine,” he said to Matthew, who was seated opposite him on the train, “is mean-spirited. Just like the age we live in.”

Matthew glanced at his friend’s outfit. “You could have it let out. You could speak to Mr. Low at Stewart Christie.”

Angus shook his head. “I’d be ashamed to show it to Mr. Low,” he said. “I bought this suit on Princes Street about ten years ago. And you know how awful Princes Street is now. It’s like some muckle grand souk. It really souks.”

When Angus burst out laughing at his own joke, a few other people in the carriage threw glances. They were both so obviously going to a funeral, with their dark suits and black ties: laughter, surely, was unseemly.

“You drew a few disapproving looks, there,” said Matthew sotto voce. “You’re not meant to laugh on your way to these solemn occasions.”

Angus made a dismissive gesture. “Talking of Princes Street,” he said, fishing for a silver hip-flask from his pocket, “Domenica was up to high doh the other day over the price of scones in Jenners tea room doubling overnight. She hadn’t actually been there for tea for some time, but she had bumped into Stuart Brown who works round the corner and drops in there from time to time. He told her.”

“That’s serious,” said Matthew, nodding his head in the direction of the hip-flask. “Dutch courage?”

Angus smiled. “I always take a dram to these occasions, Matthew. They’re so bleak otherwise.”

Matthew understood, but politely declined the flask when Angus offered him a swig.

“It’s Glenmorangie,” said Angus. “I have a couple of bottles in the house. The old stuff. Have you seen the new bottles?
They’re making a whisky called Nectar d’Òr now. Apparently “òr” is a Gaelic word. But the whole thing looks somewhat French to me. I don’t know why. I just get that impression.”

“Perhaps they want the French to drink it?” suggested Matthew. “The whisky people are very interested in their image. They don’t want people to associate whisky with people like …” He stopped himself, just in time. He had intended to say people like you.

Angus looked at him sharply. “With people like me, Matthew? Is that what you mean?”

Matthew smiled. “I suppose so.” And then he added hurriedly: “Not that there’s anything wrong with people like you, Angus. It’s just that we can’t continue to be all tweedy and fusty, you know. Not if we want to sell our whisky.”

“But isn’t this meant to be a tweedy and fusty country?” asked Angus. “And isn’t that what people like? Isn’t that why they come to visit us and buy our whisky and so on? Precisely because we’re not like everyone else?”

Matthew did not reply. But Angus was warming to his theme. “That slogan that you see, ‘One Scotland, Many Cultures.’ If it’s meant to be directed at tourists – and surely they don’t intend to spend our money telling us what to think – then what a bit of nonsense! Do they seriously think that anybody is going to come to Scotland to see multiculturalism? What pious nonsense! People come to Scotland to see traditional Scottish things. That’s why they come. They come to see our scenery.” He pointed out of the window. They were passing through Falkirk. “They come to get a sense of our history. Old buildings. Mists. All that stuff, which we do rather well.” He paused, and took a sip from his flask. “They don’t come to see our social engineering programmes.”

Matthew thought about this. Angus had outspoken views, often wrong, but he was probably right about visitors. Any visitor he had met had wanted the tartan myths to be true. And they were always proud of having Scots blood way back in the mists of time. A great-grandfather who had come from
Aberdeen, or something like that. It was powerful, simply because people wanted some sense of belonging, of being from somewhere. And the modern world, he supposed, with its shifting, dislocated urban populations was the antithesis of that.

Angus adjusted his tie uncomfortably. “Glasgow,” he said, looking thoughtfully out of the window. They were not there yet, but then he muttered, “The dear green place.”

“Yes,” said Matthew. “It’s a great place. Great people. But then you get characters like Lard …”

“If they wanted a slogan,” mused Angus, “they could have said, ‘One Country, Two Cities.’” How about that, Matthew? Wouldn’t that have said it all?”

Matthew reflected on this. “Poor Lard,” he said.

Angus nodded. “He’ll get a good send-off, though. They go in for those things in Glasgow. Big flowers.”

“And a wake?”

Angus brightened. “Oh yes, that’ll be quite an occasion,” he said. “Mind you, I’m not sure if we should attend. I’m not being stand-offish, but do you realise who’ll be there, Matthew? All those big Glasgow gangsters. Ice cream franchise people. I rather suspect that you and I will be out of our depth. This won’t be like an opening at your gallery, you know.”

“Let’s wait and see.”

There followed a long period of silence. Then, as they neared Glasgow, Angus remarked, “It must be difficult for the minister. Or in Lard’s case, the priest. He must know the score. He must know what Lard was like.”

Matthew agreed. And yet, was that not the whole point? That sins were forgiven? That each of us, whoever we were, however imperfect, was loved? And was that not what he and Angus were saying, in going across to Glasgow in these suits, these black ties; were they not saying that ultimately we are all brothers and sisters, united in our humanity? He was imperfect; Angus was imperfect (and fusty too); Lard was imperfect.
But was it not all these flaws, manifold and diverse, that united us all, made us one?

The Edinburgh to Glasgow train is a place of many thoughts; these were Matthew’s as they drew slowly into Queen Street Station.

Angus, crammed into a crowded pew with Matthew and eight other people, watched as an elderly man in a black suit walked up to a lectern and cleared his throat.

“I have been asked,” said the man, “to say a few words about the man to whom we have all come to say farewell: Aloysius Ignatius Xavier O’Connor. RIP.

“I was Aloysius’s teacher and that is why I am standing here talking to you today. It is not something, I should point out, that any teacher relishes – that he should speak at the funeral of one of his pupils. It should be the other way round. But life has a way of turning things on their heads, and the old may on occasion have to say goodbye to the young.

“Young Lard – I mean, Aloysius – well, perhaps I should call him by the name that everybody knew him by. And I don’t think that he would mind unduly. So I shall call him Lard. Young Lard was a funny wee boy when I first taught him. He had that look in his eye that you get to know as a teacher – the look that says: I’m going to be out of the ordinary. Many of you will remember Father Joe, such a character himself, and a good man. I remember his saying to me, ‘That wee boy will make his mark, so he will.’ And he did, of course.

“Lard was not always easy when he was a wee boy – and I think he’d be the first to admit that. He was very keen on borrowing things, and I often had to go round to the O’Connor house and remind him to return things he had borrowed from
the school. But he always helped me to carry them back to the school, and his mother always made me a fine cup of tea when I called on those errands.

“He was very popular with the other boys, and he remained well-liked by others for the rest of his life. When he was at Polmont, he always helped the younger boys find their way about the place and settle in. He could not abide bullying, and there was many a bully who was hospitalised by Lard. But he always took them flowers in the hospital afterwards, which shows the sort of man he was. In that great frame of his there beat a generous heart.

“And how many people benefited from Lard’s generosity? When I retired from the school, years after Lard had left it, he came round to the school office and left me a present. It was a set of keys to a car, which he wanted me to have for my retirement. What a gesture that was. And the fact that there was a small dispute later about that car in no way took away from his thoughtfulness and his generosity. That was Lard all over.

“Some people may have had their differences with Lard over the years. There are some who say he cut corners. All that may be true, but on a day like this, we should not remember the bad things a man may have done, but we should remember the good. If Lard has anything to answer for – and, like the rest of us, he was not perfect – then he will answer for it in another place. He will no doubt ask for forgiveness and he will receive it, for that is what we are taught, and that is what we believe. So let none of us go from this place thinking ill of Aloysius Ignatius Xavier O’Connor, but thinking rather of his many acts of kindness, his humour, the joy he brought to those who loved him. And may there grow on his grave spring flowers from those memories. Spring flowers.”

There was complete silence as the teacher stepped away from the lectern and made his way back to his seat. At the back of the church, which was filled to the very last pew, a man cleared his throat, coughed. The priest stood up, and the
rustle of his vestments was amplified by the microphone he wore attached to his front. Angus looked at Matthew; both had been moved by this oration. Matthew thought: What a kind man that teacher is, and Angus thought: That is what makes this city.

They stood to sing a hymn, and the priest said a final prayer. Then it was over, and Lard, resting on a trolley bedecked with flowers, was wheeled out of the church, out into the light.

Waiting while the crowd of mourners filed out of the church, Matthew looked at the faces. There were a number of scars: scars across cheeks, nicks across the forehead. There were signs of all the hardness to which parts of Glasgow were well-accustomed; which it joked about and made light of, even in a perverse way; but which had cut deep, deep into its soul. This was the funeral of a gangster who happened to be Catholic; the funeral of a Protestant gangster would have involved the same sort of people: no difference.

And outside, people stood and chatted, shook hands, comforted one another. The light was bright, shafts of sunlight shone through clouds that had parted to bathe the city in patches of silver and gold. In a few minutes rain might drift in over the Atlantic, veils of it falling over this place, but for now it was dry.

Lard lay in glory in a glass-sided hearse to which a black, plumed horse had been yoked. He lay surrounded by flowers, great wreaths spelling out messages from friends and family. LARD said one; and another, BIG MAN, and QUALITY. And then there was the biggest wreath of all, which simply said: DEID.

“I think that we should get back to Queen Street,” said Angus.

Matthew agreed. He had been strangely moved by the service and he did not want to break the spell.

They started to move down the path that led from the church to the road, but they were stopped by a squat man in a black overcoat.

“Youse ra boys frae Edinburgh?” he asked.

“We are,” said Angus.

“Youse still got Lardie’s painting?”

Matthew glanced at Angus. “Yes, I suppose we have.”

The squat man seemed relieved. “Well I’m Frankie O’Connor, Lard’s wee brother. I’ll come through and pick it up next week, if that’s all right wi’ youse. Better be.”

“Of course,” said Matthew. “And I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Thank you,” said Frankie. “But he had it coming to him, so he did.”

By unspoken agreement, Angus and Matthew did not talk about Lard O’Connor’s painting in the taxi back to Queen Street station. They had been moved by Lard’s obsequies, and by the eulogy delivered by his former teacher. And, as is always the case on such occasions, they had been reminded of their own mortality. I must paint my great painting, thought Angus; time is running out. And perhaps I should get married too, if anyone will have me. Domenica? She would be ideal – at least she knows what I’m like – but there’s the problem with Cyril, which is irresoluble. Could he live on the landing, in some sort of heated kennel? Antonia would veto that, although with her drug-dealing she’s hardly in a position to criticise anybody for anything.

“You know that woman,” he said to Matthew, once their train journey had started. “You know that woman who lives opposite Domenica?”

“Not really,” said Matthew. “Domenica introduced me to her once at the end of Cumberland Street. She said something about saints.”

“She’s meant to be writing a book about Scottish saints,”
said Angus. “She goes on about them. All these peculiar saints who lived in places like Whithorn. Apparently virtually everyone was called a saint in those days. You just had to put a few stones together, call it a church, and you became a saint.”

Matthew did not think it was that easy. Nothing was easy in those days. “Life was pretty hard,” he said. “There was a great deal of darkness. In the metaphorical sense, of course.”

“And now?” asked Angus. “No darkness?”

“Oh, there’s darkness,” said Matthew. “We happen to live in a country where there isn’t – at the moment. But it could change. All that would be needed would be for people to become ignorant again. And they are.”

Angus looked around the carriage. Virtually everybody was reading. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Well,” said Matthew, “did you see that survey published in the papers the other day where people were asked if they believed Winston Churchill ever existed? A quarter of them said they thought he was mythical.”

Angus reflected on this for a moment. There had also been the question of Scottish history. There were surveys all the time which showed that people had no idea who they were or why they were there. Perhaps he should execute a great painting – a great allegorical painting – entitled
Who Am I?
which would show the link between past and present. But nobody painted like that any more. He would be laughed at in the Royal Scottish Academy. He would be ridiculed. Paintings today had to reflect nothingness and confusion, not order and intellectual coherence.