“Anyway,” said George. “We shouldn’t stay out here. Katie’s in the kitchen. She’ll be out in a sec.”

  They made their way into the drawing room—the room from which, a few days previously, Stuart had looked out over St. Vincent Street. As they entered, though, the doorbell sounded.

  “The other guests,” said George. “I’ll let them in.”

  Stuart was relieved that there were to be other people present. The evening promised to be difficult enough as it was—with others, George would be diluted.

  He waited while George went off to open the door. He noticed that there was a small pile of books by the side of one of the chairs. He bent down to inspect this. On the top was an edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets, complete with commentary. He picked this up and opened it at random. He read the first two lines of one of the sonnets, and then another couple of lines. These words, he thought, come from a long way away…

  “The sonnets?”

  He turned around. Katie had come into the room through a different door, on the far side.

  Stuart replaced the book. “I shouldn’t be snooping.”

  She smiled. “It’s not snooping to look at somebody else’s books. If books are private, they should be kept in a cupboard.”

  “Oh.”

  She gestured toward the book. “That has a fantastic commentary. Don Paterson. He’s a poet himself. Professor of poetry at St. Andrews. He’s written a commentary to each of them. He really brings them to life.”

  Stuart sighed. “I know so little.”

  “What? About what?”

  “About poetry. You know…well, you know so much. I don’t. I haven’t even read the sonnets. Not properly. One or two, I suppose—a few lines.”

  “You could take that book,” she said, picking it up and giving it to him. “Yes, why not? Take that book and go through them. It’s really one long poem, all about love. A love affair, or two, although it’s difficult to disentangle. The one love affair shadows the other, if you see what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “Read it, then. Read the commentary.”

  He suddenly noticed that she was looking at his shoes. Awkwardly, he shifted his feet and tried to draw her attention away.

  “Was Shakespeare writing about himself?” he asked.

  The question seemed to interest her, and her gaze left his shoes. “Of course he was. All writers write about themselves—all the time.” She smiled. “Or their mothers. Although that sounds a bit Freudian, which it is, I suppose.”

  Her eyes went back to his shoes.

  “They’re Portuguese,” Stuart blurted out. “My shoes…they’re Portuguese.” And then he added, “I shouldn’t have worn them. Sorry.”

  He sounded so miserable. And he was.

  51

  Nepalese Momos

  Any further conversation about Portuguese shoes was forestalled by George’s return to the room with three newly arrived guests. These were two women and a man, all of whom looked slightly older than Katie. The women were called Tina and Vicki, and the man was Graeme. “With an e,” he said. “Graeme with an e.” It was unusual, Stuart thought, to spell your name when you met somebody for the first time—unless it was to be written down for some reason. I could say Stuart with a u rather than an ew, he thought, but why should I?

  The introductions made, they looked at one another discreetly. Stuart decided that Tina and Graeme were together; she brushed a hair off his jacket shortly after they entered the room, which was as reliable a sign of intimacy as one might find. It was also proprietorial; although sisters might groom brothers, and wives might groom husbands, beyond those close relationships the act of brushing another’s shoulders was to be undertaken only with caution.

  Stuart wondered where Vicki fitted in. If Katie intended to balance numbers, then she must be intended as a female counterpart to him, and that, of course, was suggestive of matchmaking. People insisted on matchmaking—they did so in spite of all the evidence that it often led to unhappiness. All sorts of things could go wrong: in extreme cases, people introduced their friends to their polar opposites—unwittingly, of course; they brought women together with men who would make their lives a misery; they matched the musical with the tone-deaf, the selfless with the selfish, meekness with braggadocio. And even if the result was not disaster, it could at least end in embarrassment.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Katie. “Since we’re all here,” she said, “we might as well go straight to the table.”

  Graeme laughed. “Why not? I didn’t have lunch.”

  Tina contradicted him. “You did,” she said. “It’s just that you don’t call it lunch. A sandwich is lunch.” She spotted another hair on his jacket, and reached forward to brush it off. Stuart glanced at his own shoulders. He did not suffer from dandruff, but there had been somebody at work who did and whose career, Stuart felt, had been blighted as a result. He was a talented economist who had never had the promotions he deserved, and Stuart had been sure that had something to do with his dandruff-covered shoulders. That was so unfair, and perhaps there should be protection against that sort of discrimination—specifically, by name, along with other conditions that already enjoyed protection.

  “I had lunch in Henderson’s,” said Katie, looking at Stuart as she spoke. That was where she and Stuart had met, and now he wondered whether there was any significance in this remark. Was it a veiled invitation to go to Henderson’s again, he wondered? And if it was, then why should she ask him? He looked at George. Was he good-looking? He was, and perhaps that was what attracted Katie to him. I can’t compete, thought Stuart. It’s too late.

  He wondered what George did. Something to do with money, he decided. He had that look about him; there were plenty of people in Edinburgh just like George who made their living by handling money. They had a good conceit of themselves, for the most part, and paid themselves what they themselves felt they deserved—which was far more than the earnings of those who actually made things. Listen to me, Stuart thought. Am I a socialist? Yes, I am, and I shouldn’t apologise for believing that we should share what we have and help our fellow man; nor for not believing that life is a struggle in which we should strive to come out on top of everybody else. And yet, and yet…Life was a struggle, and people had to be encouraged to pull their weight, and clever and resourceful people had to be rewarded so that they would do what they did and allow us all to benefit from their endeavors. So, he thought, I am a what? A non-socialist? A liberal? A conservative?

  Perhaps I’m a bit of everything, he thought. I have some socialism in me, and yet I believe in individual endeavor. Am I a centrist, then? How dull that sounds, and how uninteresting it must be to women. Women were attracted to men who had about them a slight air of danger, and centrists were not like that at all. Centrists were sensible, balanced people, who said On the one hand, and on the other, who saw both sides of the argument, and who rarely spoke with passion. The centrist philosophy, for all its merits, was simply not sexy.

  They filed into Katie’s dining room, where a table had been laid for six. The tablecloth was a bright Indian print, and there were candles at either end of the table. A couple of bottles of Italian wine had been opened and placed at one end of the table, with a large bottle of Highland Spring mineral water at the other.

  George told people where to sit. Katie held back—once the guests were settled she was ready to fetch the first course—but when George placed Stuart at the other end of the table from the end she was about to occupy, she threw a glance at him—not a friendly one, thought Stuart. Katie sat next to Graeme, and Stuart had Vicki on one side of him and Tina on the other.

  As soon as they were seated, George reached for one of the bottles of wine and began to fill people’s glasses. He started with Vicki, but she put a hand over her glass to indicate that she did not want any wine. “I don’t drink,” she began. “So please…”

  The gesture, the universally recognized way of conveying abstinence, came too late. A thin stream of wine was already on its way, and it spilled across her fingers.

  “Look out,” exclaimed Katie. “Oh, George…”

  He uttered an expletive. Katie looked at him sharply. Vicki drew her hand away and grimaced. Katie passed her a napkin to wipe the wine off her fingers.

  “You could say sorry,” muttered Katie. “Rather than swearing.”

  George turned his head to glare at her. “Not my fault,” he snapped. “She put her hand in the way.”

  “You might at least have asked her,” said Katie. She blushed, obviously embarrassed by this public spat between the two of them. She rose to her feet. “I’m going to fetch the first course.”

  George continued to pour wine. He looked angry. “She’s made momos,” he said.

  “What?” asked Tina. “Mo-whats?”

  “They’re a Nepalese speciality,” answered George. “Katie went to Nepal last year. She volunteered for a project and they had cooking lessons. Momos are seriously delicious. They’re little dumplings that the Nepalis like to eat.”

  “My brother went to Nepal for his honeymoon,” said Tina.

  “He married somebody he met online,” said Graeme. “She imports cashmere scarves.”

  “Just about everybody meets online,” said Vicki. She looked at Stuart as she spoke, as if encouraging him to take part in the discussion. Stuart looked away. He had decided that he did not like Vicki. If Katie had been intent on matchmaking, then her efforts were going to be a failure. I want you, he thought. I don’t want her, I want you. Can’t you see it? Can’t you?

  52

  An Albanian Story

  “Is it really true that everybody meets on line?” asked Katie. “I wonder. George and I didn’t. We met when…”

  George gave her a discouraging look, intercepted by Stuart, who felt pleased. They don’t get on all that well, he thought. And then he said to himself: she doesn’t really like him. That possibility gave him considerable pleasure. Of course she didn’t like him—she was interested in poetry and vegetarian cooking and he was interested in…in what? Money? Cars, probably. Rugby? Not poetry; definitely not poetry.

  Graeme smiled.

  “Something funny?” asked Tina.

  “I was just thinking,” said Graeme. “You remember that guy who went to Prague for the weekend? The one who used to work for the Bank of Scotland?”

  Tina frowned. “The one with the ears?”

  “No. He used to play rugby,” explained Graeme. “In the scrum. He had a cauliflower ear. I don’t mean him. He worked for that whisky company. This one was something to do with commercial mortgages. Anyway, him: he went to Prague on a stag weekend—somebody was getting married. And he came back with a Czech fiancée—that Monday, that actual Monday. He went on Friday and came back with her on Monday.”

  “He’d never met her before?” asked Vicki.

  “Nope. Never.”

  “Did she speak English?” asked Katie.

  “A bit. Not much, but a bit. Enough to say I do. And they were married a couple of weeks later. That was it.”

  Katie shook her head. “They’re still together?”

  “Yes. They’re fine.”

  Stuart listened, and tackled his momos as he did so. “These are really delicious,” he said. “And the sauce…boy, it’s good.”

  Katie beamed. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “What’s in it?” asked Stuart.

  Katie was about to tell him, but Graeme had more to say. “There was this woman,” he said. “She was called Sam, I seem to remember. Short for Samantha. She was related to somebody who worked for the BBC. I forget who. Anyway, this woman, Samantha Something-or-other, went to Albania. You can go there these days—it used to be closed, but now you can go there on holiday. It’s still a bit grim, apparently, but bits of it are OK if you don’t have great eyesight. Anyway, she went there with a girlfriend and they stayed in some beach resort. But they also went for drives up in the mountains, and apparently it’s pretty primitive there. Dirt poor in places.”

  “They had bad luck,” said George. “That ghastly dictator. What was his name?”

  “Hoxha,” said Graeme. “Sounded like a lung complaint.”

  “Never trust a politician who sounds like a lung complaint,” said Tina.

  George smiled. “And their last king was called King Zog, you know. King Zog of Albania. He had four or five sisters, I think, and he dressed them all in naval uniforms. They sat on sofas in their naval uniforms and had their photographs taken.”

  “Strange,” said Vicki.

  Graeme agreed. “Yes, strange. But anyway, these two women drove into some village somewhere in the sticks and they had a cup of coffee in the local café. It was pretty basic—run by a chap with a big mustache. Zorba type. And he had a brother who helped him in the café, who only had one leg.

  “There was somebody in the café who spoke English—the local teacher. He struck up a conversation with them and explained to the others that the brother with one leg was too poor to get a proper artificial leg. He had been given a peg leg at the local clinic, but he hadn’t got on too well with that and it irritated the stump. It was too heavy, I think. So he had to get by without.

  “This woman—Sam—felt really sorry for him. She couldn’t say anything to him because she had no Albanian and he didn’t speak a word of English. But apparently she kissed him on the cheek, and he was pretty chuffed. Then the person who spoke English asked if they could take him back to their place down on the coast as there was an Italian doctor there who might be able to help him. They agreed.”

  “Is this going to end well?” asked Vicki. “I have a feeling that it won’t.”

  “Wait and see,” said Graeme. “They took him, and he went to this Italian doctor down at sea level. But the doctor said he couldn’t do anything because Albanian artificial legs are pretty useless and imported ones cost thousands and have to be fitted by special technicians, and there were none of those left in Albania because they had all been persecuted for one reason or another. So the end result was that nobody could do much for him inside the country.

  “In the meantime,” Graeme continued, “this woman was falling in love with this character with one leg. After a few days she asked him whether he would come back to Coatbridge with her—she lived over there, you see, where her father had a pub.

  “This Albanian guy with one leg didn’t require much persuading. He knew a good deal when he saw it. Any Albanian who gets the chance of marrying an American or a Brit or somebody like that will jump at the chance. Albania’s a dump, and Coatbridge would be a distinct improvement. So this Albanian got ready for the trip to Scotland. He made arrangements pronto to settle his affairs in Albania and was there at the airport, balancing on his one leg and holding a walking stick in the other, ready to go off to Scotland for a new life.”

  “Good,” said Katie. “That sounds like a happy ending. I was worried it was going to be rather different.”

  “Well,” said Graeme. “Listen to this: they got back and the first thing she did was take him to an artificial limb maker and get him measured up. She had a legacy of seven thousand pounds from her grandmother, and she used this to order this Albanian a state-of-the-art new leg. It did everything, more or less, and he was pretty pleased. It took a month to make, but when it was ready it was obviously well worth it. He was really pleased and said to her, ‘Me dancing now. Big time dancing.’

  “So the moment he had mastered his new leg, he hopped on a bus and went to a dance in Glasgow. And because of the new leg being so well made and so responsive, he soon developed quite a following as a nifty ballroom dancer. And not long after, he met a new woman and ran off with her. On his new artificial leg that this Sam had bought for him.”

  There was silence. Then Vicki said, “I find that story really sad.”

  “For her?” asked Stuart.

  “Yes,” said Vicki. “She bought him a leg and he used it to run away from her. How sad is that?”

  “Very sad,” said Graeme. But he did not conceal his amusement.

  Katie looked thoughtful. “The moral?”

  Graeme shrugged. “Don’t buy an artificial leg for somebody if there’s the slightest chance of their running away from you on it.”

  Stuart raised an eyebrow. “It shows a lack of gratitude, if you ask me.” He looked at his empty plate and said to Katie, “Is that the end of the momos?”

  She shook her head. “Come with me into the kitchen,” she said. “Bring your plate. I’ll help you.”

  He followed her into the kitchen. The conversation at the table swelled in volume. Graeme had said something amusing, and Tina had joined in with a story of her own.

  In the kitchen, Katie turned to face him. “Well?” she said. “What do you think?”

  “Of George?”

  “No, of course not,” Katie chided him. “Of Vicki.”

  Stuart frowned. “She’s fine.”

  “I can tell she likes you,” said Katie.

  Stuart closed his eyes. This was entirely wrong. He opened his eyes and stared down mutely at his Portuguese shoes.

  53

  Innocents at Play

  As a matter of general policy, Bertie and his friend, Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, tried to entertain themselves during the mid-morning play-break at the Steiner School. This was not out of any disinclination to socialise—both Bertie and Ranald were reasonably gregarious and enjoyed the company of others—but was prompted by the particular dynamics of the playground. This space was dominated by two camps, at odds with each other on most points, and both Bertie and Ranald had little taste for the machinations of the leaders of both these factions.