“That’s my affair,” he had said abruptly. But almost immediately he had regretted the pettiness of the exchange, and on his side, more disturbingly, its lack of gentlemanliness. That quality had been drummed into him as a boy by his father, a Perthshire farmer, a Church of Scotland elder, and, for five years, an officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who had been captured by the Japanese in Malaya and had been subjected to the brutality in which they excelled. In spite of that, he had never spoken ill of the Japanese, enduring their lack of apology and attributing it, so tactfully, to a quirk of culture, a deficiency in language.

  Angus had been told by his father what a gentleman did and what he did not do; that he never complained, that he never expected more than anybody else was given, and that he never spoke rudely or impatiently, particularly to people who were less fortunate than himself. And of course there were other things: about doors being opened for others, about walking on the outside of the pavement when escorting a woman, about removing one’s hat the moment one crossed a threshold, and about not wearing suede shoes. Those minor rules—superstitions, thought Angus—had made him laugh: not to his father’s face, because his father was too kind to be mocked, but secretly.

  And when he had gone to art college he had tried to unlearn the things that marked him out as belonging to a lost world. He had abandoned the black brogues his father had bought him and put on, instead, a pair of tobacco-colored suede shoes. He had taken off his tie and affected a red bandanna, tied loosely about his neck. He had given his hat to a man who asked him for the price of a cup of tea on the street. But the core value, the sense of not wanting to hurt others, or the world for that matter, survived within him, stubbornly, like a memory of home. It survived in spite of all the coarsening of our public life; it had survived the epidemic of swearing that infected our ordinary language; it survived all the mockery and casual disregard and selfishness; it survived the boasting, self-aggrandisement and shallowness of a celebrity-focused culture; it survived the loss of social decency and obligation. It survived the crude, barroom assertion that there was no such thing as society. Oh, there was, there was, and there was still a Church of Scotland that put its arms about people in their sorrow and their suffering, and there was still a National Health Service, and there were still those who believed in society.

  He had immediately relented. He imagined what his father might think of being short with a nun, even to one quite as irritating as Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. He would have smiled indulgently—just the hint of a smile—and said of the encounter, “Well, she is Italian, and in this life one has to make allowances. Italians are an excitable people; very talented and amusing, but distinctly excitable, Angus. And a gentleman is never rude to a nun, you know…”

  And then Sister Maria-Fiore’s face had broken into a smile, and her smile, he thought, was like a blessing, and he received it as such. He nodded, and made his way through the gate that led into the garden. Once inside, he set off briskly along one of the paths that led toward the London Street end. He looked over his shoulder once or twice to see if Sister Maria-Fiore was following him, but there was no sign of her. “Climb every mountain,” he muttered under his breath, smiling a little, and then, “How do you solve a problem like Maria-Fiore?” Don’t, he said to himself. She is Italian. She is a nun. She is only seeking the good—as she sees it. That, of course, was a general problem with humanity: people so often had misguided ideas of the good. In fact, most people’s vision of the good left something to be desired, thought Angus.

  But he had other things to think about: he had to find a place to bury a cat. He had an idea where that would be, and now he headed for it. He felt sad—close to tears, indeed—for the death of this cat, this small thing, but also for a whole lot of other things that we had lost, and they were much bigger, and deserved more tears than he would ever manage.

  67

  Bruce in Conversation

  “What will you have to drink, Bruce?” asked Harry, as he led the way into the drawing room. “We’ve got…well, I suppose we have most things.”

  Bruce looked about him. Yes, he thought, most things—in abundance, he imagined. He noticed the picture hanging over the fireplace, an ornately framed Highland scene. “Glencoe?” he asked.

  Harry gave him an amused glance. “Glencoe? Oh, that. No, not Glencoe. The Highlands certainly, but why would you say Glencoe?”

  Bruce smiled. “Isn’t that…” He pointed at the hill in the foreground, an exaggerated conical peak surrounded with swirling mists. “Ben…Ben…” He looked to Jenny in a mute appeal for assistance, but she simply shrugged.

  “Ben?” asked Harry.

  “Ben…You know, the one on the left as you go down toward…toward the place with the bridge, before you get to that ferry at…”

  “Corran?” prompted Harry. “Are you thinking about the Corran Ferry?”

  “Yes. The one that goes over to Mull. To that place…Fish…”

  “Fishnish? That’s not the Corran Ferry, no. The Corran Ferry crosses the Corran Narrows. It goes nowhere near Mull.”

  “Ah,” said Bruce. “I was thinking of another ferry.”

  “I think you were.”

  Bruce smiled nervously. “There are all those ferries over there, aren’t there? Going all over the place.”

  “Well, they actually follow fairly well-defined routes,” said Harry.

  “And they’re always plowing them into things, aren’t they?” said Bruce. “Those stupid MacBrayne captains. They’re always hitting bits of island.”

  Harry stared at him. “Not really,” he said. “Not these days. My godfather was a MacBrayne skipper. He was a very good friend of my father’s. They fished together.”

  “Ah. Well, I wasn’t thinking of him.”

  “Clearly not,” said Harry.

  “No, I can see it’s not Glencoe,” said Bruce, moving closer to the painting and peering at it. “Funny. It looked like it.” He turned to Harry. “So where is it?”

  “It’s invented,” said Harry. “Nowhere in particular. The Victorians had a romantic idea of the Highlands—a non-specific romantic idea. They created a landscape of the mind. They increased the height of the mountains. That painting is somewhat like that. We thought it might be somewhere near Loch Katrine, but it isn’t really. It’s Horatio McCulloch.”

  “Ah,” said Bruce. “I thought so too. Ben McCulloch. Of course.”

  Harry glanced at his daughter, who busied herself with turning on a standard lamp.

  “Now then, what will you have?” Harry asked again.

  “A G and T?” said Bruce.

  Harry hesitated. “You’re driving back to Edinburgh after dinner?”

  Bruce nodded. “Yes.” He had to get the Morgan back to Gav, of course—not that he was planning to reveal that. Cinderella, he thought. The coach has to get back before it becomes a pumpkin again. Ridiculous story.

  “I thought you might want something soft,” said Harry. “If you’re driving.”

  Bruce pursed his lips. “Yes, I wasn’t going to ask you for a G and T. I was just wondering whether you had it.”

  “Oh, we definitely have gin,” said Harry. “We make some, in fact.”

  Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Here?”

  Harry laughed. “No, at a small gin distillery we have over in Falkirk.”

  “Hah!” said Bruce. “Falkirk.”

  “So, can I get you something soft?”

  Bruce nodded. “A Diet Coke maybe.”

  “No, we don’t have that, I’m afraid. Water? We have plenty of water.”

  I bet you do, thought Bruce. You’ll have a loch or two, I imagine. And a river.

  Harry changed the subject. “Jenny tells me you’re interested in whisky,” he said.

  “Yes,” Bruce answered. “You could say that.”

  “Any favorites?” asked Harry.

  Bruce hesitated. Then, “Talisker. I like Talisker. Give me an Islay whisky any day.”

  There was a brief silence. Then Harry said, “Actually, Skye. You’re thinking of Skye.”

  Bruce laughed. “Of course I was. All those distilleries on Skye—I get them mixed up.”

  “I think there are only two on Skye,” said Harry. “Three if you count Raasay.”

  “Yes. Three,” said Bruce quickly. “I don’t like too much peat, naturally.”

  “And yet you like Talisker?”

  “And there’s nothing wrong with Glenfiddich,” said Bruce.

  “Not my taste exactly,” said Harry. “I know it’s very popular, but don’t you find it a bit sweet?”

  “It depends,” said Bruce.

  Jenny now joined in. “Show Bruce that special bottle you bought the other day, Daddy.” Then, turning to Bruce, she said, “He’s got a collection of really old whiskies.”

  Harry demurred. “I’m not sure that Bruce would be all that interested.”

  “Oh, I am,” said Bruce. “I love old whisky.”

  “I’m not planning to open this one,” said Harry, smiling. “It’s part of a collection.”

  Harry moved to a glass-fronted cupboard at the side of the room and took out a curiously shaped bottle cradled on a small wooden stand. He passed it carefully to Bruce. “Seventy-five-year-old Mortlach,” he said. “Taken from the cask seventy-five years on. This was made in 1939, would you believe?”

  “It’s the oldest whisky there is,” said Jenny. “1939.”

  “Have you tried it?” asked Bruce.

  Harry smiled again. “I don’t think many people will be drinking that,” he said. “There were about a hundred bottles. Cask number 2475. They took it to the market a few years ago.”

  “Goodness,” said Bruce.

  “Charlie MacLean’s written about it,” said Harry. “He’s your man when it comes to whisky. Known throughout the world. You read his stuff?”

  “Of course,” said Bruce. Charlie MacLean?

  “He talks about Mortlach’s famously rich and complex style. It’s the way they made it in those days. He says that they would still have been using brewer’s yeast back in 1939.”

  “So they would,” said Bruce. What other yeast was there? He was not at all sure. In fact, why did they use yeast? Did you have to?

  Jenny pointed to the bottle. “I would never pay what Daddy paid for that. I couldn’t believe it. Tell him, Daddy.”

  Harry made a self-effacing gesture. “Oh, we don’t need to go into that…”

  “No, tell Bruce. Tell him what that’s worth.”

  “He won’t be interested.”

  “No, I am,” said Bruce. “Let me guess. Eight hundred?”

  Harry smiled, but clearly found discussion of price uncomfortable.

  “Twenty-five thousand pounds,” said Jenny. “Can you believe it? Twenty-five thousand for…”

  Bruce looked down at the bottle in his hands. And then, just as he tried to make out the script incised in the glass, the bottle slipped from his hands. Curving a tiny parabola, the seventy-five-year-old Mortlach tumbled down, to land just at the edge of the Kashan rug underfoot, but slightly on the wrong side of that, so that it hit the stone of the hearth. And shattered. The stain of the spilled whisky spread quickly. It was round at first and then, uncannily, became the same shape as Scotland itself, with outlying droplets being the smaller islands.

  Harry watched, transfixed. Jenny gave a yelp and bent down, hopelessly, to pick up a shard of glass that had landed at her feet. Bruce caught his breath.

  “Oh,” he said. And then, once again, “Oh.”

  * * *

  —

  When he left after dinner that evening, Bruce was by himself, Jenny having elected to stay with her father. Bruce was not invited. She went out with him, though, to say goodbye as he drove away.

  “I’m sorry about that…” Bruce began.

  “That whisky?” Jenny shrugged. “He has other bottles.”

  There was something in her manner that suggested to Bruce that she wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

  “I wish you were coming back to town,” said Bruce. “I really do.”

  “I have to wash my hair,” Jenny said.

  Bruce climbed into the Morgan. He did not have to plead with women to come back to Edinburgh—who did she think she was? As he put the Morgan into gear, he felt himself fuming. Your loss, honey, he thought; your loss.

  He chose the wrong gear by mistake: reverse. As he lifted his foot off the clutch, the highly charged sports car gave a lurch backwards, narrowly missing Jenny but hitting a large lead garden figure—Diana the Huntress, by the look of it, the head of which was toppled by the shock. This tumbled onto the back of the Morgan, gravely denting the bodywork.

  “Oops!” said Jenny.

  Watching from the window, her father allowed himself a smile. He was not a vindictive man, though, and so the smile was mixed with a look of sympathy. Lead statues could be repaired, even if bottles of seventy-five-year-old Mortlach could not. He sighed, and turned away. Poor boy—the car clearly belonged to somebody else, which meant there would be some explaining to do. Oh, well.

  68

  On the 23 Bus

  Bertie and his friend, Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, caught the 23 bus after it had crested the hill opposite the Church Hill Theatre. That theatre, tucked away in the quiet interstitial zone between Holy Corner and deep Morningside, proclaimed no performance of anything that day, or indeed that week. In little over a fortnight’s time, though, the Edinburgh Grand Opera, an enthusiastic amateur group, would be presenting Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni, without its usual accompaniment of Pagliacci. Some of those singing in Cav might remember the former glories of the Church Hill, including the notable production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers, in which the late Ramsey Dunbarton, a well-known Edinburgh lawyer, had sung the part of the Duke of Plaza-Toro, to the great delight of that large cohort of the audience who were members of the Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet, a legal organisation of which Ramsey had been a prominent member. They had been encouraged by Ramsey to attend, indeed been given complimentary tickets, and had rewarded his performance with prolonged applause at the end, persisting in their clapping well past the point that other members of the cast thought appropriate for the Church Hill Theatre.

  “Really!” muttered a disgruntled member of the chorus. “You’d think we were down in the Playhouse…or even somewhere in Leith, the way they’re going on.”

  “Clapping as if they were trying to revive Tinkerbell,” whispered a fellow member. “And what about us?”

  “Oh, nobody applauds the chorus,” sighed the other. “You’d think we’d done nothing, just standing here doing nothing. You’d really think that.”

  Ramsey had taken another bow, a deep bow, as befitted, he thought, a nobleman such as the Duke of Plaza-Toro. This had led to more applause and even a cry of Bravo from one of the partners in the firm of Shepherd and Wedderburn, who lived nearby and had recently acted with Ramsey in a complicated Contract of Excambion.

  “Bravo indeed!” hissed the first member of the chorus. “Why not Bravissimo while we’re about it?”

  On the impassive façade of the Church Hill Theatre that day there were no signs of such past glories. Yet the poster advertising the imminent performance of Cavalleria Rusticana was noticed by Bertie as he and Ranald took their seats on the top deck, along with the puppy they were intent on transferring to the promised safety of Scotland Street.

  “There’s going to be an opera, Ranald,” said Bertie. “You see that poster? That means there’s going to be an opera in that theatre over there.”

  Ranald gave the theatre a cursory glance before it disappeared behind them. “I don’t like dancing,” he said.

  “Opera is mostly singing, I think,” said Bertie. “Sometimes they dance, maybe, but that’s just to keep people from falling asleep. Then they go back to singing.”

  “Are there any dogs?” asked Ranald. “Do they have operas about dogs, Bertie?”

  Bertie thought that they did not.

  “They should,” said Ranald. “They could have operas with dogs in them, Bertie. That would be good.”

  Bertie remembered something. “Olive says she’s going to be a famous opera singer when she grows up,” he said. “She says that she’s already had an audition with Scottish Opera and they’re looking around for a part for her. She said that the other day. I heard her.”

  “She’s such a liar,” said Ranald. “I bet she told Scottish Opera she could sing, although she can’t really. I bet she lied to them.”

  Bertie decided not to think about Olive—it was just too distressing. His life had improved beyond measure since Irene had gone to Aberdeen, but Olive was still a presence in the background to remind him that freedom, although glimpsed, was not unconditional, nor guaranteed to be long-lived. Girls would get you—eventually. That was the realisation to which Bertie, like so many boys, was coming. No matter what you did, girls would get you.

  He looked out of the window of the bus, at the people walking along the pavement, the shoppers, the passersby making their way down to Bruntsfield, or returning in the other direction. Everyone he saw at that moment was part of a couple—a man and his wife, or a boy and his girl. They had been caught—the boys, the men, they had all been caught. And now here they were, walking along in captivity, seemingly resigned to their fate, obediently accompanying the women or girls who had got them; going into shops without argument; carrying the grocery bags without complaint; meekly heading home to houses and flats where they would be told what to do before it was time for dinner, and would then eat what was put before them, as per instructions. Was this what lay ahead, thought Bertie?