Was he avoiding the lines again? she wondered.
Bertie looked up and smiled, as if he had suddenly worked out the answer to a recalcitrant problem. And indeed he had.
He had remembered the boy round the corner, Paddy, the one who lived on Fettes Row and who went fishing in the Pentlands.
He was allowed to walk around the streets in freedom with his friends. Bertie would ask him. He would give him his card and ask him to withdraw the money from the bank machine. Then 90
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Paddy could go up to George Street, buy the blazer for Bertie, and deliver it in secret.
Irene noticed Bertie’s expression and frowned. “What are you thinking about, Bertie, dear?” she asked.
And Bertie gave that answer with which all parents are so wearily familiar. “Nothing,” he said.
28. Lonely Tonight
At the end of work that day, Matthew had asked Pat whether she would be interested in going to a film at the Film Theatre in Lothian Road.
“The crowd’s going,” he said.
Pat had heard of the crowd, and was vaguely interested in meeting them. The fact that the invitation was from Matthew was potentially problematic, as there was no possibility of a romantic association between them and she did not want to encourage any false hopes on his part. And yet there was no reason to avoid all social contact with him, particularly if there were to be other people there. So she agreed.
“What’s the film?” she asked.
“Something Italian,” Matthew said. “Do you like Italian films?”
“It depends,” said Pat. “I like Fellini.”
“This might be by Fellini,” said Matthew. “But it might not.”
“Or Pasolini,” added Pat.
Matthew nodded vaguely. “I think I’ve seen some of his films too,” he said. “But I forget the names of directors.”
They made arrangements to meet at the Film Theatre itself and then, after helping Matthew to close the gallery, Pat made her way back to Scotland Street to get ready for the evening.
She let herself in at the bottom of the stairs and began the climb up to the top floor. As she turned the corner on the first landing, she heard a voice drifting down from above her.
“So it’s you.”
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Domenica, who must have entered the building just a few moments before her, had reached the top landing and was looking down on her. Pat looked up and saw her neighbour staring down. She waved, and continued her journey to their landing. Domenica was standing in her doorway, the full bag of groceries that she had been carrying laid down on the floor beside her.
“I hate doing this sort of shopping,” Domenica said, with feeling. “I find the whole process of buying apples and things like that so disheartening. But one has to do it, I suppose. Apples don’t grow on trees.”
Pat smiled. She was not sure whether she wanted to engage in a conversation with Domenica, as she had relatively little time to prepare herself for the Film Theatre.
“You left me some flowers,” said Domenica. “And I haven’t thanked you yet. You’re a sweet girl. You really are.”
“I felt rather bad about being so . . . so cross with you,” said Pat. “Especially when you were only trying to help me.”
“You had every right to be cross with me,” said Domenica.
“But I take it that you would like me to carry on with the planned invitation of that young man to dinner.”
Pat shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
“Which means you want me to do so,” said Domenica. “And I shall. Of course, if you don’t want to come along, you needn’t.
You could leave that nice young man to me.”
Pat stared at her in astonishment. Did Domenica really mean that?
Domenica, seeing Pat’s reaction, smiled coyly. “Why not, may I ask? Isn’t it fashionable these days for a . . . how shall we put it? – a more mature woman to have a somewhat younger man friend? Stranger things have happened.”
Pat wanted to laugh. It was absurd to think of Domenica as having a younger man; it was inconceivable. And what made Domenica imagine that Peter would even look at her for one moment? It was quite ridiculous.
“He’s a bit young for you, isn’t he?” she said. “You could have a younger boyfriend, I suppose, but not that young.”
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“What you mean,” said Domenica, “is that in your opinion I’m too old. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
Pat wanted to say yes, it was, but refrained. The whole discussion was becoming embarrassing. She looked at her watch. She had forty minutes to get ready if she was to arrive at the Film Theatre in time. “I have to hurry,” she said. “I’m going to see a film.”
Domenica picked up her bag and reached for her hallway light switch. “I might just surprise you one of these days,” she said. “I could get a man if I wanted one, you know.”
“Of course you could,” said Pat hurriedly. “You’re an attractive woman. Men like you. Look at Angus Lordie.”
Domenica let out a shriek. “Oh, not Angus! For heaven’s sake!
He would be desperation stakes – complete desperation stakes.
No, I’m thinking of somebody a bit more romantic than that.”
Pat giggled, and gestured towards her own doorway. “Bruce?”
Domenica laughed. “There are limits,” she said. “But wait and see. I think I’m going to surprise you.”
Back inside the flat, Pat took out a fresh blouse and ran a bath for herself. She reflected on her conversation with Domenica, realising that she had made so many assumptions in it. She had assumed that somebody of sixty could not fall in love; that was ridiculous – it was ageist of her, she decided; very ageist. People said that you could fall in love at any stage in life – at eight, at eighteen, at eighty. And why not? The capacity to experience the other emotions did not wither; you could still feel anger, jealousy, distress and all the rest, however old you were. Love was in the same spectrum as these. And you could love anything, and anyone, whether or not the passion were returned. When she was very young, she had loved a knitted doll, a sailor in a blue suit. She had called him Pedro, for some inexplicable reason, and had carried him with her wherever she went. She had loved Pedro with all her heart, and she had been sure that he had loved her from the depths of his woolly being. The object of affection did not matter; the feeling did.
What did she have to love now? Pedro was no more, or, at At the Film Theatre
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the most, he was a few scraps of wool in the bottom of a drawer. He would have to be replaced; and Pedro . . . was Peter.
She reached out and turned off the taps. She was tired of being by herself. She did not want to have to go to the Film Theatre with the crowd; she wanted to go with somebody who would give all his attention to her, and her alone; who would take her out for dinner afterwards, or for a drink at the bar, and who would exchange confidences with her. And that, presumably, was the sort of thing that poor Domenica wanted for herself too. They were two lonely women wanting the same thing. And there was Bruce wanting it too, but going about the getting of it in quite the wrong way. Companionship. Tender friendship.
Love. None of them had it at present, and time was leaking away, especially for Domenica.
29. At the Film Theatre
Matthew’s crowd, it transpired, consisted of five people, including Matthew himself. With Pat present, there were six of them, all sitting in a row in the half-empty film theatre.
This Italian film was an obscure one, made by an obscure director and starring obscure actors, and although the programme notes referred to it as a key example of the Milanese Emptiness School, this distinction was not sufficient to draw the Edinburgh crowds. And to add to the general air of participation in an obscure event, the print was dark and scratchy, as if not enough light could penetrate it, or as if it had been made at dusk, on a cloudy day. The action took place in a small village between Milan and Parma, in the early 1950s. The village was closing, it seemed, through lack of support. The local priest, played by a man with a pronounced limp, had despaired of saving his congregation, which was now reduced to a few aged widows and a young girl who appeared to be developing stigmata. The stigmata which, if genuine, would have revived 94