“I’m only trying to help you,” protested Matthew. He reached out to touch his father, but Gordon sat back, out of reach.
“Look,” went on Matthew. “Try to think. Have you told her about your money? Did she ask you?”
“I’ve spoken to her,” said Gordon. “She raised it with me.”
Matthew’s eyes widened. “She raised it?” he asked. “She did?”
“That’s correct,” said Gordon. “She asked me some fairly searching questions. And I gave her perfectly frank answers.”
“Well, there you are!” cried Matthew. “It’s just exactly as I said. She’s interested in getting her hands on your cash. It’s glaringly obvious.”
Gordon shook his head. “You stupid boy,” he said. “Sorry, but that’s what you are, Matthew. She raised the issue because she wanted to talk to me about divesting myself of a large part of it.”
“To her, I suppose,” observed Matthew wryly. “Great tactic.”
“No,” said Gordon patiently. “You’re one hundred per cent wrong there, Matthew. You see, Janis has persuaded me to set up a charitable fund. I thought I might set one up for golfers in distress. Then she has urged me to transfer a considerable amount of money to you, as it happens. She’s suggested that I should, in fact, give away about seven million. Three to the fund and four to you.”
Matthew was silent. He stared at his father. And then he bit his lip.
“Yes,” said Gordon. “Do you know, when you were a wee boy you used to bite your lip like that whenever you were in the wrong over something. You just bit your lip.
326 Big Lou
“And I see you doing it right now. It’s funny, isn’t it? – how we keep these little mannerisms over the years.”
“Dad,” Matthew began. “I didn’t . . .”
“No,” said Gordon, “you didn’t know. Well, as they say, ye ken noo.”
“Yes,” said Matthew. “I ken noo.”
“And can you think of any reason,” Gordon asked, “why I should not reverse my decision to transfer that money to you?
After all, you have such a low opinion of my fiancée. I wouldn’t want to force a decision of hers upon you, would I?”
“I’m sorry,” said Matthew. “I really am. I’m sorry.”
Gordon stared at his son. My son has never been a liar, he said to himself. He has been lazy, maybe, and a bit weak, but he has never been a liar. And so if he says that he is sorry for what he said, then he is. And the least I can do is to accept that apology.
Gordon stood up. “Stand up, Matthew,” he said. Matthew, shamefacedly, stood up, and Gordon walked round the side of the table and faced his son.
“That’s fine by me,” he said. He leaned forward, so that nobody else might hear what he had to say. “And do you know something, Matthew? Well, here’s something you should know: I’m proud of you. I never told you that, and I should have. I’m proud of what you are. I’m proud of the fact that, unlike me, you’ve never trodden on anybody else, or even considered doing that. And that makes you more of a man than I am, in my book.”
Matthew could not say anything. So he stood there with his father, and Gordon put his arm about his son’s shoulder and left it there, to reassure him, to show what he felt but could not find the words to say.
100. Big Lou
Big Lou watched as Matthew and his father went their separate ways, Matthew to his gallery over the road and Gordon up the hill in the direction of Queen Street. It had been obvious to her Big Lou
327
what was going on: a reconciliation of some sort between father and son. That pleased her; Big Lou did not like conflict and estrangement – what was the point, she thought, in being at odds with those whom we should love when our time on this earth was so very short?
She stared out of the window onto the steps that climbed up to Dundas Street. The coffee bar was now empty, but a customer would no doubt soon appear. Angus Lordie, perhaps, with that dog of his, or one of the antique dealers from down the road, from the Three Estaits, who would entertain Lou with news from the auction rooms.
But it was the postman who arrived, a thin-faced man who came from Dundee and always asked Big Lou about Arbroath, although she had nothing to tell him. This morning he extracted a couple of letters from his sack and placed them carefully on the counter.
“Arbroath,” he said, looking at Big Lou’s face with searching eyes. “Did you know some people called McNair? He was a joiner there, a long time ago. Then they moved to Dundee.”
Big Lou shook her head. “Sorry, Willy. It’s been a long time.”
She glanced at the letters. Was it? Yes, it was.
“They had a daughter who went to Glasgow,” continued the postman. “I think she trained as a nurse at Yorkhill.” Scotland was like that; long stories, endless links, things that half-happened.
Big Lou was staring at the letters. “Oh yes,” she said. “I didn’t know anybody called McNair. They might have been there while I was, but you know how it is when you’re younger. You just think of yourself.”
“That’s it,” he said. “You’re right there, Lou.”
Big Lou looked down at the letters and then glanced at her watch.
“Won’t keep you,” said the postman. “Cheerio, Lou.”
As he turned to leave, she reached for one of the letters and slit the envelope open with a bread-knife. The postmark had told her who it was, and now she unfolded the letter within and saw his characteristic handwriting, the same writing that had 328 Big Lou
been on the letter which she had cherished for all those years, the years of his absence.
“Dear Lou,” she read, “you know, don’t you, what a bad letter-writer I am. This is not because I find it difficult to write things down – I don’t. It’s just because I find it hard to write to you, because I have treated you so badly. Well, maybe I haven’t treated you badly, exactly, but I have not been very good about telling you things. And then there were all those years in which I never wrote to you at all although I knew that you must have been wondering what I was doing and when I was going to come back to Scotland.
“Well, I let you down on that, didn’t I? When I wrote to you and told you that I was going to be in Edinburgh you must have wondered whether I was going to remember my promise to invite you over to Texas. And I had not even had the decency to write to you and tell you that I was married and that I had moved to Mobile. I’m sorry about that, Lou. I should have told you. Men sometimes don’t think about these things and then they are surprised when women are upset about it. I want you to know that I’m sorry about that.
“I told you, didn’t I, about how I had moved to Mobile and opened a restaurant which I was running with my wife? Well, we ran that restaurant for six months and then I discovered something really hard for me. My wife was carrying on with one of the waiters. I had no idea that this was happening until I discovered them together at a fun-fair. She had said that she was going to see her aunt and I believed her. But then I telephoned the aunt and she said that she wasn’t there. So I knew that she was lying.
“I went out for a drive. It was a way of calming my anger that she should have lied to me, and by chance I found a fun-fair on a bit of wasteland near this big causeway that we have in Mobile. I don’t know why I stopped, but I’m glad that I did, as I found the two of them going round and round on the great wheel. I got into one of the cars behind them and up and round we went. They had not seen me, but I could see them and I could see him put his arm around her and kiss her. That was hard, Lou – it was very hard.
In the Bookshop
329
“I did nothing for a while, and then I shouted out: I can see you!
“She turned round and spotted me up above them and I thought she was going to fall out of the car. But she did not, and when they went down again they signalled to the operator to let them out and they ran off to the car park and climbed into his van. That’s the last I saw of her. I shouldn’t have married her, Lou. She was too young for me. Sixteen’s too young for a girl to marry.