27
him. “You have a ridiculous name, you know, Mr Todd. Raeburn!
That’s the name of a gas cooker, you know. That’s what you are, Mr Todd – you’re just a gas cooker.”
Raeburn Todd appeared undisturbed by the insult. “A gas cooker, am I?” he said quietly. “Well, I’ve just cooked your goose for you, young man, would you not say?”
9. Sally’s Thoughts
After he had lost his job – or resigned, as he put it – Bruce went home to Crieff for several days to lick his wounds. His parents had been concerned over his resignation, and they had quizzed him as to what lay behind it.
“It’s not much of a firm,” Bruce had explained airily. “I found myself – how shall I put it? – a bit thwarted. The job didn’t stretch me enough.”
His mother had nodded. “You thrive on new challenges, Brucie,” she said. “As a little boy you were like that. You were a very creative child.”
Bruce’s father had looked at him over the top of his spectacles. He was an accountant who specialised in the winding-up of companies, and he had a strong nose for lies and obfusca-tion. The trouble with my son, he thought, is that he’s vain.
He’s lost this job of his and he can’t bring himself to tell us.
Poor boy. I suppose I can’t blame him for that, but I wish he wouldn’t lie to us.
“What are you going to do?” asked his father. “How are things in surveying at the moment? Are they tight?”
Bruce shrugged, and looked out of the window of
“Lochnagar”, the family’s two-storey granite house in Crieff.
One thing one has to say about the parental house, he thought, is that it has a good view, down into the strath, over all that good farming land. I should marry the daughter of one of those farmers down there – those comfortable farmers (minor lairds, really, some of them) – and then things would be all right. I
28
Sally’s Thoughts
could raise Blackface sheep, in a small way, and some cattle, some arable. It would be an easy life.
But then there was the problem of the farmer’s daughter –
whoever she turned out to be. Some of them were all right, it had to be said, but then the ones he might find worth looking at tended to move to Edinburgh, or even to London, where they had jobs in public relations or possibly at Christie’s. At Christie’s, they were the ones who were sometimes allowed to hold up the vases and paintings at the auctions (provided, of course, that they had studied history of art at university, although sometimes a declared intention to study history of art was sufficient qualification). That was the problem; they had no desire to remain in Perthshire. That was until they became broody; things changed then, and the idea of living in the country with dogs (Labradors, usually, the dog of choice for such persons) and children suddenly became an attractive one.
Bruce sighed. Life seemed very predictable, whatever choice one made.
He looked back at his father, and held his gaze for a few moments. Then he looked away again. He knows, he thought.
He knows exactly what has happened. “I think I’ll try something different,” he replied quietly. “The wine business is interesting.
I might try that.”
Sally’s Thoughts
29
“You always had a good nose for wine, Brucie,” said his mother. “And for sniffing things out in general.” She cast a glance at her son’s hair. “Is that cloves, I smell, by the way? I love the scent of cloves. I think it’s marvellous that boys have all those different things to choose from at the chemist’s these days. Hair things and shaving things, that is.”
Over the next few days, he was looked after by his mother, and felt reassured. It still riled him to think of Todd and the injustice that had been done him, but after three days in Crieff the pain seemed to ease – unconditional maternal affirmation had its effect – and he found himself in a position to make decisions. He would return to Edinburgh, plan a holiday – a month or two perhaps, since he had the opportunity – and then he could start seriously to look for a job in the wine trade. He had some leads there. Will Lyons had more or less guaranteed that he would find something, and so, with any luck, he would be fixed up by, say, late September. That would be a good time to start in the wine trade, with Christmas and New Year sales coming up.
Bruce felt positively buoyed by the thought of a couple of months off, and spent the first few days after returning to Scotland Street in deciding where he would go. He had never been in the Far East, and he spoke to one or two people in the Cumberland Bar who had been to Thailand.
“Terrific country,” one of them said. “Just terrific. South –
terrific. North – terrific. Unconditionally terrific.”
That helped Bruce a bit, but gave him very little concrete information. What about Vietnam?
“Not quite as terrific as Thailand,” said the same person. “But terrific in its own way.”
Bruce was still seeing Sally, the American girl he had met in the Cumberland Bar. The relationship had not progressed as far as he had imagined it might, and he had decided that he most definitely would not ask her to marry him, but it was a convenient arrangement for both of them and they met one another once or twice a week, usually in the Cumberland Bar, and there-after they went to 44 Scotland Street, where they were able to continue their conversation.
30
Sally’s Thoughts
“I find him a bit of a drag,” Sally had written in an e-mail sent to her friend, Jane, who lived in Nantucket. “You don’t know Scotsmen, do you? Well, I’ll tell you a bit about them.
They’re usually quite pale, as if they’ve spent too much time indoors, which they often have (although I must say that Bruce is really good-looking, and a few months in Arizona or somewhere like that could really improve him). They like drinking, and they go on and on – and I really mean on and on – about soccer, even the relatively civilised ones (the ones you meet in the Cumberland Bar – and you should just see the rest!). Bruce doesn’t talk about soccer, but he makes up for it with rugby.
You won’t have even heard about rugby, Jane. It’s this really weird game, a bit like football – the proper football, the one we play – but without the shoulders. It’s very tribal. They run up and down a soggy pitch and bring one another down in hugs. I don’t think that’s the word they use for it – I think there’s some other term – but that’s what they are – hugs. And so it goes on.
“Bruce is all right, I suppose, for a couple of months. (So, OK, I’ve been bored. You can’t blame a girl who’s feeling bored.) But I would love – just love – to meet some nice, normal boy over here – you know what I mean? – somebody like that guy you met at Dartmouth (what was his name again? Remember him?!) But they just don’t exist. So I’ll make do with Bruce a little longer before I give him his pink slip and then it’s back home and we can meet up and you can introduce me to somebody. Agree?”
And Jane had written back: “Don’t worry. I’ve met the cutest guy at a party at the Martinsons’ and I’m saving him just for you! I’ve told him all about you and he’s really interested. So come home soon. You won’t believe your luck when you meet him. His name’s Billy, by the way. Isn’t that cute? Yale.”
Chapter title
31
10. Bruce’s Plan
When Sally revealed to Bruce that she was intending to return to the United States at the beginning of September, and that she would only come back to Scotland in November, for her gradu-ation, and for no more than a week at that, she was surprised that he took the news so calmly. There was a reason for his unruffled demeanour in the face of this impending separation: Bruce was, in fact, more than a little relieved that she would be going, as he was beginning to find her company slightly irksome. She’s neurotic, he thought; always probing into his reasons for doing and saying things, as American girls tended to do. Scottish girls were almost always more straightforward and less demanding; they did not ask you to explain yourself at every step, but accepted you for what you were, a man – and let you get on with it.