Big Lou hesitated for a moment. Then she resumed her polishing. “My affairs are my business, Matthew.”
Matthew smiled. “So you’re not denying that there’s somebody?”
“There might be.”
“In other words, there is.”
Big Lou said nothing. She had been embarrassed by the public way in which her break-up with Eddie had happened; she felt humiliated by that. And if anything similar were to happen with Robert, she did not want people to know about it. Nobody likes to be seen to be rejected, and Big Lou was no exception to that rule.
Matthew lifted his coffee cup and drained it. “I hope it works out this time, Lou,” he said. “You deserve it.”
She raised her eyes and looked at him. He meant it, she decided. “Thank you, Matthew. He’s a nice man. I’ll tell him to come in one morning so that you can meet him.”
“What does he do?” asked Matthew.
“Ceilings,” said Lou. “Robert does ceilings. You know, when 94
So Who Exactly Is the New Man in Big Lou’s Life?
you want to replace cornicing, you need moulds. Robert does that. And he makes new cornices. He’s quite an artist.”
“Sounds good,” said Matthew. This was better, he thought, than Eddie, with his Rootsie-Tootsie Club and his teenage girls.
“Yes,” Big Lou went on. “He’s very good at that. Architects use him. Historic Scotland. People like that. But his real passion is history. That’s how I met him. I went to a lecture at the museum and I found myself sitting next to him. That’s how it happened. It was a lecture by Paul Scott on the Act of Union.
Robert was there.”
“Nice,” said Matthew. He knew this sounded trite, but he could not think of anything else to say. And it was nice, he thought, to picture Big Lou going to a lecture on the Act of Union and finding a man. There were undoubtedly many women who went to lectures at the museum and did not find a man.
Then Matthew thought of something else to say. He was fond of Big Lou; an almost brotherly affection, he felt, and brothers should on occasion sound a warning note. “You’ll be careful, won’t you, Lou?” he said quietly. “There are some men who . . .
Well, I don’t want to remind you of Eddie, Lou, but remember what happened there. I don’t want your heart to be broken again, Lou.”
She reached out and put a hand on Matthew’s forearm. They had never touched before; this was the first time. “I’ll be careful,”
she said. “And thank you for saying that.”
Matthew lifted up his cup. It was completely empty, without even any froth around the rim to lick off. He looked at the bottom of the cup, where there was a small mark and some printing. China, it said.
“Look,” he said to Big Lou. “See.”
Lou took the cup from Matthew and looked at its base. “But that’s what it is,” she said.
29. That Chap Over There – Know Who That Is?
That evening, Matthew went to the Cumberland Bar. He was due to meet Pat at eight and had promised to take her somewhere exciting for dinner. That promise was beginning to worry him – not because he was unwilling to take her out, rather it was the difficulty of choosing somewhere which she would consider exciting. In one interpretation, exciting was synonymous with plush and expensive; in which case they could go to the Witchery or even Prestonfield House. But that, he thought, was not what Pat had in mind. An exciting restaurant for her probably meant a place where both the décor and the people were unusual, the sort of place where celebrities went. But where were these places, and were there any celebrities in Edinburgh anyway? And if there were, then who were they? The Lord Provost? Sir Timothy Clifford? Ian Rankin? Possibly. But where did these people go for dinner?
Ian Rankin went to the Oxford Bar, of course, but you wouldn’t get much to eat there. And the Lord Provost had her own dining room in the City Chambers. She probably had dinner there, looking out over the top of Princes Street, reading council minutes, wondering which streets could be dug up next.
Angus Lordie was in the bar, sitting morosely at his table, the place at his feet where Cyril normally sat deserted now.
Matthew joined him.
“Where’s your young friend?” Angus asked.
“She’s got a name,” said Matthew. “Pat.”
“That’s the one. Where is she?”
Matthew took a sip of his beer. “I’m meeting her later on.
We’re going out for dinner.”
Angus nodded at this information. He did not seem particularly interested, and indeed it was very uninteresting information, Matthew thought. That’s my trouble, he said to himself – I’m not exciting.
“I haven’t decided where to take her yet,” said Matthew. He 96
That Chap Over There – Know Who That Is?
looked at Angus quizzically. “Tell me, Angus, do you know any exciting restaurants?”
Angus shook his head. “Exciting restaurants? Not me, I’m afraid. I never go out for a meal, except for lunch at the Scottish Arts Club. Of course, I had a meal down in Canonmills once, but that place closed. And there’s a nice Italian place round the corner, but the proprietor went back to Italy. Lucca, I think.”
He paused. “Has that been any help?”
“Not really,” said Matthew. “Although I suppose it closes off certain possibilities.”
“Mind you,” said Angus, “there used to be some exciting restaurants in Edinburgh. There was the Armenian Restaurant, of course, which used to be down in that old steamie opposite the Academy. You won’t remember it, but I used to go there from time to time. Then he moved up to that old place near Holyrood. He may still be there – I don’t know. Very exotic place that – exciting too, if the proprietor got on to the subject of Armenian history.”
Angus looked down at Cyril’s empty place. It was at this very table that, some time ago, he had been reunited with Cyril after he had escaped his captors. He looked up at the door through which Cyril had been led by his rescuer, the man who worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland. If only he would come back through that door again, with Cyril on a lead; idle thought, impossible thought; the state was a much more efficient kidnapper of dogs, and Cyril would be firmly under lock and key, conditions that would require a Houdini Terrier – if there was such a breed – to enable escape.
He looked up. “Why not make her dinner at your place?
Candlelight. A nice bottle of something. That’s what I would do if . . .” He broke off, his attention suddenly attracted by something he had seen on the other side of the room. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“That chap over there,” said Angus, inclining his head to the far side of the bar. “That one, with the grey jacket. Yes, him.
You know who that is?”
That Chap Over There – Know Who That Is?
97
Matthew looked at the person indicated by Angus. He was a man somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, neatly dressed, with dark hair. He was engaged in conversation with a couple of other men seated at his table. One of them was leaning forward to listen to him, while the other sat back and looked up at the ceiling, as if weighing up what was being said.
Matthew turned back to Angus. “Never seen him,” he said.
“Who is he?”
Angus leant forward conspiratorially. “That, Matthew my friend, is Rabbie Cromach – Big Lou’s new friend. That’s who he is!”
Matthew turned back to stare at the man. “I see,” he said.
“Well, that’s interesting.”
“Yes,” said Angus. “But what’s more interesting is the company he’s in.”
Matthew’s heart sank. It seemed that Big Lou was destined to choose unsuitable men – men who bordered on the criminal.
Was she doing it again? He hardly dared ask. “Bad company?”