he said finally.
Angus smiled. “Depends on your view of a number of things,”
he said. “The Act of Settlement for one thing. The Hanoverians.
General Wade. The list could go on.”
“I’m not with you,” said Matthew.
Angus leant forward again. “Sorry to be obscure, but you’ll soon see what I mean. That man directly opposite Rabbie –
the one with the blue jacket – him, yes him. He’s an eighty-four-horsepower fruitcake, if I may mix my metaphors. Always writing to the papers. Got chucked out of the public gallery at the General Assembly a few years ago and out of the Scottish Parliament too. Shouting his heid off about Hanoverian usurpers.
Get my drift?”
Matthew looked in fascination. “Jacobites?”
“Yes,” said Angus. “Those two – I forget the other one’s name, but he’s in it up to here – those two are well-known Jacobites – the real McCoy. They actually believe in the whole thing. King over the Water toasts and all that.”
98
Things Behind Things in the Circular City Matthew looked at the three men in fascination. It struck him as odd that people could harbour a historical grudge so long –
to the point of disturbing the succession to the throne. But then, the whole story was such a romantic one that people just forgot what the Stuarts, or many of them, were actually like. Of course they thought that the Hanoverians were German – and they were right.
Through Matthew’s mind there suddenly ran a snatch of song, half-remembered, but strangely familiar. “Noo a big prince cam to Edinburgh-toon / And he was just a wee bit German lairdie / For a far better man than ever he was / Lay oot in the heather wi’ his tartan plaidie!”
One could get caught up in sentiments like that. Perhaps it was not as ridiculous as it seemed.
Angus now patted Matthew on the forearm. “Matthew,” he said. “I want to tell you a story. About those characters.
Interested?”
30. Things Behind Things in the Circular City Matthew was interested. Angus Lordie’s views on the world were often rather quirky – off-centre, in an unexpected way – but he had an extraordinary knowledge of things that were out of the experience of most people. This came in part from his unconventional background, and in part from his interest in what he termed “things behind things.”
On another occasion, when they had been talking to one another in the Cumberland Bar, Matthew had asked him: “And what exactly do you mean by ‘things behind things’?” To which Angus had replied: “It’s all about what people really mean. Most people, you see, act on two levels – the public and the private.
They have a public life, which anybody can see, and then they have a private life, which is what really counts. So take politicians, for instance; they all say more or less the same thing –
Things Behind Things in the Circular City 99
utter the same slogans about improving services and so on – but what really counts is the private understandings they have with one another, with their backers. So things are not necessarily what they seem to be on the surface. You have to look at the networks.”
He had expanded. “And this city is a good example. It’s full of understandings, connections, networks. Some of these are fairly open. Everybody knows who’s in which political party and who their friends will be. So when a public job comes up, the rhetoric will be about who’s best for the post and so on. But we all know that that is just rhetoric. What really counts is who knows the people in power. Which shouldn’t surprise anybody, I suppose. That’s how most places are run, isn’t it? We like our friends; we trust them; we reward them.
“But if you think that it’s all that open, then you need to think again. It’s the connections beneath the surface that can be really important. If you go to some grand function or other, what do you find? I’ll tell you, Matthew: everybody there knows one another, except you! Isn’t that interesting? When I was on the Artists’ Benevolent Committee, I would be thrown a few scraps of invitations to some of these official parties – receptions and so on – and what do you think I found? Everybody who came in the door immediately went off and chatted with somebody or other. Nobody stood around and looked spare. They all knew one another.
“Now, I’m not one of these people who imagine conspira-cies, Matthew, but I’m not blind. And I’m also quite interested in what makes things tick, and so I had to ask myself: how did they all know one another? And what do you think the reason is?”
Matthew looked vague. He was thinking of how many people he knew, and he had decided that it was not very many. He was intrigued, though, and he wondered if Angus knew of some secret cabal. Was his father involved? he asked himself.
His father seemed to know an awful lot of people, and Matthew 100 Things Behind Things in the Circular City had always assumed that this was because he was a Watsonian and had played rugby. But was there something more to it than that? He looked at Angus. “Are there . . . are there circles?”
For a moment, Angus appeared puzzled by the question.
Then he leant forward and whispered: “Yes. There are circles.”
And with that he had made a circular movement with a finger.
Matthew was not sure how to take this. So he simply repeated:
“Circles.”
Angus nodded gravely. “Lots of them.”
“But what proof do you have?” Matthew asked.
“Look at the architecture,” said Angus. “And I don’t just mean Rosslyn Chapel, although that’s very interesting. Look at Moray Place. Start walking at one point and carry on, and where do you end up? Where you started! It’s a circle, you see.
“And then there’s Muirfield Golf Course, where the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers has its seat. What happens if you start on the first tee? You walk all over the place, but you end up more or less where you started – back at the clubhouse. Circular.”
“So what does all this mean?” asked Matthew.
“I would have thought it’s pretty obvious,” replied Angus.
“This is a city which is built on the circular. So if you want to understand it, you have to get into that circular frame of mind.
And that frame of mind is everywhere. Look at an Eightsome Reel. How do people arrange themselves? In a circle. And that’s a metaphor, Matthew, for the whole process. You get in a circle, and you work from there. You refer to others in the same circle.
You don’t think outside the circle.”
“You mean outside the box,” Matthew corrected him.
“No, I said circle,” insisted Angus. “And that’s what I mean.”
And then Angus had become silent. Matthew wanted him to say more, but he had not, and he had been left with the uncomfortable conclusion that Angus was either slightly mad Things Behind Things in the Circular City 101
or . . . , and this was a distinct possibility, slightly circular. But the conversation had remained with him, and now, sitting again in the Cumberland Bar, again with Angus, he had reason to recollect it as they looked across the room at the small circle of men at the other table . . . circle . . .
“That,” said Angus quietly, “is a Jacobite circle. The one in the blue jacket is called Michael somebody-or-other and he’s the one I’ve met before. I was in a pub over the other side of town, the Captain’s Bar, in South College Street, near the university. It’s a funny wee place, very narrow, with a bunch of crabbit regulars and a smattering of students. Not the sort of place one would have gone in the old days if one objected to being kippered in smoke. I was there with an old friend from art college days who liked to drink there. Anyway, there we were when in came that fellow over there, Michael, and another couple of people – a lang-nebbit woman wearing a sort of Paisley shawl and a man in a brown tweed coat. Jimmy, my friend from art college, knew the woman in the shawl, and so we ended up standing next to one another and a conversation started. It was pleasant enough, I suppose, and we bought each other a round of drinks. Then Michael looked at his watch and said that they had to go, but that we were welcome to go along with them if we had nothing better to do. Jimmy said: ‘I suppose you’re off to one of your meetings.’ And Michael laughed and said that they were, but that we would be welcome too. There would be something to eat, they said, and since we were both feeling hungry, we agreed to go.