She said: “Have you forgiven me?”
He was puzzled. “For what? What have I got to forgive you for?”
“For that business over Angus Lordie’s painting. For selling it to . . .”
“To that man with the mustache? The Duke of . . .”
“Johannesburg. Yes. For doing all that. Because, anyway, I’ve sorted it all out.”
He looked puzzled. “Has he paid?”
He had not. But she had felt guilty about it and been in touch with him. He had said that he would pay, she explained. “He was very nice about it,” she said. “He said that he had been meaning to get in touch and that he was glad that I had phoned.
And he’s asked us to a party.”
“Hold on,” said Matthew. “He – the Duke, that is – has asked us – you and me, that is – to a party?”
“Yes,” said Pat. “Tonight. Any time before twelve. He said that things get a bit slower at midnight.”
Matthew shook his head. “I can’t believe this! You went off and set all this up – why didn’t you ask me? What if I had been going to do something else?”
“But you wouldn’t,” Pat said. “You never do . . .” She left the sentence unfinished, as well she might – she had not intended even to begin it. It was true, of course; Matthew never did anything, never went out. His life, when one came to think of it, was remarkably empty, not that she had meant to tell him that.
142 Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow But he had heard. “I never do what?” There was an edge to his voice, disclosing, perhaps, a sense of having been misjudged.
“You never do anything on a Tuesday night,” Pat said quickly.
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Same difference,” she said. “Anyway, the point is this: the Duke has invited us and I think we should go. And he said that he’d give us the cheque there. So we have to go.”
“All right,” said Matthew. But he did not think that it was all right; it was all wrong in his view. He was so passive, so useless, that she had to make the decisions. He looked down at his new pair of midbrown, handmade shoes that had arrived from John Lobb that morning. She had not noticed them; she never would.
43. Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow After dinner, Matthew and Pat took a taxi out to Single-Malt House, on the southern extremes of the city. Matthew had cheered up during the course of the meal, and they had both laughed to the brink of tears when a garlic-buttered snail had slipped off Matthew’s fork and disappeared down his shirt front.
Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow 143
“You’re so sweet,” Pat had said suddenly. “With your snails and . . .”
Matthew was not sure whether it was a good thing to be called sweet. Being called cute was a different matter; that was a compliment, and one did not have to be in short trousers to receive it. But most men, he thought, would object to being called sweet. Indeed, the Scots term sweetie-wife was commonly used, in a pejorative sense, for a man who liked to gossip with women. Matthew, for his part, saw nothing wrong in gossiping with women, which he rather enjoyed when he had the chance. He liked talking to Big Lou; he liked talking to Pat; in fact, he liked talking to any woman who was prepared to talk to him. At the heart of Scots culture, though, was an awful interdiction of such emotional closeness between men and women; a terrible separation inflicted by a distorted football-obsessed emotional tyranny, such a deep injury of the soul.
Yet it was not an evening to take offence at what was undoubtedly intended as a compliment, and so Matthew said nothing, but merely nodded in acknowledgement. “And you’re sweet too,”
he said, adding, “in a different way.”
The conversation moved on.
“Who was in the Cumberland Bar this evening?” asked Pat.
“The usual crowd,” said Matthew. “But I only spoke to Angus Lordie. You’ve heard about Cyril?”
“I have,” said Pat. “And it’s awful. My father says that they’ll have him put down, for sure. He said that he has a patient whose dog was put down for biting. My father said that the owner experienced real grief and suffered from depression for a long time. You’d think that they’d take that into account before they order dogs to be destroyed. Those dogs are members of somebody’s family.”
“Exactly,” said Matthew. “And Angus is really upset, as you can imagine. Anyway, he told me about Big Lou’s new boyfriend, Robert something-or-other. It’s one of those very Scottish surnames – Crolloch or something like that. Crumblie, maybe.
Robert Crumblie? No, I don’t think so.”
144 Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow
“Smellie? That’s a common name.”
Matthew laughed. “Yes, it is. I knew a boy called Smellie at school. The family came from Fife, where they often have these interesting names. There are people called McSporran up there, which is fine, but you have to admit it is a pretty striking name.
Like Smellie.”
Pat was intrigued. “What was Smellie like?”
Matthew thought for a moment. He was trying to remember what Smellie’s first name was. Archie MacPherson Smellie. That was it. And then he smiled at the memory.
“Archie,” he said. “Archie Smellie. He was a great betting man, or, I suppose, betting boy. He had a numbers racket at school, which we all paid into. You would choose a number between one and fifty and Archie would write it down in his book. Then, each week, Archie would announce which number he was going to pay up on, and you’d get fifteen times your stake if it was your number.”
“How did he choose the number?”
Matthew laughed. “That’s the point. Archie never told us that, and sometimes there were weeks in which he said no number came up and he pocketed the whole proceeds. You’d think that we would have seen through it, but we didn’t. I suppose we were very trusting.”
“And what became of him?”
“He became an accountant,” said Matthew. “I saw him the other day in Great King Street. He was walking along in the opposite direction. I stopped him and said: ‘Hello, Smellie,’ and he stared at me for a moment. Then I think he vaguely recognised me and muttered: ‘Actually, it’s Smiley these days.’ ”
“That’s sad that he felt that he had to change his name.”
Matthew agreed, but said that he understood. “Your name defines you,” he said. “And I don’t see why you should go through life being called something that embarrasses you. Mind you, some people make a point of sticking to an embarrassing name.
They more or less challenge you to laugh. People like that show great courage, I think.”
Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow 145
Pat tried to think of people she knew who had shown courage in the face of an embarrassing name. She could not think of anybody.
But Matthew could. “I know somebody called Winterpoo,”
he said. “Martin Winterpoo. Poor chap. But he’s stuck to his name, which shows great qualities, in my view.” He paused.
“Would you like to be called something different, Pat?”
Pat hesitated before answering. The truth of the matter was that she would. Pat was such a brief name, so without character.
It said nothing about its bearer. And it was androgynous.
She looked at Matthew. “You think I should be called something else? Is that what you think?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I just asked you. There’s nothing wrong with being called Pat.”
Pat looked down at the tablecloth. “And what about your own name, Matthew? What about that? If I’m Pat, then you’re Matt.”
Reaching for the champagne, Matthew topped up Pat’s glass.
We’re arguing again, he thought. It seems to happen rather too often recently. We’re like two boxers dancing around one another in the ring, waiting to land a blow. This thought depressed him, and he did not want to be depressed; not tonight, with the Bollinger on the table and the prospect of a party at the Duke’s house. He decided to change the subject.