He looked back with longing to the days when he had been able to walk to work – even to go home for lunch or for a quick dalliance with a girlfriend if he so desired; that was impossible in London. He remembered how he could walk from the Cumberland Bar to Murrayfield Stadium in half an hour, with his friends, and then walk with them to a dinner and a party thereafter. And he remembered those friends: Gordon, Hamish, Iain, Simon, Fergus . . . and he found that he missed them.
So there had been the move back to Edinburgh and into the flat in Comely Bank owned by his friend Neil. Now there was the move out of that flat and into the flat in Howe Street owned by Julia Donald. So many moves . . . He zipped up his suitcase and moved it off the bed and onto the floor. Caroline, Neil’s wife, was standing in the doorway, watching him, and Bruce turned round to face her.
“Well,” he said. “That’s more or less it. I hope I haven’t left anything. If I have, give it to the Oxfam shop.” He paused. He did not like the way that Caroline watched him; it was distinctly 190 So Many Moves – Time to Make the Next One disconcerting, and he wondered if she did it to Neil too. I could never put up with being married to somebody like her, thought Bruce; poor Neil.
“Neil said that I should offer to drive you over there,” Caroline said. “Would you like me to do that?”
Bruce considered the offer for a moment. It was significant, he thought, that she had said that Neil had made the suggestion. She was not making the offer, her husband was. “No thanks,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to put you out. I’ll phone for a cab.”
She nodded. “Do you want to leave anything for the phone?”
she said.
“Sorry?”
“For your phone calls,” she said. “Sometimes when one stays somewhere one leaves money for one’s share of the phone bill.
That sometimes happens.”
Bruce blushed. This woman was the end. She was le fin, he thought.
“I haven’t kept a note,” he said. “Sorry. Maybe I should have noted down the length of the calls. You know, something like: Edinburgh to Glasgow, two minutes ten seconds. That sort of thing.” His lip curled as he spoke; she would hardly understand sarcasm, he thought; such people rarely do.
“Yes,” she said. “Maybe you should have.”
Bruce looked down at his suitcase. “You’ve got a problem, Caroline,” he said. “You’ve got a big problem. Maybe with phones, but also with men, I’d say, and I’m sorry about that, because there are lots of men about, you know.”
Caroline’s reply came quickly. “Not with all men,” she said.
“Just some.”
Bruce shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. He picked up his suitcase; there was no point in prolonging this. “You’ve been very kind,” he said. “Thanks for everything.”
Caroline did not move from the doorway. “My conditioner,”
she said, between clenched teeth. “Put it back in the shower!
You’ve moved it again, and I told you, I told you. I want it in He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him 191
the shower, on that little shelf. That’s where it lives. That conditioner lives there.”
57. He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him
“It’s amazing how petty some people are,” said Bruce. “They get really, really upset about tiny things. You know, really tiny things.” Julia Donald looked at him adoringly. “Such as?” she asked.
Bruce leaned back in his chair. “Well, Caroline was one of these OCD-types – you know, obsessive-compulsive disorder. She used to line the conditioner bottles up in the shower just like this, plonk plonk plonk, and she would go absolutely mental if you touched any of them. And of course you have to have a bit of room to move in a shower . . .” At this, he winked at Julia.
“Ideally, showers should have enough room for two. Saves energy.”
Julia giggled. “And it’s somehow more . . . more friendly.”
“Precisely,” said Bruce, glancing for a finely timed moment in the direction of the bathroom, which lay behind him in Julia’s flat. “Anyway, Caroline would go through the roof if any of her stupid conditioner bottles was moved. Ballistic. Stupid woman.”
“You’d think that she’d have better things to do,” said Julia.
“I can’t bear obsessively tidy people.”
Bruce glanced around her sitting room – their sitting room now. In the New Town, of course, he knew it would be called a drawing room, depending on how one defined oneself. As a surveyor, he had prided himself on being able to tell exactly when a living room would be described as such, or as a lounge (never), or when it would be a drawing room. It was not always easy, but there were many clues. A drawing room was genteel, and there were many drawing rooms in Edinburgh; this, he was sure, was one.
“It’s so comfortable,” he said, smiling at Julia. “It’s so comfortable, sitting here in the . . . in the . . .”
192 He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him
“Drawing room,” she supplied.
Well, thought Bruce, that settles that. There were few surprises in life if one had fine social antennae, which, he thought, I have.
He looked at Julia. She was very attractive – in a slightly outdoorsy way, and by that he did not mean rustic, or agricultural, but more . . . well, grouse-moorish. There was a breed of women who frequented grouse moors, standing around outside Land Rovers while their husbands and boyfriends peppered birds with lead-shot, an activity which, in an atavistic, tribal way appeared to give them pleasure. Some of these women themselves actually shot – ladies who shoot their lunch, as Country Life had so wittily put it. These women wore green down-filled jackets and green Wellingtons and liked dogs – although they only seemed to have one breed of dog, which was a Labrador.
They liked Labradors and Aga cookers, thought Bruce, and smiled at the thought. That was Julia.
And Julia, looking at Bruce, thought: he is so gorgeous, so hunkalato. It’s his shape, really – the whole shape of him. And that cleft in his chin. Do men have plastic surgery to put clefts in? Why not? Silly thought. I can just see him standing in his dressing gown in front of the Aga, cup of coffee in his hand, hair still wet from the shower, and mine, all mine! But who’s going to make the first move? He will, of course. Or he’d better.
He won’t wait long.
And what if he says to me: are you, you know . . . What should I say? No, it’s not wrong, not really. If I don’t get him, then some girl is going to get her claws into him and he may not be as happy with her as he is with me. I’ll make him happy – of course I will. He’ll be really happy with me, and the baby. Baby!
A real little baby! Mine. Mr and Mrs Bruce Anderson. Or, rather, Bruce and Julia Anderson. And little Rory Anderson? Charlotte Anderson? And we can still have lots of fun because we’ll get somebody to help. A Swedish girl, maybe. No. Not a Swede.
They’re pretty and we want somebody homely. So it’ll have to be a girl from . . . (and here she mentally named a town in Scotland, known for its homely girls).
He Felt a Wave of Contentment Come Over Him 193
Bruce stretched out his arms. “Yes, it’s really great being here, Julia. Thanks a lot.” He glanced at his watch. “I thought that I might have a shower, and then how about I cook some pasta?”
“Great,” said Julia. “Fab idea.”
Bruce rose to his feet. “Where’s the shower?” he asked.
Julia gestured to the corridor. “Along there.” She paused. “It’s a bit temperamental,” she said. “I need to get the plumber to come and take a look at it. But there’s a trick to working it. You have to turn the lever all the way to the right and then a little bit to the left. I can show you how to do it.”