“Believe me, Daddy. We just click. He’s lovely.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Anything that makes my girl happy.
Anything.”
Julia took him gently by the arm. “Just make sure that he won’t say no,” she said, her voice still low.
270 Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point
“Well, as long as he’s reasonably well-disposed, then I think I can make things attractive enough for him.”
“Good.”
They entered the drawing room, where Bruce was sitting by the window. As they entered, he rose and crossed the floor to shake hands with Graeme.
“So you’re Bruce.” Graeme took Bruce’s hand and shook it warmly.
“Sir.”
“Please call me Graeme.”
Julia moved to Bruce’s side and linked her arm in his. “You two will have lots to talk about,” she said, gazing at Bruce.
“Daddy, Bruce used to be a surveyor.”
“Macauley Holmes etc.,” said Bruce.
Graeme nodded. “Good firm. I’ve had dealings with them.
Nice chaps, the Todds.”
“Yes,” said Bruce, less than enthusiastically.
“Why did you leave?” asked Graeme.
Bruce’s answer came readily. “Challenge,” he said. “I needed to get my teeth into something new.”
Graeme nodded appreciatively. “Always a good idea.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Bruce spoke. “You’re in commercial property yourself, Julia tells me.”
“Yes,” said Graeme. “Mostly here in Edinburgh. Shops. I prefer them to offices, you know. I felt that you’re more at the mercy of the economy if you have office space on your hands. But if you have retail property in a good area, then there’s always somebody prepared to take on a lease. Or that’s what I’ve found. The triumph of hope over commercial experience.”
Bruce laughed. “George Street?” he asked. “Julia said something about George Street.”
Graeme nodded. “I have a wine bar there,” he said. “You may know it.”
Bruce did know it. It was one of the more fashionable wine bars. He and Julia had been there together and she had Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point 271
said something about her father, but he had paid no attention.
“A great bar,” said Bruce. “It must do very well.”
“It could do better,” said Graeme. “I need to get somebody to take it in hand. Somebody who . . .” He trailed off. He was watching Bruce, and he saw the slight movement of the brows.
I can see what she sees in him, Graeme thought. And what a relief, with all that riff-raff around these days; at long last she’s come up with a young man about whom I can be enthusiastic; somebody who shares my values. Bit dim, I suspect, but obviously capable of producing grandchildren, and nothing in the least artistic about him, thank heavens, unlike the last one: talk about barking up the wrong tree with him! No, she’s quite right; this is more like it.
He looked at Bruce. “Would you mind if I had a frank talk with you?” he asked suddenly. “I’ve never been one to beat about the bush – I don’t see the point. Man to man. Much better.”
Bruce froze. She’s told him, he thought. She’s gone and told him.
“You see,” said Graeme, “we’re not a big family. I lost my wife, as you may know, some time ago.”
Bruce thought of Julia’s mother, lost at the Iguazu Falls. He nodded.
“And so I’m very close to Julia,” Graeme went on. “And the one thing I want is her happiness. That means more to me than anything. Can you understand that?”
Bruce nodded. This was going to be very embarrassing.
“So if there’s a young man who’s keen to marry her,” said Graeme, “then that young man . . .” he paused for a moment, fixing him with a direct stare, “whoever he might turn out to be, will find himself very . . . how should I put it? . . . very well provided for. In fact, he would find himself in the business, as a director. And Julia, of course, would end up with a very nice share of the business, too – the whole lot, eventually. For instance, that wine bar in George Street. The young man would probably rather like being the . . . being the owner of that. And 272 Julia’s Father Comes Straight to the Point there are two parking garages that go with it, you know. He would need somewhere to park the little run-about that would go with the job. Not that a Porsche needs all that much space, of course!”
For a few moments, there was complete silence, at least in the drawing room. In the kitchen, there was the sound of a mixer whirring and then a metal spoon scraping against the side of a pot.
Bruce had been taken aback by the directness of the approach, but at least Graeme had made his position clear. And why shouldn’t he? Bruce asked himself. He was making an offer, and what point was there in making the offer less than clear?
Bruce did a rapid calculation. A wine bar in George Street would be worth well over a million. And that was without the other things that Graeme had hinted at. Life was a battle, Bruce thought, and here was he with nothing very much to show for the last six years. Look at Neil in that flat in Comely Bank, stuck there for the foreseeable future, struggling to make ends meet on what was probably a perfectly good salary. How long would that mortgage be? Twenty-five years? Anything would be better than that, anything.
He looked at Graeme, who was smiling at him nervously.
“You . . . you’ve spelled it out,” said Bruce. “Nobody could excuse you of . . .”
“Being oversubtle?” supplied Graeme.
“Well . . .” said Bruce.
Graeme raised a hand. “Julia seems very fond of you.”
“And I’m fond of her,” Bruce said, which he was, in a way.
He was reasonably fond of her, for all her . . . all her empty-headedness. No. Time to call it quits. Every bachelor has to face it, he thought. And this was, after all, a magnificent landing.
“All right, if I have your permission,” said Bruce, “I’d like to ask Julia to marry me.”
“You have it,” said Graeme quickly. He reached out for Bruce’s hand and shook it. “I think she’ll be very pleased.”
“Good,” said Bruce. “I’ll . . .”
A Clean Break – Not Without an Argument 273
“Go through now,” said Graeme. “Go and speak to her. I’ll stay here. But you go and pop the question.” He paused, rubbing his hands together. “And tell me, when’s the happy day to be?”
“The wedding? Well, I don’t know . . .”
“No, not that,” said Graeme. “You know what I mean.”
81. A Clean Break – Not Without an Argument On the day on which Bruce’s situation became so dramatically better, Matthew, whose long-term prospects had improved markedly on his meeting with Miss Harmony, now faced short-term discomfort in his relationship with Pat. He had decided to make a clean break with Pat even before he had so fortuitously met Elspeth Harmony, so nobody could accuse him of trading one woman for another. But even if he had not been disloyal, he still felt uncomfortable about the actual process of ending the relationship. On several occasions, he had rehearsed what he would say, trying various scripts, fretting over the degree to which each might be thought either too heartless or too ambiva-lent. Nothing sounded quite right.
And when the time came, it sounded flat, sounded phoney.
“Pat,” he began. “You and I need to talk.”
She looked up from a letter which she was in the process of opening. “Talk? All right. But about what?”
“Us,” said Matthew. “That is, you. Me. Us, as a . . . a couple.”
She saw that he was blushing, and this worried her. She had hoped that he would have forgotten what he had said that evening, at the Duke of Johannesburg’s party, but he evidently had not. Oh dear, she thought, I’m going to have to hurt his feelings. Poor Matthew! And he’s wearing his distressed-oatmeal sweater too.