“Sorry, Lou,” he said. “Monday is a really important evening for me.” (And for me? thought Lou.) “I’d love to be able to change it, but I’m afraid I can’t.” He paused. “But I don’t want you to spend your birthday by yourself, Lou. So why don’t you come with me? There’s an important meeting. Really important.”
Big Lou rubbed at the gleaming metal surface of the bar. It would be the Jacobites, she thought: Michael, Heather, and Jimmy, and others no doubt, all equally obsessed, all equally poised on the cusp of delusion. She looked at Robbie, who smiled back at her encouragingly. When you take on a man, thought Big Lou, you take him on with all his baggage. So women had to put up with football and golf and drinking in pubs, and all the things that men tended to do. In her case, she had to take on Robbie’s peculiar historical enthusiasm, which, when one came to think of it, was harmless enough. It was not as if they were some sort of guerrilla A Peculiar and Yet Harmless Enthusiasm 303
movement, dedicated to changing the constitution by force, and prepared to blow people up in the process – these were mild, rather ineffective people (or at least Michael, Heather, and Jimmy were), who hankered after something utterly impossible. And there were plenty of people who harboured unrealistic, unlikely beliefs, who wanted the unattainable in its various forms. There was a saint for them, was there not?
Saint Jude, she thought, patron of lost causes and desperate situations.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll come along. And maybe we could have a late dinner – afterwards. The meeting won’t go on forever, will it?”
Robbie’s relief was evident. “Of course not. And thank you, Lou. Thank you for being . . . so understanding.”
Big Lou smiled. “That’s all right,” she said. “As long as you’re happy, Robbie. That’s the important thing.”
“I am, Lou. I am.”
“But what’s the meeting about?” she asked. “Why is it so important?”
Robbie thought for a moment. “Michael asked for it,” he said. “He’s going to give us the details of the arrival . . .” He broke off, evidently uncertain as to whether or not he should continue.
“Go on,” encouraged Big Lou. “The arrival of . . .”
“Of the emissary,” said Robbie. “As you know, he’s coming very soon. He’s coming, Lou!”
Big Lou raised an eyebrow. “This Pretender fellow they were talking about last time?”
“He’s not a Pretender, Lou.” Robbie’s tone was aggrieved, and Big Lou immediately relented. He believed in this.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“This is serious, Lou,” said Robbie. Now he lowered his voice. “This man is a direct descendant, a direct descendant of Prince Charlie himself. And he’s coming here to make contact with his people again. He’s entrusting us – us, Lou – to look after him. We’re going to meet him at Waverley Station and 304 A Peculiar and Yet Harmless Enthusiasm then we’re going to have a press conference to introduce him.
It’s going to be all over the newspapers, Lou. It’s going to make people think.” He paused. “And I’ve been asked to take him up to the west.”
Robbie waited for a reaction to this, but Lou did not know what to say.
“He wants to follow in the steps of Prince Charlie,” Robbie continued. “So I’m going to take him over to South Uist. Then we’ll cross over to Skye, just as Prince Charlie did.”
Big Lou stared at Robbie. “That means crossing the Minch,”
she said.
“Aye, it does,” said Robbie.
“In a wee boat?”
“I haven’t made arrangements yet,” said Robbie. “I think that the prince was rowed, wasn’t he? Him and Flora MacDonald.”
“And you’re going to row?”
Robbie shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe we’ll have a small outboard motor, something like that.”
Big Lou nodded. “The Minch can get pretty wild,” she said.
“You wouldn’t want to sink. Not with a New Pretender on board.
That wouldn’t look too good, would it?”
Robbie looked at her reproachfully. “I’m serious, Lou. I know that this may not mean much to you, but it means a lot to us. It’s a link with our country’s past. It’s part of our history.”
Big Lou was placatory. “I know, Robbie. I know.”
“Do you, Lou? Do you? You aren’t laughing at me, are you?”
She moved from behind the counter and went to stand beside Robbie. She reached out and put her arms around his shoulders. “I wouldn’t laugh at you, Robbie. I’d never laugh at you. You’re a good man.”
Big Lou was tall, but Robbie was slightly taller. He looked down at her. “I love you a lot, Lou,” he said. “I really do. You’re kind. You’re clever. You’re beautiful.”
A Theme for the Definitive Masterpiece 305
She caught her breath. Nobody had said that to her ever before. Nobody had called her beautiful, and now he had, this man, this man with all his funny notions, he had called her beautiful. So perhaps I am, she thought. Perhaps I’ve been wrong to think of myself as plain. There is at least one man who thinks otherwise, and that, for many women and certainly for Big Lou, was enough.
90. A Theme for the Definitive Masterpiece For Angus Lordie, the return of Cyril from durance vile had been a transforming event. The sense of emptiness, the list-lessness, that had afflicted him during the period of Cyril’s absence faded immediately, like a blanketing haar that suddenly lifts to reveal a morning of clarity and splendour. This, he thought, is what it must be like to be given a reprieve, to be told that one was well when one had imagined the worst. Now he had energy.
His first task was to pick up the brush that he had so dispirit-edly laid aside. The group portrait over which he had been labouring was finished with alacrity, and the sitters, who had appeared sombre and depressed, were invigorated by a few bold strokes: a smile there, a jaunty dash of colour there – they were 306 A Theme for the Definitive Masterpiece easy to rescue. Once that was done, though, there was the question of the next project, and Angus had been giving some thought to that.
The previous night, while taking a bath, it had occurred to him that there was no particular painting to which he could point and say: “That is my masterpiece.” Certainly, he had executed some fine paintings – although he was modest, Angus had enough self-knowledge to recognise that – but the best of these was no more than primus inter pares. Two of them were in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and one of them had gone abroad, to vanish into the private collection of a Singaporean banker – or was it a Singaporean baker? The dealer in Cork Street who had written to tell him of the sale had handwriting which was difficult to interpret, but Angus had hoped that it was a baker rather than a banker. He could imagine his Singaporean baker, a rotund man with that agreeable, genial air that seems to surround those who have made their money in food. He liked to think of him sitting there in his Singaporean fastness, appreciating his painting, nibbling, perhaps, on a plate of pastries.
Of course, Singapore was close to Malacca, where Domenica had conducted her recent researches into the domestic economy of contemporary pirates, and Angus had asked her on her return if she had ventured south.
“I went there for a few days after I left Malacca,” she had said. “You’ll recall the dénouement of my researches? I felt that after that I should treat myself to a bit of comfort, and so I went to Singapore and stayed in the Raffles Hotel. Such luxury, Angus! The Indian doorman at Raffles has the most wonderful mustache – apparently the most photographed thing in Singapore!”