eyes are not always to be believed.
She saw Bruce while she was travelling on a bus from one side of Edinburgh – the South Side, where she now lived –
to the New Town, on the north side of the city, where she worked three days a week in the gallery owned by her boyfriend, Matthew. The bus had descended with lumbering stateliness down the Mound, past the National Gallery of Scotland, and had turned into Hanover Street, narrowly missing an insouciant pedestrian at the corner. Pat had seen the near-miss – it was by the merest whisker, she thought – and had winced, but it was just at that moment, as the bus laboured up Hanover Street towards the statue of George IV, that she saw a young man walking in the opposite direction, a tall figure with Bruce’s characteristic
Her eye being caught by the rugby jersey and the stone-coloured trousers, she turned her head sharply. Bruce! But now she could see only the back of his head, and after a moment she could not see even that; Bruce, or his double, had merged into a knot of people standing on the corner of Princes Street and
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Pat lost sight of him. She looked ahead. The bus would stop in a few yards; she could disembark and make her way down to Princes Street to see if it really was him. But then she reminded herself that if she did that she would arrive late at the gallery, and Matthew needed her to be there on time; he had stressed that. He had an appointment, he said, with a client who was proposing to place several important Colourist pictures on the market. She did not want to hold him up, and quite apart from that there was the question of whether she would want to see Bruce, even if it proved to be him. She thought on balance that she did not.
Bruce had been her flatmate when she had first moved into 44 Scotland Street. At first, she had been rather in awe of him – after all, he was so confident in his manner, so self-assured –
and she at the time had been so much more diffident. Then things had changed. Bruce was undoubtedly good- looking – a fact of which he was fully aware and of which he was very willing to take advantage; he knew very well that women found him attractive, and he assumed that Pat would prove no exception.
Unfortunately, it transpired that he was right, and Pat found herself drawn to Bruce in a way which she did not altogether like. All this could have become very messy, but at the last
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moment, before her longing had been translated into anything beyond mere looking, she had come to her senses and decided that Bruce was an impossible narcissist. She fought to free herself of his spell, and she did. And then, having lost his job at the firm of surveyors (after being seen enjoying an intimate lunch in the Cafe St Honore with the wife of the firm’s senior partner), Bruce decided that Edinburgh was too small for him and had moved to London. People who do that often then discover that London is too big for them, much to the amusement of those who stayed behind in Edinburgh in the belief that it was just the right size. This sometimes leads to the comment that the only sensible reason for leaving Scotland for London was to take up the job of prime minister, a remark that might have been made by Samuel Johnson, had he not been so prejudiced on this particular matter and thought quite the opposite.
Pat had been relieved that Bruce had gone to London, and it had not occurred to her that he might return. It did not matter much to her, of course, as she moved in different circles from those frequented by Bruce, and she would not have to mix with him even if he did return. But at the same time she felt slightly unsettled by the possible sighting, especially as the experience made her feel an indefinable excitement, an increase in heart rate, that was not altogether welcome. Was it just the feeling one gets on meeting with an old lover, years afterwards? Try as one might to treat such occasions as ordinary events, there is a thrill which marks them out from the quotidian. And that is what Pat felt now.
She completed the rest of the bus journey down to Dundas Street in a thoughtful state. She imagined what she might say if she were to meet him and what he in turn might say to her.
Would he have been improved by living in London, or would he have become even worse? It was difficult to tell. There must be those for whom living in London is an enriching experience, and there must be those who are quite unchanged by it. Pat had a feeling that Bruce would not have learned anything, as he had 4
She got off her bus a few steps from Matthew’s gallery.
Through the window, she saw Matthew at his desk, immersed in paperwork. She looked at him fondly from a distance: dear Matthew, she thought; dear Matthew, in your distressed-oatmeal sweater, so ordinary, so safe; fond thoughts, certainly, but unac-companied by any quickening of the pulse.
Matthew glanced at his wristwatch. Pat was a few minutes late, but only a few minutes; not enough for him to express irritation. Besides, he himself was rarely on time, and he knew that he could hardly complain about the punctuality of others.
“I have to go,” he said, scooping up some papers from his desk. “Somebody wants my advice.”
“Yes,” said Pat. “You told me.” It had been surprising to her that anybody should seek Matthew’s advice on the Scottish Colourists, or on any painters for that matter, as it seemed only a very short time ago that she had found it necessary to impart to Matthew some of her own very recently acquired knowledge of basic art history. Only a year ago, there had been a rather embarrassing moment when a customer had mentioned Hornel, to be greeted by a blank look from Matthew. Yet in spite of the fact that he was hazy on the details, Matthew had a good aesthetic sense, and this, Pat thought, would get him quite far in the auction rooms. A good painting was a good painting, even if one did not know the hand that had painted it, and Matthew had considerable ability in distinguishing the good from the mediocre, and even the frankly bad. It was a pity though, she thought, that this ability did not run to clothes; the distressed-oatmeal sweater which he was wearing was not
actually in bad taste, but was certainly a bad choice if one wanted, as Matthew did, to cut a dash. And as for his trousers, which were in that increasingly popular shade, crushed strawberry, Pat found herself compelled to
