And Scotland meeting France in Paris, when France scored seventy points and Scotland scored three. That was not such a good game, Bruce thought, and he turned it off at half-time.
At five o’clock he went into the bathroom, ran a hot bath, and after a few moments in front of the full-length mirror, 130
immersed himself in the deep, soapy water. He felt more cheerful now. That Todd girl would cramp his style, no doubt, but there might be other girls to dance with there; he wouldn’t be stuck with her all night. And one of these other girls might be just right for him. There were stranger places to meet women than at a Conservative Ball. Such as . . . He wondered about that. Where was the most unlikely place to meet somebody? A dentist’s surgery? Warriston Crematorium?
Bruce dressed himself with care. Gel was applied to the hair and cologne to exposed flesh. Then there was a quick inspection.
Perfect. Great.
He left his room and went out into the hall. It was at that point that he remembered Sasha’s request for a contribution to the tombola. This was irritating, but perhaps there would be some bric-a-brac in the cupboard. So he opened the door and looked inside. There were things which had been left there over the years by a succession of tenants. There might be something.
He found the parcel, and opened it. He held the painting up to examine it under the light. He did not like it. The colours were too bright and there was not enough detail. This was the problem with amateurs – they couldn’t draw properly. You had to scratch your head to find out what they were trying to portray.
Bruce liked Vettriano. He knew how to draw. Still, this would do for the tombola. It was obviously the work of somebody’s aunt, long forgotten and abandoned in this cupboard. But at least he would not arrive empty-handed. So he slipped it back into its wrapping, picked up his coat, and left for the Todd house in the Braids, the painting under his arm.
Groaning inwardly, Lizzie Todd walked up the short path that led to the front door of her parents’ house in the Braids. She
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had grown up in this house, but she felt little of the affection that one was supposed to feel for the place in which one spends one’s early years. Indeed, when she had left home to go to Glasgow Caledonian University to take her degree in Indeterminate Studies, she had done so with such a measure of relief that it was visible.
“Do you think she’ll miss us?” Todd had said to his wife shortly after her departure. “She looked so happy. It was almost as if she was pleased to go.”
Sasha sighed. “She’s a strange girl. I’m not sure if I understand her, but I’m sure she’ll miss us.”
Todd had been silent. He had wanted a son, who would play rugby for Watson’s and who would in due course join the firm.
But life rarely worked out as one planned it and when no further children had arrived he had accepted his lot, to be the father of a daughter who seemed each year to become more distant from him, and increasingly uninterested in his world. He looked to his wife for an explanation, and a solution, but it seemed that she was as incapable as he was of communicating with their daughter. It crossed his mind that it was dislike – as simple as that – a failure of the intricate, inexplicable chemistry that makes one person like or love another. But that was a bleak conclusion, and was only once, very briefly, articulated when Todd had said to the then sixteen-year-old Lizzie: “I suppose you’d like me more, wouldn’t you, if I were Sean Connery?”
And she had looked at him blankly, perplexed, and had said: “But you aren’t,” before she added: “And I suppose you’d like me more if I were Gavin Hastings.” It had not been a profitable exchange.
Years on now, Lizzie slipped her key into the lock and opened the parental door. She sniffed at the air. This was the familiar smell of home, but not a smell that she particularly liked. Her mother’s cleaner used a lavender-scented furniture polish and the smell of this pervaded the house. It had always been there, from the earliest days of Lizzie’s childhood, and it had ruined lavender for her, forever.
From within the house there came the sound of a bath being
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run. Todd was late back from the golf course and needed a bath before changing into his kilt. Sasha, by contrast, was always ready well in advance, and was making her way down the corridor, fully dressed, when she heard Lizzie come in. When the two of them met in the hall, Sasha glanced quickly at Lizzie’s dress.
Had she made an effort? That was the issue. It would be typical of her to agree to come to the ball and then do nothing about looking her best for the occasion.
The verdict was positive. “That’s a very pretty dress, dear,”
said Sasha. “And those shoes . . .”
They were standing at the entrance to the drawing room and Lizzie now turned away and walked towards the window that looked out over the distant rooftops of Morningside.
“They hurt my feet,” she said. “I’m going to have to take something else with me.”
“I can lend you a pair,” Sasha said brightly. “I bought them just a few weeks ago. They’d go very nicely with that dress.”
She went off to fetch the shoes, while Lizzie stared moodily out of the window.
“Here,” said Sasha, holding out the shoes. “Slip into these.
They’ll be much more comfortable.”
