– and which tasted just like the coffee which Big Lou now served him.
“I’ve had a Proustian moment,” Matthew said, bringing himself back to reality.
“That happens all the time,” said Big Lou. “We all have Proustian moments, but don’t really know about it until we read Proust.”
Pat sat at her desk in the gallery, numbed by the effect of Bruce’s words. He hardly knew that girl, she thought. He had met her the day before the dressing-gown incident, which said something about the speed with which she had allowed the relationship to progress. What a tart!
And what exactly did he see in her, she wondered. She was
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undoubtedly attractive, but there were numerous girls just as attractive, if not more so. Bruce would only have to go into the Cumberland Bar and stand there for twenty minutes or so and he would be
Was it something to do with her being American? Some people were impressed with that, because they felt that the Americans were somehow special, a race apart. That used to be how the British regarded themselves when they bestrode the world; perhaps it was not surprising that Americans should have a similar conceit of themselves now that they were the great imperial power – a special race, touched with greatness. And there would be people like Bruce who might share this self-evaluation and think that it would be something privileged, something special, to be associated with an American.
She thought of all this, her despair growing with each moment. I hate him, she said to herself. He’s nothing to me.
But then she thought of him again and she felt a physical lurch in the pit of her stomach. I want to be with him. I want him.
I’m ill, she thought. Something has happened to my mind.
This is what it must be like to be affected by one of those illnesses which her psychiatrist father had told her about.
“People who are brewing a psychotic illness often have some degree of insight,” he had said to her. “They know that something strange is happening to them, even if the delusions are powerful and entirely credible once they are experienced.”
Perhaps this was what was happening to her; she had been overcome with a powerful delusional belief that Bruce was desirable, and even if she knew that this was a destructive belief, she still felt it – it still exercised its power over her. So may an addict feel when confronted with the substance of his addiction: well aware that the drug will harm him but unable to do anything about it. And so may an addict deprived feel when he realises that what he craves is not available to him; the emptiness, the panic that she now felt.
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Matthew, when he returned, was a welcome distraction from this discomfort.
“I’ve telephoned Mr Dunbarton,” said Pat.
Matthew looked at her with anticipation. “And?”
“He was very good about it,” she said.
Ramsey Dunbarton appeared to have been pleased to receive her call, having initially assumed that she was from Party Headquarters, and that she was enquiring about the success of the event.
“It was a very satisfactory evening,” he had said. “Nice of you to ask. The turnout was modest, perhaps, but that didn’t appear to dampen spirits. And we had some of the younger members there too. A charming fellow with . . . with hair, and that Todd girl, the one who was studying over in Glasgow but who’s now back in Edinburgh.
“My wife bumped into her, actually, a few times at the Colinton tennis courts. You know the ones just off the Colinton Road, just after that Mercedes garage. No, hold on, is it a bit before? – I find that bit of Colinton Road a bit confusing. I suppose it depends on whether you’re coming from the direction of town or from the other direction, you know, the road which goes up to Redford and to Merchiston Castle School.
“Funny that you should mention Merchiston. I was there, you know, a good time ago. We had a great time, although, my goodness, it was fairly Spartan in those days, I can tell you.
A bit like a prison camp, but that didn’t bother us boys. I see nothing wrong with communal showers, and some boys actually liked them. Why not? Things are very different now – much more comfortable, and a very good school altogether. But I hope that the boys don’t go too soft.
“My godson, Charlie Maclean, went there, along with his two brothers. Charlie had a splendid time and right at the end he went to a cadet camp in Iceland. There was a bit of a row there, and the master who was in charge of the cadets, who was some sort of captain or major, got into a terrible stramash with the boys.
Anyway, the long and the short of it was that there was a mutiny, led by Charlie. This master said: ‘Maclean, you’re expelled!’
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Whereupon Charlie said: ‘But I’ve just left school anyway. You can’t expel me!’ Whereupon this character shouted: ‘Then you’re forbidden to join the Old Merchistonian Association!’ What a hoot!”
It was at this point that Pat interrupted him, and explained what she was calling about. Ramsey Dunbarton listened, and then laughed.
“I would have been delighted to return it to you,” he said.
