use. People are funny that way. There’s Cyril paying his full seventy quid and some would say that he would have no right to treatment. Amazing. But people aren’t entirely rational about these things.”
Matthew suddenly rose to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at Pat but not at Angus Lordie. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
Angus Lordie looked at his watch. “How late is it? My goodness, the evening’s young. Can’t you stay?’
Matthew ignored his question. Still addressing himself to Pat, he told her that she could have the following morning off, if she wished. “We haven’t really been able to celebrate,’ he went on.
“So take the morning off.”
“Please don’t go yet,” she said, glancing sideways at Angus Lordie as she spoke.
Matthew shook his head. “No. Sorry. I have to be on my way.”
He turned on his heels, and although he nodded cursorily at Angus Lordie, it was clearly not a warm farewell.
“Sorry about that,” said Angus Lordie, lifting his glass of whisky. “I hope that I haven’t broken up your party.”
Pat said nothing – she was watching Matthew leave the bar, sidling past the group of raucous drinkers who were effectively blocking the door. Her sympathy for Matthew had grown during the short time they had been in the bar. He was not like Angus Lordie, who had confidence, who had style. There was something vulnerable about Matthew, something soft and indecisive.
He was the sort of person who would go through life never really knowing what he wanted to do. In that respect he was typical of many of the young men she had met in Edinburgh. That type grew up in comfortable homes with all the opportunities, but they lacked strength of character. Was that because they had never had to battle for anything? That must be it. And yet, thought Pat, have I had to fight for anything? Am I not just the same as them? The thought discomforted her and she left 246
it there, at the back of her mind – one of those doubts which could be profoundly disturbing if it were allowed to come to the fore.
Reaching the door, Matthew turned back and looked in her direction. She caught his eye, and smiled at him, and he did return the smile as he disappeared through the doorway into the night. Pat stared at the doorway and was still staring when Bruce came in, together with Sally, laughing at some private joke. She had her arms about his shoulders and was whispering into his ear.
“Know them?” asked Angus Lordie, noticing the direction of Pat’s stare.
For a moment Pat said nothing, and she watched Bruce and Sally squeeze past the knot of people at the doorway and go over to the bar. This manoeuvre brought them closer to the table at which she was sitting with Angus Lordie, and so she averted her gaze. She did not want Bruce to see her, and any meeting with that American girl would be awkward – after the incident with the dressing gown.
“Do I know them?” she muttered, and then, turning back to face Angus Lordie, she replied: “Yes, I do. He’s my flatmate. He’s called Bruce Anderson.”
“Terrific name,” said Angus Lordie. “You might play rugby for Scotland with a name like that. Cyril’s name – Cyril Lordie
– would be useless for rugby, wouldn’t it? The selectors would choke on it and pass you by! You just can’t play rugby if you’re called Cyril, and that’s all there is to it. It’s got nothing to do with being a dog.”
Pat said nothing to this. Of course Bruce’s name was wonderful: Bruce – a strong, virile, confident name. Bruce and Pat. Pat and Bruce. Yes. But then cruel reality intruded: Bruce and Sally.
247
Pat looked at Angus, who smiled at her. His conversation was extraordinary. Many of the things he said seemed to come from nowhere, and seemed so eccentric; it appeared that he looked at things from an entirely different angle, which was fun, and exhilarating. He was the opposite of boring, the opposite of poor Matthew. And that, she thought, was why Matthew had felt obliged to leave. This man made him feel dull, which Matthew was, of course.
Angus Lordie was looking towards the bar, where Bruce and Sally were standing, Bruce in the process of ordering drinks.
“That girl,” he said. “His girlfriend, I take it? You know her?”
Pat cast a glance at Bruce and Sally, and then looked quickly away. “Not very well,” she said. “In fact, I’ve only met her once.
She’s American.”
“American? Interesting.” Angus Lordie paused. “What do you think she sees in him?”
He waited for Pat to answer, and when she did not, he answered his own question. “He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?
With that hair of his. He’s got something on it, hasn’t he? Yes.
Well, I suppose that if I looked like that I’d have American girls hanging on my arm too.”
Pat looked at Angus Lordie. Did he really still think like that
– at the age of fifty, or whatever he was? It was sad to think that he still wanted to be in the company of girls like Sally because that would doom him to a life of yearning after people who inevitably would be interested in younger men and not in him.
