been so very promising, had proved to be callous and disloyal. That had been very hard for Bertie. But then he had almost made a friend, in the shape of Tofu, although it was sometimes difficult to get Tofu’s attention, engaged as that boy was in a constant attempt to secure the notice of all around him through displays of bravado and scatological comment. But the few scraps of attention that he did obtain were worth it for Bertie, and made it easier for him to bear his psychotherapy sessions with Dr Fairbairn, his yoga in Stockbridge, his advanced Italian, and his preparation for his grade seven saxophone examinations.
Pat’s life was one in which there were no such significant saliences. She was about to begin her course at university, and 186
was looking forward to the student life. It would have been marginally better, she thought, if she were sharing a flat with other students, rather than with Bruce, but Scotland Street was convenient and she had become fond of it. And now, of course, she had met Peter, the part-time waiter from Glass and Thompson, who was also a student of English literature and given, she had surreptitiously learned, to skinny-dipping.
She was not sure what to make of Peter, and wanted to discuss him with Domenica, whom she had not seen for some time, but whom she now encountered while turning the corner from Drummond Place into Scotland Street. There was the custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz being manoeuvred laboriously into a parking place which was almost, but not quite, too small for it.
Pat waited while her neighbour extracted herself from her impressive vehicle.
“Everything,” began Domenica, as she locked the door behind her, “is getting smaller and smaller. Have you tried to sit in an aeroplane seat recently? Legs, it would appear, are to be left behind, or carried, separately, in the hold. Houses are getting smaller, ceilings are being lowered. Offices too. Everything. Not just parking spaces.”
Pat smiled. Domenica had an endearing way of launching straight into controversy. There was never any warming up with remarks about the weather or inquiries after health. “I suppose you’re right,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Domenica. “Not that I wish to complain.
There is nothing worse, in my view, than people of my age –
which is not unduly advanced, I hasten to point out – nothing worse than such people complaining all the time.
Pat did not, and said as much as she accompanied Domenica down the street.
187
“The problem,” said Domenica, “is that the cost-cutters are in control. They are the ones who are setting the tone of our age. They are the ones who are insisting that everything be cheap and built to the barest specifications. Nobody can do anything which is large and generous-spirited any more, because a cost-cutter will come along and say: Stop. Make everything smaller.”
Pat said nothing. She had been thinking about Peter. Perhaps it would be an idea to discuss him with Domenica. “I’m thinking about a boy,” she said suddenly.
“How interesting,” said Domenica. “Interesting, but often a terrible waste of time. Still, come up with me, my dear, and we shall talk about boys in the comfort of my study. How delicious!”
“Well,” said Domenica, perching on the edge of her chair. “Tell me, then. You went to see him? That rather handsome young man whom we jointly encountered? You went to see him?”
Pat thought the question rather pointed. She had forgiven Domenica her tactless attempt to introduce the two of them, through the transparent device of offering to lend Peter a book of Rupert Brooke’s verse. She had even laughed, in retrospect, over the obviousness of the ploy. But in view of her neighbour’s somewhat heavy-handed, not to say socially clumsy, behaviour, she did not think that she was in a position to criticise her going to Peter’s flat. “He did ask me,” she said, defensively, and went on to explain to Domenica about the meeting at the Film Theatre and the invitation which Peter had extended to her. He had meant it, she said, even if by the time she went to see him he had forgotten that he had invited her.
“And did it go as planned?” asked Domenica.
“I had no plan,” said Pat. She frowned. What did Domenica imagine she had intended to do once she got to Peter’s flat?
Sometimes people of Domenica’s generation, in an attempt to 188
be modern, missed the point. Young people no longer bothered about engineering seduction. It happened if they wanted it. And if they did not, it did not. People were less coy about all that now.
Domenica provided the answer. “But you must have gone hoping to find something out – to learn a bit more about him?
Did you?”
Pat nodded. “I learned a bit,” she said. “But I’m not sure about him. I’m just not . . .”
Domenica waved a hand. “The most important thing these days is whether he . . . whether he’s interested. There are so many young men who just aren’t interested these days. It never ceases to surprise me.”
Pat studied her neighbour. It embarrassed her slightly to have this conversation with a woman so many years her elder
– even if circumlocution was employed.
And yet Domenica was a woman of the world; she had lived abroad, lost a husband, done anthropological fieldwork in South America. She was no innocent. Why did she need circumlocutions?
