Leonie seemed pleased. “Babs lived in Italy for a year, you see. She worked in Milan. She’s a designer. Milan’s the place for designers.”
Matthew nodded. He had not thought that anyone called Babs would be artistic. Babs was a name full of old- fashioned brisk-Beside the Canal 189
ness. What would somebody called Babs do? Perhaps work with horses.
Leonie looked thoughtful. “How about . . . Well, why don’t you invite that girl through there? What’s her name again?”
“You mean Pat?”
“Yes. Pat. Let’s invite her too. You said that she had had a bit of trouble. An Italian restaurant would cheer her up.”
Matthew looked out of the kitchen towards Pat’s room. Her door was closed. “I’m not sure,” he began. “She may not . . .”
“Just ask her,” Leonie interrupted. “She may be keen to come.”
Matthew felt that something odd was going on. A simple invitation to dinner, extended to Leonie, had been expanded to include her friend, Babs, and now was about to embrace Pat as well. Why was Leonie keen for Pat, whom she had barely met, to be included? Perhaps she was just being friendly, in the way in which Australians often are. Besides, they were, he remembered, inclusive people.
Cyril trotted along the canal, his head held high into the wind, his tail swinging jauntily behind him. On that section of the towpath, between the aqueduct and the turn-off for Colinton Village, there was nobody about, and the only sign of life was a family of eider ducks moving in and out of the reeds. Cyril stopped briefly to inspect the ducks, giving a low, warning bark.
It would have been a fine thing to eat a duck, he thought; to sink his teeth into those soft breast-feathers and shake the annoying bird out of its complacency. But there was no time for that now. Scores like that could be settled once he had found Angus again, for that is what he yearned for, with all his heart.
He had to find Angus.
After a few minutes, the path narrowed and now he felt hard stone beneath his feet. He slowed down and advanced cautiously.
190
There were railings to his left, like the railings he knew in Drummond Place, but through these he could make out an emptiness, a falling away, a current of cool air; and on the air there was the smell of water, different from the smell of the canal, a fresher, sharper smell. He stood still for a moment, his nose twitching. This was something he recognised, something he remembered from a past which now survived only in scraps of memory. This was a smell that he had encountered on the Hebridean island where he had started his life, the scent of running water, of burns that had flowed through peat. And the river carried other things on it, which were familiar; traces of sheep, of lanolin from their wool, and the acrid odour of rats that had scurried over stones.
He continued on his journey. The river had not helped; it had been too powerful, too evocative, and the distant smells that had been drawing him on were even fainter now. But they still lay somewhere ahead of him, layered into a hundred other smells, and he knew that this was the direction in which he should go.
A short distance further along, Cyril came upon a group of boys. There were three of them standing by the edge of the canal, under the shelter of a footbridge, fishing rods extended out over the water, the lines dropping optimistically into the unruffled surface. Cyril liked boys for several reasons. He liked the way they smelled, which was always a little bit off, like a bone that had been left out on the grass for a day or two. Then he liked them because they were always prepared to play with dogs.
The boys looked at Cyril.
“Here’s a dug,” said Eck, a small boy with a slightly pointed head.
“What’s he doing?” asked Eck’s older brother, Jimmy. “Is he running away, do you think?”
“No,” said Bob. “There are some dugs just wander aboot.
They dinnae belong to anybody. They’re just dugs.”
“I’ve always wanted a dug,” said Eck. “But my dad says I cannae have one until I’m sixteen.”
“You’ll never be sixteen,” said Bob. “You’re too wee. And that
pointy heid of yours too. All the lassies will have a good laugh, so they will.”
The boys looked at Cyril, who sat down and wagged his tail encouragingly. He half-expected them to throw something for him, but they seemed unwilling to do this, and after a few minutes he decided that it was time to move on. He took a step forward, licked one of the boys on the hand, and continued with his journey.
There were more people now. A runner, panting with effort, came towards him and Cyril moved obediently to the side to let him past. Then a woman walking a small dog that cowered as Cyril approached. Cyril ignored the other dog; he had picked up that scent again, slightly stronger now, even if still distant.
He began to move more quickly, ignoring the distractions that now crowded in upon him. He paid no attention to a practice scull that shot past him, the two rowers pulling at the oars in well-rehearsed harmony. He paid no attention to the swan that hissed at him from the water’s edge, its eyes and beak turned towards him in hostility.
There was a bridge, and traffic. Cyril stuck to the path that led under the bridge. He saw trees up ahead, great towering trees in autumnal colours, and behind them the sky that Cyril saw as just another place, a blue place that was always there, far away, never reached.
He turned his nose into the wind. It was stronger now, the smell that he had been following. It was somewhere close, he thought, and he slowed to walking pace.
A long boat, the restaurant boat
