Matthew’s doors in India Street, he reflected, were all at the corner of a room, and the rooms certainly felt comfortable. This 210
mention of doors made him remember the awkward event of earlier that morning. He would ask Big Lou about it, because it was just the sort of question which she relished and because he thought that in most matters she was intuitively right.
“Lou,” he began. “You know how one locks the bathroom door when one . . . er . . . has a bath or shower or whatever.”
Lou stared at him. “I believe I’ve heard of the custom,” she said.
“Well, of course,” said Matthew. “But the point is this, Lou.
Do you have to lock it when you go in, or is it up to the person who is coming in to check and see if the bathroom’s occupied?
To knock, if the door is closed, for instance?”
Big Lou busied herself with her coffee machine. “You don’t have to knock,” she said. “You can assume that if there’s somebody in there, then the door will be locked.”
“I see,” said Matthew. He paused. “But then why does the person who opens the door feel bad about it?”
The receptacle locked in place, Big Lou flicked a switch on her coffee machine. “Well now, Matthew,” she said. “That’s an interesting point. Why would that be? Is it because he – the person who’s opened the door – has caused embarrassment to the person inside? Is that it, do you think? He has the advantage – he has his clothes on and the other person doesn’t. And we don’t always bother to think whether a person who causes something is at fault, do we? We say: ‘You did it, you’re in the wrong.’ That’s what we say.”
The coffee machine hissed away while Matthew digested this observation. He had handled things badly, he thought. He should have stayed in the flat until Pat had come out of the bathroom and then he should have discussed it in a mature way. He should have said: “Look, Pat, I’m sorry. I totally forgot that you were there. That’s why I didn’t lock the door.” And Pat, being reasonable, would have accepted the explanation and have laughed the incident off. But he had not done that, and the whole business had been allowed to become awkward, with the issue of his Macgregor tartan undershorts complicating matters.
“Lou,” he said. “Here’s another thing. Do you think that you should be able to wear clothes in another person’s tartan? Do you really think it matters?”
Big Lou turned round with Matthew’s cup of coffee. “Don’t be so ridiculous,” she said. “Here’s your coffee. And anyway, here comes Eddie.”
Matthew had spent only a very short time in the company of Big Lou’s fiance, Eddie, but had decided that he did not like him. It was not one of those dislikes that develops with time, matures as more and more is learned of a person’s irritating habits and faults; it was, rather, a dislike based on an immediate assessment of character, made on first meeting and never thereafter doubted. We make such judgments all the time, often on the basis of appearance, bearing, and, most importantly, the look of the eyes. Matthew’s father had instilled this habit in his son and had defended it vigorously.
“Take a look at the eyes, Matt,” he had said. “The old adage that they are the windows of the soul is absolutely dead right.
They tell the whole story.”
“But how can eyes, just bits of tissue after all . . . ?”
Gordon had interrupted his son’s protest. “They can. They just do. Shifty eyes – shifty chap. I’ve found it time after time in my business career. All the human failings are there – and the good qualities, too. You only have to . . . sorry, this is unintentional, keep your eyes open to pick it up.”
“Give me some examples,” said Matthew.
His father thought for a moment. “All right. Richard Nixon.
President of the United States for a good long time. If the voters had looked at his eyes, they would have realised. Scheming.
Untruthful.”
“But that’s because you knew what he was like,” said Matthew.
“If Nixon had been a saint, you would have thought his eyes 212
looked saintly.” He paused. “You’ve heard of phrenology, have you, Dad?”
Gordon frowned. “It sounds familiar, but . . .”
Matthew was accustomed to filling in the gaps in his father’s knowledge. “They were the people who looked at the head. At the bumps. At the face, too.” Gordon looked interested. “Well?
What’s wrong with that?”
“Because the shape of your head has nothing to do with what you’re like inside,” said Matthew. “Character comes from . . .”
He hesitated. Where did character come from? The way you were brought up? Genes? Or a bit of both? “From the mind,”
he said. “That’s where character comes from.”
Gordon nodded. “And the mind shows itself physically, doesn’t it? Well, don’t shake your head like that – which, incidentally, proves my point. Your shaking head shows a state of mind within you. Yes, it does. It does.”
Matthew sighed. “Nobody believes in phrenology any more, Dad. It’s so . . . so nineteenth century.”
