The World According to Bertie

“Well, it’s not unhealthy,” said Big Lou. “It’s odd, I suppose.

But it’s male play, isn’t it? There are all sorts of male play, Matthew.”

“Such as?”

Big Lou ladled coffee into a small conical container and pressed the grounds down with an inverted spoon. “Golf clubs,”

she said. “Car rallies. Football. The Masons. The list goes on and on.”

“And don’t women play?” asked Matthew.

Big Lou switched on the machine, stood back, and wiped her hands. “Not so much, you know. We women are much more practical. We just don’t feel the need.”

“Very interesting,” said Matthew. “But to get back to Robbie and his friends. Is it play, do you think, or are they serious?”

Big Lou looked up at the ceiling. She was not sure that it was that simple. Play involved a suspension of disbelief, but once that step was taken, then one might imagine that everything was very serious. “Do you go to the theatre?” she asked. “Or the cinema?”

“Yes,” said Matthew, and he thought: But I don’t really go to anything these days.

“Well, when you’re in the cinema, you believe in what’s happening on the screen, don’t you? You engage with the actors and with what’s happening to them. You believe in it, although you know it’s not real.”

“I suppose I do,” said Matthew. “Everyone does. Everyone wants the men in the white hats to sort out the men in the black hats. Or they used to. Maybe it’s different now.”

“I don’t know about hats,” said Big Lou. “But the point is this.

Robbie and his friends know that there are not many of them.

They know that there’ll never be a restitution of the Stuarts. But they act as if it’s possible because . . .” She trailed off.

226 We All Need to Believe in Something For Matthew, this was the most interesting part. How could people hold on to so evidently a lost cause and expect to be taken seriously? “Well, Lou,” he pressed. “Why?”

The coffee machine was beginning to hiss, and Lou reached out to operate a small lever that released steam into the jug of milk she had placed below it. “Because we need to believe in something,” she said. “Otherwise our lives are empty. You can believe in anything, you know, Matthew. Art. Music. God. As long as you have something.”

Matthew knew that this was true. He would not have expressed the idea in that way, but he knew that what Big Lou said was true. And it was as true of him as it was of Robbie. Robbie believed in something while he, Matthew, believed in nothing, and that made a major difference. If I believed in something, thought Matthew, then my life would have some meaning. I wouldn’t be drifting, as I am now, I would have some sense of purpose.

Could he become a Jacobite, or even an ardent nationalist?

Could he find his personal salvation by becoming enthusiastic about Scotland’s cause? He did not think so. He did not think it was that simple. What about becoming a Catholic –

converting – and sinking deeply into a whole community of belief? If you became a Catholic, then at least you had a strong sense of identity. Catholics knew who their fellow Catholics were. They belonged. For a moment, he thought: it would solve everything; I’d become a Catholic and then I’d meet a Catholic girl who would appreciate me. But then he thought: no, I can’t make that particular leap. It’s different if you’re born to something like that. It’s part of you, part of your aesthetic. But it’s not part of me.

And yet all that – all that embracing of a whole raft of rituals – was attractive. Matthew had met somebody who had become Jewish, not for reasons of marriage, but out of spiritual conviction. The rabbis had been surprised, of course, because they didn’t seek to convert people, but he had found them, and the spirituality that they had, and had gone down We All Need to Believe in Something 227

to London to a rabbinical court and been accepted. And then he had never looked back. A whole world opened to him: a culture, a cuisine, a way of dressing, if one wanted that. He had been very content.

I would like something, thought Matthew, but I haven’t got it. He looked at Big Lou, whose back was turned to him, and suddenly he felt a sense of her human frailty, her precious-ness. For the most part, we treat others in a matter-of-fact way; we have to, in order to get on with our lives. But every so often, in a moment of insight that can be very nearly mystical in its intensity, we see others in their real humanity, in a way which makes us want to cherish them as joint pilgrims, almost, on a perilous journey. That is how Matthew felt. He felt sympathy for Big Lou – sympathy for everything: for the hard childhood she had had; for her struggle to improve herself with her reading; for her desire to be loved; for what she represented – a whole country, a whole Scotland of hard work and common decency. Oh Lou, he thought, I understand, I do, I understand.

Big Lou turned round. “Here’s your coffee, Matthew.”

He took it from her and took a sip of it, scalding hot though it was.

“Careful,” said Big Lou. “I had somebody in the other day who burned his tongue. You have to let coffee cool down. Those machines heat it up something dreadful.”

Matthew nodded. “I’ll let it cool down.” He paused. “I’m not wasting your time, am I, Lou?” he asked. “I come over here and blether away with you. And it never occurs to me to ask if I’m wasting your time.”

“Of course you’re not,” said Big Lou.

“Good,” said Matthew. And it was good, because he felt better about everything now, and he had a strong feeling that something was about to happen – something positive.

Big Lou looked at him. “You’ll find somebody, Matthew,” she said. “I know you’ve got somebody already. I know about Pat.

But . . .”

228 How Do You Tell Someone “It’s Over”?

“But she’s not for me,” said Matthew. “Is that what you think, Lou?”