The Peppermint Tea Chronicles, page 23
“About being able to afford things?”
She sighed. “I suppose so.”
“That means you’ve got a heart. Anybody who doesn’t feel at least a little guilty about good fortune doesn’t have much of a heart, if you ask me.”
Elspeth thought about this. “I’m not sure. I’ve met people, I suppose, who seem to take it for granted. They act as if they’re naturally entitled to everything they have.” She looked intently at Matthew. “Matthew, I don’t come from your world. We never had any money. There was never anything left over.”
He smiled. “So what?”
She gestured around the kitchen, with its expensive Aga—four ovens—and its capacious German dishwasher. “It’s just that we have everything—and we’ve had it from the beginning. There was no waiting.”
“But…”
She cut him short. “Other people have to struggle a bit at the beginning of their marriage. Make do with things—with hand-me-downs.” She paused. “We don’t have a single hand-me-down. Not one.”
Matthew frowned. “But we do.”
“Name one. New Aga. New dining room furniture. New beds, mattresses, carpets. Curtains. Everything.”
Matthew looked up at the ceiling. He was sure there was something…and then he remembered. “But what about that Elizabeth Blackadder above the fireplace? And that Epstein bronze?” He looked pleased that he had remembered. Both of these had been gifts from his father shortly after their marriage. “Yes, what about those?” And then his father had given them a Land Rover Discovery. That had not been new. There had been two thousand miles on the clock—Matthew remembered seeing that when he first took it out for a drive. Two thousand miles, he thought, was a long distance—from Edinburgh to Inverness and back about six times.
Elspeth was looking at him with a mixture of pity and affection. He doesn’t get it, she thought. He just doesn’t get it.
“I don’t think those things really count as necessities,” she said mildly. “I was talking about the things one needs.”
He was staring at her. “I can’t help being…being me,” he said quietly. “I can’t help it.” And then he warmed to his theme. “You know, Elspeth, there’s something really unfair going on. People judge other people for things that aren’t their fault. I can’t help coming from where I come from, can I?”
“Nobody is judging you for that…”
“Aren’t they?” asked Matthew. “I think they may, you know. If you have…well, advantages in life—an easy start, let’s say—there are plenty of people who will look down on you for it.”
She began to express disagreement, but he continued, “No, I’m right about this, Elspeth. Look at universities these days. They judge people by their background. They say it out loud and in the open. They try to give the places to kids who come from deprived areas. They try to avoid taking you if you’ve come from the wrong sort of school.”
“Well, there’s a reason for that, Matthew. It’s because people who come from deprived areas haven’t had much of a chance, have they? Everything is stacked against them from the beginning. All that the universities are doing is trying to make up for that—trying to give them a chance.”
He knew she was right. “Oh, I understand that. And it’s fair enough, yes, to help people in that situation. Of course it is. But what if that involves discriminating against an individual for something that he or she just can’t help—who their parents were? What about that? Should you dislike somebody for being brought up in a particular way? Surely that’s one thing one can’t be blamed for?”
He remembered reading something in the paper that had leapt out at him. “I saw that one of the colleges at Cambridge boasted the other day about not admitting a single student that year who had been at an independent school. Not one. And they were proud of the fact.”
“Well, you know what Cambridge is like…”
“No, that’s not the point, Elspeth. It means that they turned down lots of people who had the qualifications to get in. They turned them down because of something that was nothing to do with any choice, any single choice, made by those applicants. None of them actually chose their social class.”
Elspeth was silent for a few moments. She thought this an insidious argument, because if you accepted it, then you merely endorsed the continued privilege of those who had the best start in life. And that, she thought, was not the result you wanted to get. She had always felt that. Individual merit was all very well, but individual merit in this context merely cemented the status quo. The children of doctors and lawyers continued to have the best chance of becoming doctors and lawyers themselves. That was the way the merit principle had always worked, and that would be its result until somebody threw a wrench in the social works. Only then would things change.
Then she said, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”
Matthew looked puzzled. “What’s that got to do with it?” he asked.
“Everything,” she said.
Matthew sighed. “And what about the Scottish universities?” he said.
“What about them?”
“They effectively discriminate against Scottish students because Scottish students don’t pay fees. So it’s easier to get a place if you come from somewhere else. How’s that for an injustice?”
“That can’t be true,” Elspeth said. “I just don’t believe that.”
59
Temptation
Pat felt a curious excitement as she and James set off on their walk. It was not a conventional walk, as they were doing the first part of the journey—some four miles—by bicycle. Thereafter, James explained, there would be a track that led directly to Single Malt House and its outbuildings, one of which, a former byre, contained the microlight seaplane that the Duke of Johannesburg was building with his Gaelic-speaking driver.
“We can leave the bikes at a sheep farm down there,” said James, pointing to the gentle fold of hills before them. “That’s where the track starts.”
She loved the way that Edinburgh so quickly, and so considerately, yielded to the countryside; how, within minutes, one might move from the urban to the rural and, if looking in the right direction, imagine that one was already in the deep Borders or even, on the higher ground, in the Highlands. Edinburgh lay to the north, and behind them; to the south were the Lammermuir Hills, feminine folds of attenuated blue; to the east, the land ran down toward the sea, a hazy smudge in the evening air. Pat saw in the distance the indistinct shape of the Bass Rock, a sheer, mysterious protuberance rising from the North Sea—a pointer to what? To Norway? To Denmark? Then, like an answer from the land, there was the steeply conical shape of Berwick Law, an unlikely hill that the weather had somehow forgotten to soften and corrode.
They mounted the bikes. Pat wobbled for a few moments, and James, solicitous, asked, “Are you all right?” She had not answered before he said, “Of course you are.”
“I can’t remember when I last rode a bike,” said Pat. “Before I went to university, I think.”
She immediately regretted that mention of university, because he had yet to embark on his university career, and it underlined the difference between their ages. Five years? Something like that. Was that too much? And then she thought: but I’m being ridiculous. He’s just a friend, a young friend; nothing more than that. And he seemed so much more mature than the average nineteen-year-old, or whatever he was. That sometimes happened—there were people who were years older in outlook than one might expect from their chronological age. Mozart, for one…
“Do you like music?” she asked.
Riding beside her, he glanced at her briefly, as if surprised by the question. “Of course. Who doesn’t?”
“Some people, I imagine.”
“Tone-deaf people?” he asked.
“No. They sometimes love music. It’s just that they can’t recognize the intervals between the notes.” She had had a friend at school who was like that. She listened to music a great deal, but could never hum any of the tunes she loved so much, having no sense of pitch.
He said, “When I was younger I used to think it would be great to be a rock musician. I fantasised like mad. I imagined myself playing at the Playhouse to a whole load of screaming girls.”
Pat laughed. “Is that what boys fantasise about? Screaming girls?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they do. Remember, I was about fifteen at the time.” He paused. “What about you? What do girls fantasise about?”
“Oh, dreamy things. Having dinner with some guy who gives you a bunch of roses and then takes you for a ride in an open-top sports car along that road that goes around Arthur’s Seat. And you stop and look down at the city and the lights and he says, ‘I really like your hair, you know’…”
James smiled. “Or he says, ‘Where have you been all my life?’ ”
“Yes, that would do. Mind you, I don’t think anybody says that any more—if they ever said it at all. Nobody’s said it to me.”
James looked straight ahead. “Where have you been all my life?” he muttered.
She concentrated on keeping her bicycle on a straight path. But she thought: Did he say that to me, or was he just going over the expression in his mind, and happened to vocalise it? She felt her heart beginning to race, and she said to herself: no. And then no again. This was temptation; there was no other word for it. It was like being confronted with a box of chocolates and wanting, dying, to take one. But no, you did not, you could not.
The track on which they were riding narrowed, and James had to go ahead of her as there was insufficient room for them to ride abreast of one another. He called out to her, over his shoulder, “Am I going too fast for you?”
“No. You could go faster, if you like.”
She felt the wind in her hair. And the sun—she felt that too—the evening sun that would still be there almost until ten at night, as this was high summer and the longest day would be with them within a week or so. That sun now painted everything with gold: the hills; the gorse bushes in the fields on either side of the track; the thin line of cloud in the otherwise empty sky.
“Can you smell the gorse?” she shouted. “Can you smell it?”
“Yes,” he shouted back. “It makes me think of…”
“Of coconut.”
“Yes, that’s it. Of coconut.”
All too soon they had reached the farm where they would leave the bikes.
“I know these people,” said James. “The farmer here is a friend of my uncle’s.”
“Of the Duke?”
“Yes. My uncle lets out some fields to him for his cattle. He has Aberdeen Angus. My uncle needs the money, as he’s not really very well off. He’s got a bit of money, I suppose, but he’s not rolling in it.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Pat. “You don’t need much money to be happy.”
“You know that he’s not a real duke? You know that?”
Pat nodded. “I’ve heard that. Somebody said it was the government’s fault. They broke a promise.”
“I think he has more fun being a bogus duke,” said James. “He has a terrific time. If he were a real duke he’d have to worry about all sorts of things.”
With the bicycles propped up against the wall of a sheep enclosure, they set off down the narrow footpath that James said would lead to Single Malt House. Pat did not want the walk to end. She wanted to be here, with this young man, on this blissful summer evening; she wanted their conversation, so easy, so relaxed, to continue. She wanted night to come upon them and for them to watch the sky darken together, and they would see the lights come up in the towns below them, and in the old mining villages, in Musselburgh, Prestonpans, and out at sea, where the ships cut through the Forth like tiny plows.
60
Something Happens…At Last
There was no sign of life at Single Malt House.
“He’s away at the moment,” said James, as they crested the small hill that looked down on the house and its cluster of outbuildings.
“Are you sure?” asked Pat. She had not given much thought to it, but now she wondered whether James was entitled to show people his uncle’s peculiar project.
“Yes,” James replied, and sensing her anxiety went on, “He doesn’t mind my looking in the byre. He’s shown me what he’s doing quite a few times.”
“It’s just that I feel this is a bit of an intrusion,” said Pat. “You know…going to somebody’s house when they’re away.”
James shook his head. “No, I promise you. It’s all right—it really is.”
Single Malt House looked for all intents and purposes like a typical Lothian farmhouse—slightly larger perhaps, but making very much the same statement that most such houses made: I am here to shelter those who work the land. I am not here to impress anybody, or intimidate them with grandeur, but don’t underestimate the good conceit I have of myself.
There was a lawn to the front of the house, and at one end of this a greenhouse and a small potting shed. Croquet hoops had been set out on the lawn, and there was an abandoned mallet next to one of the hoops.
“Does he play?” asked Pat.
James grinned. “He used to play croquet for Scotland, believe it or not. He played against Australia once—in Australia. He said that it was easy to get selected because so few people played it in Scotland and there was not much competition. But I think he was being modest.”
Pat looked at James. “You’re really fond of your uncle, aren’t you?”
He looked down at the ground, and she realized that there was something worrying him. But he answered quite quickly, and firmly, “Yes, I am. I really am…” He broke off. Then, “That’s why I’m worried.”
“About?”
“About this stupid project of his. This plane.” He paused. “And my folks are worried too. My dad has tried to persuade him to give the whole thing up. He printed out a whole set of statistics about what happened to people who made their own microlights. He said that they were an invitation to disaster. Apparently structural failure’s a real issue. And if your wing collapses, then there’s not much you can do.”
She saw that he was distressed, and she wondered why, if he felt that way, he should have brought her here to see the thing he was so worried about.
She asked him directly. “Why show me this if you’re so concerned about it?”
He did not answer immediately, but pointed to the byre. “It’s over there…” he began. But then he stopped, and turned to her, and faced her, and said, “Because I wanted to get you out of the house. Because I wanted to go somewhere with you—anywhere. I thought that this would be an excuse.”
She held her breath. The sheer delight of finding out that somebody you want to like you likes you; that old-fashioned, simple delight. Like a jolt. Like a discovery. Like a sudden burst of warmth.
She said nothing, but smiled at him, and then reached out and touched his forearm, gently, as if to seal a conspiracy between them. And then he leaned toward her and brushed her cheek with his fingers and kissed her.
She closed her eyes, and thought: impossible. Nineteen. Nineteen. Impossible. And then, breathing out, she thought: Why? Why should it be impossible? They were both adults, and what was five years between them? And she hadn’t asked for this to happen; it had simply happened, and it was not anything to be ashamed of—how could feeling this way about somebody ever be something to be ashamed of?
He said, “Sorry.”
“You shouldn’t say sorry. Why say sorry?”
“Because I don’t know if you like me.”
She laughed, and touched him again. “Of course I like you. Of course I do.”
The moment passed. He pointed to the byre again, and said, “He keeps it locked, but I know where the key is. Padruig puts it under a stone over there. I’ll get it.”
He bounded off, and returned with a rusty padlock key. “Come on,” he said, as if nothing had just happened; as if the entire landscape had not just been bathed in a benediction of light.
They went into the byre, with James leading the way. There was some natural light inside, but not much, and it was only when he had switched on the lights that she saw the aircraft properly. There it stood, on a square of concrete flooring, advanced enough in its construction as to be intelligible as a miniature seaplane. The floats, yellow oblong things, were already attached, but the engine compartment was still only half constructed.
“It looks so lovely,” Pat said. “Like a dragonfly—a large dragonfly.”
James shook his head. “I wish he wouldn’t. I just wish…”
Suddenly he turned to her. “You know what I’m going to do? You know what?”
She waited.
“I’m going to take one of the parts away. I’m going to hide it—throw it away. So that they can’t finish it.”
She drew in her breath. “You can’t. You can’t do that.”
“To save his life? Why not? Wouldn’t you do this if it was your uncle who was being led into doing something really stupid by that driver of his?”
“Is it his idea?”
“Of course it is. Padruig’s got this thing about flying around the islands. He says he wants to see Barra from the air. He goes on about it.”
She did not know what to say.
James walked up to the plane. Parts were laid out, alongside tools and diagrams, beside the body of the plane. He stopped and picked up one of the larger components, putting it into an empty box lying nearby. Then he rummaged around for another part, a smaller one this time, and indicated by a nod of his head that they should leave.
“Are you sure you should do this?” said Pat.
“One hundred percent,” said James. “I’m going to save his life. It’s the only way.”
