The Unbearable Lightness of Scones: A 44 Scotland Street Novel

by Alexander McCall Smith

  So might our thoughts drift from one thing to another, by the loosest of associations, at precisely the time that imminent disaster threatens to engulf us. Before he fell into the water, the last thing in Matthew’s mind was the word ‘Amahl’, and then ‘Night Visitors’. Then the sudden, overwhelming embrace of the warm water, swiftly rising to his chest, lifted him off his feet, covering him entirely so that he spluttered and struggled for breath.

  Now he felt the real tug, as the rip tide seized him and moved him swiftly from the shore. Within a few seconds the distance between him and Elspeth, whom he could still make out in the darkness, on the beach, had increased to twenty yards. Then again the tug and the sense of travelling really quite quickly, away from the beach, out into the deeper water. There were waves, of course, which gave him an up-and-down movement, a bobbing, but which seemed to take him nowhere nearer the beach. As the initial shock subsided, he thought, I can swim with the waves, into the beach, but the movement of his arms seemed to make no difference at all to the direction in which he was travelling. His clothes seemed to be dragging him down. He kicked hard and remembered his shoes, abandoned on the sand, which made him think: how will I find them now? Curiously, for one in such a plight, he wondered about the spare pair in his suitcase. Or had he forgotten to pack them? And then he thought: I should not be thinking of these things at the moment.

  Putting reflections on spare shoes out of his mind, he tried to remember what he had heard about rip tides. They took you out to sea, of course - he knew that; but there was something else, some bit of ancient knowledge that now he tried to bring to mind. Swim diagonally - across the tide - not against it. That was it. Then, when the power of the current was reduced, one could go in again. But now, far away from the beach, he found that the waves were confusing him. Where was the beach? In the direction of the lights, of course, but the lights seemed to come round again on both right and left. Perhaps the beach curved.

  It was while he was puzzling over this that Matthew suddenly remembered the sharks. Coming from Scotland, where nature was, on the whole, benevolent, and where the most dangerous of creatures was the reclusive adder, or perhaps an aggressive Highland cow protecting her calf, he did not think of what might reasonably be expected to have an interest in stinging, biting or even eating him. And yet Australia was full of such creatures. The western taipan was the most dangerous of land-based snakes - and Australia had it. Then there were all those spiders, and the box jellyfish up in Queensland. Even the duck-billed platypus, so ostensibly lovable, had a poisonous spike concealed on its back legs and could cause a lot of damage. And then there were the Great White sharks, and this very beach was one on which attacks had occurred.

  Matthew now remembered that one should never swim at night. Even the locals, braver than most, would never enter the water at night. And here he was, in the sharks’ element, utterly at their mercy - although mercy was not a concept one associated with sharks. I am simply prey, he thought; a floating meal. Involuntarily, he drew his legs up to his chest in an attempt to make himself less of a target, but this served only to make him less buoyant and he had to kick downwards again to stay afloat. And with each kick, he thought, I’m sending a signal down through the water into the depths: here I am; this way.

  Terror was now replaced - even if only for a short time - by relative calm. Matthew realised that he was going to die, and the thought, curiously, made him worry less about what he imagined to be in the water below him. He wondered now how quickly the end would come; would it be, as he imagined, like being hit by an express train, pushed through the water; or would it be painless, almost analgesic, as the system shut down after the first large bite? Perhaps it would not be analgesic so much as analeptic: perhaps consciousness of what was happening would be heightened. Time, they said, slowed down when one fell a great distance. Perhaps that happened too in the course of a shark attack.

  He stopped struggling against the current and began to allow it to move him where it would. He was feeling a little bit colder now, although the water was still comfortably warm. At least I didn’t fall into the North Sea, he thought. Had that happened, I would have had very little time before succumbing to the cold - about four minutes, was it not?

  He looked up at the sky. Against the deep velvet blue, halfway to the horizon, was the Southern Cross, as if suspended in the sky like a decoration; a symbol of this country that he had hardly yet got to know; which had welcomed him so warmly and was now dispatching him. At least I’ve seen the Southern Cross before I die, thought Matthew. At least there’s that.

  And then he felt something brush against him, against his shoulder. He let out a groan, a sound of anguish that was quickly swallowed by the waves and the empty air. Phosphorescence glistened on the surface, and then disappeared. A black shape. A fin.

  33. The Longest Hour

  Provided that they survive the experience - which unfortunately many do not - those attacked by sharks present us with a rather surprising account of what it is to face imminent annihilation in the jaws of a predator. Some describe feeling anger at the creature attacking them - understandable, perhaps, in the circumstances; others describe a feeling of calm verging on acceptance; yet others speak of an overwhelming determination to survive at all costs. This last reaction is perhaps the best response, as it can spur people on to heroic efforts to repel the shark with blows and kicks. And if these are directed at the sensitive part of the shark - the nose, which contains the shark’s navigation and sensory organs - then such blows can be successful in persuading the shark to desist. After all, it is thought that we do not taste all that agreeable to sharks, and while they might go to more effort with a succulent seal, a surfer in a wet suit may be a less attractive proposition.

  Not that Matthew was wearing a wet suit. He was clad only in the clothes in which he had gone for dinner at the restaurant on Cottesloe Beach, minus his shoes, of course, which he had dropped on the sand before he started to paddle. When he felt the shark brush against him, though, he felt the sleeve of his shirt rip, exposing more flesh to the sea. He was calm enough to know that this was not a good development: an exposed arm was a more tempting target than one that was clothed.

  He thought that, at least. Beyond that, his reaction was neither to fight off his attacker nor to spend his remaining seconds on this earth in the contemplation of the life that he had led; in thoughts of his new bride, his gallery, his family, Edinburgh, his flat in India Street, and so on. He thought of none of these, because he lost consciousness. The human mind, faced with its end, can simply blot out the unacceptable; refuse to believe what seems to be the inevitable. Matthew’s mind did that. But just before that happened, he opened his eyes wide to the sight of the creature approaching him in the water; to its fin, which was rather floppy, he noticed, and to its curious beak-like nose. Beak. Dolphins have beaks.

  He became briefly unconscious, possibly through relief, possibly through shock, possibly through a combination of both. But his unconsciousness did not last long, as he was partly aware of being in the water and being propelled by this creature. He felt waves break over him; he felt the tug of water; and then he felt sand beneath his feet, just under his toes. And with one final tumble, he felt himself pushed into the line of surf right at the edge of the beach. There was foam; there was water in his mouth; there was sand in his nostrils. He spluttered; he dragged himself up onto the dry sand, which stuck to his wet skin like a layer of icing on a cake. Never had the feel of the earth, of its sand, been more welcome.

  He lay down on the beach, gasping. Then he rolled over, and with his head cushioned by the sand he stared up at the sky, the star-studded sky that he had looked at from the water and which he had decided, then and there, he loved so much. It was so precious, as was this smell of seaweed, this sand all over him, this sound of surf. Everything, everything was precious beyond price.

  He remained there for several minutes, gradually taking in what had happened to him. I almost drowned,
he thought. I was almost attacked by a shark that was not there. It was a dolphin, and it pushed me . . . He paused. It could not have happened. He simply could not have been saved by a dolphin. It was ridiculous; the sort of thing that happened in Greek myths, not in real life, here on this beach in Western Australia, in a world of aeroplanes and electricity. This was a miracle - a sheer miracle - and miracles simply did not happen.

  Rising to his feet he brushed the sand off his face and hands. Relief at still being alive had obscured any thought of Elspeth. She would think him drowned; he would have to get back to her as soon as possible. He glanced at his watch; the manufacturer’s claim of waterproofing had proved to be well founded, and it had survived the ocean. He remembered that they had left the restaurant at nine-thirty, and they could only have walked for about ten minutes or so before he had started his ill-fated paddle. That meant that he had been caught in the rip tide at about twenty to ten; it was now ten-thirty. He had been in the water for almost an hour.

  He looked about him. The beach was shrouded in darkness, but a hundred yards or so behind him were the dunes, and beyond that, blazing with light, the long ribbon of houses that lined the coastal road. He would go up there and get somebody to telephone the police, or the coastguard, or whoever it was who would now be searching for him.

  Then an unsettling thought struck him. What if Elspeth had tried to save him? What if, unbeknown to him, she had gone in the water after him and had herself been swept away by the same rip tide? What if she had met, instead of a friendly dolphin, an unfriendly Great White shark? What if he was the widower rather than she the widow?

  Matthew began to run across the beach in the direction of the dunes. Clambering his way up to the top, he grasped at the tufts of grass planted across the slopes for coastal protection. The grass was sharp and cut his hands, but he did not care; he had to get to a telephone at all costs.

  He reached the top of the dune, still holding on to some of the grass he had torn off during his climb. There was tarmac under his feet, there were houses before him, there was a car cruising up the road towards him, its lights casting a pool of liquid yellow before it. The car stopped and a policeman emerged.

  There was a shout. ‘Can’t you see the signs? Keep off the dune defences. Can’t you read, mate?’

  Matthew smiled. ‘Sorry. I’ve just been rescued by a dolphin. Sorry.’

  The policeman took a step back and muttered into the radio. ‘Picking up a confused male, late twenties, sleeping rough. Possible drug-related hallucinations. Query psychiatric case.’

  34. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . .

  The irritation Bruce had felt in the shower abated slightly as he dressed for the party at Watson Cooke’s flat in Clarence Street. It was always mollifying to stand in front of a mirror, as he liked to do, and observe oneself dressing; a calming activity, rather like meditation, he thought, but with a bit more point to it. Bruce towelled himself dry, then applied a new body butter for men that he had recently seen recommended in Men’s Health. He had been intrigued by the contents of this preparation, which contained not only vitamins A and E, but sodium hyaluronate and arnica extract; and he had been taken with the smell, which was of lemon and sage, with a hint of sandalwood. This body butter, Bruce had read, would ‘make dry skin history’, and although he did not think that he yet suffered from dry skin, it was a good policy to nip history in the bud before it had the chance to occur.

  Bruce stood before the mirror and rubbed the greasy aromatic substance over his skin. Once he had applied enough, he took a quick final glance at the sheer sculpted perfection of the image in the glass, and then donned the new pair of boxer shorts he had bought through a Country Life catalogue, Gifts for Men. These had salmon fishing scenes printed on them - not for everyone, of course, but Bruce thought they were rather becoming, and indeed on him, reflected in the mirror, he thought them almost perfect. Next, his shirt - an Oxford cut-away collar in blue - his blue Levis and a pair of brown topsiders. Then, after a quick application of the clove-scented hair gel he liked to use, he was ready for anything that Clarence Street could throw at him.

  Clarence Street was further down the hill, and although it was clearly one up on St Stephen Street, it was several rungs below Howe Street, where Julia had her flat. Howe Street had that classical quality that the central New Town enjoyed and which faded into less confident proportions on its fringes. Bruce, as a surveyor, understood this well, as classical dignity was directly translatable into higher prices. Clarence Street was all right, he thought, but it was not Saxe-Coburg Place, which lay a block or two away to the north; perfectly respectable, but hardly stylish. A good place, thought Bruce, to begin; although he himself had begun in Dundonald Street and had now, effortlessly it seemed, climbed to the heights of Howe Street.

  Watson Cooke! Bruce muttered the name to himself as he left the flat and began the short walk down to Clarence Street. Well, Mr Watson Cooke, we shall see. I shall have to remind you that Julia and I are an established couple, engaged (even if the announcement had not yet appeared in The Scotsman), and therefore any invitation to attend a party in Clarence Street, or anywhere else, should be addressed to both of us. It was like inviting the Queen to dinner and forgetting to invite the Duke of Edinburgh, a breach of protocol which no doubt Watson Cooke in his ignorance might make, but which nobody with any style or savoir faire would ever commit. That is what Bruce thought, and as he rounded the corner of Howe Street where, at basement level, the late Madame Doubtfire once had her second-hand clothing emporium - she who claimed to have danced before the Tsar - he muttered to himself: Watson Cookie, Cookie Watson, Watson the Cook, Watty Cook, Kooky Watty (what’s his bag, je me demande), Cocky Watson. He smiled. Poor Watson Cooke, what a minger of a name. Typical.

  He decided to follow the slightly longer route to Clarence Street, which involved walking through the bisecting radial of Circus Place and then along North West Circus Place to the corner of St Stephen Street. It was a fine evening, and Bruce noticed, with satisfaction, that he attracted one or two admiring looks as he made his way. Entirely understandable, he thought; indeed he rather admired the self-control of those who wanted to look and admire, but who allowed themselves only the most surreptitious of glances. He felt generous, and wanted to say to people, ‘Go on, admire. Just admire. You may not be able to touch, but you can certainly look.’ They could feast their eyes on him, whichever sex they were; they could even give him the look; he did not mind in the slightest. He was not selfish. In fact, he felt like something in the National Gallery of Scotland: an artefact of public beauty.

  At the entrance to The Bailie, at the corner of St Stephen Street, Bruce hesitated for a moment. It was now about ten past nine and this meant that he had twenty minutes or so in hand before he should present himself in Clarence Street; he certainly did not want to arrive early and be thought to be too keen. Bruce was, in general, keen not to appear keen.

  He went down the steps into the bar. There was a fairly large crowd inside, seated on red leather benches or standing about the circular bar of polished mahogany that dominated the room. It was, Bruce observed, the normal crowd for this part of town at this time in the evening, and as he ran his eye over the customers he recognised one or two people. These were casual acquaintances, though, and Bruce had no particular desire to speak to them. One of them, in particular, he wanted to avoid, as he was always going on about his golf handicap. Each time that Bruce had met him - in no matter what circumstances - he had talked about getting his golf handicap down. Bruce tried to remember what it was. Seven?

  He paid for his drink and slipped the change into his pocket. It was then that he saw the man standing beside him looking at him, frankly, appraisingly. Hello! thought Bruce.

  35. The Seriously Sexy Face of Scotland

  Under the appreciative gaze of the urbane stranger at the bar, Bruce thought: these chaps find me attractive, which is quite understandable; who wouldn’t? But sorry, I don’t play for your
team! The difficulty, he felt, was conveying this delicate social message without appearing to be hostile. And sometimes the message was just not received, as it seemed that some people took the view that one never knew one’s luck. That could be awkward, and occasionally one just had to be blunt.

  He took a sip of his beer and, as he did so, cast an eye around the room, studiously avoiding looking in the stranger’s direction.

  Suddenly the stranger addressed him. ‘Bruce Anderson?’

  Bruce gave a start. He had not expected this. ‘Yes. That’s me.’

  The stranger put his glass down on the surface of the bar and extended a hand. ‘Nick McNair. Remember? Morrison’s. I was two years above you. We were in the photography club together. You came with me to take a photograph of that eagle up in Glen Lyon. Remember? The geography teacher drove us up there in his clapped-out Land Rover. Remember?’

  Bruce looked at the other man and it came back, not vividly, or clearly, but in patches. Crouching in the rain holding a tripod for the older boy. Feeling the rain trickle down the back of one’s neck. Brushing away the midges.

  ‘Of course. That’s some time ago, isn’t it? Sorry that I didn’t recognise you. You know how . . .’

  ‘How it is. Of course I do. I doubt if I’d recognise half the people in my year if I saw them again.’

  Bruce smiled. ‘There are some you’d want to forget. Some you’d like to remember.’

  ‘People remember you, though, Bruce. They wouldn’t forget.’

  Bruce looked away in modesty. Why would they remember him?

  ‘You were a real looker then.’

  Bruce blushed. It was true, he thought, but did one want it spelled out, particularly by Nick McNair?

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Nick said. ‘In fact, that’s the business I’m in these days. Photography. I do adverts.’