38

Generic Guilt

While Angus wrestled with the implications of finding himself in possession of what appeared – in Domenica’s view, at least – to be a Neanderthal skull, Stuart was leaving the flat below to make his way to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street. He felt gloriously unencumbered. Bertie and Ulysses were off shopping with Nicola, who was proposing to take them for a lunchtime pizza after she had bought Bertie his jeans and Ulysses his bandana. Thereafter, she had promised to look after the children for the rest of the day, in order to allow Stuart and Katie time to have their walk at Cramond and their lunch at South Queensferry. No mother, it seemed, could be more encouraging of a son’s extramarital liaison: Nicola felt that Stuart deserved every moment of love and affection he could find after years of marriage to Irene. That woman, she thought, that woman…But stopped herself thinking about her, as whenever Irene came to mind, she felt her blood pressure rising. Irene was extremely bad for blood pressure – every bit as bad, she suspected, as large helpings of salt. Irene had health warning written all over her in large, Scottish Government-approved lettering. No, she would not think of her; she would simply deny her mental time. And yet, whenever she went into the room that had been converted from Irene’s space, as she called it, to her own study, Nicola felt a surge of sheer delight – as might a territorial usurper, some seeker of Lebensraum, some covetous surveyor of another’s property, feel when contemplating the fruits of a successful land grab. Of course, she was the usurper in this case, not that that detracted in the slightest from the sheer pleasure she had derived from bundling Irene’s possessions away and replacing them with her own.

The packing away of Irene’s possessions – her books and papers – had been particularly satisfying. Nicola had unceremoniously dumped these items in cardboard boxes and then written on the boxes: ASSORTED RUBBISH. She had not thrown the boxes away, of course, but had stored them in the cupboard off the hall, where they would be available for Irene to collect, should she want to take them up to Aberdeen. The labelling had been an intensely pleasurable moment, although on noticing it Stuart had raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a bit childish, Mother?” he asked.

“Very,” Nicola replied, unapologetically. “Very childish. But then we all need the occasional moment of childish pleasure, Stuart – whatever age one happens to be.”

He was doubtful. “I don’t know…What’s that famous line? When I became a man, I put away childish things…?”

Nicola smiled. “Yes, yes, Stuart, but I happen to know what C. S. Lewis said about that.”

Stuart waited. If somebody threatened to quote C. S. Lewis to you, there’s not much one could do but wait.

“C. S. Lewis said, ‘When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.’ ” She looked at Stuart unflinchingly. “And all I would add to that is mutatis mutandis in relation to the man bit.”

Stuart sighed. “All right, Mother. But don’t antagonise her unnecessarily, please. We still have to see her from time to time.”

“As I’m only too painfully aware.” Nicola sighed. “But yes, I shall avoid occasions of conflict. We don’t want Bertie to pick anything up.”

Stuart thought that Bertie already understood how difficult Irene made it for practically everybody. He was loyal to his mother, but there was no doubt in Stuart’s mind that a great weight had lifted off Bertie’s shoulders since Irene had gone off to Aberdeen to pursue her PhD.

But now, as he made his way up Dublin Street to the Portrait Gallery, he put out of his mind any thought of Irene and concentrated on the prospect of seeing Katie. She had been pleased by his invitation, and when he had suggested that they should meet for coffee at the gallery, she had said that this would suit her very well. She had planned to go to Valvona & Crolla and that was only a ten-minute walk from the gallery. She was going to buy Parmesan cheese, she said – and how it excited him to imagine her eating Parmesan, crumb by delicious crumb; such an evocation would not work with Cheddar, but Parmesan was different…He looked about him, as if anxious that somebody would be watching him and would somehow detect the concupiscence pervading such thoughts. How disturbing it would be if others could read what went on in our minds, could imagine what we were thinking, for all the innocence of our outward appearance; that another could look at somebody like him, walking innocently up Dublin Street, and know that he was thinking of an attractive young woman eating Parmesan cheese, while all about him was the classical architecture, the order of the Edinburgh New Town

Stuart arrived a good quarter of an hour in advance of the time they had agreed upon. The café on the ground floor of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, a popular meeting place, was already busy, and he had to hover for a few minutes before he was able to stake a claim to a table. It was the usual mixture of people: retired teachers from Morningside, book groups on outings connected to their next historical novel, people from the country doing a day of museums in Edinburgh, young people thinking of writing a novel but struggling for ideas, sixth formers from local schools gossiping with one another on their study days, people killing time before a meeting in St Andrew Square, people at all not sure what to do and doing this because they could think of nothing else. He looked about him. Were there others, he asked himself, who were here, as he was, to meet a lover? Perhaps even clandestinely, snatching at shared moments with somebody in an unhappy marriage or relationship of habit, guilty, furtive, a little bit afraid? As he was – if he were to be honest with himself – because he was still technically a married man.

He looked at the portrait hung on the wall behind him. It was one of the gallery’s most popular pictures, Guy Kinder’s brooding portrait of the crime writer, Ian Rankin, sitting in the Oxford Bar, the haunt of his fictional Edinburgh detective. Ian Rankin was looking directly at Stuart, making Stuart avert his gaze. He sees through me, he thought. And yet, and yet…And yet he understands. Because I’m entitled to this. I’m entitled to a bit of romance after all those years with Irene. Why should I feel guilty about that? Why?

And the answer came to him quite suddenly: because this is Scotland, and guilt, historically, is what we feel – about so many things. You are not French, Stuart – if you were, there would be no problem. You are Scottish – and there it is.