38

Seriously Cold

Borthy Borthwick said to Bruce, “Look, Brucie, let me drive you up to this abbey place you’re going to – it’s the least I can do.”

Bruce thought, The least you can do, Borthy, is to stop calling me Brucie. I am not Brucie. We’re not six any longer. But he said none of this, because now he spoke – consciously – with charity, and it would have been uncharitable to reproach poor Borthy Borthwick, with all his limitations, while he, Bruce, had so much going for him: looks, in particular, and that special way with women; the list was as long as the West Highland Way…He stopped himself. That was the old Bruce; the new Bruce did not think that way at all. And so he simply thanked his old friend for the offer and said that it would save him a great deal of trouble to be driven up to Elgin and to Pluscarden Abbey, where he was expected later that day.

Bruce had packed a single suitcase. “I won’t need many clothes,” he explained to Borthy. “I’ll be wearing a habit up there, and they said they could give me working clothes for the garden – old trousers and boots – that sort of thing.”

Borthy wrinkled his nose. “Old trousers? I’m not sure if––”

Bruce put up a hand to silence him. “There is nothing wrong with old clothing, Borthy. We don’t need to adorn ourselves.”

“You may not,” Borthy said. “But then, you look good in anything. I need all the help I can get from clothes.”

Bruce ignored this. “And anyway,” he continued. “I told you that you could have any of my gear – remember?”

Now, with Borthy at the wheel of his beige Vauxhall Corsa – and Borthy was just the sort of person to drive a beige Vauxhall Corsa, Bruce had decided, until, once again, he withdrew his unkind thought – with Borthy at that wheel, they headed north to Morayshire. On either side of the road, Highland Perthshire now revealed itself to them like a travel poster: hills and forests and waterfalls tumbling down hillsides with boyish exuberance.

“I don’t know when I’ll see all this again,” said Bruce, as he gazed out of the car window.

Borthy glanced at him. “Don’t speak like that,” he said. “You’re only going to Elgin.”

Bruce sighed. “I’m not sure that you understand, Borthy: I’m becoming a monk. I’m about to say goodbye to the world.”

For a few moments, Borthy did not reply. Then he said, “Are you quite sure you want to go through with this, Brucie? It’s not too late, you know. I can pull over and turn round. We could be back in the Cumberland Bar in a couple of hours. Or the Wally Dug. Or Bennets beside the King’s Theatre – remember that place?”

Bruce was patient. “No, Borthy, I’ve made up my mind.”

“Jeez,” said Borthy, and left the subject at that. A few minutes later, though, he said to Bruce, “You remember that girl, Candace? Remember her?”

“Yes,” said Bruce, cagily.

“You remember how you said you licked her hair at that dance? Just above her ear. Remember saying that?”

Bruce shook his head. “I never licked anybody’s hair. Why would I do that?”

“Because she had this strawberry-coloured hair – that’s why. It’s only natural to want to lick strawberry-coloured hair.”

Bruce shook his head. “Listen, Borthy, leave it – just leave it. That’s all in the past. It’s history. Medieval history, for heaven’s sake.”

Borthy was apologetic. “I’m sorry, Bruce, I keep forgetting. You’ve changed.”

“Yes,” said Bruce. “I have.”

Borthy waited. Then he said, “I’ve been wondering about it for years, you know. I keep asking myself: could that really have happened, or did he make it up?”

Bruce frowned. “Why would I lie? Do you think I lied about that sort of thing, Borthy? Do you think I would actually make up a story that I’d licked some girl’s hair?” He paused. “And do you think I’m the sort who goes around licking people’s hair at the drop of a hat?”

“I didn’t say that, Brucie. I didn’t say you were that sort of guy.”

“Because now,” Bruce said, “I don’t want people talking like that. I have promises to make.”

“You mean they’re going to ask you to promise not to lick people’s hair?”

Bruce shook his head. “That’s covered by a general promise. They don’t have to spell it out. And I think you should just leave it, Borthy. Just let it go.”

Borthy looked crushed. “I wasn’t criticizing you, you know.”

Bruce was still staring out of the window. “That’s all right, then. Let’s just move on.”

“What do you get to eat in this place?” Borthy asked. “Regular food, do you think?”

“I have no idea,” said Bruce. “Simple fare, I imagine. Oatmeal porridge. Fish, probably. Beans. Potatoes.”

“And will they cut your hair?” asked Borthy. “Like Friar Tuck? That sort of thing?”

Bruce fingered his scalp nervously. He had not thought about that. “Not at first,” he said. “I’m going to be a novice, and novices aren’t fully signed up to the Rule.”

“Just as well,” said Borthy. He glanced at Bruce again. “Do they know – these monk guys – do they know you’ve been struck by lightning?”

Bruce shook his head. “I don’t think that’s relevant.”

Borthy was not convinced. “But what if the effect of the lightning wears off? How do you know if lightning has a permanent effect? Did that shrink say anything about it?”

“Dr Livingstone?”

“Yes, the shrink you told me about. Him.”

Bruce tried to remember exactly what had been said. “I think he said that if there were changes they would not be short-lived. He said there was a lot about electricity and the brain that they simply don’t understand yet. He said that the way ECT works is still a bit of a mystery. They just know it works. Maybe it’s the same with lightning: they know it changes you, but they don’t know how.”

The conversation continued, but on a different tack. And it did not seem long before Pluscarden Abbey came into sight, nestling in its glen, a tree-lined hillside above it.

“That’s the place,” said Bruce. “Right over there. See it?”

Borthy let out a whistle. “Big,” he said. “And you know something about that building, Brucie? You want to know? It looks seriously cold to me. I’m not saying it’s definitely cold – it’s just that’s the way it looks to me. Do these places have any heating at all, do you think? I don’t think they do – because you can’t heat a place like that without a big stash of the readies. Big time.”

“I have no idea,” said Bruce.

“I knew somebody who bought some electric socks once,” said Borthy. “He was going up to northern Norway for an oil company and he bought these socks that had small batteries. They heated up. He said that he thinks they saved his toes from frostbite.”

“I don’t think it’s that cold here,” said Bruce.

“I hope not,” said Borthy. “You don’t want to lose your toes, Bruce.”

Bruce resisted the temptation to give Borthy a withering look. Really! What a statement of the obvious: you don’t want to lose your toes. Why did people like Borthy think it necessary to make such banal observations?