Alexander Smith - Unbearable Lightness of Scones

Angus knew just what Big Lou had been obliged to put up with: of her trials with those various unsuitable men; of her struggle to make something of her life; of everything she had endured. She never, or rarely, complained, and so to see her now in this state of distress was a real cause for concern. Of course he had known from the beginning that Robbie was, as Matthew had so succinctly put it, “bad news.” It was not as if Robbie were violent or drunken, or suffered from any of the other obvious defects to which the male was heir; it was not that. It was more a question of his being a man with a cause, and the cause in question being so… well, one would really have to say odd.

“Oh, Lou,” said Angus. “Tell me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

He reached out over the bar and laid his hand over hers. It was a gentle gesture; a gesture of fellow-feeling that was immediately appreciated. She looked at him.

“Robbie?” he asked. “He’s making you unhappy? Is that it?” Of course he was; what else could it be?

Big Lou bit her lip. “I’m very fond of him, Angus. You ken that. Very fond.”

“Of course you are, Lou. And I’m sure he’s fond of you.” But not as fond of you, he thought, as he is of Charles Edward Stuart and James VII and all that crowd.

Big Lou nodded. “I think he is. He tells me he is. But…”

“But what, Lou?” He hesitated. “Is it something to do with his Jacobitism? Is that the problem?” He knew that it was; of course it was. Robbie had a screw missing, as Matthew again had put it.

Big Lou confirmed that it was. “I understand what it means to him,” she said. “And I’ve tried to enter into the spirit of it. But now I think that they’re taking it too far. It’s all very well having an interest in history, but when you can’t seem to tell the difference between reality and fantasy…” She paused. “You know that they’ve been planning a visit from their pretender? Some Belgian who claims to be the successor of Bonnie Prince Charlie. They’re tremendously excited. And I think that they’re going to do something stupid. I really do.”

Angus’s first reaction was to laugh, but, with effort, he controlled himself.

“And when does the Pretender arrive?”

Big Lou looked towards the door, as if to check that the Pretender was not already there, waiting outside. Did Pretenders knock, Angus wondered, irreverently, or did they merely barge in?

Speaking in a whisper, Big Lou answered Angus’s question. “He’s already here.”

Angus’s eyes widened. “Here in Edinburgh? Or… or out in the heather?”

“Here in Edinburgh.”

There was a silence. The Pretender had been a joke when he had merely been a possibility. Now that he was real, and was in Edinburgh, it seemed different. Angus found himself clasping Big Lou’s hand more tightly when he eventually spoke. “Where, Lou? Where?” His voice was lowered; so might one covert Jacobite speak to another as Whig agents passed by.

“In my flat,” replied Lou. “Down in Canonmills.”

“Lou!” exclaimed Angus. ‘What on earth are you doing – sheltering a… a pretender?”

Lou sighed. “I didn’t invite him,” she said. “Credit me with more intelligence than that. Robbie did. Robbie brought him along after he had arrived. They came straight to my place. I couldn’t very well turn him away.”

Angus wondered how the Pretender had arrived. By boat from France? Perhaps he had come from the Zeebrugge ferry, if he was Belgian. That would have brought him in to Rosyth, and then there was a bus that crossed the Forth Road Bridge and would have dropped him off at St. Andrew Square bus station. But that was hardly a very romantic way for a pretender to arrive in his kingdom.

Big Lou confirmed this was, indeed, the way in which the Pretender had arrived. “Robbie met him at the bus station,” she said. “Along with others. They had a piper who played ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again’ and ‘Roses of Prince Charlie.’”

Angus smiled. “And then?”

“And then they walked with him down onto Queen Street and hailed a taxi. There was a bit of an incident, though, before they left.”

“With the authorities? The authorities got to hear of it?”

“No,” said Lou. “It was nothing to do with that. It’s just that Michael – you know, the one who’s in charge of… of the cause… he dropped the Pretender’s duty-free whisky on the pavement and the bottles broke. Apparently the Pretender was furious and said that Michael would have to buy him some new bottles. He started to shout in Flemish, Robbie said, and only stopped shouting once Michael had agreed to buy the whisky on the way to my flat.”

Angus listened to this story in complete amazement. “And so now he’s staying with you, Lou?”

Lou nodded. “Yes. Robbie said that they looked into the possibility of a hotel, but the Pretender said that it would be more secure for him to stay with one of the supporters. I think he believes that there are more supporters than there really are. In fact, there are only eight or nine of them, as far as I can see.”

“But why can’t one of them put him up?” asked Angus. “It seems a bit unfair to land him on you when you’re not a real supporter.”

“Robbie said that it was best for him to stay with somebody who wouldn’t be known as a Jacobite. He said it would be safer that way.”

“And now what?”

Big Lou shrugged. “I have no idea. He’s sleeping in my kitchen, on a camp bed. And this morning he used all the hot water – every drop of it. And there were only two eggs in the fridge, but he ate both of them. Robbie says that we must cater to his every need. Those were his exact words. And the Pretender seems to think so himself. He never says thank you. He just looks at you as if it’s your job to wait on him hand and foot. He takes everything for granted.”

Angus frowned. Everybody took advantage of Big Lou’s kindness: customers at the coffee bar, demanding relatives, boyfriends, pretenders… “You’ll have to put your foot down, Lou,” he said. “Tell Robbie that he’ll have to find somewhere else for the Pretender to stay. Send him up to the Highlands. To the Outer Hebrides. Anywhere.”

Big Lou began to polish the bar once again. “That’s what they’re planning,” she said. “He’s going up north. Robbie says they have a plan. But I have a bad feeling, Angus. A gey bad feeling.”

When Angus Lordie emerged from Big Lou’s coffee bar he had a great deal to think about. It had been an eventful morning, what with Lou’s surprise announcement, and the retrieval of Domenica’s blue Spode teacup. His artist’s eye detected a certain symmetry in these events – the welcoming of the Pretender represented an absurd, misguided attempt to rectify what was seen by some as a historical injustice; the restoration of the teacup was also an attempt – and a successful one at that – to set right a wrong.

Now Angus knew that there were those who would regard the whole matter of the teacup as a small thing, a minor issue between neighbours that should hardly merit our notice. In the scale of wrongs which plagued the world, the theft of a teacup, even one which was of sentimental value to its owner, might seem to count for very little. Certainly it was dwarfed by the crying injustices with which humanity had to contend; but that was not really the point, at least in Angus’s view. Every small wrong, every minor act of cruelty, every act of petty bullying was symbolic of a greater wrong. And if we ignored these small things, then did it not blunt our outrage over the larger wrongs?

It was, thought Angus, a question of zero tolerance. When Mayor Giuliani decided to tackle petty street crime in New York, he realised this fundamental truth: the small things stand for the big things. And by stopping minor street crimes – littering, riding bicycles on the pavement, pushing people out of the way and so on – he signalled that anti-social behaviour of any sort would not be tolerated. And the result? One of the safest large cities in the world.