Alexander Smith - Unbearable Lightness of Scones

“Yes,” said Bertie. “I can’t wait.”

“We’ll go and get your uniform tomorrow,” said Stuart.

“Can I carry a knife?” asked Bertie. “That book I was reading, Scouting for Boys , says that every scout should have a knife. Did you have a knife, Daddy?”

Stuart was silent. He had not thought about it for many years – and it seemed such a long time ago. But yes, he did have a knife, although he very much doubted that cubs had knives these days.

“I did have a knife, Bertie,” Stuart said. “I had a lovely red Swiss Army knife with twelve blades, as I recall. Well, they weren’t all blades – they did various things. One was a hook to take stones out of the feet of horses. And another was a corkscrew, I think. It was a lovely knife. I was very proud of it.”

Bertie was listening with rapt attention. It thrilled him to learn that his father had had a knife, and a Swiss Army one at that. He had seen a picture of a Swiss Army knife once, in a magazine – it was Scottish Field , he thought, which he read in Dr. Fairbairn’s waiting-room. It had never occurred to him that he might one day have such a knife, but now that his father had said that he had owned such a thing, then there was a chance, he supposed, a remote chance that he might get one.

He looked at his father. The warm intimacy of the half-light made him wonder whether now might not be the time to make the request.

“Do you think I could have a Swiss Army knife?” he asked, his voice small in the darkness. “Do you think I could, Daddy?”

Stuart said nothing for a moment. He remembered that he had been given his Swiss Army knife at the age of eight, and Bertie, of course, was only six. But children grew up faster these days and six, perhaps, was the new eight… And how could he say no to this little boy who had been said no to so many times – by his mother – and all those nos had been left unchallenged by him? Well that was going to change, and it would change dramatically, whatever Irene said.

“Of course you can have a Swiss Army knife, Bertie,” said Stuart. “We can get it tomorrow when we go to buy your uniform. You just remind me.”

“Oh, thank you, Daddy,” said Bertie, beaming with pleasure. “Can we go in the car to get the uniform?”

“Of course,” said Stuart.

“Where is it, Daddy?” asked Bertie. “I haven’t seen our car for ages.”

Stuart smiled. “Where is our car? Oh, in the usual place, Bertie. Parked.”

“But where?” pressed Bertie.

Stuart stroked his chin. Had he been the last to use the car? Suddenly his prospects seemed to be considerably less attractive. It was one thing to insist on the cub scouts, but it was quite another thing to promise Bertie a knife and to forget – again, it seemed – where the car was parked.

He looked down at his son. If there was one thing that he could wish for his son – one thing that he himself, as a father, did not possess, what would that be? Courage, he thought.

And Bertie looked up at his father and thought: How dare Tofu call my father a wimp? Tofu’s father would never have owned a Swiss Army knife. Tofu’s father… he drifted off to sleep.

Angus knew that after leaving Big Lou’s coffee bar he should return to his studio, to work. His easel awaited him there, a half-finished subject staring out at him disconsolately from the canvas. He knew in which direction duty was pointing, but chose to ignore it; it had been a most unsettling morning and so, looking at his watch and realising that it was now shortly after twelve, he decided that it was lunchtime and that work could wait until the afternoon, or very possibly the evening. Some days were like that, he thought; they had “liable to be cancelled at short notice” written all over them, and this was one. Better then, to walk up the road, cross at the junction of Dundas Street and Heriot Row, and slip into Glass and Thompson for lunch.

He looked down at Cyril. “Not the most productive of mornings, Cyril,” he said. “But then every day is like that for you. Apart from the day that you produced six puppies, that is. That’s the cost of having an affair, Cyril, old chap: minor pleasure and major consequences.”

Cyril looked up at his master. He tried to make sense of what Angus said, but it was mostly meaningless sound to him. Some words were recognisable, and bore meaning: walk, bad, dinner, bone, fetch – but that was about all. If a universe is formed by language, then this was a small one indeed; a small circle of understanding described in a morass of confusion and puzzlement. The key, Cyril knew, was to ascertain the mood of these unintelligible sounds. If Angus sounded cross then he, Cyril, should look contrite. And that, he thought, was how he should look now.

But Angus did not dwell on reproductive irresponsibility, and the moment passed. They had now come up to the traffic lights at the Open Eye Gallery, and this was the signal for Angus to invoke one of Cyril’s more unusual tricks. Knowing that Cyril might need to lift his leg at some point before lunch, he stopped aside the railings that ran along the gallery and gave the instruction for this to happen. “Turner Prize,” Angus commanded, and immediately Cyril moved to a suitable position against a railing and lifted his leg.

“You have such sound judgment, my boy,” Angus observed as he waited for the dog to finish. Then, both nature and artistic opinion satisfied, they crossed to the welcoming doorway of Glass and Thompson, where Cyril took up his position under Angus’s table while his master ordered lunch.

Glass and Thompson was relatively quiet; the lunchtime rush would not begin for another forty minutes or so, and there were only a few customers at the various tables, the last of the morning coffee crowd. Angus found a newspaper abandoned on a neighbouring seat and opened it at the bridge column, running his eye down the account of tricks made and lost. He was a weak player, but he loved the language of ruffs and ducking, broken honours and deception manoeuvres. Then he looked up, aware that there was a shadow obscuring the glass front door of the café just behind him; or so it seemed. In reality the shadow was an eclipse of the light caused by the massive form of an extremely overweight man, half-carrying, half-dragging a large wrapped item behind him.

Angus stared at the man, astonished by his vast bulk, and by the dingy beige jersey he was wearing under an outsize black donkey jacket. He had seen him somewhere before; but where was it? and then he remembered. This was the man who had come into Big Lou’s café months ago, maybe even last year, and who had dealt with that unpleasant boyfriend of hers, the one who had virtually cleaned out her bank account – and would have got away with it, had it not been for this man whose name was… was… Lard O’Connor. That was it. Lard O’Connor! And here he was in Glass and Thompson, of all places; not their usual sort of customer.

Angus rose to his feet, while Cyril cowered under the vast bulk of the new arrival. “Mr. O’Connor?”

Lard swung round in surprise. “Aye, that’s mysel. And you’re…”

“Angus Lordie, sir. We met in Big Lou’s last year, I think.”

Lard scratched his head. “Big Lou? Oh, aye, that nice wumman. So youse were there were youse? So you were. I canna remember everything these days. But mebbe…”

Angus gestured to the other chair at his table. “Will you join me?”

Lard leaned his parcel against the wall and lowered himself into the chair. “Do they do pie and chips?” he asked. “I could dae wi’ a wee pie and chips, so I could.”

Angus smiled. “Well, it’s quiche, actually, this being Edinburgh. And I fear they don’t do chips.”