44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [56]
“Then he said something about how the Scottish psyche had suffered from the iconoclastic doings in the Reformation. He said that there was a wound in the Scottish soul which came about from the denial of beauty. He said that the Scottish soul would only come to terms with itself if beauty were acknowledged. Then he said something about how Scottish police uniforms were dull, and that we could take a leaf out of the Italians’ book.
“He said: ‘Look at the carabinieri, with their gorgeous, really gorgeous, cap badges. Those great burning flames. And all you people have is your black and white squares. How sad! How unutterably sad!’
“We didn’t quite know how to take this, but we sat there entranced. He went on like this for an hour or so before he looked at his watch and nodded to the inspector. The inspector stood up and thanked him for his talk. He said that he had given us a great deal to think about and that Tulliallan would never be the same again. Then they went out and the police car which had been waiting for him took him back to Edinburgh. We talked in hushed voices for the rest of the afternoon. We felt that we had somehow been touched by greatness, and we were very grateful. It was almost as if Lord Clark himself had been there. Almost, but not quite.”
Chris had now stopped, and Pat was silent. She looked at him, at the shadow on his face from the curious overhead lighting. She felt strangely moved by the story of this visit, and she wanted to say something to him, but she could not decide what it was that she had in mind. How strange the visit must have been; rather like the visit she had read about in an Italian short story that her father had drawn to her attention. An immensely aristocratic count visits an archaeological side with his aides and Humiliation and Embarrassment
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speaks in a voice so distinguished that nobody can understand a word of what he was saying. Beh andiatah reh ec brar . . . and so on. But in spite of the fact that nobody could understand, they were all impressed with the visitor and felt honoured that he had condescended to be there. This is how they must have felt on that day at Tulliallan.
She stared at Chris, who looked back at her in silence. For a moment a smile played about his lips, and then he looked down at his glass of beer.
“I heard what you said about me,” he said quietly. “This isn’t going to work, is it?”
Pat said nothing. She was mortified that he had heard her unkind comments, and now she began to stutter an apology.
“I didn’t mean it to sound like that,” she said. “You know how sometimes people say things that get on your nerves, for no real reason at all. It happens to all of us.”
“Except that in this case there is a reason,” said Chris, his voice level and controlled. “I’m a bit of a joke to you, aren’t I, because I don’t fit in with your world. I just can’t. Every single person I’ve met in this art job – every single one – has condescended to me. Oh they’re nice enough, particularly if they need me to do something, but that’s about it. This is a city of snobs, that’s what it is. A city of utter snobs. And this place here is full of them. Wall to wall.”
46. Humiliation and Embarrassment
Pat did not stay long at the Hot Cool after Chris had made his self-pitying declaration. It had not surprised her that he had been offended by her dismissal of him – any dismissal was offensive to the one on the receiving end – but there was something uncomfortable about the way in which he had included her in his blanket condemnation of the Edinburgh art world. She realised that he must have imagined her to be part of that world 118
Humiliation and Embarrassment
– and she was part of that world, in a very attenuated sense –
but he had no right to make such sweeping statements about the attitudes of other people. How did he know anything about her views, other than that she did not think that there was much chance of developing a relationship with him, and this on the grounds of her objection to the use of the expression hah, hah?
Anybody might object