44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [71]
Bruce shook his head. “I know where it is. But I don’t really know it as a place. You remember it, I suppose?”
“Oh yes,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “I remember North Berwick very well. I don’t think one would forget North Berwick very readily. I wouldn’t, anyway. North Berwick and Gullane too. We used to go to Gullane a great deal – from North Berwick, that is. We used to go and have lunch at the Golf Hotel and then we would go for a walk along the beach. There are sand dunes there, you know. And a wonderful view over the Forth to Fife. You can see places like Pittenweem and Elie. That’s if the weather is clear enough. But it’s often a bit misty. You get a bit of a haar sometimes. Do you know Elie?”
“I know where Elie is,” Bruce replied. “But I don’t really know Elie as a place.” He turned to Lizzie in an attempt to involve her in the conversation. “Have you been to Elie?”
Lizzie looked down at her soup, which she had yet to touch.
“Where?” she snapped. Her tone was that of one whose train of thought had been wantonly interrupted.
“Elie,” said Bruce.
“Where?” Lizzie asked again.
“Elie.”
“Elie?”
“Yes, Elie.”
“What about it?”
Bruce persisted. She was being deliberately unpleasant, he thought. She’s a real . . . What was she? A man-hater? Was that the problem? “Do you know it?” he asked. “Have you ever been to Elie?”
“No.”
Ramsey Dunbarton had been following the exchange with The Duke of Plaza-Toro
149
polite interest and now resumed with further observations on Elie. “When I was a bit younger than you,” he said, nodding in Bruce’s direction, “I used to have a friend whose parents had a place over there. They went there for the summer. His mother was quite a well-known figure in Edinburgh society. And I remember I used to go over there with my friend and we’d stay there for a few days and then come back to Edinburgh. Well, I always remember that they had a very large fridge in the basement of their Elie house and my friend opened it one day and showed me what it contained. And what do you think it was?”
Bruce looked at Lizzie to see if she was willing to provide an answer, but she was looking up at the ceiling. This was unnecessarily rude, he thought. All right, so this old boy was boring them stiff but it was meant to be a ball and it was probably the highlight of his year and it would cost her nothing to be civil, at least.
“I really can’t imagine.” He paused. “Explosives?”
Ramsey Dunbarton laughed. “Explosives? No, goodness me. Furs. Fur coats. If you keep them in the fridge the fur is less likely to drop out. The fridge was full of fur coats. People used to buy them from the Dominion Fur Company in Churchill. This lady had about ten of them. Beautiful fur coats. Mink and the like.”
“Well, well,” said Bruce.
“Yes,” said Ramsey Dunbarton. “The Dominion Fur Company was just over the road from the Churchhill Theatre. We used to do Gilbert and Sullivan there. First in the University Savoy Opera Group and then in the Morningside Light Opera. I played the Duke of Plaza-Toro, you know. A wonderful role. I was jolly lucky to get it because there was a very good baritone that year who was after the part and I thought he would get it. I really did. And then the casting director came up to me in George Street one day, just outside the Edinburgh Bookshop, and said that I was to get the part. It was a wonderful bit of news.”
Sasha, who was seated beside Bruce, and who had been talking to Betty Dunbarton, had now disengaged and switched her attention to the conversation between Bruce and Ramsey. 150
Catch 22
But in the course of this change, she had heard only the mention of the Duke of Plaza-Toro.
“The Duke of Plaza-Toro – do you know him?” she asked. Ramsey Dunbarton laughed politely. “Heavens no! He’s in The Gondoliers. Not a real duke.”
Sasha blushed. “I thought . . .” she began.
“There aren’t all that many dukes in Scotland,” Ramsey Dunbarton observed, laying down his soup spoon.