44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [72]
I think he may be, you know, come to think of it. Is Bowhill to the south of Kelso? I think it may be. If it is, then it would be, starting from the south, Buccleuch, Roxburghe. . . let me think . . . Hamilton, then Montrose (because he sits on the edge of Loch Lomond, doesn’t he, nowhere near Montrose itself), Atholl, Argyll, and then Sutherland. Hold your horses! Doesn’t the Duke of Sutherland live in the Borders? I think he does. So, he would have to go in that list between . . .”
Bruce looked around the table. All eyes had been fixed on Ramsey Dunbarton, but now they had shifted. Todd, who was still smarting over the moving together of the tables – against his explicit instructions – was glowering at Sasha, who was looking at Bruce, but in a way that he had not noticed; for he was looking at Betty Dunbarton, whose eyes, he saw, went in slightly different directions, and so could have been looking at anything; while Lizzie looked at the waiter who was watching the bowls of soup, ready to whisk them away and allow the service of the next course, and the course after that, so that the dancing could begin. 58. Catch 22
“Tories,” muttered Jim Smellie, leader of Jim Smellie’s Ceilidh Band. “And gey few of them too! Look, one two . . . six altogether. See that, Mungo? Six!”
Catch 22
151
Mungo Brown, accordionist and occasional percussionist, drew on a cigarette as he looked across the dance floor to the table where the guests were sitting, waiting for the arrival of their coffee. “Don’t complain,” he said, smiling. “This bunch won’t stay up late. We’ll be out of here by eleven-thirty.”
“Aye,” said Jim, gazing across the empty dance floor. They were still deep in conversation, it seemed, and he wondered what they were talking about. In his experience there were two topics of conversation that dominated bourgeois Edinburgh: schools and house prices.
At the table, Betty Dunbarton turned to Todd, who was looking about anxiously, waiting for the coffee to be served. The service had been very good – one could not fault the Braid Hills Hotel, which was an excellent hotel, and it was certainly nothing to do with them that the two tables had been placed together – but it was now time for coffee, distinctly so, and then they could get out on the dance floor and he could get away from this woman at last.
“I do hope that we get a piece of shortbread with our coffee,” Betty remarked. “Although, you know, I had a very bad experience with a bit of shortbread only last week. Ramsey was down at Muirfield . . .”
Todd turned round sharply. “Muirfield?”
“Yes,” said Betty brightly. “He plays down there at least once a week these days. He’s a little bit slow now, with his leg playing up, but he always gets in nine holes. He has the same foursome, you know. David Forth, you know, Lord Playfair . . .”
“Yes, yes,” said Todd irritably. The mention of Muirfield had annoyed him. How long had Ramsey Dunbarton been on the waiting list, he wondered. Probably no time at all. And what was the use of his being a member? He would surely get as much enjoyment from playing somewhere closer to town.
“You know him?” asked Betty. “You know David?”
“No, I don’t,” said Todd. “I know who he is. I don’t know him.”
“I thought that you might have met him out at Muirfield,”
she said. “Do you get out there a great deal?”
152
Catch 22
Todd looked over his shoulder in an attempt to catch the waiter’s eye. “No,” he said. “I don’t. My brother plays there, but I don’t. I play elsewhere.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be in the same club as your brother?”
asked Betty.
Todd shrugged. “I’m perfectly happy,” he said. “And I really don’t get the chance to play much golf these days. You know how it is. Not everyone wants to be a member of Muirfield, you know.”
Betty laughed – a high-pitched sound which irritated Todd even more. It would be impossible to be married to a woman like this, he thought, and for a moment he felt sympathy for