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By Root 1258 0

philosophy. They discussed these but avoided politics in case their opinions divided them. Once or twice they had tea in each other’s homes. McAlpin lived in the small posh suburban town of Bearsden. The house had a garden round it and warm well-carpeted rooms. The furniture was large and beautifully kept with Indian cabinets and Chinese ornaments. Mrs. McAlpin was small, brisk and cheerful. “This is the tiniest of the houses we owned when Kenneth’s father died,” she said with a faint sigh, pouring tea into thin cups. “Not that I wanted the others, even if I could have afforded to keep them. We really were rather prosperous once. Kenneth, for instance, had a nanny when he was small …”

“We keep it, stuffed, in a cupboard under the stairs,” murmured McAlpin.

“… we had a chauffeur too, Stroud, a delightful character, a real Cockney. I do miss the car. Still, if I had it I would probably use it all the time because I’m naturally terribly lazy. I suppose running up and down to the shops helps keep me young. Another thing we don’t do much nowadays is entertain. Still, I want Kenneth’s twenty-first birthday party to be one he’ll really enjoy. You’ll come to it, Duncan, I hope? Kenneth often talks of you.”

“I’d like to,” said Thaw. He sat on a sofa so deep that it supported the whole length of his legs, and he sipped tea and wondered why he felt so much at home. Perhaps when he was small his own house had seemed as spacious and secure.

At the refectory table he often heard parties and excursions planned. McAlpin took little share in the plans for in that group practical details were left to the girls, but Judy brought him in by asking, “What do you think, Kenneth?” or “Have you any ideas about that?” while Thaw sat hoping to be invited and wondering why Aitken Drummond was always invited. Aitken Drummond was not a member of the group. He was over six feet tall and usually wore green tram conductor’s trousers, a red muffler and an army greatcoat. His dark skin, great arched nose, small glittering eyes, curling black hair and pointed beard were so like the popular notion of the Devil that on first sight everyone felt they had known him intimately for years. Drummond was always asked to parties and next day stories were told of him amid mocking, slightly horrified laughter. Thaw envied him, but the question “Can I come to the party, Kenneth?” though often in his mind, was never asked. He was sure McAlpin would answer “Yes, why not?” with hurtful coolness. Yet coolness was the quality in McAlpin he most admired. It showed in his polished solidity, his relaxed confidence which nothing, nobody, seemed to perturb. It showed in his calm robust body, his good manners and good clothes, in the finely rolled umbrella he carried with careless ease when the weather was cloudy. It showed most of all on the few occasions he spoke of his private life, as if that life were entertainment he watched, with ironical sympathy, from a distance. One day he said to Thaw, “I behaved badly last night.”

“How?”

“I took Judy to a party. I got rather drunk and started kissing the host’s daughter on the floor behind the sofa. She was drunk too. Then Judy found us and was furious. The trouble is I was enjoying myself so much I couldn’t even pretend to be sorry.”

He frowned and said, “That was bad, wasn’t it?”

“If Judy loves you, yes, of course it was bad.”

McAlpin looked gravely at Thaw for a moment, then flung his head back and roared with laughter.

One morning Thaw and McAlpin went into the Cowcaddens, a poor district behind the ridge where the art school stood. They sketched in an asphalt playpark till small persistent boys (“Whit are ye writing, mister? Are ye writing a photo of that building, mister? Will ye write my photo, mister?”) drove them up a cobbled street to the canal. They crossed the shallow arch of a wooden bridge and climbed past some warehouses to the top of a threadbare green hill. They stood under an electric pylon and looked across the city centre. The wind which stirred the skirts of their coats was shifting mounds of grey cloud