Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [100]
Matthew standing there had affected her in a curious way. The fact she had discovered was this: Matthew was very attractive. It was just a question of seeing him in the right light, so to speak, and now she had.
But at the same time, it irritated her to know that he wore Macgregor undershorts. What right had he to do that? she asked herself.
67. Bathroom Issues (Continued)
Matthew did not see Pat over breakfast that morning. When he emerged from the bathroom, fully clad, to have his breakfast, Pat’s door was closed. And while he was eating his breakfast, which always consisted of a couple of slices of toast and an apple, he heard the bathroom door being opened and subsequently locked, almost demonstratively, and then the sound of a bath being run. He was glad to have the opportunity of creeping out of the flat without encountering his new flatmate. It would be embarrassing enough to appear naked to a flatmate with whom one had lived for some time; to do so on the very first morning of cohabitation was immeasurably worse. Of course, it was not his fault, unless one took the view that it was incumbent upon those within to prevent those from without from bursting in. And that was the precise question which he asked Big Lou when he crossed the road at ten-thirty for his morning cup of coffee in her coffee bar.
The coffee bar was empty when Matthew arrived – apart from the familiar figure of Big Lou, of course. The resourceful autodidact from Arbroath was standing behind the counter, a cloth on the polished surface to her left, a book open before her. As Matthew came in she looked up and smiled. She liked him, and being from a small town she had that natural courtesy which has in many larger places all but disappeared.
“Hello, Matthew,” she said. “You’re the first in today. Not a soul otherwise. Not even Angus and that dog of his.”
Bathroom Issues (Continued) 209
Matthew leaned against the bar and peered at Big Lou’s book. He reached out and flipped the book over to reveal its cover.
“A Pattern Language: Towns, Building, Construction?” he said.
“Interesting, Lou. You going to build something?”
Big Lou reclaimed her book. “You’ll lose my place, you great gowk,” she said affectionately. “It’s a gey good book. All about how we should design things. Buildings. Rooms. Public parks. Everything. It sets out all the rules.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”
Big Lou turned to her coffee machine and extracted the cupped metal filter. Opening a battered white tin, she spooned coffee into the small metal cup and slotted it into place. “Such as always have two sources of light in a room,” she said. “This Professor Alexander – he’s the man who’s written this book –
says that if you have a group of people and let them choose which of two rooms they’ll go into, they’ll always choose the room with two windows – with light coming from more than one source. That’s because they feel more comfortable in rooms like that.”
Matthew looked around him. There was only one window in Big Lou’s coffee bar, and a gloomy window at that. Did he feel uncomfortable as a result? Big Lou noticed his glance and frowned. “I know,” she said. “I’ve only got one window. But sometimes one has no choice. I didn’t design this place, you know.”
“And what else does he say?” asked Matthew.
“Always put your door at the corner of the room,” said Lou, leafing through the book to find the reference. “If you put the door in the middle, then he says that you divide the room into two.”
For a moment Matthew visualised his flat in India Street. Like most flats in the Georgian New Town, it was designed with attention to classical principles, and in particular with an eye to symmetry. Palladio had understood what proportions made people feel comfortable, and so had Robert Adam and Playfair. Matthew’s doors in India Street, he reflected, were all at the corner of a room, and the rooms certainly felt comfortable. This 210 Bathroom Issues (Continued)
mention of doors made him remember the awkward event of earlier that morning. He would ask Big Lou about