Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [76]
Such moments can come at any time, and in unexpected circumstances, too. Those who travel to a place of pilgrimage, to a holy place, may hope to experience an epiphany of some sort, but may find only that the Ganges is dirty or that Iona is wet. And yet, on their journey, or on their return, disappointed, they may suddenly see something which vouchsafes them the insight they had wished to find; something glimpsed, not in a holy place, but in very ordinary surroundings; as Auden discovered when he sat with three colleagues on the lawn, out under the stars, on a balmy evening, and suddenly felt for the first time what it 158 Sun-Dried Tomatoes
was like to love one’s neighbour as oneself. The experience lasted in its intensity, he later wrote, for all of two hours, and then gradually faded.
Matthew felt this now, and it suppressed any urge he might have had to speak. He felt this for Pat – a gentleness, a cherishing – and for the cat and for the elderly woman under her burden. And he felt it, he thought, because he had just witnessed cruelty. He would not be cruel. He could not be cruel now. All that he wanted was to protect and comfort this girl beside him. He looked at Pat. She had stopped crying and she no longer avoided his gaze.
“Thank you, Matthew,” she said.
He smiled at her. “You’ll be much happier in India Street. You really will.”
“You must tell me how much rent I need to pay,” said Pat. Matthew raised his hands in protest. “None,” he said. “Not a penny. You can live rent free.”
Pat frowned. “But I have to pay something,” she said. “I can’t . . .”
“No,” said Matthew. “No. No.”
Pat was silent.
51. Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Cyril was not accustomed to travelling in a bus – nor indeed in any vehicle. Angus Lordie had no car, and so Cyril’s experience of motor transport was limited to a few runs he had enjoyed in Domenica’s custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz. From time to time, she invited Angus to accompany her on a drive into the country, to Peebles perhaps, or Gullane for lunch at the Golf Inn. Cyril was allowed to come on these outings, provided that he remained on a rug in the back, and he would stick his nose out of the window and revel in the bewildering range of scents borne in on the rushing air: sheep, hayfields, burning stubble, a startled pheasant in flight; so many things for a dog to think about.
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But now he was on a bus, bundled under a seat amid unfamiliar ankles and shoes. He did not like the experience at all; he did not like the smell of the air, which was stale and acrid; he did not like the vibrations in the floor and the rumble of the diesel engine; he did not like the young man who had dragged him away from his tethering place. He looked up. The young man was holding the end of his leash lightly in his hand, twisting and untwisting it around his fingers. Cyril began to whimper, softly at first, but more loudly as he saw that the young man was not paying any attention to him.
As the whimpering increased in volume, the young man looked down at Cyril. For a few moments, dog and man looked at one another, and then, without any warning, the young man aimed a kick at the underside of Cyril’s jaw. It was not a powerful kick, but it was enough to force Cyril’s lower jaw up against the upper, causing him to bite his tongue.
“Haud yer wheesht,” the young man muttered, adding:
“Stupid dug.”
Humiliated, Cyril shrank back under the seat. He knew that he did not deserve the kick, but it did not occur to him to 160 Sun-Dried Tomatoes
retaliate. So he simply stared up at this person who now had control of him and tried to understand, but could not. After a few minutes, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. It was at least warm in these strange surroundings and he was now becoming used to the throb