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Pat found herself watching Dr Fantouse as his wife played. He was watching her hands, as if transfixed. When she reached the end of the piece, he turned to Pat and smiled.

‘We could have more,’ he said. ‘But we ration ourselves. People have so much music – don’t you think? – that they don’t bother to listen to half of it. Music should be arresting, should be something which makes one stop and listen. But we’re inundated with music. Everywhere we go. People are plugged into their iPods. Music is piped into shops, restaurants, everywhere. A constant barrage of music.’

‘But you will have more tea?’ asked Fiona.

Pat shook her head. ‘I must get on,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very kind.’

‘You must come again,’ said Fiona. ‘It’s been such fun.’

‘Yes, it has,’ said Dr Fantouse. ‘That’s the nice thing about Edinburgh. There are so many pleasant surprises.’

They saw Pat to the door, where Pat shook hands with both of them. She saw again the delicate makeup on Fiona’s eyes. Who was it for? she wondered. For Dr Fantouse? Did he notice such things?

As she went downstairs, a boy of about eleven or twelve was coming up. He looked as if he had been playing football, his knees muddied, his hair dishevelled. She looked into his face, a face of freckles, and saw that he had grey eyes. For a moment, both stopped, as if they were about to say something to one another, but then the boy looked away and continued up the stairs. Pat felt uneasy. It was as if she had seen a fox.

She went out into the street, and glanced up at the windows of the flat. Dr Fantouse was standing at the window, his wife beside him. They noticed Pat and waved. She waved back, and thought: how many people in this city live like that? Or was this a caricature, an echo of what bourgeois Edinburgh once was like but was no more? Or, again, had what she had seen that afternoon been simple, quiet decency, nothing more? As she walked up the narrow road that led past the Sick Kids Hospital, she remembered what she had once read somewhere, words of little comfort: for most of us, nothing very much happens; that is our life.

89. Across the Minch

‘So, Lou,’ said Robbie Cromach. ‘Tuesday’s your birthday, and you and I are going somewhere special! You choose.’

Big Lou smiled at Robbie, her boyfriend of two months, the man whom she felt she knew rather well, but in a curious way did not know at all. He was a thoughtful man, and paid much more attention to Lou’s feelings than had any of her previous boyfriends. They had been a disaster – all of them – selfish, exploitative, weak; indeed, one or two of them all of these things at the same time. But Robbie was different; she was sure of that.

‘Well, that’s really good of you, Robbie,’ she said. ‘Only my birthday’s on Monday, not Tuesday and . . .’

She did not finish. Robbie was frowning. ‘Monday . . .’ he began.

‘Yes. So we’ll have no difficulty getting in anywhere.’

Robbie was still frowning, and Big Lou realised that he must have something on that evening. She had told him several times that her birthday was on Monday – he had asked her and she had told him. Now it appeared that he had made other arrangements for that night. She sighed, but she was used to this. Big Lou’s birthday had never been anybody else’s priority in the past, and it looked as if that would not change now; she had thought that it might be different with Robbie, but perhaps it was not.

‘You’ve got something on?’ The resignation showed in her voice. ‘You can’t change it?’

Robbie, who had called in on Big Lou’s coffee bar to accompany her to her flat on closing time, shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot.

‘Sorry, Lou,’ he said. ‘Monday is a really important evening for me.’ (And for me? thought Lou.) ‘I’d love to be able to change it, but I’m afraid I can’t.’ He paused. ‘But I don’t want you to spend your birthday by yourself, Lou. So why don’t you come with me? There’s an important meeting. Really important.’

Big Lou rubbed at the gleaming metal surface of the bar. It would be the Jacobites,