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Big Lou glanced at him. ‘You’re very inquisitive today,’ she said. ‘But since you ask, there’s Mags and Neil and Humphrey and Jill Holmes and . . . well, quite a few others. I’ve got my friends, you know. Probably more than you have, Matthew, come to think of it.’

Matthew smiled. ‘Maybe, Lou. Maybe.’ He paused. ‘But, I hope you don’t mind my asking, Lou: who are these people? We never see them in here, do we? Who are they? Mags, for instance, who’s she?’

Big Lou finished her polishing with a final flourish and tucked her cloth away beneath the bar. ‘Mags,’ she said, ‘since you ask, is a very good friend of mine. I met her on the corner of Eyre Crescent, on the way down to Canonmills. She was standing there when I walked past.’

Matthew stared at Big Lou. ‘You met her on the street? She was just standing there? And you went up to her and said . . . ?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Big Lou. ‘Mags was working in the street when I went past. I stopped to have a word with her.’

Matthew rubbed his hands together. ‘This gets better and better, Lou,’ he said. ‘Working in the street, Lou? What exactly was she doing in the street?’

‘Working in the street,’ said Big Lou in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘You see, Mags drives one of these small steamrollers that road crews use. She was sitting on her steamroller with a cigarette in her mouth and she bent down and asked me if I had a light. I didn’t, but I said something about her steamroller and we started to chat.’

‘Just like that?’ said Matthew. ‘You started to chat? Two complete strangers?’

‘Not complete,’ said Big Lou. ‘Mags, you see, came from Arbroath. Unlike you, Matthew, she came from somewhere.’

Matthew looked crestfallen. She was right, though, he thought. My trouble is that I come from nowhere. Money, education – these give you freedom, but they can take you away from your roots, your place.

10. The Places in which Love Happens

But Matthew wanted to know more about this Mags, the Madonna of the Steamroller, as he had now decided to call her. ‘Something interests me, Lou,’ he began. ‘What sort of woman thinks of getting a job on a road crew? How did Mags end up doing that?’

Big Lou turned from her task – emptying the grounds container – and fixed Matthew with a stare. He looked back at her, unrepentant.

‘Well?’ said Matthew. ‘It’s a fair enough question to ask, isn’t it? One doesn’t see all that many women working on the roads.’

‘I thought that women could do anything these days,’ said Big Lou coldly. ‘Or have I got it wrong? Can men still tell us what we can and cannot do?’

Matthew made a placatory gesture. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Lou,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I’m not suggesting that . . .’

‘Well, what are you suggesting then?’

‘All I was saying, Lou,’ said Matthew, ‘was that there are some jobs in which it’s still usual – that’s all, just usual – to see men rather than women.’

Big Lou continued to stare at him. ‘Such as?’

Matthew had to think quickly. He was about to mention airline pilots, but then he remembered that on the last two flights that he had taken, a female voice had issued from the cockpit to welcome passengers. And nobody, it seemed, had been in the slightest bit surprised, except, perhaps, Matthew himself. But then the woman beside him, possibly noticing his reaction, had leaned over and whispered to him: ‘How reassuring to have a woman at the controls, isn’t it? You do know, don’t you, that women pilots are much, much safer than men? Men take risks – it’s in their nature. Women are much more cautious.’

Matthew had nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

So now he was having difficulty in thinking of examples. Firefighters? But then he remembered having seen a fire engine race past him the other day in Moray Place, and when he had looked at the crew he had seen not the usual male mesomorphs but a woman, clad in black firefighting gear, combing her hair.

‘I saw a woman fire . . . fireperson, the other day, Lou,’ he said brightly, hoping to distract Big Lou from the subject.

‘Plenty