The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [86]
Nothing like that had happened in London, of course, but over the months it had become apparent to Bruce that the reality of life in London was one of struggle; people worked hard, put up with cramped conditions, and had to travel miles to conduct their social lives – they struggled. With the inherent good nature of the English, they generally remained remarkably cheerful about all this, but such hardships began to wear Bruce down. He looked back with longing to the days when he had been able to walk to work – even to go home for lunch or for a quick dalliance with a girlfriend if he so desired; that was impossible in London. He remembered how he could walk from the Cumberland Bar to Murrayfield Stadium in half an hour, with his friends, and then walk with them to a dinner and a party thereafter. And he remembered those friends: Gordon, Hamish, Iain, Simon, Fergus . . . and he found that he missed them.
So there had been the move back to Edinburgh and into the flat in Comely Bank owned by his friend, Neil. Now there was the move out of that flat and into the flat in Howe Street owned by Julia Donald. So many moves . . . He zipped up his suitcase and moved it off the bed and onto the floor. Caroline, Neil’s wife, was standing in the doorway, watching him, and Bruce turned round to face her.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘That’s more or less it. I hope I haven’t left anything. If I have, give it to the Oxfam shop.’ He paused. He did not like the way that Caroline watched him; it was distinctly disconcerting, and he wondered if she did it to Neil too. I could never put up with being married to somebody like her, thought Bruce; poor Neil.
‘Neil said that I should offer to drive you over there,’ Caroline said. ‘Would you like me to do that?’
Bruce considered the offer for a moment. It was significant, he thought, that she had said that Neil had made the suggestion. She was not making the offer; her husband was. ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you out. I’ll phone for a cab.’
She nodded. ‘Do you want to leave anything for the phone?’ she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘For your phone calls,’ she said. ‘Sometimes when one stays somewhere one leaves money for one’s share of the phone bill. That sometimes happens.’
Bruce blushed. This woman was the end. She was la fin, he thought.
‘I haven’t kept a note,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Maybe I should have noted down the length of the calls. You know, something like: Edinburgh to Glasgow, two minutes ten seconds. That sort of thing.’ His lip curled as he spoke; she would hardly understand sarcasm, he thought; such people rarely do.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should have.’
Bruce looked down at his suitcase. ‘You’ve got a problem, Caroline,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a big problem. Maybe with phones, but also with men, I’d say, and I’m sorry about that, because there are lots of men about, you know.’
Caroline’s reply came quickly. ‘Not with all men,’ she said. ‘Just some.’
Bruce shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he said. He picked up his suitcase; there was no point in prolonging this. ‘You’ve been very kind,’ he said. ‘Thanks for everything.’
Caroline did not move from the doorway. ‘My conditioner,’ she said, between clenched teeth. ‘Put it back in the shower! You’ve moved it again, and I told you, I told you. I want it in the shower, on that little shelf. That’s where it lives. That conditioner lives there.’
57. In the Shower Again
‘It’s amazing how petty some people are,’ said Bruce. ‘They get really, really upset about tiny things. You know, really tiny things.’
Julia Donald looked at him adoringly. ‘Such as?’ she asked.
Bruce leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, Caroline was one of these OCD types – you know, obsessive-compulsive disorder. She used to line the conditioner bottles up in the shower just like this, plonk