The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [92]
‘Well,’ she began, ‘I think it’s a good idea to let go. Scotland used to have Stuarts – now it doesn’t. And the Hanoverians used to be Germans, now they aren’t. They’re British. So what’s the point of looking for some ridiculous Pretender? Haven’t your friends got anything better to do?’
Robbie shook his head in dismay. ‘You’re talking about people who are prepared to do anything for Scotland,’ he said. ‘To die, even.’
Big Lou dropped her dusting cloth. ‘To die? Are you serious, Robbie?’
Robbie looked straight back at her. ‘Aye, Lou. Dead serious.’
She laughed. ‘That wee boy, Jimmy. He’s drinking all this in from Michael, with his posh voice and his fancy clothes. Die for the cause? Does Scotland need all this nonsense, or does it need something done about its real problems? About teenage binge drinking? About all those folk who get by on next to nothing? About that sort of thing?’
Robbie reached out to touch Big Lou on the arm, but she withdrew. ‘Answer my question, Robbie Cromach,’ she snapped.
Lou’s man looked at his hands. The hands of a plasterer, they were cracked from exposure to lime and grit. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll answer you, Lou.’ He looked up at her, and she saw the features that had attracted her so much, the high cheekbones, the boyish vulnerability.
‘I know that there’s a lot wrong with this country of ours,’ he said. ‘I know fine that there are folk who can’t earn a decent wage, no matter how hard they work. I know that there’s a very rich company in this city, for instance, that pays its cleaners a pittance while it rakes in the profits big-time. Shame on them. Shame on them. I know that there are places where the kids are all fuelled up on Buckie and pills and where the fathers are not there or are drunk or otherwise out of it. I know that we’ve got a wee parliament that makes lots and lots of grand-sounding bodies and is full of high heid-yins and tsars. I know all that, Lou. But all of this goes back, you see. It goes back to things not being right with ourselves. And until we get that right – until we take back what was taken away from us right back there when they took our kings away from us, then the rest is going to be wrong. That’s what I believe, Lou. God’s truth – that’s what I believe.’
Robbie stopped. He looked at Big Lou almost imploringly, as if he was willing her to see the situation as he saw it.
‘I understand all that, Robbie,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s just that I think that sounding off about something as old as that is not very helpful. It was all very romantic – I give you that – when Charlie landed and it looked like he was going to get his kingdom back. But for what? What sort of rulers had those people been? And anyway, it makes no difference, surely. It’s old, old business, Robbie. Surely you can see that?’
Big Lou waited for Robbie’s response. It was slow, but at last he said something: ‘No. I don’t see that, Lou. Sorry, I don’t.’
Big Lou sighed. Why was it her lot in life, she wondered, to find men who had something odd about them? Every time, every single time, she had been involved with a man, there had been something strange about him. There had been that man in Aberdeen who had been obsessed with billiards and had spent all his spare time watching replays of classic games; that had been very trying. Then there had been Eddie, with his thing about teenage girls; that had been intolerable. And now here was Robbie, who was, of all things, a Jacobite! She had to smile, she really had to. Teenage girls or obscure Jacobite shenanigans? Which was worse?
There was no doubt in Big Lou’s mind. ‘Oh well, Robbie,’ she said at last. ‘Whatever makes you happy.’
Robbie leaned forward