A Pocketful of Rye (5 page)

‘A good twelve pounds.' He chuckled. ‘You did well for me, lad. And with the oaring too. This deserves a drink.'

We beached and padlocked the boat, went up the shingle to the bar of the Blairmore Arms where the doctor, after displaying our catch with a good deal of profane boasting, ordered a double John Dewar.

‘And what's yours, Laurence?'

‘Beer,' I said, hardily. I would have died sooner than ask for lemonade.

He laughed. ‘You'll make a good medical student. Give him a mild and bitter, barman.'

About an hour and three double whiskies later, Ennis nosed his way into the soft dark night, racked the gears, and we set off for Levenford. I felt cosy after that second order of not so mild ale and the doctor was in high good humour. He liked an audience and in the bar he had unloaded his repertoire of broad Scots stories on the locals. He kept chuckling, coughing and grunting to himself. Suddenly he said:

‘Carroll, you're a lad after my own heart. What's your opinion of this damn business between my son and that Considine girl? It's been going on since they were in their blasted hippins.'

‘Well, sir,' I said carefully. ‘ I think they're extremely fond of one another.'

‘You mean to tell me they're in love? At their age?'

‘They certainly mean to get married when they're a bit older.'

‘Heavens almighty! But what goes on the now, up in the woods, the two of them, thegither?' He always lapsed into broad Scots when excited.

‘Nothing, sir. Absolutely nothing.'

‘My arse and Jeannie Deans!' he exploded. ‘ They must do something.'

‘They pick flowers, sir.'

‘Almighty Heavens!' He was silenced. Then: ‘ Listen, lad. That girl drips sex like one of McKay's Ayrshire cows leaks milk. Do you mean to me tell that up in these Longcrags with not a soul to watch them, Frank isn't … you know what?'

‘I swear to you he isn't. I know Frank. He's good. Absolutely good.' With two pints of Tennant's best inside me I felt noble, rising in defence of my best friend. ‘Why, his influence has even kept me good. He's incapable of anything like that!'

‘Oh, Lord.' He gave out a kind of groan. ‘You mean he's not even trying for a tickle?'

‘Positively not, sir. I'd swear to it.'

Again he was silent, then he murmured to himself:

‘But picking flowers. What a daisy.'

We were approaching the lights of Levenford and had reached Craig Crescent before he spoke again.

‘Come ben the house and I'll give you your half of the salmon.'

‘Oh I couldn't, doctor …'

Despite my protests he insisted, giving me the better tail half which sent my grandmother into such transports she didn't even ask to smell my breath. I refrained from telling her the doctor's final remark.

‘I daresay ye'll get it served with Bannockburn sauce.'

Before I went to bed I said some extra prayers, celebrating my deliverance from the curse of Adam. But all of that night I scarcely slept one hour.

Dawn comes early in the Swiss uplands and on the morning of October 7th, although it went against the grain, I was up with the lark to make a quick round of the ward. We had only five cases, none of them serious: two simply retained for observation after pleurisy, a mesenteric adenitis and a synovitis of the knee, the so-called ‘ white swelling', both certainly due to bovine T.B., and finally an early Pott's curvature that I had already put in plaster. By half past eight I had finished and after breakfasting and checking with Matron, whom I had already skilfully briefed and who, to my surprise, seemed quite intrigued at the prospect of the new arrivals, I set out for Zürich in the Clinic's Opel station wagon. Why so early, Carroll? Why such indecent haste? You are not duty bound to meet and greet the dear pilgrims until half past five. Could it be that there was purpose in that telephone call last night when the good matron had retired and that once again you are putting pleasure before business?

At first the mountain road is steep, winding and narrow but beyond Jenaz it opens out into the Coire valley. At this hour, except for a few farm wagons, there was no delaying traffic. I made good time and was in Zürich, cruising along the Tielstrasse, looking for an unmetered parking place, just after eleven o'clock.

Zürich has been decried as a city of underground bankers. I have nothing against bankers, since I never meet them, and I liked this fine, rich city, presiding over its broad river and the Züricher See with the dignity of an elder statesman, and never cluttered with gaping tourists, since most foreigners came quite simply to visit their money. A stroll down the Bahnofstrasse, where I stopped at Grieder's to buy a couple of ties, brought me to the Baur-au-Lac just before noon. I went into the garden and ordered a dry martini. It came at once, substantial and really dry, with a thin curl of well-pared lemon peel, confirming my unbiassed award of five stars to this superb hotel. Naturally it is expensive, but now that I had some sort of income I enjoyed blowing it, moreover my visits were infrequent and as Lotte enjoyed everything de luxe it paid off to indulge her here.

She arrived at that moment, bareheaded and smiling, very smartly turned out in a plain but attractive tan suit that exactly matched her corn straw hair. I should explain that Lotte is Swedish with the colouring of her race, not the conventional slinky fictional blonde, but a big, easygoing, solidly beautiful girl with the athletic body of a champion discus thrower and careless honey-coloured eyes that usually seem full of laughter. Of course she doesn't throw the discus. She is an ex-air hostess promoted to receptionist at Zürich for a big Scandinavian Charter Line … the AKTIEBOLAGET SVENSKA ÖRNFLYG and, both being practised in the art, we had picked each other up in the airport bar about four months ago when I was dispatching a consignment of boys to Birmingham. I had become fond of Lotte since then and except for one thing I would have been mad about her. As it was, I warmed all over as she sat down and crossed her legs under her short skirt. But the waiter was already at my elbow.

‘I'm one ahead of you,' I said in German. As part of her job she spoke five languages and, teaching it the best way, had brought my German to what might justly be termed top form – we often laughed together over the way I'd had on the Committee with my ‘
Entschuldigen Sie, mein Herr, können Sie mir zeigen, wo der nächste Abort ist?
' ‘ Can you cope with a double?'

‘If you'll have one.'

I leaned forward when the waiter had gone.

‘You're looking most unbearably attractive, darling.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Been meeting many V.I.P.'s lately?'

‘Lots and lots. Dark handsome men.'

‘Hmm. African or Burmese?'

‘No, no, one Italian, one French.'

‘Ah! A mixed Vermouth.'

She laughed shortly, narrowing her cat's eyes.

‘Really, I'm serious, Laurence. Two gorgeous men.'

‘Liar. Only don't start sleeping with them or I'll break your Swedish neck. Incidentally,' I said, with a momentary anxiety, ‘you
are
free this afternoon? You weren't quite sure last night when I called you.'

‘What about those medical researches?'

‘We'll work on them together.'

She kept me on edge for a moment then nodded, companionably.

‘Not on duty till five o'clock.'

‘That's perfect. I have to be at the airport myself then.' And I told her briefly I was meeting a patient and his mother.

The waiter had brought two menu cards with the drinks. We studied them in silence, ordered, and half an hour later we went into the restaurant, a glassed addition built out into the garden with the river on one side.

I remember so well that delicious luncheon, the last before my troubles began. We both had the iced canteloupe as a starter, so golden, so sweetly ripe, and dead ice cold. Lotte, who never seemed to look ahead, or perhaps had no need to supercharge her vitality, chose for her main course poached turbot with hollandaise sauce and little new potatoes
vapeur.
I had a thick
filet mignon
cooked
au point
with spinach and
pommes pont neuf.
We drank two of the best, yet relatively inexpensive, Swiss wines, she the light Dole Johannesburger, I the red Pinot Noir, and just enjoying the food and looking at each other, we didn't talk much. Coffee was all we wanted afterwards, and we put it down suspiciously fast.

Lotte's apartment was in a new block in Kloten, quite near the airport. I drove there, parked the car at the rear of the building and was beside her as she turned the key in the door. I knew it all: living-room with small kitchen off, bedroom and nicely tiled bathroom, all furnished simply and functionally in modern Scandinavian style and excessively clean. Whenever we entered she drew the curtains in the bedroom, gave me her big warm smile and began with complete naturalness, keeping her eyes on me, to take off her clothes. Soon she was stretched out flat on the bed.

‘Come quick, Laurence. It is too long since the last time … I want lots and lots of loving.'

Stark naked, lit by the filtered daylight, she invited the physical act openly, naturally and with undisguised desire.

Afterwards, she studied my face, so intense, it seemed to amuse her.

‘We must have a cigarette.' She rolled over, like a big languid cream-fed yellow cat, reaching to the bedside table, speaking in English which she knew moderately well. ‘Then again we have much more fun-fun.'

That, exactly, was the trouble with Lotte. Bliss when we made love, and afterwards nothing. No tenderness, no persistent sense of belonging, nothing of that yearning which springs not from the body but from the spirit. Of course, an excess of yearning could be dangerous: to my cost I had learned how difficult it could be getting rid of a yearner, particularly the soulful type. But surely, I told myself, there should be
something
, a communication of the heart rather than the adrenals, that endures after the intensity of such a union. Was I asking for the moon? In this case, perhaps. The Swedes, I reflected sadly, were known as prolific copulators, they took it all in their athletic stride. A hygienic exercise.

Lotte drew on her cigarette, her mind already diverted to the mundane.

‘Who are these people you are meeting?'

‘I told you, darling. A small boy and his mother. It's odd … years ago I fancied I was in love with her. Yet in a queer sort of way I almost hated her.'

‘See you go on hating. No more of the other thing.'

‘You can bet on that … But Lotte, you don't really love me.'

‘So you want to be loved? Heart to heart. And pink roses round the door.'

‘Don't jeer, Lotte. I mean something deeper … that you can hold on to when you need it … when you're not on top of the world.'

She burst out laughing.

‘When the dog barks at you in your dark street.'

Once, misguidedly, I had tried to confide in her. I was silent. Perhaps she had sensed that she had hurt me. She said quickly:

‘Ah! Love, what is that but meeting trouble? I like you much. We give each other much satisfaction. And I'm not a gold brick.'

‘Gold digger,' I corrected.

She repeated the words, laughed, then put her arms round me.

‘Come. We forget love and enjoy each other.'

It was a quarter to five when she got up and dressed.

With my hands behind my head I watched her out of one eye. In the comedy of life nothing is nicer than a pretty girl stepping out of short, clean white pants – you can keep all your tiddy pastel shades. The reverse process, the stepping in, now being enacted, strikes a bourgeois note. Drawing the curtains, shutting up shop. But in her perfectly fitting saxe uniform, the cockaded bonnet not the common saucy touch but elegant, she looked distressingly smart. The afternoon, which had slightly tarnished me, had put a bloom on her.

‘We must hurry, or I'll be late.'

I sighed and heaved out of bed. My knees creaked. I was no longer young and healthy.

‘I do hate leaving you so soon, Lotte. After being so close to you … it's a wrench.'

She shook her head.

‘You are a nice man, Laurence, of whom I am so fond. I never thought for an Englisher I could feel so much. Don't spoil it all with such sentimism.'

‘Sentiment,' I amended sadly. ‘And I'm Scottish.'

I brought the car round to the front entrance and we drove to Kloten. You may accuse me of being oversold on Zürich when I commend Kloten Airport as the best in Europe – meticulously efficient, immaculately clean, with a first-class restaurant and a snack-bar serving the best coffee I ever drank. We each had a quick cup, standing up. Typically, there was no one at the B.E. A. counter, but from the long range of bustling Swiss desks on the other side Lotte came back with some bad news.

‘Your flight is seventy minutes late.'

‘Oh, blast.'

She showed all her lovely teeth in an irritating smile. ‘You must sit and dream of me, liebling. With your so tender heart. And I tell you. When your friends arrive I bring them quickly through customs to you.'

I went through to the lower bar, found a quiet corner and ordered a Kirsch. Suddenly I felt tired and unaccountably depressed. No, not unaccountably – it was the old post-copulative
triste.
The Augustine tag came to my mind:
Post coitum omne animal triste est.
How true, how everlastingly true! Usually I can ignore it but today I failed to shake it off. Her crack at my secret hallucination had upset me. And what a fool I was, wasting my time, and substance, in fact wasting my life with these frivolous fringe benefits. Lotte wasn't a bad sort, but what did I really mean to her. A partner in fun-fun. And although she wasn't promiscuous, I had a dismal notion that I was not the only one to share her suspiciously broad and springy bed. But this was the least of my sudden dejection. That mood was coming on, that familiar cursed mood, the epigastric syndrome, or if you prefer it, that psychological punch in the guts. For me there was no escape. Never. Even as a backslider I could not escape that sense of guilt. I had been brought up on sin, both varieties, venial and mortal, the latter, if unforgiven, a prelude to damnation. Ah, goodness, that comprehensive word, that ever elusive, state of good!