44 Scotland St
VOLUME 12 CHAPTER 2 ON GEORGE IV BRIDGE
‘Invisibility to the young is a quality that grows slowly: by thirty, one is getting fainter; by forty, one is starting to disappear; and by fifty one is simply no longer there’
VOLUME 12 CHAPTER TWO
Pat arrived at the Elephant House before Bruce. She had not planned it that way: he had suggested ten-thirty in the morning, and she had lingered slightly in Forrest Road so as to be at the café at a quarter to eleven. This was a stratagem to show him that she was not at his beck and call, and that even if she had agreed to meet him, she was not that eager to do so. It failed, however, as Bruce did not get there until shortly after eleven.
When she found that he was yet to arrive, she briefly toyed with the idea of leaving. To do so would at least be to heed the advice – even if rather tardily – of her friend, Janice, with whom she had discussed Bruce’s invitation.
Janice’s views were very clear. “Don’t,” she counselled. “Just don’t.”
“I’m only going to meet him for coffee …”
Pat was not allowed to finish. “Coffee? You know what coffee leads to?” Her friend uttered the word coffee as one might utter cocaine ,asifawhole hinterland of warning, of decline, of Hogarthian dissipation lay behind the word.
“You see,” Janice continued, “you should never – never – take up with an ex. Everybody knows that. Everybody. Everybody.” Janice had a way of repeating words, or verbally italicising them, that added a certain melodramatic force to what she said. “Do they?” “Of course they do. The reason why an ex tries to get in touch is always – always – to get something from you. Never – never –to give. So the only thing is to say to an ex is: you’re history! You’re the distant past!”
Pat had wondered whether there might not be cases where an ex merely wanted to meet as … dare she say it? …as a friend.
No. Janice was adamant on that. “As a friend? Pat, get real. Men don’t do friendship.”
“Oh, come on. There are plenty of men who do friendship.”
Janice shook her head. “But not exes. Exes do dependence. They do recrimination. They do insincere attempts to get you back temporarily because they need a partner for a ball or something like that. Or to ask for money. That’s what exes do, Pat, and if you go to meet this guy, this Bruce, at the Elephant House then you’re toast. You’re on a plate. Bruschetta.”
Pat had wavered, and had almost taken Janice’s advice, but had eventually decided to meet Bruce in spite of it. The whole point of seeking advice, at least for some, is to get somebody to confirm what you have already decided to do, and Pat had decided that she would meet Bruce.
It would just be for coffee, and it would be a single meeting. If he asked her out, she would come up with some reason for saying no. She could even use that timehonoured pretext of having to wash her hair. That was an excuse that was still occasionally used as a signal to a man that he had no chance, and was, in a way, the ultimate put-down. Even Bruce, she felt, would understand that. And yet … and yet … did she really want to wash her hair?
She found a table at the back of the café, near the window. From there, looking out over Candlemaker Row, she saw the roofs of the Grassmarket and, against the skyline, the Castle. The café itself was busy; it attracted a young crowd, a mixture of locals, students and others, with a chattering presence of foreign teenagers. Pat was at age where she was unaccustomed to feeling older than those around her, but here she did. She was now twenty-five, the point at which eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds suddenly start to look straight through one. Invisibility to the young, of course, is a quality that grows slowly: by thirty, one is beginning to get fainter; by forty, one is starting to disappear; and by fifty the metaphorical hill has been crossed and one is simply no longer there.
This manifested itself in the conversation that was taking place at a neighbouring table between a boy and a girl of eighteen or nineteen. They seemed oblivious to Pat’s presence only a few feet away and well within earshot, and were discussing the slovenly habits of the boy’s absent flat-mate. “His room stinks,” he said. “He stinks,” she agreed. “I can’t stand it when people stink. You know, we owe it to other people not to stink. It’s a sort of …” “Civic duty?” “Yup. Don’t stink. You’d think people would get it, wouldn’t you? After all, which part of don’t stink doesn’t he understand?”
Pat stared out of the window, trying to insulate herself from this unwelcome exchange. Why had Bruce contacted her? Did he want to ignite old fires? She would not allow that. She simply would not. She knew that he was not good for her and anyway, she was no longer interested in the sort of short-term relationship that Bruce went in for. But what if he had changed? What if he had matured and was now prepared for longer-term commitment? What then? Could she see herself with him again, giving him a second chance? People did change; they grew up, they stopped being selfish, they thought more of other people’s feelings. Sometimes in the case of males this change happened quite late – at twentyeight, and even beyond; or so she had read. In fact, she had seen something in a magazine recently that suggested that some men did not mature – fully mature – until they were well into their thirties. Bruce could be one of those, perhaps. He was now twenty-eight or thereabouts, or was he even thirty?
Her train of thought was again disturbed by the conversation at the neighbouring table.
“You know what? He hardly ever changes his socks. No, I’m not making this up, but I think he wears them for four or five days and then he leaves them lying on the floor. He has these ghastly trainers – you should see them, you’d want to throw up, I swear you would.”
“He’s disgusting. How can you bear to live with him? Why don’t the rest of you throw him out?” “He owns the flat.” “Oh. Well, I suppose that makes it different.” “Yes, it does.” Pat smiled. The world was a difficult place. One had to hold one’s nose: metaphorically, of course, but sometimes otherwise too.