44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

picked them on a golf course up in Perthshire. He hit a ball off the fairway and it landed in the middle of these mushrooms, under a tree.”
    Pat fished a piece of mushroom out of the pasta and looked at it. “Does he know what he’s doing?”
    Bruce smiled. “No. He’s pretty ignorant. Useless, in fact.”
    “Then how does he know that these are chanterelles? How does he know these aren’t … aren’t poisonous?”
    “He doesn’t,” said Bruce. “But I do. I can tell chanterelles. I know they’re all right. I’ve only been wrong about mushrooms once – a long time ago.”
    “And you were ill?”
    “Very,” said Bruce. “I nearly died. But I’m right about these. I promise you. You’ll be fine.”
    They continued with the meal in silence.
    “You don’t have to eat this if you don’t want to,” Bruce said sulkily.
    Pat thought for a moment, but shook her head and finished her helping, rather quickly, thought Bruce. Then, over coffee, which Bruce brought to the table, they talked about Matthew and the gallery.
    “I’ve met him,” said Bruce. “His old man’s a big Watsonian. Rugby. The works. Lots of tin. But the son’s useless, I think.”
    “You seem to find a lot of people useless,” remarked Pat. She did not want to sound aggressive, but the remark came out as a challenge.
    Bruce took her observation in his stride. “Well, they are. There are lots of useless people in this city. It’s the truth, and if it’s the truth then why bother to conceal it? I spell things out, that’s all.”
    They finished their coffee and then Bruce explained that he was going to meet friends in the Cumberland Bar. Pat was welcome to come if she wished. They were interesting people he said: surveyors and people from the rugby club. She should come along. But she did not.

 
     
     
     

     
     
    13. You Must Remember This / A Kiss Is Just a Kiss
     
    After Bruce had left the flat for the Cumberland Bar, Pat went back into her room and lay down on her bed. It was proving to be a rather dispiriting evening. It was not easy listening to her flatmate and his opinionated views, and she wondered if she was beginning to feel queasy. Those mushrooms had tasted all right, but then that was often the case with poisonous fungi, was it not?
    She lay on her bed and placed a hand on her stomach. What would the first symptoms be? Nausea? Vomiting? Or would one simply become drowsy and fade away, as Socrates had done when given hemlock? She should have refused to eat them, of course; once Bruce had announced their origins she should have had the courage of her convictions. She would have to change. She would have to stand up to him.
    She picked up her mobile phone and opened the lid. She had told herself that she would not phone home at the first sign of feeling miserable, because she had to learn to stand on her own two feet. But phoning home was always so reassuring, particularly if she spoke to her father, who was so calm about everything and had an outlook of cheerful optimism – a vindication of the proposition that the one requirement for a successful career in psychiatry is a sense of humour.
    Pat started to key in the number but stopped. Somebody was playing a musical instrument, a clarinet, or was it a saxophone? Yes, it was a saxophone; and it seemed that it was being played directly outside her door. She listened for a moment, and then realised that the sound was coming up through the wall beside her bed. It was not bad; there was the occasional stumble, but it was no rank amateur playing.
    She continued dialling and heard her father answer at the other end. He asked where she was.
    “I’m in my room. I’m lying on my bed listening to somebody downstairs play the sax. Listen.” She put the mobile up against the wall for a few moments.
    “‘As Time Goes By’,” said her father. “From Casablanca . And it sounds as if it’s being played on a tenor sax. Not badly either.”

     
    “It’s very loud,” said