This extract comes from Part Four of the novel where Brodie (a copy of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark) is living with Laurel. Brodie has come into Laurel’s possession after being lent to her by Iris, a friend of Laurel’s father and a former ‘guardian’ of Brodie.
Laurel was off for almost three weeks over Christmas. During this time, she took me with her wherever she went. Mostly I was transported in her backpack, but there were times when she would dress smartly and drop me into a leather handbag – it was tan in colour and had soft lining with vertical stripes in pink and green and brown.
We went mainly to cafés. Once there, Laurel would order a complicated sounding coffee. She would then sit down at a table and use me to create a buffer between herself and the other customers.
This, I confess, is merely my interpretation of the situation. I do not know for certain why she would lay me on the table in front of her and then raise me up in her hands, thereby creating the impression I was being read. I was not. Let me assure you, I can tell the difference.
My most enduring memory of this time is of the afternoon that Laurel took me to the Winter Gardens at the People’s Palace. A band played music in one corner. The café was busy, but despite this, she managed to find a table. It was small and had only one chair. The table next to us was just as small but had three people crowded around it.
I found the neighbouring trio quite fascinating. Their hands and faces looked as though they had been fashioned out of pink crepe paper. They wore knitted apparel in cream and various shades of blue. Each one had a head of tight white curls. I decided, by the way they were quietly bickering, that they must be sisters. One had iridescent powder sprinkled from her forehead to her chin. It seemed she was the instigator of whatever conflict there was amongst them.
‘He did not,’ she said.
‘Yes. He did,’ said the sturdiest of the women.
Agreeing with her hardy sister, the frailest one said something akin to, ‘Mm Hm.’
The first one wagged a gnarled finger and said, ‘I’m telling you, he did not.’
‘And I’m telling you, he did,’ said the second.
‘MM HM,’ said the third, nodding her bony head emphatically.
I never did find out who he was and what it was that he was supposed to have done, or not done, because at this moment I felt Laurel’s hand tense.
I surveyed the room.
A couple had entered. The man was unremarkable. His companion, however, was striking in that she looked like a younger version of Laurel.
Laurel grabbed at her handbag.
She stood up – abandoning her hazelnut macchiato – and pushed past the old ladies in a way that incited the powdered one to snarl something about manners.
I was still in Laurel’s hand as she made her way to the garden part of the Winter Gardens, which, unlike the section with tables, chairs and the band, was virtually deserted. She sat down on a bench in the midst of the desolate rainforest and tried to regulate her breathing.
When she was calmer, she muttered some quite colourful profanities and sat me down next to her on the wood of the bench.
Laurel twisted her body. She strained her neck up and into a corkscrew. She was, I presumed, attempting to spy on the unremarkable man and her young doppelgänger by his side.
I began to wonder if the unremarkable man had even noticed Laurel’s flight into the ferns and, if he had, whether or not his eyes would have had any interest in prying. In the short time I had been able to observe him, it seemed his attention was fixed on his girlish consort and her alone. As I considered this matter, Laurel picked me up.
Her hands were clammy as they held me too close to her face.
I heard the unremarkable man address the girl on his arm.
‘You’re such a silly thing,’ he said.
I would like to be able to report that she did something else, but, in truth, she wrinkled her nose and giggled.
‘Am not,’ she said, tilting her cherub cheeks downwards.
He reached a hand inside her wool coat and wound it around her waist.
‘You are very silly,’ he said.
‘Fuck sake,’ Laurel growled.
I knew from his face that he had heard her.
He hardly moved his head as his eyes swivelled to look round.
‘Here, Chris? Really?’ Laurel said without raising her head from my pages.
As he guided the girl away by the arm, I heard her say, ‘Who was that, Christopher?’
I imagined he would not answer her question until they were far away under the cold December sky. I also imagined that his answer would not be wholly truthful.
Sunshine Scot 