Brond Read Free Page B

. . . on the exhaust pipe, do you see?’
    ‘In Ireland,’ the Irishman said, ‘we have Kerry jokes. If it’s joke time, I’ll tell you a Kerry joke. A Kerry man got on a boat and as they sailed across the blue
blue sea there was a cry, “Man overboard! Man overboard!” And then the captain shouted, “Throw over a buoy!” So the Kerry man picked up a boy and threw him overboard. A
two-legged boy that was, do you understand? a human boy. The captain rushed down from the bridge and shouted at him, “You damned fool, I meant a cork buoy!” “Alannah! captain
dear,” said the Kerry man, “and how was I to know which part of Ireland he was from?” ’
    He told the joke very slowly and in a flat monotone quite unlike the animation of his earlier manner, but when there was practically no response he didn’t seem at all disturbed. Only as
the pause lengthened uncomfortably, at last a little smile broke at the corners of his mouth.
    ‘It is odd, isn’t it,’ Dennis Harland intervened, his Midshipman Ready blue eyes twinkling, ‘how every community chooses a butt for its jokes? From a little piece of
research I did recently, I discovered that most of the jokes about Scotch meanness were originally jokes told by other Scots against the Aberdonians.’
    ‘Or the Poles in America,’ someone else said. It was the man hidden from me in the black leather chair. The deep soft voice had the same effect as before. Effortlessly, it made you
pay attention. ‘The Irish joke and the Polish joke – when I was in America, I decided they were interchangeable.’
    ‘Goofy Newfies – that’s what they call us at home in Canada,’ a big red-faced character leaning against the wall said.
    Since I didn’t recognise him, I took the excuse to lean forward and touch Margaret Briody on the arm. ‘Who is he?’
    ‘He’s from the Institute for Defence Studies in Aberdeen.’ Her voice though musical had a touch too much carefree volume. ‘He’s a friend of the
Professor’s.’
    I subsided as the Professor looked in our direction.
    ‘I’m not really per – persuaded by this seductive argument about Joyce and company,’ the Professor stammered dismissively. ‘It smacks more of ecology – of
politics – “small is beautiful”, that kind of thing – rather than corresponding to any reality in the history of culture. As I recall, Joyce got out of Dublin as soon as the
going was good, and Ibsen didn’t spend much time in Oslo, you know.’
    ‘I think that’s absolutely true,’ cried Dennis Harland loyally. ‘The Dublin that inspired Joyce wasn’t a capital, and since Southern Ireland has become independent
I don’t think there’s been much cultural activity.’
    ‘I wouldn’t say that was entirely so,’ the Irishman said reasonably.
    ‘There are probably more writers and poets in Scotland just now,’ cried Dennis, warming to the job. ‘They don’t seem to be handicapped by being a region of a larger
country. It suits them perhaps. It’s an interesting idea.’
    This seemed to catch the Canadian’s attention. He levered his weight up from the wall. ‘I don’t pretend to know anything about culture,’ he said. ‘But I’ll
tell you straight – the independence some people in Scotland claim to hanker after is just a no-go option from a strategic point of view. They want to forget about their poets and history and
stuff and just get out a big map and catch up on the geography. This is a useful piece of real estate and if things hot up the Russians are going to grab it. And if they do, the Americans just
aren’t going to have any option. They’re going to have to blow it away.’
    Other people talked then, but that bit isn’t clear. I am almost sure that most of them had Scots accents, and that there was a kind of competition among them to take the point. They were
very reasonable people. They could see how this idea of their country being independent must be unwise or unnecessary. Some of