Hypocrite's Isle Read Free Page A

residence when he arrived in Edinburgh some two months before.
    Gavin ordered his food and picked up a pint of lager at the bar, before moving to a seat and shrugging his rucksack from his shoulder to guide it under the table with his foot. He draped his jacket over the back of the chair and smoothed his collar-length hair back before straightening the holed green sweater he favoured most days – Carla, the eldest of his four sisters, had knitted it for him when he’d first left home for Cambridge.
    ‘Pie and beans!’ the short, bald man behind the bar called out as the microwave bleeped. Gavin went over to pick up his food. He was halfway through eating it when he became aware of a figure at his shoulder. It was Mary Hollis.
    ‘That looks good,’ she said pleasantly.
    ‘Then it looks better than it tastes.’
    Mary sat down opposite, looking both amused and exasperated. ‘Don’t you ever lighten up, Gavin?’
    Gavin looked bemused. ‘What’s the problem? I just …’
    ‘Told the truth? Yes, I know.’
    Gavin sighed and looked at her. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘What should I have said?’
    Mary shook her head and spread her hands, ‘God, I don’t know; made a joke or something. If you’d laughed before you said it looked better than it tasted it would have been fine, but you automatically slap people down. You defend yourself when no one’s attacking you. People generally mean you no harm … honestly.’
    Gavin suddenly smiled broadly and Mary capitulated. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Lecture over.’
    ‘All right, Mary,’ said Gavin. ‘I’ll believe you … despite a long list of acquired evidence to the contrary. I haven’t seen you in here before.’
    ‘I’m meeting Simon, my boyfriend; he’s a houseman at the hospital . He gets off at seven. This is as good a place to meet as any and it’s warm.’
    ‘Can I get you a drink?’
    Mary shook her head. ‘He’ll be here any minute, thanks all the same. We’re going to see something at the Filmhouse. How about you? How are you going to spend your evening?’
    ‘Medical library.’
    ‘Is this to fuel the thinking process?’
    ‘You got it.’
    ‘You’ll be doing experiments next.’
    ‘Ouch. What was it you said about not slapping people down?’
    ‘Sorry, but you haven’t exactly been bursting a gut in the lab since you arrived and people have been noticing.’
    ‘It’s the easiest thing in the world to keep busy in a lab.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘Keeping busy is not doing research. It’s window dressing.’
    ‘Doing nothing isn’t doing research either.’
    ‘Like I said, I’ve been thinking.’
    ‘I won’t say you don’t get a PhD for thinking when you do, but eventually you have to do something with the fruits of your thinking …’
    ‘Unless you’re a philosopher.’
    ‘You probably still have to tell someone …’
    ‘As Jean-Paul Sartre once said to Simone de Beauvoir, Whatevah .’
    Mary smiled. ‘You can be quite funny when you try. Oh, here comes Simon.’ She got to her feet as a slim, fair-haired man entered the bar and came towards them. Mary did the introductions before turning to leave. ‘See you tomorrow. Don’t work too late.’
    ‘Enjoy the film.’
    ‘Good,’ said Mary, looking back with a grin. ‘Very good.’
     
    Gavin drained his glass and thought about what Mary had said as he shrugged his shoulders into his jacket and picked up his belongings . She meant well enough but what did she know about his world? She was an only child and both her parents were academics. She fitted in: she had always fitted in. She couldn’t possibly understand what it had been like for the son of a Liverpool labourer to arrive at Cambridge, knowing nothing of the ways of academia, or the customs of a society far removed from his own. Cambridge had seemed like a different planet, a strange place inhabited by exotic creatures with peculiar names and drawling accents, and often with a self-confidence he’d found mesmerising. He