The Unbearable Lightness of Scones Read Free

remember those people we knew in Kilmacolm? Well, she called it off at the very last moment, you know, and everybody had to traipse back to the hotel. It was over in Largs. And then she changed her mind and they sneaked into the registry office two weeks later and did it. You were too young to know about it.”
    Matthew listened to his father’s story patiently, but he was really thinking of what his father had said about his expression as he had made his way up the aisle. Had it been that obvious? If it had, then he wondered if anybody else had noticed it. Of course nobody looked at the bridegroom; all eyes would have been on the bride, as was always the case at weddings.
    His father was, of course, right. As he walked behind Charlie Robertson, he had been thinking of the consequences that would ensue if he were to decide not to go ahead with the wedding. It would be heartless in the extreme to let the bride down before the altar, but presumably that had been done before, on the very brink of the exchange of vows. And perhaps there were circumstances in which it would be the right thing to do – not an act of selfishness, or cowardice, but an act intended to prevent the other person from making the mistake of marrying somebody whose heart was not in it.
    Well, he had not done it, and they had gone ahead with the ceremony. And now, he thought, I’m married! He looked down at his hand and turned the ring around on his finger. How strange it felt; how grown-up.
    He glanced at Elspeth. She had moved away from the women in hats, and the children, and was talking to an elderly man wearing a soft brown hat and a pair of large sun-glasses. That, he thought, was the Uncle Harald of whom she had spoken, her half-Norwegian uncle who had moved to Portugal with his friend of thirty years, a man who wrote books on china. The friend had drowned when their yacht had been swept onto rocks. Harald had remained in Portugal, alone; how many of us lead lives of quiet desperation, thought Matthew; we hope to be saved by one person, one thing; we convince ourselves that one thing can last.
    Harald was making a point to Elspeth and reached out to touch her on the arm. Matthew heard what he was saying to her. “I do so like weddings,” he said. “I’ve always liked them.”
    And Matthew thought: until a very short time ago, you could have been only a spectator. And now it’s too late.
    The car that was due to take them to the reception had turned round and was now pointing back up the driveway of the church. The chauffeur, wearing a smart black uniform and peaked cap, had opened one of the passenger doors and wasstanding by it. Matthew caught Elspeth’s eye, and she nodded. She whispered something to Uncle Harald, and then came over to join Matthew. They climbed into the car.

    As they turned out into King’s Stables Road, the chauffeur turned to them and said, “A busy day for me. I did an airport collection first thing and then I did a chap I used to know at the pub.”
    “He got married?” asked Matthew.
    “Yes,” said the chauffeur. “A dreadful mistake.”
    There was silence in the back of the car.
    Matthew smiled. “Do you mean it’s a mistake to get married, or your friend made a mistake in his choice?”
    “Both,” said the chauffeur.
    Elspeth laughed. “Very funny,” she said.
    “No, I’m serious,” said the chauffeur.

4.
Answers to the East Lothian Question
    The reception was held in two large marquees pitched in Moray Place Gardens. After his own wedding to Janice, a second marriage that his son had found difficult to accept at first but to which he had eventually become resigned, Gordon had moved to a house in Gullane. This is pronounced “Gillan,” on the basis of the Gaelic etymology of the word, a matter which divides the population of the East of Scotland into warring factions every bit as much as heresies divided the population of early Christian Europe. Those early heresies had led to bloodshed, and so