There would be noisy family meals, clean clothes donned, nights out. There would be unexpected things to happen. For him there were more invoices, roast beef since it was Friday, and News at Ten.
Sally Galbraith knocked at the door and looked in. She waited until his attention returned from contemplation of his own headstone. Her breasts were neatly framed in the doorway, an idyllic scene observed from an express train.
‘It’s Duncan MacFarlane again,’ she said.
‘Just now, Sally?’
‘Third time today, Mr Watson.’ Her expression was a plea on behalf of Duncan. Bert Watson could understand it. He liked Duncan too. Most people did. ‘And it’s the fourth day this week he’s asked to see you.’
‘You know what it’s about?’
‘Personal. But it must be important.’
‘I give in,’ Bert Watson said and nodded.
He was working on a form when Duncan came in. It was a few moments before he glanced up and saw Duncan standing there, awkwardly. Duncan must have been about twenty but he wore his years lightly. Bert Watson knew that Duncan’s father was dead and that he lived with his mother. He wondered if that early bereavement was what had given Duncan his aura of unselfconscious vulnerability, made women want to mother him and men want to give him fatherly advice.
‘Have a seat, Duncan. With you in a minute.’
The invoice couldn’t be right. How did two dozen dresses, which were the most expensive item they had, cost less than two dozen women’s sweaters?
‘Yes, Duncan. What can I do for ye?’
‘What it is, Mr Watson,’ Duncan said. ‘Ah’d like a loan of five hundred pounds and three months’ leave of absence.’
Perhaps it was the number of items that was wrong. It depended which one of those two entries was right, if either.
‘Yes, Duncan. You were saying?’
‘Ah’d like a loan of five hundred pounds and three months’ leave of absence.’
The cost of the sweaters was correct. Bert Watson looked up. Duncan’s blue eyes were staring at him steadily. Their quiet patience defied Bert Watson to hear what he had heard. He glanced at his watch, not sure whether he was checking the hour or the date or the fact that time still functioned.
‘I can’t have heard what I thought I heard, Duncan,’ he said. ‘Come again.’
‘I was just wondering,’ Duncan said. He paused and chewed his lip. ‘If I could have a loan of four hundred pounds and three months’ leave of absence.’
Bert Watson looked at the Pirelli calendar on his wall. Samantha, her see-through blouse wet from the sea, appeared to be pouting more outrageously than ever. She couldn’t believe Duncan either. It occurred irrelevantly to Bert Watson that she was dressed very inappropriately for March.
‘Four hundred pounds?’ Bert Watson said, as if by interviewing the incredible you could get it to make sense. ‘I thought you said five hundred pounds at first.’
‘Well, yes. Ah did.’
‘What made you change your mind, then?’
‘Well, it’s maybe a bit much,’ Duncan said.
‘That’s certainly one way of looking at it,’ Bert Watson said.
‘Mind you,’ Duncan said with the air of a man anxious that the scale of his needs shouldn’t be underestimated. ‘That’s really what Ah need. Five hundred pounds is just the bare minimum. But Ah would settle for four hundred. Ah mean, Ah can understand your situation as well.’
‘Thanks, Duncan.’
Both sat letting the generosity of Duncan’s self-denial sink in. Bert Watson’s eyes strayed towards Samantha again, as they often did.
‘So,’ he said, looking back at Duncan and finding him not much less exotic than Samantha. ‘Let’s see. You want four hundred pounds. Right? You’re sure that’s the final figure?’ Duncan hesitated briefly before nodding. ‘Four hundred then. And you also want three months’ leave of absence. There’s nothing you’d like to add to that? Like a magnum of champagne?’
Duncan smiled at the preposterousness of Bert Watson’s suggestion.
‘Duncan,’ Bert Watson said. ‘I hope you won’t think me nosey or carping. But who’s supposed to give you this money? I mean, you’re asking me to give you four hundred pounds?’
‘Well, Ah was thinkin’ of the firm, really. Through you, like. You’re the head man. Ah mean, Ah’ve worked here since Ah left the school.’
‘What age are you now, Duncan?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘Uh-huh. It’s a wee bit early for a golden handshake, is it not?’
Duncan was mildly outraged.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Nothin’ like that. Ah said “a loan”.’
‘So you did, right enough.’
‘Ah would pay it back, obviously.’
‘How?’
‘Off ma wages, like. When Ah come back to work.’
‘Duncan. That’s a bit of money. You would just about make it before your pension’s due.’
‘Ah’ve worked it out,’ Duncan said. ‘Say, a tenner a week. Do it inside a year.’
‘Uh-huh. As long as the malnutrition doesn’t keep you off your work.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Duncan, are you in trouble?’
Duncan was mystified.
‘Trouble?’
‘Why do you need this money and the leave of absence?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘Duncan. I’m asking you.’
Duncan smiled in wonder at Bert Watson’s innocence.
‘Argentina,’ he said.
Bert Watson checked with Samantha again and it was as if her upraised arm was pointing to the year above her head: 1978. He understood. Duncan came into more or less normal focus again. He wasn’t mad. At least he wasn’t mad in the eccentric way that Bert Watson had been beginning to imagine. He was mad with a natural madness. Bert Watson looked at Duncan and smiled. Duncan smiled back. Bert Watson shook his head and looked at his desk and smiled again.
It was interesting to have in his office the first case he had known personally of the lunacy that was sweeping the country. For weeks he had been aware of the terrible grip the disease had been taking on Scotland, like a mental Bubonic. Everybody wanted to go to Argentina. Men were apparently standing up suddenly in perfectly peaceful houses and announcing to their families, as if seized by strange messages from the air, ‘I want to go to Argentina’. More than that, some of them were trying to fulfil the urge. Every other day, in newspapers or on television, new stories came of wild plans being hatched about how to get there. Rowing boats had been mentioned. Two men from Tarbert, Loch Fyne, were rumoured to be cycling. A bookmaker from the east was said to be hiring a submarine. Since the Scottish football team had qualified for the World Cup Finals to be held in Argentina, a one-directional wanderlust had become the national insanity. Bert Watson smiled again.
‘You want to go to Argentina?’
‘Don’t you?’
Duncan’s astonishment struck home. Bert Watson did, or at least he had thought about how good it would be to go. He had caught an early, if mild, form of the fever. He had daydreamed of taking his holidays early, of joining in the triumphant