A couple of hours later we were in a basement bar a block away from Zane’s place in the Back Bay area. It was a real old Boston bar: small windows, lots of dark wood and brass. It was a Tuesday night, and the place was half-full. Incongruously, Neil Young’s ‘Southern Man’ played on the jukebox. On the drive from the airport we’d reminisced about Zane’s time in Scotland; he’d come over to conduct some business a year previously and, introduced by a mutual friend, we’d immediately hit it off. We’d made each other a standing offer of accommodation whenever we were in each other’s country, and Zane had been as good as his word when I’d called him up the previous Saturday saying I needed a change of scene.
The bartender flipped two napkins on the bar like he was dealing cards and rested a pair of longnecks on top of them. Zane waved my money away and gave the man a ten dollar bill, telling him to keep the change.
“So enough about back home, what do you think of Boston? First time here, right?”
“Yeah. Liking it so far. Everybody talks like JFK.”
He chuckled. “Give it a couple of weeks and you’ll be doing it too.”
“You going to introduce me to the wife?”
“All in good time. Elsie doesn’t like me drinking on a week night, so I thought it was better to come here first, then home.”
“Forgiveness is easier to get than permission, huh?”
He laughed again, a warm, generous sound. “In this case, yeah. You’re pretty on the ball for a young fella.”
I took a long drink, thinking that I didn’t feel like I was either, lately.
“Speaking of the fairer sex, what happened with you and that little firecracker you were seeing when I was over there?”
I winced. “It was going pretty well… really well, until a couple of months ago.”
Zane was looking at me critically. “You never did tell her what you did for a living, did you?”
“Sure I did,” I said, faux-defensive. Zane stared me out until I surrendered. “…a couple of months ago.”
He shook his head. “Half-measures don’t work when you’re serious about a lady, trust me, I know. What happened?”
“We got robbed, ironically enough. A friend of my brother broke into my flat when we were out for dinner. We came back home and he was in the middle of ransacking the place. I gave him a talking to, but he’d found where I kept my cash. Once everything had calmed down, Lucy wanted to know why I had a suitcase full of fifty pound notes stashed in the loft.”
“That was the first time she was suspicious?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think part of her was always a little suspicious, but she could fool herself up until that point, you know? Anyway, she packed up and left that night. I think it was the break-in and the fight, more than the money.”
“You try to call her?”
I shook my head as I finished the beer. “I screwed it up, fair and square. I thought it was up to her to call. She never did.”
“I guess forgiveness was harder to get than permission in your case.”
“Honestly, I don’t really think I could have got either. She was too good a person. It was nice while it lasted, though.”