Dark Capital

Chapter 3

“This is Granton beach,” Charles said.

I looked along the coast. With the picturesque old port of Newhaven to the east and the humped, green island of Cramond to the west, it was an idyllic spot, yet within easy walking distance of Edinburgh. The waves of the Firth of Forth broke gently on the curving shore, with the spring sun kissing the coast of Fife opposite and a two-masted collier brig nosing through a fleet of a score of local fishing boats half a mile offshore.

“I should be working,” I said. “I should be in my surgery, trying to convince sick and wealthy patients to come to me.”

“You need some relaxation.” Charles was quite persuasive when he tried. “Nothing beats a good swim. Come on!”

The temptation was too much. Pushing my financial and professional worries to one side, I succumbed to the lure of the sea. Hiding behind a group of whins, I dropped my staff on to the turf, and we stripped off and ran into the water. Though it was spring, the water was cold enough to elicit a yelp from me.

“Never mind the chill. You’ll get used to it!” Charles was 10 paces ahead of me, laughing as he splashed through the water.

“You Hebrideans should have gills and fins,” I said, as Charles leapt up and dived under the water, to power forward as gracefully as any fish.

I had always fancied myself as a good waterman, for I grew up beside the River Teviot and spent much of my childhood in the various swimming holes there, yet compared to Charles I was a mere tyro. I laboured in his wake, joying in the exercise and the fresh air, so much more healthy than sitting in my surgery.

“To the island!” Charles shouted over his shoulder and headed for Cramond Island, which was much further than I had intended swimming that day. However, no Borderer can resist a challenge, and I followed, splashing furiously in my attempt to catch him. I did not succeed and was gasping like a grampus long before I came to Cramond, where Charles was sitting on a bank of grass above the beach, grinning at me.

“Welcome to Crusoe’s island,” Charles greeted me, not even out of breath.

“Blasted MacNeils.” I dragged myself on to the grass at his side and lay there, face down and chest heaving.

“We had our own boat in the Flood,” Charles said. “But we men from Barra had to learn how to swim as well.” He grinned. “Here we are, Martin, both of us finally qualified doctors and free of all commitments, loose in the capital city. Imagine!”

I grinned at him. “Aye, imagine, Charles! Imagine what good we can do here, what cures we can affect among the sick and needy.” I watched two kittiwakes wheeling above the water, breathed deeply of the fresh sea air and lay back down. “We can maybe clean up some of the diseases in this city. God knows it needs cleansing in my area. I live in the heart of the Old Town, the Auld Toun, where the good and the great once lived, and now it is a veritable sink of disease, begging for a doctor.”

“And you are the very man to do it,” Charles flattered me. “Top man in your class in nearly all subjects. You are too idealistic though, Martin. You need to make money as well.”

“As long as I have enough to live,” I said, “I don’t need more.”

Charles and I had met on our first day in the Glasgow School of Medicine, and immediately became fast friends, despite our geographical differences. We roomed together in various less-than-salubrious parts of Glasgow, and both decided to further our careers in Edinburgh, rather than returning to our respective homes. Now we were meeting for the first time in weeks, but without any of the awkwardness that occasionally blights such reunions.

We lay for a while, enjoying each other’s company without saying a word as the waves surged and broke a few feet away until Charles broke the silence. “I’ve told you your only weakness, Martin. Now you must tell me mine.”

“Women,” I said solemnly. “Women like you and you like women. You will have to find a good woman and settle down rather than spreading yourself among many women who are anything but good.”

good Charles laughed. “I was doing good, Martin, keeping the flashtails in work.”

I shook my head, for Charles’s reputation among the Glasgow prostitutes was legendary.

Charles glanced at the mainland. “The tide will be ebbing soon, and people will be able to walk out to this island. It’s tidal, you see.”

“We’d best leave before then,” I said.

“An hour yet,” Charles said. “Are you going to set up your practice from the house?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I want somewhere separate, if I can.”

“I have a practice in the New Town,” Charles said. “In Thistle Street.” He turned to face me. “I found a sponsor, an elderly doctor and another University of Glasgow man, who wishes to pass on his patients to me.”

I could only hide my jealousy behind a smile, although, in truth, I wished nothing but success for Charles. “I am sure that will prove very popular,” I said. “The New Town is the heart of respectable Edinburgh. You could not find a better place to work, and you’ll soon build up your reputation.”

“I hope so,” Charles said. “As will you, once your patients learn about you.”

“I hope so, too.” I lay back, luxuriating in the sunlight. “Lack of finances may delay that day.”

Charles rolled over on to his face and chewed on a stalk of grass. “There are methods to alleviate that problem,” he spoke around his grass. “You know that I was not born into money.”

I did know that. Charles was one of these rarities, a man who had raised himself from a Hebridean cottage to above respectability. “However did you manage?”

“By skirting the edges of fate,” Charles said. “One cannot rise in this world solely by hard work. One needs an influential patron, which I was fortunate enough to find. But even then, one must step outside the normal bounds of society and take to chance.”

“Chance?” I asked carelessly, watching a pair of black-headed gulls circle overhead.

“Games of chance.” Charles looked at me sideways. From behind a screen of grass, he looked young, with his freckled face, devil-may-care grin and bright blue eyes.

“Gambling,” I said.

“Exactly so.” Charles winked at me. “If one hits a winning streak, one can pocket a small fortune.”

My Presbyterian soul rebelled against such things. “My father called playing cards the Devil’s Bible,” I said.

“Your father was a good man,” Charles said. “How much did he leave you when he died?”

“Not a farthing to scratch myself with,” I said. “Father was a tenant farmer at the foot of the Cheviot Hills and laboured every day of his life just to survive.”

“Pious poverty does not help one make one’s way in this world.” Charles wriggled himself into a more comfortable position.

“The MacNeils were ayeways pirates,” I said, trying to prick his smug bubble.

“We were,” Charles agreed, unperturbed. “I am a member of a certain club in Edinburgh if you ever wish to join.”

“I won’t,” I said, searching my brain for something to alter the subject, for I did not care to think of Charles indulging in the devil’s playground. My thought must have transferred to him, for he shifted position, affording me a splendid view of his back, tattooed buttocks and legs. I had never examined Charles’s tattoo before, although we shared a room when we were students in Glasgow, but now I found myself staring at his right hip. “Where did you get your tattoo, Charles?”

“In a whaling ship off Greenland,” Charles said. “Last year. You’ll recall that I signed articles on a Leith whaling ship to raise finances and gain experience.”

“I remember,” I said.

Charles laughed, looking over his shoulder at his right hip and buttock, where the tattoo stood out against his pale skin. “My crewmates thought it would be fun to have an initiation for the Greenman surgeon.”

“It’s an interesting design,” I said. “Interlocking lines, like somebody wove a pattern on your body.”

Charles laughed again. He had a very distinctive laugh that started with a low gurgle and rose in pitch. “I can’t say that I’ve ever studied it! An Orcadian drew the design and somebody else marked it in.”

I left it at that, for even a doctor does not wish to examine that part of a man’s anatomy. However, the design remained in my mind.

“Are you ready to swim back?” Charles had been studying the tide with all the acumen of a Hebridean. “If we stay here much longer, somebody might walk out and catch us in nature’s garb.”

I sat up, somewhat reluctant to return to reality after our relaxing time on the island. “Come on then, Charles.”

We swam to the mainland with more decorum than we had shown on our outward excursion, to find the ebbing tide forced us to walk 100 yards from the edge of the sea to the whins. I was laughing at some sally of Charles’s when I saw the group of three people. They were about 200 yards from us but walking briskly in our direction.

“People,” I warned.

“I see them,” Charles said.

“They’re approaching our clothes.” I began to hurry, moving in a half-crouch to conceal as much of my person as possible. We were right in the open when I heard the unmistakable light tones of a female. “And there’s a woman among them.”

“Two women, I say.” Charles did not sound concerned. “This beach is well known as a place where men bathe,” he said. “Women should keep their distance or be prepared to see n***d men. Or perhaps that’s why they are here!”

I was not as blasé as Charles, so increased my speed, yet I had hardly reached the shelter of the whins when one of the approaching party pointed to us.

“I say,” she said, with a tone that may have been either wonder or delight. “Would you look at that?”

As I hurriedly hauled on my clothes, the deeper voice of a man broke in.

“Turn your back at once, Evelyn, and you too, Mrs Swinton.”

I hurried, even more, covering as much of myself as I could before the party came any closer. When I looked sideways, Charles was casually dressing without any pretence at concealment. I must admit a moment of envy, for surely he had nothing of which to be ashamed.

There were three people in the party, one middle-aged man, a middle-aged woman whom I took to be the man’s wife and the most attractive young woman I had ever seen. I instinctively knew the younger woman was the daughter. The man was looking at me with a surprisingly benevolent smile on his face, his wife was pointedly looking in the opposite direction and the girl, the one who interested me the most, was staring at Charles’s Apollo-like physique.

I lifted my staff and stepped sideways to shield Charles’s still imperfectly clad person. “I do apologise,” I said. “We did not intend to cause any offence.”

“The fault is ours, if anything,” the lady said, still staring at Cramond Island as if she had never seen such a thing before. “I had heard that gentlemen used this beach for bathing but had not expected to find it occupied.” She gave a brief laugh. “I hope we have not caused you any embarrassment, although I do assure you that we did not see anything untoward.”

As I tapped my staff on the ground, the daughter looked at me for the first time. I saw her eyes widen as she smiled. “I am Evelyn Swinton,” she said with a sweeping curtsey. “This is my father, Mr James Swinton and my mother, Mrs Eliza Swinton.”

“I am Martin Elliot.” I met her curtsey with a bow. “And my ill-clad companion is Charles MacNeil.” She had the most marvellous grey eyes and I swear they were laughing at me, although they did flick sideways towards Charles for a second, no doubt to check his progress in dressing.

There was a few seconds of mutual bowing and curtseying, with a curious seagull watching from the shelter of the whins before Mrs Swinton spoke.

“Well, gentlemen, we are sorry to disturb you.” She glanced at her husband. “We will leave you in peace.”

“Oh, no, mother.” Evelyn touched her mother’s arm, with her gaze still fixed on me. “We must apologise properly by inviting these gentlemen to visit.”

Mr Swinton’s expression altered. His eyebrows rose, he glanced from Evelyn to me, then to Charles, and his lips twitched in a smile. He nodded. “Shall we say next Tuesday at five?”

“That would be admirable, sir,” I said.

Mr Swinton nodded. “Queen Street,” he said. “The house with the green door.”

“Nothing formal,” Mrs Swinton said, looking at us at last. “Pray, don’t dress up.”

“But do come dressed,” Evelyn said, for her mother to award her a sharp elbow and a hissed rebuke.

I smiled, for I do like a girl with a sense of humour, and bowed again, unwilling to admit that I possessed no formal clothes. As the Swintons walked away, I watched Evelyn. I knew she would turn around when she reached the wind-gnarled elder tree and was waiting with my smile and a raised hand. I gave another little bow, to which she had no time to respond before her mother pulled her away, rather sharply, I thought.

“Well, Martin,” Charles said. “You made an impact there. I thought you were always shy with girls.”

“I am,” I said, tapping my staff on the sand. “But perhaps not with that one.”

“Perhaps not,” Charles said, looking at me thoughtfully. “I might have to challenge you for the fair Miss Swinton.”

“You would not win,” I said, for already I felt affection for that lady. “I want her for myself.” I did not mention her sidelong glance at Charles.

I remember that afternoon on the beach as one of the happiest days I spent in Edinburgh, yet even then I was aware that the seeds planted were not all of the healthiest variety.