Hey Yeah Right Get a Life by Helen Simpson

Author:Helen Simpson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

The meal dragged on, through warm sliced meat then some sort of muesli concoction until at last they reached the coffee stage. Not long now, thought Nicola, unwrapping a mint. It was a nasty shock, then, when Donald, turning a genial eye upon her, declared, ‘Now at last the evening proper can begin!’

‘But that business before the haggis,’ faltered Nicola, ‘that poem, wasn’t that it?’

‘No, no,’ laughed Donald. ‘The heart of a Burns Night is the Immortal Memory. Someone has to make a speech in praise of Burns, and that’s what it’s called – the Immortal Memory.’

‘Look who’s giving it tonight,’ crowed Brian Mahon from further up the table. ‘It’s Rory McCrindle. Have you seen his place in Farnham? Tartan sofas, tartan carpets, views of the heather-covered highlands. It’s like Rob Roy’s Cave.’

‘Nothing to Iain’s mansion in Guildford, so I’ve been told,’ said Donald. ‘I hear it has a swimming pool, Iain; am I right?’

I’m not sure I’ll be able to last through this, thought Nicola. I’ve had enough. Across the table, Charlie winked at her. He looked red and pie-eyed. A few minutes earlier she had heard him ask their waiter for more walt misky. No help from that quarter, she thought, wondering how she would get him home.

‘And this Immortal Memory event,’ said Nicola. ‘Roughly how, er, long does it tend to go on?’

‘Och, the Immortal Memory is only the start of it,’ said Iain. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll love it.’

‘The Immortal Memory is a moral dose of salts,’ said Donald. ‘Once a year you listen to the story of Burns’ life and poetry, then you examine your own life in the light of his. It’s an improving speech, Nicola.’

‘So he’s like a saint?’ said Nicola.

‘Not exactly a saint,’ said Donald.

‘A man’s a man for a’ that,’ burst in Iain.

‘The social, friendly, honest man,’ rolled out Donald, ‘Whate’er he be.’

‘For a’ that,’ said Iain again.

‘Yes, the English all know bits of Shakespeare,’ said Nicola. ‘To be or not to be, is this a dagger which I see before me. But we don’t try to copy his life, leaving Anne Hathaway in the lurch. With twins, too.’

‘Oor Rab had mair twins than Shakespeare,’ said Iain aggressively. ‘He had them coming oot his ears.’

‘No, Nicola, it’s the litany of his life which has taken hold,’ said Donald. ‘Barefoot, boxbed, homespun, peat fires by which he listened to Old Betty’s ghost stories, hard labour on father’s failing farm from age of seven. They were poor but they were happy. See “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” which is the great Scottish Family Values poem.’

‘Aye one for the lassies, but,’ said Iain.

‘Oh, aye one for the lassies,’ agreed Donald with a nasal whine of mock-disapprobation. ‘Enough babies fathered to get him denounced from the kirk pulpit and make him consider sailing for Jamaica . . . But in the nick of time a publisher takes up his collection of dialect poems and they are a huge hit with everyone buying them from the crême de la crême of Edinburgh society .

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.