Love Over Scotland

“I used to read stories about people who sorted this sort of thing out. The end was always predictable, but very satisfying.”

“Sorry to have to tell you this,” said Angus. “But the comic-book heroes aren’t real. They don’t exist.”

Stuart laughed. “Oh, I’ve come to terms with that,” he said.

“But I have a friend who does exist. He’s quite good at sorting things out, I think.”

Matthew looked at him. “He could get Big Lou’s money back?

Unlikely. Eddie’s not going to reach into his pocket and disgorge it.”

“But this friend of mine has a way of getting round difficulties,” said Stuart.

“Is he a lawyer?” asked Angus.

Pat and Matthew Talk 285

Stuart smiled wryly. “No, he’s a businessman.”

“Who is he?” asked Matthew. If he was a businessman, then it was possible that he would know Matthew’s father.

“He’s called Lard O’Connor,” said Stuart. “And I could have a word with him if you like. He’s very helpful.”

91. Pat and Matthew Talk

Shortly before seven o’clock that evening, Matthew left the Cumberland Bar and returned to his flat in India Street. He had enjoyed his drink with Angus and Stuart. Angus, as ever, was amusing, and Stuart struck him as being agreeable company. It was good to have friends, he thought. He himself did not have enough friends, though, and he thought that he should make a bit more of an effort in future to cultivate friendships. But where would he find them? He could hardly make all his friends in the Cumberland Bar. Perhaps he should join a club of some sort and make friends that way: a singles’ club, for instance. He had heard that there were singles’ clubs where everybody went on holiday together. That would be interesting, perhaps, but what if one did not take to the other singles? Besides, the very word single sounded a bit desperate, as if one suffered from some sort of condition, singularity.

But for the moment, Matthew had no desire to find anybody else; not now that he had Pat living in India Street. It was a wonderful feeling, he thought, this going home to somebody.

Even if she was not in, then at least her things were there. Even Pat’s things made Matthew feel a bit better; just the thought of her things: her sandals, those pink ones he had seen her wearing; her books, including that large book on the history of art; her bookshop bag that she used to carry her files up to the university. All of these were invested with some sort of special significance in Matthew’s mind; they were Pat’s things.

He walked back along Cumberland Street, past the St Vincent Bar and its neighbouring church, and then round Circus Place to the bottom of India Street. It was a warm evening for the 286 Pat and Matthew Talk

time of year and the town was quiet. Matthew looked up at the elegant Georgian buildings, at their confident doors and windows. Some of the windows were lit and disclosed domestic scenes within: a drawing room in which a group of people could be seen standing near the window, talking; down in a basement, a kitchen with pans steaming on the cooker and the windows misting up; a cat asleep on a windowsill. These were people with ordered, secure lives – or so it seemed from the outside. And that was what Matthew wanted. He wanted somebody who would be waiting for him, or for whom he could wait. Somebody he could share things with. And wasn’t that what everybody wanted? he thought. Wasn’t it? And how cruel it was that not everybody could find this in their lives.

He reached his front door and went in. He had hoped that she would be there, and his heart gave a leap when he saw the light coming out from under her door. He went through to his room and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Then he went into the kitchen and opened a cupboard. He had stocked up with dried pasta; that would do. And there was a good block of parmesan in the fridge and some mushrooms.

He put the pasta on to boil and started to grate the parmesan.

Then Pat came into the kitchen while Matthew’s back was turned, so that he was surprised when he saw her.

“I’m cooking pasta,” he said. “Would you like some? I’ve got plenty.”

He had hardly dared ask the question. He was afraid that she would be going out, and that he would be left by himself, but she was not.

“That’s really kind,” said Pat, perching herself on a kitchen chair.

Matthew told her of what Angus had said about Big Lou, and Pat listened, horrified.

“That horrible man,” she said, shuddering at the thought of Eddie.

“Poor Lou,” said Matthew. “But there was somebody there who said that he might be able to help her.”

Pat listened as Matthew explained about Stuart’s suggestion. It Pat and Matthew Talk 287

seemed unlikely to her that anything could be done, but they could try, she supposed. Poor Lou. She rose to her feet and offered to prepare a salad. “I can’t sit here and do nothing,” she said.

“Yes, you can,” said Matthew. “Let me look after you.”

The words had come out without really being intended, and he hoped that she would not take them the wrong way. But what was the wrong way? All that the words meant was that he wanted to make her dinner, and what was wrong with wanting to make somebody dinner?

Laughing, Pat said: “No, you do the pasta. I’ll do the salad.”

Matthew opened the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine.

He poured Pat a glass and one for himself. The wine was probably too chilled, as the glass was misting. He thought of the misting panes in the basement kitchen he had seen round the corner, and of the people standing in their window.

Pat told him about a seminar she had attended that day. He listened, but did not pay much attention to what she was saying.

The seminar had been on Romantic art and somebody had said something very stupid, which had made everybody laugh.

Matthew did not listen to the stupid remark as she retold it; he was thinking only of how nice it would be to be in a seminar with Pat. He wanted to be with her all the time now. He closed his eyes. I can’t let this happen to me, he thought. I can’t fall so completely for this girl, because she won’t fall for me. I’m just a friend. That’s all. I’m just her friend.

And then, suddenly, Pat passed behind him, and brushed against him, her arm against his, and he gave a start and half-turned. She was right behind him and he looked at her and she said: “Oh, sorry . . .”

He took her hand. She looked at him, and then lowered her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Matthew, reckless now. “I really am. I didn’t mean to fall for you. I didn’t actually make a decision. It’s not like that. That’s not the way it works.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Pat.

“But it does.”

There was a brief silence. “But I like you too.”

288 Alone in Paris

“You do?”

A further silence. The pasta bubbled.

“How much?”

“Lots.”

Matthew sighed. “But . . . but not like that.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said.

And it seemed to Matthew that all the bells of Edinburgh, and beyond, were ringing out at once, in joyous, joyous peals.

92. Alone in Paris

When he woke up that morning and realised that he had slept in, Bertie felt intensely alarmed. But he was not a boy given to panic, and so he dressed carefully, brushing his hair with attention to the fact that he was, after all, in Paris. Then he made his way downstairs, allowing himself at least to hope that somebody from the orchestra might have stayed behind for him or possibly left a note. But the woman at the desk informed him that the Edinburgh group had left. She assumed that Bertie belonged to a British couple staying upstairs and it did not enter her head that he was now entirely on his own.

Bertie sat down in the lobby and wondered what to do. They had obviously forgotten all about him, he decided, but they would remember their mistake when they arrived in Edinburgh and his parents asked where he was. He looked at his watch; that should be happening about now. And then they would come back to fetch him, but would probably not arrive until tomorrow morning. So that, in his reckoning, gave him a whole day and night in Paris, which would be rather interesting. He had quite a bit of his spending money left over, as nobody had allowed him to pay for anything, and he could use that to tide him over.

It might even be enough to get a ticket for the Moulin Rouge, should he come across that establishment during the sightseeing that he proposed to do.

Paging through his guidebook and map, Bertie decided that Alone in Paris 289

he would set off to the Louvre. He liked galleries, and he thought that he would possibly spend the entire morning there. Then he would have lunch somewhere nearby . . . He stopped.

Although he was sure that he had enough money to tide him over, he did not think that it would run to two meals (not including breakfast) as well as the tickets for the various places that he wished to visit. Would the woman at the hotel desk lend him some, he wondered, if he promised to send it back to her when it came to next pocket-money day? He glanced in her direction. No, he did not think that she looked the type of person from whom one could ask for a loan. Tofu would have had no hesitation in asking, of course, as he was always demanding money from people. But Bertie was not Tofu, and Tofu was not in Paris.

Then Bertie had an idea. When the group had gone to Notre Dame on their sightseeing, they had passed through the Latin Quarter and seen a number of people playing their instruments in the street – busking, explained one of the violinists.

“I did that outside Jenners last Christmas,” he said. “I made twenty-four pounds in one morning. Twenty-four pounds! And all I played was ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’ over and over again. It was dead easy!”

The saxophone which had been borrowed for him was still in his room, and it occurred to Bertie that there was no reason why he should not spend the morning busking in the Latin Quarter. He could play ‘As Time Goes By’ from Casablanca, which people always seemed to like, and he could vary it with some Satie which he had recently learned. He had read that Satie had lived in Paris, and perhaps some of his old friends would recognise his music and give particularly generously. Or Mr Satie himself might pass by, although he must be very old by now, thought Bertie.

Filled with excitement at his plan, Bertie rushed upstairs and retrieved his saxophone. Then, struggling somewhat with the weight of it, he set out from the hotel in the direction of the Latin Quarter. It was heavy going. After a few blocks, Bertie realised that it would take him several hours to walk across Paris 290 Alone in Paris

with his instrument, as he would have to stop at virtually every corner to rest his aching muscles. He felt in his pocket, where his money nestled, neatly folded. A taxi would be expensive, he knew, but even if it took all his funds, there was the money that he would undoubtedly soon earn from his busking.

He stood on the edge of the road and waited until a taxi came past. He did not have to wait long, and soon he was seated comfortably in the back of a white Peugeot heading for the point on his map which he had shown to a slightly surprised taxi driver.

The journey went quickly and Bertie took the money out of his pocket to pay. He was slightly short of the fare requested, but the driver smiled and indicated that the shortfall was not an issue. Then, staggering under the weight of the borrowed saxophone in its heavy wooden case, he walked a few blocks into the network of narrow streets that made up the Quarter.

It did not take him long to find a suitable pitch. Halfway along one street there was a boarded-up doorway off the pavement. With a restaurant next door, a coffee bar a few yards away on the same side, and a student bookshop opposite, it seemed to Bertie that it was an ideal place for him to play. He set the open case down in front of him – as he had seen other buskers do – and, summoning up all his courage, he started to play ‘As Time Goes By’.

The first person to walk past was a woman wearing a long brown coat and with her hair done up in a bun. As she went past Bertie, she glanced at him, took a few more steps, and then stopped and turned round. Fumbling in her purse, she extracted a crumpled banknote and turned to toss it into the open case, murmuring, as she did so: “Petit ange! ”

Bertie acknowledged the donation with a nod of his head –

as he had seen other buskers do – and modulated into one of the jazz tunes he had learned from Lewis Morrison, ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’. This went down very well with the next passer-by, a visiting Senegalese civil servant, who clapped his hands in appreciation and tossed a few small notes into the case. This was followed by a donation of a few coins from a thin man walking a large Dalmatian. The Dalmatian barked at Bertie and Bertie’s New Friends 291

wagged his tail. Again, Bertie acknowledged both man and dog with a nod. It was good to be in Paris, he thought.

93. Bertie’s New Friends

By twelve o’clock, Bertie’s case was almost full of money. Virtually no passer-by – and they were numerous that morning – walked on without giving something. This was not because they made a habit of giving to buskers – they did no such thing – but it was because none of them could resist the sight of a small boy playing the saxophone with such ease and to such good effect. And there was something about Bertie that appealed to the French.

When Bertie eventually stopped and took on the task of counting his money, he found it hard to believe that he had collected so much. Not only would he be able to pay for lunch and dinner that day, but there was enough money to enable him to survive in Paris for several weeks should the need arise.

Tucking the notes into his pockets, now bulging with money, he replaced the saxophone in the case and walked the few yards to the nearby restaurant. Looking at the menu displayed in the window, he struggled to make out what was on offer. It would have been different, he decided, if it had been in Italian – that would have been easy – but what, he wondered, were escargots and what were blanquettes de veau?

“Are you having difficulty?” said a voice behind him, in English.

Bertie turned round, to find a small group of people behind him, a man and two women. They were too old to be teenagers, he thought, but they were not much older than that. Perhaps they were students, he told himself. He had read that this was the part of Paris where students were to be seen.

“I don’t know what the menu says,” said Bertie. “I know how to read, but I don’t know how to read French.”

The woman who had first addressed him bent over to his level. “Ah, poor you!” she said. “Let me help you. Should I read 292 Bertie’s New Friends

from the top, or would you like to tell me what sort of thing you like to eat and I can see if it’s on the menu?”

“I like sausages,” said Bertie. “And I like sticky toffee pudding.”

The young woman looked at the menu board. “I can find sausages,” she said. “But I don’t think they have sticky toffee pudding. That is a great pity. But they do have some very nice apple tart. Would you like to try that? Tarte tatin?”

Bertie nodded.

“In that case,” said the woman, “why don’t you join me and my friends for lunch? We were just about to go inside.”

“Thank you,” said Bertie. “I have enough money to pay, you see.”

The young people laughed. “That will not be necessary,” said the young woman. “This is not an expensive place. No Michelin stars, but no fancy prices. Come on, let’s go in.”

They entered the restaurant, where the waiter, recognising Bertie’s three companions, immediately ushered them to a table near the window.

“That’s Henri,” said the young woman. “He has been here ever since the riots of 1968. He came in to take refuge and they offered him a job. He’s stayed here since then.”

“What happened in 1968?” asked Bertie. “Was there a war?”

They all laughed. “A war?” said the young man. “In a sense.

The bourgeoisie was at war with the students and the advanced thinkers. It was very exciting.”

“Who won?” asked Bertie.

There was a silence. Then the second young woman spoke.

“It is difficult to say. I suppose the bourgeoisie is still with us.”

“So they won then,” said Bertie.

The young man looked uncomfortable. “It’s not as simple as that,” he said. “The system was badly wounded.”

“And they curbed the powers of the flics, eventually,” said the first young woman, shrugging, as if to dismiss the subject. “But we should introduce ourselves,” she went on. “I’m Marie-Louise, and this,” she said, turning to the other young woman, “is Sylvie.

He’s called Jean-Philippe. We shorten him to Jarpipe. And what, may I ask, is your name?”

Bertie’s New Friends 293

Bertie thought for a moment. It seemed to him that the French put in their second names, and he did not want to appear unsophisticated. His second name, he recollected, was Peter, and he did know the French for that. “I’m Bertie-Pierre,” he said quickly. It sounded rather good, he thought, and none of his new friends seemed to think it at all odd.

“Alors, Bertie-Pierre,” said Marie-Louise. “Let us order our lunch. You said that you liked sausages, so we shall see what Henri can do about that.”

They gave the order to Henri, who nodded a polite greeting to Bertie, and then Marie-Louise turned to Bertie and said:

“Tell us about yourself, Bertie-Pierre. What are you doing in Paris, all by leetle self? And what have you got in that case of yours?”

“I came here with an orchestra,” Bertie said. “The Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra.”

“But you are surely not . . .” said Jean-Philippe.

“I’m not a teenager quite yet,” said Bertie. “But my mother . . .”

“He is a prodigy,” said Sylvie. “That is why.”

“Are you a prodigy, Bertie-Pierre?” asked Jean-Philippe.

Bertie looked down at the table. “I am not sure,” he said.

“Mr Morrison thinks I am. But I don’t know myself.”

“And who is this Monsieur Morrison?” asked Sylvie.

“He is my saxophone teacher,” said Bertie.

“Ah well,” said Marie-Louise. “I am sure that Monsieur Morrison knows what he is talking about. We should tell you a little bit about ourselves. We are all students here at the Sorbonne. I am a student of English literature. Sylvie is a student of economics – that is very dull, but she does not seem to mind, hah! – and Jarpipe is a student of philosophy. He is very serious, very melancholic, as you may have noticed. He is in love with Sylvie here, but Sylvie loves another. She loves Jacques, who has blue eyes and drives a very fast car. Poor Jarpipe!”

“I live in hope,” said Jean-Philippe, smiling. “What is there to do but to live in the belief of the reality of what you want?

That is what Camus said, Bertie-Pierre.”

294 Deconstruction at the Sorbonne

“Camus is very passé,” said Sylvie. “How can I love one who talks about Camus?”

“I cannot talk about Derrida,” said Jean-Philippe indignantly.

“There is nothing to be said about Derrida. Nothing. Rien. Bah!”

Bertie listened to this exchange in fascination. This was the Paris he had been hoping to find, and he had now found it. Oh, if only Tofu and Olive could see him sitting here with his new friends, on the Left Bank, talking about these sophisticated matters. Oh, if only his mother could see . . . No, perhaps not.

94. Deconstruction at the Sorbonne Bertie enjoyed every minute of the lunch with his new friends in the restaurant in the Latin Quarter. The conversation was wide-ranging, but Bertie was more than capable of holding his own in the various topics into which it strayed. At one point, when Freud was mentioned, he let slip the name of Melanie Klein, which brought astonished stares from the three French students.

“So!” exclaimed Sylvie. “You have heard of Melanie Klein!

Formidable! ”

Bertie had learned that the hallmark of sophisticated conversation in Paris was the tossing out of derogatory remarks, usually calling into question an entire theory or oeuvre. He had been waiting to do this with Melanie Klein, and now the opportunity had presented itself. “She’s rubbish,” said Bertie.

It made him feel considerably better to say that, and he felt even better when the others agreed with him.

“I’m surprised that anybody still reads her,” said Sylvie.

“Perhaps in places like Scotland . . .”

Bertie thought quickly. He knew that his mother read Melanie Klein religiously, but he did not want to reveal that now. At the same time, his Scottish pride had been pricked by the suggestion that people in Scotland were less at the forefront of intellectual fashion than people in Paris.

Deconstruction at the Sorbonne 295

“We only read her to laugh at her,” said Bertie quickly. “In Scotland, she’s considered a comic writer.”

The students laughed at this. “Very good, Bertie-Pierre,” said Sylvie. “So, tell me, who do you read at your university?”

Bertie shifted his feet uncomfortably, even though they did not quite reach the floor. “I’m still at school,” he said meekly.

“I’m not at university yet.”

The students pretended surprise at this revelation. “But there you are knowing all about Melanie Klein and still at school!”

said Marie-Louise. “Remarkable. Perhaps this is the new Scottish Enlightenment.”

Bertie let the remark pass. Jean-Philippe, he noticed, was looking at him with interest. “Tell me, Bertie-Pierre,” the student said. “Who are your friends at school?”

“There is a boy called Tofu,” Bertie replied. “He’s my friend.

Sometimes.”

“And tell us about this Tofu,” asked Sylvie. “Would we like him?”

“I don’t think so,” said Bertie.

“Ah!” said Jean-Philippe. “And are there other friends?”

Bertie thought for a moment. “There’s Olive,” he said. “She’s a girl.”

“Well, perhaps we would like this Olive,” said Sylvie.

“No,” said Bertie. “I don’t think you would.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Jean-Philippe looked at his watch. “Well, Bertie-Pierre, time is marching on. We were all going to a lecture this afternoon. Jean-François François, the well-known deconstructionist, is talking at three. Everybody is going to be there. Would you like to join us?”

Bertie did not hesitate to accept the invitation. He had never heard of Jean-François François, nor of deconstruction, but he thought that it would be fun to listen to a lecture with his three friends.

“Time to pay,” said Sylvie, signalling to Henri.

Henri brought the bill over to the table and presented it to Jean-Philippe. He glanced at it quickly and then slipped it over the table to Marie-Louise, who shook her head in disbelief.

296 Deconstruction at the Sorbonne

“Please let me pay,” said Bertie. “I have lots of money.”

“But Bertie-Pierre,” protested Sylvie. “You are our guest!”

“On the other hand,” said Jean-Philippe, “it’s very generous of you, Bertie-Pierre. And perhaps we should accept.”

Bertie extracted a wad of banknotes from his pocket and passed them to Henri. Then, collecting their belongings, he and his friends left the restaurant and made the short journey on foot to the lecture theatre in the Sorbonne where Jean-François François was due to speak.

There was a good crowd already waiting there. Bertie sat near the back row with his friends and watched the scene as the theatre filled up. There was a great deal of conversation going on between members of the audience, but this died down when a door at the side opened and Jean-François François entered the room. There was applause as he made his way up to the podium, but when he reached it he quickly spat out some words into the microphone and the applause died down.

“What’s he saying?” Bertie whispered to Jean-Philippe. “I haven’t learned French yet.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jean-Philippe. “I’ll translate for you. He just said that applause is infantile. He says that only the bourgeoisie claps. That’s why everybody has stopped clapping.”

Bertie thought about this. What was wrong with clapping, particularly if somebody said something you agreed with? They had been clapped at their concert; was that because the bourgeoisie had been present?

Jean-François François now burst into a torrent of French, pointing a thin, nicotine-stained finger into the crowd for emphasis. Bertie listened enthralled. It seemed to him that whatever the lecturer was saying must be very important, as the audience was hanging onto every word.

“What’s he saying now?” he whispered to Jean-Philippe.

“He says that the rules of science are not rules at all,” Jean-Philippe whispered back. “He says that the hegemony of scientific knowledge is the creation of an imposed consensus. The social basis of that consensus is artificial and illusory. He says that even the rules of physics are a socially determined imposition.

A Portrait of a Sitting 297

There is no scientific truth. That’s more or less what he says.”

Bertie was astonished. He did not know many rules of physics, but he did know Bernoulli’s principle which explained how lift occurred. And surely that was true, because he had seen it in operation on the flight from Edinburgh to Paris.

Bertie turned to Jean-Phillipe and said: “But would Mr François say that Bernoulli’s principle was rubbish when he was in a plane, up in the air?”

Jean-Philippe listened to Bertie’s remark and frowned. Then the frown disappeared and he turned and passed the observation on to Sylvie, who listened with a slowly dawning smile and passed it on to the person next to her. Soon the remark was travelling across the lecture theatre in every direction and people could be heard muttering and giggling. Then a young man at the front of the lecture theatre stood up and shouted out a question, interrupting the lecturer’s flow. Bertie could not understand what it was about but he did hear reference to Bernoulli.

Jean-François François hesitated. He pointed a finger into the crowd and began to speak. But he was now shouted down.

There were jeers and more laughter.

“Amazing!” said Jean-Philippe, turning to Bertie in frank admiration. “Bertie-Pierre, you’ve deconstructed Jean-François François himself! Incredible!”

Bertie did not know what to say, but thought it polite to say thank you, and so he did.

95. A Portrait of a Sitting

The portrait which Angus Lordie was painting was not going well. It was not a commissioned work – those paintings always seemed to go smoothly, aided, no doubt, by the thought of the fee – but the result of an offer which he had made one day in the Scottish Arts Club. It was one of those rash offers one makes, more or less on impulse, and which are immediately taken up by the recipient. Most people understand that offers of that

298 A Portrait of a Sitting

nature are not intended to be taken seriously, or are only half-serious, and do nothing about them. Others – and they are in a small minority – take them literally, largely because they take everything literally.

Ramsey Dunbarton, the retired lawyer and resident of the Braids, now sat in Angus Lordie’s under-heated studio in Drummond Place, gazing at a fixed point on the wall with what he hoped was an expression that combined both dignity and experience. This was his third sitting, the first having taken place very shortly after Angus had made his subsequently regretted offer to paint his portrait.

“It’s very good of you,” said Ramsey, sitting back in the red leather chair in which Angus positioned his sitters, “but I hope that I give you a bit of a challenge. One or two people have said that this old physiognomy is a typical Edinburgh one. Perhaps you’ll be able to catch that. What do you think?”

Angus was non-committal. He would do his best by Ramsey, but there were limits.

“I wondered whether you’d like to paint me in one of my thespian moments,” Ramsey went on. “I played the Duke of Plaza-Toro once, you know. It was at the Church Hill Theatre.”

Angus busied himself with his brushes.

A Portrait of a Sitting 299

“It’s not an easy character to play,” Ramsey went on. “It requires a certain panache, of course, but the difficulty with parts like that is that one can go over the top. But I hope that I didn’t.

We still sing a bit, you know. One’s voice changes, of course –

like so much else.”

Angus nodded. He tended to listen with only half an ear when Ramsey was talking. It was like having the radio on in the background, he thought. One picked up what was being said from time to time, but for the most part it was just a comfortable drone.

“Yes,” said Ramsey. “The world has certainly changed. And not necessarily for the better. When I compare the world of my youth with the world of today, I have to shake my head. I really do.”

“Please don’t move your head like that,” said Angus. “I’d like you to stay still as far as possible.”

“So sorry,” said Ramsey. “I was getting carried away. But the world really is a different place, isn’t it? And Edinburgh has changed too. There used to be a good number of people who disapproved of things. Now there are hardly any, if you ask me.

Everybody is afraid to disapprove.”

“Yes,” said Angus. “I suppose we’ve become more tolerant.”

“Don’t speak to me about tolerance,” said Ramsey. “Tolerance is just an excuse for letting everything go. Tolerance means that people can get away with anything they choose.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Angus. “I think that we needed a slightly more relaxed view of things.”

Ramsey snorted. “Look at what’s happened to breach of the peace,” he said. “We didn’t do any criminal law work in my firm, of course – we’re not that sort of firm – but I used to take a close interest in the subject and would follow the Sheriff Court reports in the Scots Law Times. It was fascinating stuff, I can tell you.”

“A bit murky, surely,” said Angus. “Aren’t the criminal courts full of people who do nasty things to other people?”

“To an extent,” said Ramsey. “But there are some very amusing moments in the criminal courts. I heard some frightfully funny stories, you know.”

300 A Portrait of a Sitting

Angus’s brush moved gently against the canvas. “Such as?”

he said.

“Well,” said Ramsey. “Here’s one. It was the Sheriff Court at Lanark, I think, or maybe Airdrie. Anyway, somewhere down there. I don’t really know that part of the world very well, but let’s say that it was Lanark. The sheriff was dealing with the usual business of the court, and I think that this was a speeding matter. A local butcher was caught doing something way over the odds and was hauled up in front of the sheriff. There he was, in his best suit – there are lots of ill-fitting suits in the Sheriff Courts, you know, taken out of mothballs for each court appearance. Anyway, the sheriff looked down at him from the bench and said: ‘How are you pleading?’ And the butcher looked up and said: ’Oh fine, sir. I’m fine. How’s yoursel?’”

When he finished this story, Ramsey burst out laughing.

“Can’t you just hear it, Angus?” he said.

Angus nodded. “Very funny,” he said. “And then what happened?”

“No idea,” said Ramsey. “He was fined, no doubt. But how did we get on to this? Oh, yes, the criminal law. Well, then, breach of the peace: I was always a great supporter of it, because it was so broad. They could deal with any nonsense by calling it breach of the peace. And there were some wonderful examples. This is a bit risqué, Angus, but some of those cases were terribly funny.

I always remember a breach of the peace prosecution that followed upon some events that took place at Glenogle Baths. There was this chap, you see, who had been spying on the ladies’ changing rooms, and so they got a woman police officer to go to the baths and she found that somebody had drilled a peep-hole in a partition wall. Well, the woman constable looked through the hole at the same time as the accused looked through the hole on his side of the partition . . .”

Ramsey’s voice tailed off. Angus, behind his canvas, applied a small dab of paint to a passage he was working on.

He added another dash of colour and stared at the result.

Colour was strange; one’s life as an artist was one long affair with colour.

Angus Reflects 301

And how should we live that life? How should we make the most of our time, make a difference with it?

He paused. Ramsey was quiet. Through the window, Angus saw a gull fly past, a brief flash of white against the blue. Ramsey had stopped talking. Strange. Angus looked past his canvas. The limbs of his sitter were immobile, and the face composed. The eyes were closed. He was perfectly still.

96. Angus Reflects

On the following day, Angus wrote to Domenica a letter on which, had the intended recipient held it up to the light, might have been made out the faintest of watermarks – a tear.

“My dear Domenica,” he began. “I write this letter seated at the kitchen table. It is one of those cold, bright winter mornings that I know you love so much, and which make this city sparkle so. But the letter I write you will be a sad one, and I am sorry for that. When one is alone and far from home, as you are, then one longs for light-hearted, gossipy letters. This is not one of those.

“Yesterday, as I was painting his portrait, Ramsey Dunbarton, a person I have known for a good many years, died in my studio.

He was seated in my portrait chair, talking to me, when he suddenly stopped, mid-anecdote. I thought nothing of it and continued to paint, but when I glanced from behind my canvas I saw him sitting there, absolutely still. I thought that he had gone to sleep and went back to my painting, but then, when I looked again, he was still motionless. I realised that something was wrong, and indeed it was. Ramsey had died. It was very peaceful, almost as if somebody had silently gone away, somewhere else, had left the room. How strange is the human body in death – so still, and so vacated. That vitality, that spark, which makes for life, is simply not there. The tiny movements of the muscles, the sense of there being somebody keeping the whole physical entity orchestrated in space – that goes so utterly and completely. It is no longer there.

302 Angus Reflects

“You did not know Ramsey. I thought that you might perhaps have met him at one of my drinks parties, but then, on reflection, I decided that you had not. I do not think that you and he would necessarily have got along. I would never accuse you of lacking charity, dear one, but I suspect that you might have thought that Ramsey was a little stuffy for you; a little bit old-fashioned, perhaps.

“And indeed he was. Many people thought of him as an old bore, always going on about having played the part of the Duke of Plaza-Toro at the Church Hill Theatre. Well, so he did, and he mentioned it yesterday afternoon, which was his last afternoon as himself, as Auden puts it in his poem about the death of Yeats. But don’t we all have our little triumphs, which we remember and which we like to talk about? And if Ramsey was unduly proud of having been the Duke of Plaza-Toro, then should we begrudge him that highlight in what must have been a fairly uneventful life? I don’t think we should.

“He was a kind man, and a good one too. He loved his wife.

He loved his country – he was a Scottish patriot at heart, but proud of being British too. He said that we should not be ashamed of these things, however much fashionable people decry love of one’s country and one’s people. And in that he was right.

“He only wanted to do good. He was not a selfish man. He did not set out to make a lot of money or get ahead at the expense of others. He was not like that. He would have loved to have had public office, but it never came his way. So he served in a quiet, rather bumbling way on all sorts of committees. He was conservative in his views and instincts. He believed in an ordered society in which people would help and respect one another, but he also believed in the responsibility of each of us to make the most of our lives. He called that ‘duty’, not a word we hear much of today.

“There is a thoughtless tendency in Scotland to denigrate those who have conservative views. I have never subscribed to that, and I hope that as a nation we get beyond such a limited vision of the world. It is possible to love one’s fellow man in a number of ways, and socialism does not have the monopoly on Angus Reflects 303

justice and concern. Far from it. There are good men and women who believe passionately in the public good from very different perspectives. Ramsey was as much concerned with the welfare and good of his fellow man as anybody I know.

“People said that he had a tendency to go on and on, and I suppose he did. But those long stories of his, sometimes without any apparent point to them, were stories that were filled, yes filled, with enthusiasm for life. Ramsey found things fascinating, even when others found them dull. In his own peculiar way, he celebrated the life of ordinary people, ordinary places, ordinary things.

“I suspect that Scotland is full of people like Ramsey Dunbarton. They are people whose lives never amount to very much in terms of achievement. They are not celebrated or fêted in any way. But there they are, doing their best, showing good-will to others, paying their taxes scrupulously, not cheating in any way, supporting the public good. These people are the back-bone of the country and we should never forget that.

“His death leaves me feeling empty. I feel guilty, too, at the thought of the occasions when I have seen him heaving into sight and I have scuttled off, unable to face another long-winded story. I feel that I should have done more to reciprocate the feelings of friendship he undoubtedly had for me. I never asked him to lunch with me; the invitations always came from him. I never even acknowledged him as a friend. I never told him that I enjoyed his company. I never told him that I thought he was a good man. I gave him no sign of appreciation.

“But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives.

Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it? – and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.

“I am heart-sore, Domenica. I am heart-sore. I shall get over it, I know, but that is how I feel now. Heart-sore.”

He finished, read it through, and then very slowly tore it up.

He would not send it to Domenica, even if he meant every word, every single word of it.

97. Domenica Makes Progress

Domenica may not have received the letter from Angus Lordie, but she had enough to think about anyway. Her life in the pirate village on the Malacca Straits was becoming busier – and more intriguing – after a somewhat disappointing start. She had at last done something about Ling, the interpreter who had proved to be excessively interventionist and unreliable. Matters had been brought to a head when she had gone with him to see an elderly member of the community and Ling had refused point-blank to interpret what the man had said to her.

“You need not bother with what this old man is saying,” Ling had said dismissively. “He is all mixed up.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Domenica. “You can be assured that I can distinguish between reliable and unreliable material.”

“It is a waste of time,” said Ling, looking scornfully at the elderly pirate in his rattan armchair. “Stupid old man.”

“I don’t think that’s very helpful,” said Domenica. “And I really must insist on making my own decisions as to what is significant material and what is not.”

“No,” said Ling. “I do not want to waste your time.”

Domenica sighed. It was a hot morning and her clothes were sodden with perspiration. She did not want to spend her time arguing with Ling, and yet she was now adamant that she would not accept his decisions as to what she should listen to and what she should not.

“Look, Mr Ling,” she said loudly. “I am the one who’s paying you. Understand? I decide what we do. And that’s final.”

Ling’s lower lip quivered. “You cannot make that decision when you don’t know anything,” he said. “I do not wish to be rude to you, honourable anthropologist, but you don’t know anything, do you?”

That had been the last straw, and Domenica had dismissed him on the spot. Ling appeared to be taken aback by this, and stormed off, leaving her alone with the retired pirate. She turned and smiled at the old man, who gave her a toothless grin in return.

Domenica Makes Progress 305

“Tok Pisin?” he suddenly asked (Do you talk Neo-Melanesian Pidgin by any chance?).

Domenica clapped her hands in joy. “Ya. Mi toktok Pisin gutpela. Mi amamas” (Yes, I speak very good Neo-Melanesian Pidgin, I’m happy to say).

The old man became quite animated, pointing in the direction of Ling’s retreating figure. “Dispela man bilong pait!” (This can best be translated as: That fellow’s somewhat aggressive, don’t you think? Note man bilong pait: pait is fight).

Domenica nodded. “Yumitupela toktok. Dispela Ling autim!”

(You and I can talk. We can do without that chap Ling! Note autim, literally out him, to get rid of ).

“Ya. Mipela holem long tingting,” said the old man. “Mipela roscol boscru.”

Domenica had to think about this remark for a few moments.

What he had said was: Yes. I remember (a lot). (Holem long tingting, hold on to many things for a long time, is simply translated as to remember. Here it has an additional contextual meaning of recalling things long past, in an almost Proustian sense. If Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu were to be translated into Pidgin – which has not yet happened – then perhaps it might be called: Onepela Proust bilong Frans Holem Long Tingting.) Then he had said: mipela roscol, which would normally be translated as: I am a criminal. This puzzled Domenica for a few moments, until she realised that there might be no word in Pidgin for pirate, and that roscol was possibly the closest one could get, if one added to it boscru, which means sailor (boat’s crew).

“Yupela roscol boscru? Yupela no damn gut?” she asked.

“Ya,” he confirmed. “Mipela Roscol! Yupela man bilong savvy!” (Yes, I am a pirate! You, by contrast, would appear to be a scholar). (This makes one think of the Pidgin translation of the Pirate King song from Gilbert and Sullivan, ‘For I am a Pirate King, /And it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Pirate King!’

The Pidgin Gilbert and Sullivan has this as: Mipela Rocol boscru luluai, Ya, Ya!/Roscol boscru luluai nambawan ting, Ya, Ya!) Once they had established that they would be able to enjoy 306 Domenica Makes Progress

a good conversation in Pidgin, Domenica sat down with the old man, who introduced himself as Henry, and began to ask him the questions which she had been prevented by Ling from asking.

She rapidly established his lineage (his family was one of the oldest ones in the village), his status (he was a widower, his wife having died ten years previously) and his means of support (he had a son in Singapore who was a senior clerk in a firm of merchants and another who was a first officer with a Taiwanese shipping line – both of these sent him money each month).

Henry was happy to talk about all the other households too.

He explained about the family who lived next to Domenica –

the one with the two sons, Freighter and Tanker. Freighter was a clever boy, Henry said, but Tanker was not. Henry suggested that this could be because he was really not the son of the woman’s husband, but the result of an affair she had had with a fisherman from a neighbouring village. Domenica did not note this last piece of information down. Once an anthropologist began to question acknowledged genealogy, then everything could unravel.

After they had talked for an hour or so, Domenica asked Henry about the pirates’ work. She explained that she had seen the men going off early in the morning, walking down the path that led to the sea. Was this them setting off to work?

Yes, said Henry. That was exactly it. He paused for a moment and then asked Domenica whether she would like him to take her – discreetly, of course – to watch what they got up to. They could follow them in his small boat, he said. Would she like to do that?

Domenica only hesitated for a moment before she said yes.

She had not imagined that she would get mixed up in piracy, but this offer was just too tempting to resist. And she would not actually participate in any illegal activities. That was out of the question. She would simply watch.

“Tumora moningtaim,” said Henry. “Samting sikispela.

Klosap haus bilong mipela” (Tomorrow morning, then. Around about six. At my house).

98. Poor Lou

“You look very pleased with yourself,” said Big Lou to Matthew as he entered the coffee bar that morning. “Have you sold a painting?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” said Matthew, smiling broadly at Lou. “This very morning. A man came in and took a shine to those McCosh bird paintings I had. He said: ‘This man is the new Thorburn’, and bought all three of them.”

Big Lou wiped her cloth over the surface of the bar. “He saw a bargain,” she said. “Maybe you should have hung onto them.

There must be people who think that about their Hockneys and their Bacons.”

“But I don’t want to hold onto them,” said Matthew. “I want people to know about him. There he is, the finest wildfowl painter to come along for a long, long time. Right on our doorstep. Right outside Edinburgh. All those beautiful paintings. I want people to have them. I don’t want to sit on them.”

“Well,” said Lou. “They’ve gone now.”

Matthew smiled pleasantly. He was pleased about the sale of the paintings, but that was not the real reason for his positive state of mind. He looked at Big Lou, busying herself now with the mysteries of her coffee-making craft. Should he tell her?

“Actually, Lou,” he said. “I’m feeling rather happy.”

“Aye,” said Big Lou, without turning round. “Well, that’s good to hear, Matthew.”

“Aren’t you interested in hearing why, Lou?”

Lou laughed. “I’m going to hear anyway.”

“Pat,” said Matthew, simply.

“What about her?” asked Lou. “Is she coming over for coffee?”

“No, she has a lecture. She’s up at the university.”

Big Lou turned round with the cup of coffee. “Well, she is a student, after all,” she said. “I suppose that she has to show up there from time to time.”

Matthew did not take his cup of coffee to his table, but stayed where he was, at the bar. “Pat and I . . .” he began. “Well, Pat and I are going out together.” He paused, adding rather lamely: 308 Poor Lou

“I thought you would be interested to hear that.”

Big Lou reached for her cloth and began to polish the bar with vigorous circular sweeps.

“Are you sure about this?” she said.

Matthew seemed taken aback, almost crestfallen. “Sure? Well, yes, of course I’m sure. I’ve liked Pat a lot right from the beginning. When she first came to work for me . . .”

“That’s the point,” said Big Lou. “She came to work for you.”

“I don’t see . . .”

Big Lou put her cloth to one side and leaned over to take hold of Matthew’s forearm. “Matthew: that girl is younger that you. She’s a nice girl, sure enough, but there she is at the beginning of her time at university. She’s just starting. She’ll be looking for something very different from what you’re looking for. She will be wanting a bit of fun. Parties and so on. What do you think you’re looking for? You’re almost twenty-nine. You’re thinking of settling down. That’s when men start to think of settling down. You need somebody your own age.”

“There’s only eight years between us,” said Matthew. “That’s nothing.”

Big Lou shook her head. “Eight years can be a big difference at certain stages in our lives. It all depends on where you are.

There’s a big difference between being two and being ten, and between being ten and being eighteen. You see? Big differences.”

“I’m not Eddie . . .” Matthew began, and immediately regretted what he had said.

Big Lou looked at him. “I didn’t say you were Eddie,” she said quietly. “I didn’t say that.”

She looked at him, and Matthew saw that her eyes were filling with tears. She lifted her cloth and wiped at her eyes and cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Lou,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I wasn’t thinking . . .”

“I ken fine what he’s like,” sobbed Big Lou, her shoulders shaking. “I ken he’s no a guid man. But I loved him, Matthew.

I thought I could change him. You know how it is. You have somebody you think has some good points and you think that those will be enough.”

Poor Lou 309

Matthew waited, but Big Lou said nothing more.

“Have you seen him?” he asked gently. “Have you ended it with him?”

Big Lou rubbed at her eyes. “I have. I saw him and told him that I didn’t think that it would work. Not after this last business with those girls down at that club of his. He said that I was being unreasonable but that he didn’t want to carry on with a woman who would lock him away. That’s what he said. Lock him away.”

“You’re well rid of him, Lou. You really are. And there’ll be other men. There are lots of nice men in this town. There are plenty of nice men who would appreciate somebody like you, Lou.”

Lou shook her head. “I’ll be going back to Arbroath,” she said. “There’s an old cousin of my father’s who needs looking after. I’ve done that sort of thing before. I can do that.”

“But Lou!” said Matthew. “You can’t leave us! You can’t leave all this . . .” He gestured helplessly about the room. At the tables.

At the newspaper rack with its out-of-date newspapers. At the rickety stairs outside.

“I don’t want to,” said Lou. “But I don’t see what else I can do. You see, when Eddie and I got engaged, I made over a half share in the business to him. Now he wants the money for that, and I can’t pay him. So he’s going to insist on selling the coffee bar. And he can, according to the agreement that his lawyer drew up.”

Matthew stood quite still. He had heard about the money that Eddie had persuaded Lou to give him; this, though, was new, and more serious. But then he thought: I have four million pounds.

And if one has four million pounds there are occasions when one should use that financial power to make a difference to the lives of others. This, he thought, was just such an occasion.

“I’ll buy him out, Lou,” he said. “I’ll buy him out and we can get rid of him that way.”

Big Lou shook her head. “I could never accept that, Matthew,”

she said. “You’re a good boy. I’ve known that all along. But I can’t accept that from you. I just can’t.”

99. And Here’s the Train to Glasgow, Again For the rest of that day, after his conversation in the coffee bar, Matthew was preoccupied with thoughts of how he could contact Stuart. He knew that Stuart lived in Scotland Street, and he thought it was somewhere near Pat’s former flat. But he wasn’t sure of Stuart’s surname, nor of exactly where he worked, and Pat, who might be expected to know, for some reason was not answering her mobile phone.

He had to see Stuart as soon as possible. Stuart had said that he knew somebody in Glasgow who could help Lou. Had he contacted him? Had he come up with anything? Matthew realised that unless they were able to do something quickly, then Big Lou would sell the coffee bar and go back to Arbroath. He could not allow that to happen – he would not allow it. Big Lou was a feature of his life and, he suspected, the lives of so many others in that part of town. If she went, a little bit of the character of the place would die. One of the new coffee bars would move in, with its standard international décor and its bland sameness. The coffee might be good enough, but these places spelled death to the particular, to the sense of place that a real local coffee bar embodied. They were simply without character, although they might never understand how people could think that. But people did. It was the difference between French cheese, unpasteurised and odiferous (but divine), and the processed rubbery paste that the big food interests passed off as cheese. International business, once allowed to stalk uncontrolled, killed the local, the small, the quirky. International business, thought Matthew, had ruined cheese, will ruin wine, and then will move on to ruin everything. No, he thought, Big Lou’s little coffee bar was now the front line.

Eventually, Matthew decided that the only thing he could do was to go to the Cumberland Bar shortly after five that evening and wait to see if Stuart came in. And if he did not, he could ask the barman or one of the regulars; somebody was bound to know where he lived.

As it happened, Matthew did not have long to wait. Shortly And Here’s the Train to Glasgow, Again 311

before five-thirty, Stuart came in and walked over to the bar.

Matthew left his seat to intercept him. “Listen,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to you urgently. I’ve already bought you a drink. It’s at the table.” He took Stuart by the elbow and led him away from the bar.

Stuart was slightly irritated by Matthew’s insistence, but he was in a good humour, as he had been left on his own for a couple of hours. Bertie had been returned safely from Paris that afternoon and had been dragged off for a specially-arranged session with Dr Fairbairn. The psychotherapist had been asked to determine whether there was any psychological trauma that might result from the experience of being left in Paris; Irene was of the view that early identification of trauma helped to reduce its long-term impact. And anything could have happened in Paris; anything. In fact, Bertie had enjoyed himself immensely, and had felt his heart sink when he returned to the hotel after the Sorbonne lecture to discover his mother, and several French policemen, waiting for him. The sight of the policemen had not worried him, but the realisation that his mother had come to take him home had filled him with such despair that he had burst into tears. This had been interpreted by Irene as a sign of trauma.

“My wee boy’s just come back from Paris,” Stuart remarked conversationally, as they went over to Matthew’s table. “He went over there with an orchestra. Then they somehow managed to . . .”

“Oh yes,” said Matthew, without any real interest. “Good.”

They sat down and Matthew got straight to the point. “You said you knew somebody in Glasgow who might get Eddie to pay Lou back,” he said. “Any progress?”

Stuart smiled. “Steady on,” he said. “It was just an idea.”

“But you do know somebody?” Matthew pressed.

“Yes,” said Stuart. “I do.”

“Well can we go and see him right now?” said Matthew, looking at his watch. “We could get the six o’clock from Waverley if we rush.”

“But hold on,” said Stuart. “I’m not sure if I want to go to Glasgow tonight.”

312 And Here’s the Train to Glasgow, Again Matthew looked at him pleadingly. “Please,” he said. “A lot depends on this.”

Stuart sighed. “I’ve just got back from work. I don’t want to sit in a train . . .”

“We’ll take a taxi,” said Matthew. “I’ll pay for the whole thing.

Taxi there. Taxi back. Same taxi – I’ll pay the waiting time. Let’s just do it.”

Stuart studied Matthew’s expression for a few moments and realised that he was desperate. He remembered, too, how he had felt when he had heard the story of Big Lou having her money effectively stolen. If he really disapproved, then he should have the courage of his convictions and do something, rather than just talk. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get up to Waverley.

It’ll be quicker by train.”

They caught a taxi at the end of Cumberland Street and just made the six o’clock train. As the train drew out of town, Matthew looked out into the gathering darkness of the late autumn evening. There were clusters of light here and there, and beyond them the dark shape of the hills. That was what the world is like, he thought: a dark place, with small clusters of light here and there, where there is justice and concord between men.

A man came through with a trolley and at Stuart’s request poured them each a cup of tea. Matthew paid, and they sat back in their seats with the scalding tea before them. The man at the trolley was good-natured. “There you are, boys,” he said, handing them little cartons of milk to go with their tea. “That’ll keep you going over there in Glasgow. You’ll no get ony tea over there!” He smiled at them, and they smiled back. On these small kindnesses, thought Matthew, is everything built. And Scotland was good at that, for all its faults. People were, on the whole, kind, and they were particularly kind in Glasgow, he remembered. Of course one would get tea over there!

“Stuart, tell me about this man we’re going to see,” Matthew said. “What’s he like?”

Stuart smiled. “You’ll be able to tell that he doesn’t come from Edinburgh,” he said.

100. Grey over Riddrie

Grey over Riddrie, thought Stuart as the train wound its way through Glasgow, just short of Queen Street Station. Grey over Riddrie . . . and then? Something about the clouds. The clouds piled up . . . Yes, that was it. That was the first line of Edwin Morgan’s poem about King Billy, a Glasgow gang leader who had one of those showy funerals which brought out all the hard men, the troops, the foot-soldiers of ancient gang battles. He thought about the haunting poem each time he saw Riddrie, and remembered, too, how he had learned of it in his final year at school. It had been read out in class by the English teacher and there had been a complete silence when he came to the end, so powerful was its effect. And now, all these years later, here he was going to see just such a man, although Lard O’Connor was not quite King Billy. They were distinguished by a small matter of religious affiliations, apart from anything else.

Matthew and Stuart had only to wait a few minutes for a taxi and then set off for the Dumbarton Road. Stuart could not remember Lard O’Connor’s precise address, but he had no difficulty in describing the small cul-de-sac where he and Bertie had first made Lard’s acquaintance.

The taxi driver knew immediately. “That’ll be Lard O’Connor’s place, then?” he asked.

Stuart was somewhat taken aback by this, and resorted to his civil service language in reply. “That would appear to be the case,” he said. “Assuming that this Lard O’Connor to whom you refer is . . .”

“Listen, Jim,” said the taxi driver. “There’s only one Lard O’Connor, see? And that’s this Lard O’Connor. He’s your man.

You owe him money, then?”

“Of course not,” said Stuart tetchily.

“There’s lots of folks do,” said the driver. “Lard’s very easy on the loans. But not so easy if you don’t pay him back like.”

“You could say the same thing for the banks,” said Stuart.

“Aye,” said the taxi driver, “but they don’t have enforcers.”

“Yes they do,” chipped in Matthew. “They call them solicitors.”

314 Grey over Riddrie

“You trying to be funny, son?” asked the taxi driver. “Because I’m no laughing.”

They travelled in silence for a while. Then the taxi driver, appearing to relent slightly on his shortness with Matthew, asked:

“So if you don’t owe Lard money, then do you mind my asking why you’re going to see him? It’s just that you don’t look like the typical boys that go to see Lard. No offence, but you’re not

. . . Know what I mean?”

“We want Lard’s help,” said Stuart, “on a private matter.”

The driver glanced in his mirror. “I hope you two can look after yoursels. That’s all I’m going to say.”

The rest of the journey was completed in silence, and they soon drew up in front of Lard’s front door. Of course they had no idea as to whether he was going to be in, and the whole trip could well have been in vain, but they saw, with relief, that there were lights on.

“He’s in,” said Stuart. “Look, his lights are on.”

“That means nothing,” said the taxi driver. “If you’re Lard O’Connor you never pit your lights oot. There’s too many people want to pit them oot for you. So you never pit them oot. Know what I mean?”

Matthew paid the taxi driver and they walked up Lard’s short front path to knock on the door. At first there was no reply, and so they knocked again. A third knock brought sounds of activity within and the door, still restrained by a heavy security chain, was inched open.

“Well!” exclaimed a voice from the other side of the door.

“If it isn’t my friend Stewie and . . . and who’re you?”

“This is a friend of mine,” said Stuart. “You haven’t met him, Lard, but he’s OK.” Stuart was not sure that this was the right thing to say, but he had heard people say it in several films, and so he decided that he should say it too.

It appeared to work. There was a metallic sound in the hall on the other side, and then the door was opened entirely. Lard stood there, a great Munro of a man, wearing a collarless shirt, a pair of shapeless black trousers and scuffed leather slippers. In spite of his efforts not to stare, Matthew could not help but gaze Grey over Riddrie 315

in wonderment at the substantial Glaswegian, his stomach hanging over the leather belt that struggled to hold up his trousers.

“Now then, Stewie,” said Lard, as he led them through to the sitting room at the back of the house. “How’s my friend, wee Bertie? He’s a great wee fellow that one, sure he is. Wasted over in Edinburgh. You should send him over here to get a good education. Hutchie’s, or somewhere like that. I could have a word with them and make sure they found a place for him.”

“That’s very kind of you, Lard,” said Stuart. “But he’s very happy where he is.”

“Pity,” said Lard. “The problem with Edinburgh is attitude, know what I mean? All those airs and graces like. You don’t want wee Bertie growing up to be like you fellows, Stewie, do you?”

“Hah!” said Stuart. “That’s very funny, Lard!”

Lard turned round. “It wisnae meant to be funny, Stewie.”

“Well, maybe not,” said Stuart. “But the whole point of our visit, Lard, is to ask your help. To ask for a favour.”

“Aye, that’s what everybody wants,” sighed Lard. “But you tell me what you have in mind.”

So Matthew explained about Big Lou and her predicament, and at the end of his explanation Stuart wondered whether Lard might perhaps be prepared to have a word with Eddie about returning the money and tearing up the business agreement.

Lard thought for a moment. “She sounds like a good wummin, this Big Lou. I don’t like to hear about ungentlemanly behaviour towards good wummin.”

“So you think you might be able to help?” asked Matthew eagerly.

“I’ll go over and have a word with this Eddie,” said Lard.

“Me and my boys might just give him a wee warning. Just threaten to rain on his parade. It usually works, particularly with characters like this Eddie, who sounds a wee bit sketchy to me, know what I mean?”

“But you won’t do anything actually illegal, will you?” asked Stuart.

316 On the Doorstep

Lard smiled. “I never do anything didgy-dodgy, Stewie. You know me better than that.”

On the way back on the train, Matthew turned to Stuart and said: “What a charming man Mr O’Connor is.”

To which Stuart replied: “Helpful, too.”

101. On the Doorstep

Angus Lordie did not like to prevaricate, but he had certainly been putting off the visit that he knew he must make to 44 Scotland Street and, in particular, to Antonia Collie, Domenica’s tenant during her absence in the Far East. Now he could put it off no longer, and he knew that he must go and present an apology in person. A letter would not be enough, particularly now that a good week had elapsed since Antonia had come to dinner in his flat.

To say that the evening had not been a success would be to put it mildly. We all have our memories of awkward social evenings – occasions when the conversation has faltered, when the guests have disliked one another with cordial intensity, when the soufflés have collapsed or, worse still, congealed. Angus remembered one occasion on which the host had become so drunk that he had fallen off his chair halfway through the meal, and another where the hostess, under the influence of medica-tion, had gone to sleep in the middle of the second course and could only be roused by physical shaking. These were but nothing, though, to his intimate dinner party with Antonia, at which . . . well, he preferred not to dwell too much on what had happened. Human memory, if not reminded of the details, has a useful way of obliterating such events, and Angus did not wish to compromise it in this task.

But he knew that an apology was required, and he would give it. So he brushed Cyril and made him chew one of the canine personal freshness pills which he had acquired on his last visit to the vet. These pills helped; he was sure of it. And just to be on the safe side, Angus popped one into his own mouth and On the Doorstep 317

chewed it himself. It did not taste unpleasant; rather like parsley, he thought.

They walked slowly round Drummond Place, with Cyril sniffing conscientiously at the railings every few yards and keeping a good look-out for the cats which prowled around the neighbourhood. It was Cyril’s ambition to kill one of these cats, if he could get hold of it, even though he knew that this would result in the most intense fuss and several blows with a rolled-up copy of The Scotsman. Indeed, in Cyril’s view The Scotsma n was an artefact which was produced solely for the purpose of hitting dogs, and he always gave piles of the newspaper a wide berth when he saw them in newsagents’ shops.

They reached the top of Scotland Street and began the stroll down the sharply descending street towards the door to No 44.

Cyril had been used to being tied up to the railings while Angus went in, but after the unfortunate incident in which he had been stolen from the railings outside Valvona & Crolla, Angus now insisted on taking Cyril inside and would never leave him un-attended on the street.

They walked upstairs together, and with heavy heart Angus ran Domenica’s bell. One part of him hoped that Antonia would be out and there would be no answer – if that happened, then at least he could tell himself that he had made the effort. But another, more responsible part told him that if he did not see her this evening, he would have to see her tomorrow, or the day after that. And with every passing day the apology would become more difficult.

The door opened.

“Antonia, my dear . . .” He half expected her to close the door in his face, but she did not. In fact, she seemed neither surprised nor outraged to see him.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you. I have been waiting for a parcel and I wondered if you were it.”

Angus shook his head. “I am empty-handed, as you see. Except for the apology that I bring with me.” He was rather pleased with the speed with which he had managed to bring up the subject, and he smiled broadly, largely with relief.

318 On the Doorstep

“Apology?” asked Antonia. “Why? What do you need to apologise for?”

Angus was taken aback. “The other evening,” he stuttered.

“My . . . er . . . my . . .”

Antonia cut him short. “Oh that! Heavens, you don’t have to apologise for that! In fact, I found the whole thing rather amusing. Dental anaesthetics can do all sorts of things to people.

It’s hardly your fault.”

Angus had to think quickly. He had no recollection of attributing his condition that evening to the fact of having had a dental anaesthetic, but the excuse sounded like him. Now, should he say anything else; should he confess to her that he had been drunk, or should he leave it at that? It was a difficult decision to make, but he rather inclined to the line of least resistance, which was dental.

But then Antonia said: “But of course you had drunk an awful lot of wine,” she said. “So that made it worse, no doubt.”

Angus gave a nervous laugh. “Brunello di Montalcino,” he said. “Such excellent wine! When the Queen had dinner with the President of Italy, that’s what they had.”

“In moderation, no doubt,” said Antonia drily.

“Hah!” said Angus. This was not as easy as he had hoped.

“Oh well! I always remember that great man, Sir Thomas Broun Smith, saying that what a man said after midnight should never be held against him. Such a generous sentiment, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” said Antonia. “Except in your case it would have to be after six p.m.”

Angus, in his embarrassment, looked down at Cyril, who looked back up at him. Cyril was uncertain what to do, but he sensed that things were not going well. Antonia’s ankles were directly in front of him, and he wondered if it would help if he bit them. But then there was The Scotsman to worry about, and he decided not to risk it.

“Anyway,” said Antonia briskly. “It’s very rude of me to keep you standing on the doorstep. Do come in and have a cup of tea or something . . .”

Antonia Expounds 319

“Weaker?” joked Angus. “Well, thank you very much, I shall. I must say, it’s always very nice to be back in this flat.

Domenica and I used to have such wonderful conversations together.”

“She’ll be back sooner rather than later,” said Antonia. “And then I shall move in over the way. As it happens, the flat opposite is coming up for rent and I’ve taken it.”

“But that’s wonderful news,” said Angus. He was not sure, though, whether it really was.

102. Antonia Expounds

Antonia was not one to harbour a grudge, and in spite of her acerbic comments about Angus Lordie’s unfortunate behaviour at the dinner to which he had invited her, she did not intend to raise the matter again. Domenica liked this rather peculiar man and Antonia felt that she should make an effort to do so too.

So, having invited Angus into the flat, she led him into the study and invited him to sit down while she fetched coffee and short-bread.

“How is your book . . . your novel going?” Angus inquired politely as he sipped at his coffee. “The one about the Scottish saints?”

Antonia sighed. “Not very well, I’m afraid. My saints, I regret to say, are misbehaving. I had hoped that they would show themselves to be, well, saintly, but they are not. They are distressingly full of human foibles. There’s a lot of jealousy and back-biting going on.”

Angus was puzzled. Antonia was talking of her characters as if they had independent lives of their own. But they were her creations, surely, and that meant that they should do their creator’s bidding. If she wanted saintly saints, she could have them. “But you’re the author,” he said. “You can dictate what the people in your book do, can you not?”

Antonia reached out for her cup of coffee. “Not at all,” she 320 Antonia Expounds

said. “People misunderstand how writers work. They think that they sit down and plan what is going to happen and then simply write it up. But it doesn’t work that way.”

Angus looked at Antonia with interest. Some of his paintings had turned out very differently from what he had had in mind at the beginning. Light became dark. And dark became light.

Was this the same process? He had thought it was simply mood, but was it possible that the work acquired its own momentum, its own view of things?

“Oh yes,” Antonia went on. “The author is not in control. Or, rather, the conscious mind of the author is not in control. And the reason for that is that when we use our imagination we get in touch with that part of the mind which is asking the ‘what if’

questions. And that is not part of the conscious mind.”

“What if?”

“Precisely,” said Antonia. “What if. All the time, every moment, your mind is going through possibilities. Any time you look at things. You’re busy recognising and classifying what you see.

Thousands and thousands – countless thousands of times a day.

Your brain is saying: that thing has four legs, ergo it’s a table; or that thing has four legs, but it’s got fur – it’s a dog. And so on.

That’s how we understand the world. We don’t think of it, and you don’t see yourself doing it, but it’s fairly obvious if you watch a baby. You can actually see them doing it. Watch a baby while it looks at things, and you can see the mental wheels turn round.

They sit and look at things intently, working out what they are.”

“I see all that,” said Angus. “But what’s that got to do with . . . ?”

“With writing? Well, a similar process is happening when you write a story. The unconscious mind is asking questions and then exploring possible outcomes. These then surface in the conscious mind, in the same way perhaps as speech surfaces, and become the words that tell the story. And exactly the same thing happens when somebody writes a piece of music or, I should imagine, paints a painting.”

“So art reveals the unconscious?” asked Angus. “Do I give myself away in what I paint?”

Antonia Expounds 321

“Of course you do,” said Antonia. “There’s nothing new in that. Unless a work of art obeys very strict rules of genre, then it’s often going to say: this is what the artist really wants. This is what he really wants to do.”

“Always?” asked Angus.

“Almost always. But there is more to it than that. The unconscious mind reveals itself in the story it creates. A writer who writes lurid descriptions of the sexual, for example, is simply revealing: this is what I want to do myself. Yes! That’s a thought, isn’t it? Some of us are charmingly naive and don’t realise that is what we are announcing to the world. We are acting out our own internal dramas. And that, I suppose, is inevitable and is just part of the business of being a writer. People are going to pick over what you write and say: ah, so that’s what you’re really about! You hate your father or your mother or both of them.

You had an overly strict toilet training. You’re trying to recreate your first love. And so on.”

“And your saints? What does that tell us about you?”

Antonia did not answer for a moment. She looked intently at Angus, and for a moment he thought that he had overstepped some unspoken limit in the conversation. Perhaps there would be more to apologise for; but then she spoke. “The problem with my saints is that I was consciously willing them to repre-322 Imaginary Friends

sent something. I wanted them to stand for the triumph of the will to good. I take it that you know what that is. The sheer yearning that we have for the good – for light rather than darkness, for harmony rather than disharmony, for kindness rather than cruelty. That’s what I wanted. And instead of being these

. . . these symbols, they’ve turned out to be distressingly human.”

“But surely that’s better. Surely that makes them more realistic.”

Antonia smiled. “That’s assuming that realism is the only goal we should pursue. Would you say that about painting? Surely not. So why say it about literature? Why does everything have to be realistic? It doesn’t. Surely we can be more subtle than that. No, it’s not the realism issue with me. I’m reconciled to these flawed saints, as long as their human failings don’t obscure the ultimate point that I want to achieve.”

“Which is?”

“The achievement of a philosophically acceptable resolution.

I want their vision of justice and good to prevail.”

“And is that the only possible ending?” asked Angus.

“No,” said Antonia. “Things can end badly, as they sometimes do in life. But if they do, then we know that something is wrong, just as we know it when a piece of music doesn’t resolve itself properly at the end. We know that. We just do. And so we prefer harmony.”

“And everybody lives happily ever after?” asked Angus.

Antonia stared at him. “Do you really want it to be otherwise?” she asked.

103. Imaginary Friends

“Now then, Bertie,” said Dr Fairbairn, “Mummy tells me you’ve been away for a little trip.” Bertie, seated on the couch to the side of Dr Fairbairn’s desk, glanced nervously at the psychotherapist. “Yes,” he said. “I went to Paris.”

“Ah,” said Dr Fairbairn. “That’s a beautiful city, isn’t it? Did you like it, Bertie?”

Imaginary Friends 323

“It was very nice,” said Bertie.

“Are you sure?” asked Dr Fairbairn. It was very common for the object of dread to be described in positive terms.

“Yes,” said Bertie. He paused. Had Dr Fairbairn been to Paris himself? Perhaps he knew Jean-François François; they were quite alike in some ways. “Have you been to Paris, Dr Fairbairn?”

“I have, Bertie,” replied Dr Fairbairn. “And tell me, what did you notice about Paris? Did you notice that it has something sticking up in it?”

Bertie thought for a moment. “You mean the Eiffel Tower, Dr Fairbairn?”

Dr Fairbairn nodded gravely, and wrote something on his notepad. By craning his neck, Bertie could see that there were two words: Eiffel Tower.

“I do mean the Eiffel Tower, Bertie. You saw the Eiffel Tower, did you?”

Bertie nodded. “Yes, we all went there. The whole orchestra.

We went up the tower in one of the lifts. They have lifts which take you up to the top, or almost.”

“And did you like the Eiffel Tower, Bertie? You weren’t frightened of it, were you?”

Bertie shook his head. Why should he be frightened of the Eiffel Tower? Had Dr Fairbairn been frightened of the Eiffel Tower when he went to Paris?

“Well,” said Dr Fairbairn. “And what else did you do in Paris, Bertie?”

“I went to lunch with some friends I made,” said Bertie. “They were very nice. And then we went to a lecture. There was a man called Mr François who gave a lecture. Then I went back to the hotel. And that’s when Mummy came to fetch me.”

Dr Fairbairn looked out of the window. “And were you happy when Mummy came to fetch you in Paris?” he asked. “Or were you sad to leave Paris?”

Bertie thought for a moment. “I would have liked to stay there a little longer. I would have liked to spend more time with my friends.”

Dr Fairbairn turned back from the window. Progress at last.

324 Imaginary Friends

It was quite unlikely that this little boy had gone out and made friends in Paris; these friends, therefore, were imaginary. And that, he decided, was a very promising line of inquiry. Bertie was a highly intelligent little boy and such children frequently created imaginary friends for themselves. And if one could get some sort of insight into these strange, insubstantial companions, then a great deal could be discovered about the psycho-dynamics of the particular child’s world.

“Tell me about your friends, Bertie,” said Dr Fairbairn quietly.

“Do you have a best friend?”

There was a silence as Bertie thought about this question.

He would have liked to have a best friend, but he was not sure that he did. But if he told Dr Fairbairn that he did not have one, then he would think that nobody liked him. So he decided that it would have to be Tofu.

“There’s Tofu,” he said. “He’s my best friend.” He paused, and then added: “I think.”

Dr Fairbairn watched Bertie closely. There had been hesitation, which was significant. That was the internal debate as to whether to take him into his confidence. And then there had been the “I think” added on at the end. That made it quite clear, as did the name. Tofu. No real child would be called that. No: Tofu was one of these imaginary friends. And now that he had been declared, some progress might be made with working out what was going on in this interesting little mind. Dr Fairbairn mentally rubbed his hands with glee. There was a growing literature on children’s imaginary friends, and he might perhaps add to it. There was Marjorie Taylor’s ground-breaking Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them. That was a very useful study, but there was always room for more, and it would be especially interesting to see what role an imaginary companion played in the life of this particularly complex young child.

“Tell me about Tofu,” he asked gently. “Is he always there?”

Bertie stared at Dr Fairbairn. What a peculiar question to ask. Of course Tofu was not always there. He saw him at school and that was all. There was nobody who was always there, except Imaginary Friends 325

perhaps his mother, and even she was not there sometimes.

“No,” he said. “He’s not always there. Just sometimes.”

Dr Fairbairn nodded. “Of course,” he said. “But when he is there, you know, don’t you?”

Bertie’s eyes widened. “Yes,” he said. “I can tell when he’s there.”

“But he’s not with us at the moment, is he?” asked Dr Fairbairn.

Bertie decided to remain calm. In his experience, the best thing to do was to humour Dr Fairbairn. If one did that, then he usually quietened down.

“No,” said Bertie. “He’s not here at the moment. But I may see him tomorrow.”

Dr Fairbairn nodded. “Of course. And does he talk to you?”

“Yes,” said Bertie. “Tofu can talk. He’s just like any other boy.”

“Of course,” said Dr Fairbairn. “Of course he is. He’s very real, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Bertie. His voice was small now.

“Does Mummy see Tofu too?” coaxed Dr Fairbairn.

“No,” said Bertie. His mother rarely saw Tofu. Sometimes she spotted him at the school gate, but Tofu usually left before Irene arrived, and Bertie did not encourage any contact, as he knew that she had never liked Tofu since he had exchanged his jeans for Bertie’s crushed-strawberry dungarees.

“And do you think that Mummy would like Tofu?” asked Dr Fairbairn. “That is, if she could see him.”

“No,” said Bertie.

Dr Fairbairn was silent. It was classic. This Tofu was a complete projection, and if he could be fleshed out, a great deal would be revealed. But more than that: he could also become a therapeutic ally.

As Dr Fairbairn gazed thoughtfully at Bertie, so too did Bertie gaze at the psychotherapist. When they eventually took Dr Fairbairn off to hospital – to Carstairs – thought Bertie, would he be able to make friends there?

Perhaps not, but then maybe he would be able to invent a 326 Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates friend. That would keep him from feeling too lonely. He could call her Melanie if she was a woman. That would be nice. Or Sigmund, if he was a man. That would be nice too, thought Bertie.

104. Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates Sikispela moningtaim – or six in the morning – and Domenica made her way across the compound to Henry’s house. A heavy mist had descended, and the trees on the edge of the village were shrouded in white, lending the whole place a distinctly eerie feeling. Domenica shivered. She was cold now, but there was no point in bringing any warm clothing with her as the heat would build up the moment the mist burned off – and it always did that.

The pirates, she had noticed, left for work between seven and eight in the morning, which meant that she and Henry had an hour or so to prepare to follow them. Henry had a boat, she had learned, and they would set off in this and wait to follow the pirates at a safe distance.

Henry came out to meet her. He was wearing a pair of long khaki shorts that reached down to just below his knees, and no shirt. His arms, Domenica noticed, were scrawny, and bore tattoos of Chinese characters. Across his chest there was tattooed a large dragon rampant.

“I hope that this mist won’t keep them in this morning,” said Domenica, in Pidgin.

“No danger of that,” replied Henry. “Pirates actually rather like mist. It gives them the advantage of surprise.”

“I suppose so,” said Domenica. She shuddered as she thought of the victims’ feelings as the pirate boats appeared out of the mists, like wraiths. Since she had arrived in the pirate community, she had tried not to dwell too much on the fact that she was living in close proximity with criminals. There was a certain unpalatability to that, and yet, if one paused to think about it, Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates 327

one had to acknowledge that anthropology, like reporting, involved the observation of appalling or distasteful things. If anthropologists were to refuse to observe those of whom they disapproved, then whole swathes of human experience –

polygamy, undemocratic or autocratic authority structures, exploitative or repressive social relationships; all of these would remain unstudied. So there could be no corners into which the inquiring human mind should not probe, and that meant that somebody had to study pirates.

Of course of all of humanity’s strange sub-groups, pirates were perhaps in a class of their own. These people, Domenica reflected, were living outside the law and outside society. Being a pirate was as close as one could come to being caput lupinum; such a person could in the past have been knocked on the head as if he were a wolf, and it would not be murder. Such days were behind us, of course, but there were still people who were beyond the pale, outside the law, and who were liable to be hunted mercilessly.

Of course, one might say that it was their own fault; that they chose to be pirates. But had they really made such a choice?

One thing which her research had uncovered was that many of the people who lived in the village were the offspring of pirates themselves, and indeed came from old pirate families. For many, what they become is not really a matter of choice. We tend to follow the paths that are set out for us in our childhood, and if those paths are the paths of piracy, then it must presumably take a great effort to escape them. And not everyone is capable of that effort. It was the same, she thought, as one of those East Lothian golf clubs where many of the members were the sons of members, just like the pirates. It was all rather sad.

Henry fetched a small can of petrol from underneath his veranda and then indicated to Domenica that she should follow him down the path that led to the sea.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, her voice kept low so as not to alert anybody of their departure.

“We go out to sea,” Henry replied. “Then we wait. When the pirates come out, we follow them and see what they get up to.”

328 Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates

“But won’t they see us?” asked Domenica.

“No,” said Henry. “There will be many waves. Our little boat will be hidden in the waves. They will not see us.”

“But if they do?” pressed Domenica.

“Bot digim hol bilong solwara,” replied Henry casually.

“Yumitupela dae pinis. Pinis bot” (lit: Boat digs hole in the sea.

You and I die finish. Finish boat).

Domenica digested this information as they reached the end of the path and found themselves at the small cluster of jetties to which the pirate vessels were moored. These were long, black-painted boats to which powerful outboard motors had been attached. Bright paintings had been worked on the prows of these boats – pictures of swordfish, shells and the occasional dragon. Henry’s boat, a much more modest craft, had no picture, but was painted in a drab brown, reminiscent, Domenica thought, of the shade with which the Victorians liked to paint the anaglypta in their dreary halls and studies.

Henry held Domenica’s hand as she stepped gingerly into the boat. Then he himself boarded, whipped the small outboard engine into life, and untied the boat’s painter. In the heavy, mist-laden air, the engine was almost inaudible, like the purring of a cat. Domenica sat forward and watched the water slip past the side of the boat as they cleared the shallows that provided natural protection for the jetties. The water was flat and almost olive-coloured, and as she watched it, a flying fish suddenly launched itself into the air and skimmed the wavelets, a flash of silver against the green. “Pis bilong airplane” (lit: aeroplane fish), observed Henry, pointing at the ripples where the fish had re-entered the water.

They moved away from the coast and soon they were unable to see anything but the all-enveloping mist. Domenica wondered how Henry would be able to navigate in these conditions – was it some sixth sense, the inbuilt feeling for direction enjoyed by pigeons and cats? And pirates? Or was he counting on being able to see something when the mist lifted?

After half an hour or so, Henry cut the engine of the boat, sat back, and wiped his brow with the engine cloth. He smiled at Domenica.

At the Warehouse 329

“Do you know where we are?” Domenica inquired.

Henry shook his head. “Yumitupela lus,” he said simply. “Lus bilong sno” (You and I are lost. We are lost in this fog. Sno is fog in Neo-Melanesian Pidgin. There is no word for snow, unless, possibly, it is fog).

105. At the Warehouse

Domenica had never panicked in all her years of anthropological fieldwork. She had remained calm when she had been obliged to spend four days in an ice shelter with some hospitable Inuit in the North-West Territories of Canada before weather conditions had allowed help to arrive from Fort Smith. That had been an interesting time, and she had learned a great deal about local counting rhymes and fishing lore. Then, in the New Guinea Highlands, she had been resolute in the face of a demand from some of her hosts that she be sold – for an undisclosed sum, and purpose – to a neighbouring group to whom some ancient debt was payable. Reason – and market forces – had prevailed in that case and the matter had been settled. But even when it looked as if the decision would go the other way, Domenica had been digni-fied and detached. “If I were ever to be sold,” she told herself,

“then I would prefer to be sold at Jenners.”

Now, drifting in that silent boat with the retired pirate, Henry, she was determined that she would remain cool and collected; not that there was much point in doing anything else. Henry, it seemed, had no idea of where they were, and the persistence of the fog meant that they were unsure of the location of the sun, or of land, or of anything for that matter, apart from the water, which was all about them.

She tried to work out how far they were from the coast. The engine on Henry’s boat was not a large one, and they could not have been making much more than four knots. If they had been travelling for half an hour, then that suggested that they could not be more than a mile or two from land, assuming that they 330 At the Warehouse

had been heading on a course directly out to sea. It was quite possible, though, that they had been following the coast and that at any moment the fog would lift and they would see mangrove within yards. But then there were currents to be taken into account, and they might, in reality, be miles out by now, out in the Malacca Straits and directly in the course of some great behemoth of a Taiwanese tanker. That would be a sad way to go; crushed beneath the bows of the oil industry – tiny, human, helpless.

Domenica sat back and closed her eyes. She had decided that she would simply wait it out and think while she was doing so.

And there was a great deal to think about. Had she made the right decision as to the distribution of her estate after her death?

The lawyers at Turcan Connell would look after that very well

– she was confident of that – but had she left Miss Paul adequate instructions about what would happen to her library of anthropological books and papers? And she could not remember whether she had been specific enough about the conditions she had attached to the legacy to Angus Lordie. That would require attention if she survived.

But of course I shall survive, she told herself. Nobody succumbs this close to the coast, particularly in busy waters like these. At any moment we shall hear a boat and a friendly pair of hands will indicate where safety lies. At any moment . . .

“Bot,” said Henry suddenly, cupping a hand to his ear. “Bot bilong roscol bilong boscru. Closap.”

Domenica opened her eyes quickly. Henry had heard the pirate boats. She strained to listen. From somewhere close by came the sound of a couple of engines, their droning notes weaving in and out of another, as if in mechanical dance. She looked at Henry. He had now started their own engine, but was keeping the throttle low, to mask the sound, she assumed.

Suddenly, at the very edge of their vision through the fog, they saw a dark shape glide by. A few seconds later, there was another glimpse of the outline of a boat, and then nothing.

Henry swung the prow of their boat round and began to follow. Domenica was not sure about this. Was it a good idea, At the Warehouse 331

she wondered, to set off in pursuit of the pirate boats in weather like this? If the pirates did find prey in such conditions, then would there be anything to observe, or would there just be the sound of shouts and, she hoped not, shots? That would hardly give her an insight into pirate activities. It was a basic rule of anthropological observation that one had to be able actually to see something.

Now that Henry had seen the pirate boats, he seemed to have regained his confidence. Domenica looked at him inquiringly, but he simply waved a hand in the air. So she sat back and, as she had done from the beginning of this extraordinary trip, remained calm.

They had travelled for about twenty minutes before the fog began to lift. Domenica peered about her and was astonished to discover that they were very close to the coast and were coming up to a town of some sort. Now they could make out the two pirate boats, some distance ahead, and they were cruising slowly up to a jetty beside a large warehouse.

Henry cut the motor of his boat and waited. The pirate boats had now nosed into the jetty and had been secured by their occupants. Then the pirates clambered out and began to walk into the warehouse. One of the men coughed, and the sound reached Henry and Domenica across the water.

“Roscol bilong boscru smok smok,” whispered Henry.

Domenica nodded her agreement. From what she had seen in the village, the pirates were all heavy smokers.

When the last of the pirates had entered the warehouse, Henry started his engine again and they began to inch towards the other side of the jetty. Domenica watched carefully. This was extremely exciting, and she could already imagine her telling this story to Angus Lordie or James Holloway, or Dilly Emslie

– to any of her Edinburgh friends, in fact.

“There I was,” she would say. “There I was with my good friend Henry, creeping up the jetty to peek through the windows of the pirate warehouse. What would I see within? Chests of booty? Wretched captives tied and gagged by these ruffians?

Things that can hardly be described . . . ?”

332 An Unexpected Development

There is a certain self-conscious pleasure in describing, before the event, one’s more distinguished moments, and that is exactly what Domenica experienced, sitting there in the boat, waiting for the adventure to unfold. And it did unfold.

106. An Unexpected Development

Big Lou’s coffee bar was not full that morning – it never was –

but at least Matthew, Pat and Angus Lordie were there, together with Cyril, of course, who lay contentedly beneath one of the tables. Cyril had one eye closed and one eye open, the latter fixed watchfully on Matthew’s ankles, barely eighteen inches away from him. It had been Cyril’s long-cherished ambition to bite Matthew’s ankles, not for reasons of antipathy towards him – Cyril quite liked Matthew – but because of the sheer attractiveness to a dog of that particular set of ankles. But he knew that he could never do this, and so he just watched with one eye, imagining the pleasure of sinking his teeth into that inviting target.

An Unexpected Development 333

The conversation had ranged widely, but had been largely dominated by Angus, who was in an argumentative mood. From time to time, Matthew had thrown an anxious glance in the direction of Big Lou, about whom he was still worried. He had not yet had the opportunity to tell Angus about the trip that he had made to Glasgow with Stuart and about their conversation

– if one could call it that – with Lard O’Connor. He had felt cheered by the trip, but now, seeing Lou still in a despondent state, he wondered whether he was putting too much faith in Lard’s agreement to help. He had tried to convey to him some sense of the urgency which he thought attended the issue, but Lard had been remarkably casual and had told Matthew not to fash himself. Now Matthew wondered if Lard would ever get round to coming over to Edinburgh.

They had finished their first cup of coffee and were on the point of ordering refills when Angus, who was sitting facing the doorway, noticed two shadows on the window which told him that somebody was coming down the stairway from the street.

One of the shadows looked extremely large.

“Here comes a substantial customer,” he remarked.

Matthew turned round, as did Pat, just at the moment that the door was opened. Lard O’Connor stepped into the room, to be followed, immediately, by Eddie. Matthew gasped.

Seeing Matthew at his table, Lard nodded to him and then walked up to the bar, Eddie trailing behind him reluctantly.

“You’re the wummin they call Big Lou?” Lard asked.

“Aye,” said Lou. “That’s me.”

Matthew noticed that as she answered Lard, Big Lou was looking at Eddie. Her expression was a curious one: there was anxiety there, but also an expression that looked very much like regret.

“Hello, Eddie,” said Lou. “I hadn’t expected to see you.” Lard turned to Eddie and gestured for him to come up to the bar.

“Eddie wanted to say something,” he said. “Didn’t you, Eddie?”

Eddie looked helplessly at Lou. Matthew noticed that there was a bruise on one of his cheeks, and one of his eyes, he thought, was badly bloodshot, the surrounding skin discoloured.

“Eddie?” Big Lou’s voice was strained.

334 An Unexpected Development

Eddie looked at Lard, who nodded his head in the direction of Lou.

“Don’t keep us waiting,” muttered Lard. “You know fine what to say.”

“I’ve come to pay you back, Lou,” said Eddie. “I can’t manage the full thirty-four grand, but here’s twenty-five. That’s all I’ve got left.” He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a folded cheque, which he pushed over the counter towards Lou.

“And?” said Lard, glowering at Eddie. “You have another statement to make, don’t you?”

Eddie looked down at the floor. Witnessing his humiliation, Matthew felt almost sorry for him, but then he remembered.

Eddie did not deserve his sympathy. “That thing about the coffee bar,” he said. “That piece of paper you signed. I’ve decided to give my share back to you.” He paused, and looked over his shoulder, as if looking for an escape route.

“And?” said Lard menacingly.

“So here it is,” said Eddie. “I’ve put it in writing.”

“Always get things in writing,” said Lard, turning to address Matthew. “Every time. Never rely on gentlemen’s agreements.

Some people just aren’t gentlemen, know what I mean?”

Matthew nodded. “You’re right there, Lard,” he said.

Big Lou reached out and took the document which Eddie had passed over the counter. She looked at it, nodded, and then slipped it into the pocket of her apron. “Thanks, Eddie,” she said.

There was a silence. Matthew looked at Eddie, knowing that he was staring at a broken man. Angus felt that too, and looked away in embarrassment. Pat busied herself with her empty coffee cup. She had never liked Eddie either, but the sight of him being obliged to behave like an errant schoolboy was not a comfortable one.

“One last thing,” said Lard. “Then you can go.”

Eddie fixed his gaze on the floor. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Sorry, Lou.”

“Right,” said Lard to Eddie. “You can go now.”

Wur Planets are oot o’ alignment 335

Eddie tried to straighten himself up. It was as if he was attempting to salvage at least some shred of dignity, but he could not. He slumped back into his dejected position. For a moment he hesitated, then he turned round and walked out of the café.

“Well, that’s that all sorted,” said Lard cheerfully. “Now, how about youse fixing me up with a cup of coffee or something?”

Big Lou turned back to her espresso machine and soon had a large, scalding cup of coffee ready for Lard. Heaping several spoons of sugar into the cup, Lard quickly drained it and suggested another one.

“You single-handed here, hen?” he asked Lou.

Big Lou smiled at him. She had no idea who Lard O’Connor was, and why he had intervened on her part, but she felt profound gratitude to him. “Aye, I run the place myself,” she said. “But I’m not very busy most of the time.”

Lard looked around the café. “You could put in some music,”

he said. “And maybe one of they fruit-machines. Cheer things up a bit.”

Hearing these remarks, Angus shot a glance at Matthew.

“Let’s hope she doesn’t give this chap half the business,” he whispered.

Lard did not hear him. He was leaning across the bar, smiling at Big Lou, who was preparing a second cup of coffee for him.

“I don’t believe it,” said Matthew sotto voce. “I just don’t believe it.”

Lard and Big Lou were now deep in conversation and Lard, reaching out over the bar, had taken Big Lou’s hand in his.

“Oh no,” said Angus. “Worst fears realised. Close all ports.

Prepare to abandon ship.”

107. Wur Planets are oot o’ alignment Big Lou looked down at Lard O’Connor’s hand, resting on hers.

Then, very politely, she lifted it with her free hand and placed it back on the counter. Lard O’Connor continued to smile.

336 Wur Planets are oot o’ alignment

“Thank you for what you’ve done,” she said. “But we hardly . . .”

“Aloysius O’Connor,” said Lard.

“Thank you, Mr O’Connor. I have no idea how you persuaded Eddie . . .” Lou’s voice tailed off. It was hard to utter the name.

She had loved him, and in a way she still did. Why had he treated her as he had? She had imagined that she might change him, that he would not need to see those girls, but it had been hopeless. Everybody says that about these things, she told herself. They are just too deeply embedded. And he hadn’t cared about her feelings, not in the slightest.

Lard looked grave. “It’s amazing what direct talking will achieve,” he said. “The trouble with this side of the country is there’s not enough direct speaking. All that blethering. No direct speaking.”

“Well, you’ve been very helpful to me, Mr O’Connor.”

“Please . . . Aloysius.”

“Aloysius.”

“That’s better.”

Big Lou took a step backward. “Well, I have to get on with my work,” she said. “Maybe some day we’ll . . .”

“Aye,” said Lard. “Mebbe.”

From their table, Angus, Matthew and Pat watched as Lard left the coffee bar. He nodded curtly to Matthew as he made for the door, and shot a glance at Angus, who quickly looked away.

Lard was almost at the door when he hesitated and looked back towards Matthew. Then slowly he walked over to the table and leant down to whisper to him.

“Tell Stewie everything’s tickety-boo,” he said. “But wur still a wee bit skew-wiff on this deal, pal. No quite eexy-peexy. Wur planets are oot o’ alignment like. So I’ll be on your case for a wee bit of reciprocation. Understaund?”

Matthew sat quite still. He looked up at Lard and blinked.

He was silent. Lard then winked at him and made for the door.

“That was a most interesting face,” said Angus. “I wonder if he might sit for a portrait one of these days. What a mug! Did you see it, Pat? Ever seen anything like it?”

Wur Planets are oot o’ alignment 337

“What did he mean by reciprocation?” asked Pat. “Do you think that . . . ?”

Matthew waved her question aside. Reciprocation could mean only one thing: he would be expected to participate in something illegal – launder money, perhaps, or hide a weapon. He thought for a moment. Could he pay Lard off instead? Could he offer him ten thousand pounds instead of a favour, or would that just whet his appetite for more? And what if Lard got wind of the fact that he had four million pounds in the bank? It hardly bore thinking about.

He looked at his watch. “It’s time to get back to the gallery,”

he announced. “Let’s go, Pat.”

They crossed the road, Matthew still deep in thought.

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” said Pat.

Matthew nodded. “It’s occurred to me that I’ve already broken the law,” he said miserably. “I incited this awful man to beat Eddie up. If Eddie goes to the police, then I’m implicated.”

“Eddie won’t go to the police,” said Pat. “They would want to know why Lard beat him up. He would have to tell them that he took Big Lou’s money.”

“But she gave it to him,” said Matthew. “Eddie’s done nothing illegal.”

“He won’t go,” said Pat. “Eddie probably has other things to hide from the police. There’s that club of his. And the girls and the rest. He won’t go.”

They opened the gallery in silence. Pat was aware of Matthew’s anxiety and was worried about what she had to do next, which was to tell him that she was moving out of the flat in India Street. There was a good reason for this, of course, and she could not put off telling him any longer. That afternoon, a friend was coming to help her move her things back to her parents’ house in the Grange, and she would have to let Matthew know about this before she made the move.

She waited. One or two people came into the gallery and one of them bought a painting. That seemed to cheer Matthew up, and Pat decided that the moment had come.

“Matthew,” she began. “There’s something I must tell you.”

338 Wur Planets are oot o’ alignment Matthew stared at her. I should have realised, he said to himself. I should have realised that it could never last. It never does. How long has it been? Three days? Four days?

“I’m going to have to move out of India Street,” Pat said.

“I’m going this afternoon.”

Matthew’s face crumpled. “This afternoon? Today?”

“Yes,” said Pat. “I’m sorry.”

Matthew nodded. Pat noticed that he was looking at the floor, tracing an invisible pattern on the carpet with the toe of his shoe.

“You see . . .” Pat began to say.

Matthew cut her short. “It’s all right,” he said flatly. “I understand.” And he thought: girls just don’t like me. Well, they may not actively dislike me – they tolerate me – but they don’t find me interesting, or exciting, or anything really. And there’s nothing I’ll ever be able to do about that. I really like this girl

– really like her – but she doesn’t like me. And who can blame her?

“I don’t think you do understand,” said Pat. “What I was going to say is that since you and I . . . well, since you and I are an item, then I don’t think that we should be flatmates too.

It complicates matters, doesn’t it? And I need my space, just as you do.”

Matthew stared at her. When people talked about needing space they usually meant that they wanted the maximum space between you and them. This was different. Was it still on?

“You mean that you’re not wanting to get rid of me?” he stuttered.

“Of course not,” said Pat, moving over to his side. “I don’t want that. Do you?’

“No,” said Matthew. He looked at her and thought: I have found myself in you. Bless you. And then he thought: what a strange, old-fashioned thing to think. Bless you. But what other way was there of saying that you wanted only good for somebody, that you wanted the world to be kind to her, to cherish her? Only old-fashioned words would do for that.

108. On the Stairs

Now that Domenica had indicated that she was returning to Scotland within a few days, Antonia Collie took steps to conclude the lease on the flat across the landing – the flat once occupied by Bruce and Pat and which had been sold to a young property developer. This person had developed the property by painting it and by installing a new microwave and a new bath before deciding to offer it for rent. Antonia was indifferent to the fresh paint, the microwave and the bath, but keen on the view from the sitting room and the prospect of having Domenica as a neighbour. Negotiations for the lease had been swift and Antonia now had the keys to the flat and could move in at any time she wished.

Antonia, having gone out to purchase one or two things for the kitchen, returned to No 44 to discover a small boy sitting on the stone stairs, staring up into the air. She had seen this small boy once or twice before. On one occasion she had spotted him walking up the street with his very pregnant mother (he had been trying to avoid stepping on the lines and was being roundly encouraged by his mother to hurry up), and on another she had seen him in Valvona & Crolla, again with his mother, who was lecturing him on the qualities of a good olive oil. She knew that he belonged to No 44 and she thought she knew which flat it was, but apart from that she knew nothing about him, neither his name, nor how old he was, nor where he went to school.

“Well,” she said as she drew level with him on the stairs,

“here you are, sitting on the stairs. And if I knew your name –

which I don’t – I would be able to say hallo whoever you are.

But I don’t – unless you care to tell me.”

Bertie looked up at Antonia. This was the lady who lived upstairs, the woman whom his mother had described as “yet another frightful old blue stocking”. Bertie had been puzzled by this; now here was an opportunity for clarification.

“I’m called Bertie,” he said politely.

“And I’m Antonia,” said Antonia.

Bertie squinted at Antonia. “I think my Mummy must be wrong about you,” he said.

340 On the Stairs

“Oh yes?” said Antonia. “What does Mummy say about me?”

“She said that you wear blue stockings,” said Bertie. “But I don’t think you do, do you?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Antonia. “Oh really?”

she said. “You’re right. Mummy has got it wrong.” She paused.

“Tell Mummy that you asked me about that, and I said to tell her that I don’t wear blue stockings. Will you tell her that?”

“Yes,” said Bertie. “If she listens. Sometimes she doesn’t listen to what I say. Or what Daddy says either.”

Antonia smiled. “That’s sad,” she said. “But surely somebody listens to you, Bertie. What about at school? Surely your teacher listens to what you have to say.”

Bertie looked down at his feet. “Miss Harmony listens sometimes,” he said. “But not always. She didn’t listen to me when I said that I didn’t want to be Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She made me be Captain von Trapp.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Antonia. “But perhaps there wasn’t anybody else who wanted to play the part. Maybe that’s why you had to do it.”

“But there were plenty of people who wanted to be Captain von Trapp,” said Bertie. “There’s a boy called Tofu. He really wanted to be Captain von Trapp. But she wouldn’t let him.”

“But I’m sure that he would understand.”

Bertie shook his head. “No,” he said. “He didn’t. And there’s a girl called Olive. She wanted to be Maria, but wasn’t allowed to be. She didn’t understand either.”

“Dear me,” said Antonia. “But I’m sure everything will go well in the end.”

“No it won’t,” said Bertie. “And now Tofu and Olive both hate me.”

Antonia stared down at Bertie. He was a most unusual child, she thought; rather appealing, in a funny sort of way, and she found herself feeling sorry for him. These little spats of childhood loomed terribly large in one’s life at the time, even if they tended to disappear very quickly. It was not always fun being a child, just as it had not always been fun being a medieval Scottish saint. Poor little boy!

On the Stairs 341

“Well, cheer up, Bertie,” said Antonia. “Even if things aren’t going well in The Sound of Music, isn’t Mummy going to have a new baby? Doesn’t that make you excited? You and Daddy must be very pleased about that.”

Bertie shook his head. “I don’t think that Daddy is pleased,”

he said. “He said that the new baby is a mistake. That’s what he said. I heard him telling Mummy that.”

Antonia raised an eyebrow. “Oh well,” she said. “Everybody will love him or her. I’m sure they will.”

“And then Daddy said we should call the new baby Hugo,”

went on Bertie.

“That’s a nice name!” said Antonia quickly.

“Because that’s the name of Mummy’s friend,” said Bertie.

“He’s called Dr Fairbairn. Dr Hugo Fairbairn.”

Antonia bit her lip. Oh goodness! One should not encourage this sort of thing, but she could not resist another question, just one more question.

“And Dr Fairbairn,” she asked. “What does he think of all this?”

“He’s mad,” said Bertie. “Really mad.”

“I see,” said Antonia. “Well I suppose that . . .” She tailed off. It was easy to imagine him being angry, he probably did not plan for things to work out this way.

Now Bertie, who was enjoying his conversation with Antonia, came up with a final piece of information. He had been told of his mother’s pregnancy one day in the Floatarium. Irene had been in her flotation chamber, speaking to Bertie, who was sitting outside, and that was where she had told him of the imminent arrival of a new sibling. Bertie, whose understanding of the facts of life was rudimentary, had misinterpreted her and had concluded that his mother had become pregnant in the flotation chamber itself.

“Mummy became pregnant in the Floatarium,” Bertie now explained. “That’s where it happened.”

Antonia picked up her shopping bag. This was wonderful.

She had a great deal to tell Domenica when she came back.

Why did she bother going to the Malacca Straits when all this 342 In the Ossian Chair

was going on downstairs? Anthropology, she thought, like charity, surely begins at home.

109. In the Ossian Chair

Antonia entered Domenica’s flat and thought about her encounter with Bertie on the stair. It had been a strange experience – amusing, of course, with all those innocent disclosures

– but there was something more to it, and that was puzzling her. At one level their conversation had been exactly the sort of talk that one might expect to have with a boy of – what was he?

six, at the most, she thought – and yet there had been another level to it altogether, and this had made her feel an extraordinary warmth towards him. Yes, that was it: the warmth.

She made her way into the kitchen, dropped her shopping bag on the floor near the cooker, and sat down in the chair near the window. It was a high-ish chair, plain in its lines, and covered with a Macpherson tartan throw. Domenica was not a Macpherson, but a Macdonald. Why should she have a Macpherson throw? Was it the sheer prettiness of that particular tartan with its soft greys and wine-red stripe? But then it occurred to her that there was another reason. Domenica had many enthusiasms, but one of them, Antonia recalled, was for the works of Ossian, or, should one say, the works of James Macpherson. That must be it.

Antonia sat back in the Ossian chair and remembered. It had been right there – in that very spot – eight or nine years ago –

and she had been in Edinburgh to look something up in the National Library; something to do with early Scottish monastic practices, if she remembered correctly; but the memory of what it was, like the memory of the early Scottish monastic practices themselves, had faded. After her visit to the Library she had come here, to Scotland Street, to drink a cup of coffee with Domenica and to seek solace. Antonia’s marriage was not going well then and she had wanted to talk about that, but had not In the Ossian Chair 343

raised it in the end because Domenica had been in full flight about Ossian.

“In the scrap between Dr Johnson and Macpherson, I’m on Macpherson’s side,” pronounced Domenica. “He had seen the subjugation of his world. The burnings. The interdiction of the kilt, language, everything. All he wanted to do was to show that there was Gaelic culture that was capable of great art. And all those dry pedants in London could do was to say: where are the manuscripts?”

“Well, I suppose if one claims to have discovered a Homer, it might be reasonable to ask . . .”

“Not a bit of it,” said Domenica. “The poetry was there, passed from mouth to mouth. Not everybody worships the written word, you know. And that Dr Johnson . . . Do you know what he said about the stick that he carried down in London?

He said that it was just in case he should bump into Macpherson and would have the chance to wallop him with it! What a thing to say! A typical Cockney bully.”

“Macpherson could look after himself. All that money he made . . .”

“No different from the money anybody else made. Better, in fact. Look at the fortunes that were to be made from slave-trading and Jamaican sugar plantations and all the rest.

Macpherson’s fortune was less tainted than the fortunes of many of those strutting Highland grandees. Why begrudge him his Adam mansion? And, anyway, even if he invented most of the Ossian stuff, it was great literature by any standards. Does it matter whose pen it came from?”

They had moved off the subject of Ossian and on to other controversial cases: to that of Grey Owl, the bogus Indian chief who was really only Archie Belaney from Sussex, or somewhere like that; to Lobsang Rampa who claimed to have been a Tibetan monk, but who was really a man called Cyril Hoskins, from Devon; to Budu Svanidze and his memoirs of his Uncle Joe (Joseph Stalin).

Such conversations! Hour after hour they had passed together

– Antonia and Domenica – and much of what had been said had been forgotten, or remembered only in part. When her friend 344 In the Ossian Chair

came back, as she shortly would, then they would doubtless have many more such discussions, especially as they would now be neighbours. And they usually agreed with one another in the end, even after great differences of opinion had been discovered.

She thought back to that little boy, to Bertie, and now she saw what it was about him that made him so appealing: he spoke the truth. Candour was so attractive because we were so accustomed now to obfuscation and deceit, to what they called spin. Everything about our world was becoming so superficial. All around us there were actors. Politicians were actors, keeping to a script, condescending to us with their brief sound-bites, employing all sorts of smoke and mirrors to prevent their ordinary failings from being exposed. And rather than say yes, things have gone wrong and let’s find out why, they would side-step and weave their way past the traps set for them by equally evasive opponents.

Light, clarity, integrity. Every so often one saw them, and in such surprising places. So she had seen it in that peculiar conversation with the little boy on the stair. She had seen candour and honesty and utter transparency. But you had to be a child to be like that today, because all about us was the most pervasive cynicism; a cynicism that eroded everything with its superficiality and its sneers. And a little child might remind us of what it is to be straightforward, to be filled with love, and with puzzlement.

She arose from the chair and looked out of the kitchen window. The sky was perfectly empty now, filled with light; the rooftops, grey-slated, sloping, pursued angles to each other, led the eye away. When Domenica came back, Antonia thought, I shall do something to show her how much I value our friendship. And Angus Lordie, too. He’s a lonely man, and a peculiar one, but I can show him friendship and consideration too. And could I go so far as to love him? She thought carefully. Women always do this, she said to herself. Men don’t know it, but we do. We think very carefully about a man, about his qualities, his behaviour, everything. And then we fall in love.

She thought about Angus Lordie, standing as she was in front of the window. And then, at exactly half past four, she came to her decision.

110. Domenica talks to Dilly

When Dilly Emslie went upstairs to the coffee room at Ottakars Bookshop, she was concerned that she might not find a seat, as it was busier than usual. What had brought people out on a Tuesday morning was not clear to her; the town seemed bustling, and even George Street was thronged with shoppers. But they were well-behaved shoppers, who did not push and shove, as shoppers did on Princes Street, but moved aside graciously to allow others to pass, lifting their hats where appropriate, making sure that nobody felt that he or she was about to be crowded off the pavement and into the road. Even the motorists, contending for the scarce parking places in the middle of the road, would concede a space if they saw another car about to turn in, gesturing with a friendly flick of the wrist for the other driver to go ahead. It was just as life in Edinburgh should be ( c.1950).

Dilly ordered a pot of coffee for two and found a table. She looked about her, glanced idly at a magazine which had been left behind by a previous customer, and began her wait. This was not long; barely five minutes later into the coffee room came Domenica Macdonald, smart in her newly-acquired Thai silk trouser-suit, her face and her forearms deeply tanned by exposure to the sun. Dilly rose to greet her long-absent but now-returned friend. She was not quite sure what to say. If she said, simply: “You’re back!” it would come out in a surprised tone, because she had half-expected Domenica not to return. And a simpler “Hallo” would clearly be inadequate to mark return after several months in the Malacca Straits. And of course she could not say: “You’ve caught the sun”, because that would be on the same level of triteness as the late President Nixon’s words on being taken to the Great Wall of China (“This surely is a great wall.”). So she said: “Domenica!”, which was just right for the circumstances.

When two friends meet for the first time in months, there is usually a fair amount to be discussed. How much more so if one of the friends has spent those months in a remote spot, the guest of pirates, living amongst them; and yet that was not the first topic of discussion. First there were books to be talked about: 346 Domenica talks to Dilly

what was new, what was worth reading, and what could safely be ignored.

Domenica confessed that she had read very little in the village.

“I had my Proust with me,” she said. “The Scott-Moncrieff translation, of course. But I must admit that I got as far as volume four and no further. I also had Anna Karenina in reserve, and of course I always take Seth’s A Suitable Boy with me in the hope that this will be the year that I actually read past page forty. But, alas, I did not. It’s a wonderful book, though, and I shall certainly read it one of these days. I carry it, you see, in optimism.”

“Rather like A Brief History of Time,” observed Dilly.

“Everybody has that on their bookshelves, but very few people have read it. Virtually nobody, I gather.”

The conversation continued in this vein for a while, and then Dilly, reaching forward to pour a fresh cup of coffee, said: “Now, what about the pirates?” She spoke hesitantly, as it was she who had urged Domenica to go out to the Malacca Straits in the first place and she felt a certain responsibility for the expedition. It was, in fact, a matter of great relief to her that her friend had returned safely to Edinburgh.

“Oh yes,” said Domenica. “The pirates. Well, they were very hospitable – in their way. And I certainly found out a great deal.”

Dilly waited expectantly. What exactly had Domenica seen, she wondered. And had it changed her?

“I spent a lot of time on their matrilineal succession patterns,”

said Domenica. “And I also unearthed some rather interesting information about domestic economy matters. Who does the shopping and matters like that.”

“It must have been fascinating,” said Dilly. “And the pirates themselves? What were they like?”

“Smallish, for the most part,” said Domenica dryly. “I was a bit taller than most of them. Small, wiry people, usually with tattoos. Their tattoos, by the way, would make an interesting study. They were mostly dragons and the like – more or less as one would expect – but then I came across quite a number with very interesting contemporary motifs. Fascinating, really.”

“Such as?” asked Dilly.

Domenica talks to Dilly 347

“Well, mostly pictures by Jack Vettriano,” said Domenica.

“The Singing Butler is very popular out there. The pirate chief had it on his back. I noticed it immediately.”

“How extraordinary,” remarked Dilly.

They were both silent as they thought about the implications of this. Then Domenica continued: “Right at the end of my stay I followed the pirates, you know. I followed them all the way to a little town down the coast. They tied up outside a warehouse, a sort of godown, as they call them out there.”

“And?” said Dilly.

Domenica smiled. “Well, I crept up the jetty and managed to find a small window I could look through. I had my friend, Henry, with me. He gave me a leg-up so that I could look through the window.”

There was now complete silence, not only at their table, but at neighbouring tables, where they had overheard the conversation.

“The window was rather dirty,” Domenica went on, “so I had to give it a wipe. But once I had done that, I could see perfectly well what was going on inside.”

348 Matthew Bears Gifts

Dilly held her breath.

The denouement came quickly. “It was a pirate CD factory,”

said Domenica. “That’s what they did, those pirates of mine.

They made pirate CDs.”

For a moment nobody said anything. Then Domenica began to laugh, and the laughter spread. “It was terribly funny,” she said. “I had imagined that they were still holding up ships and so on. But they’ve adapted really well to the new global economy.”

“And the CDs?” asked Dilly. “What sort of pirate CDs were they making?”

“Mostly Italian tenors,” said Domenica. “As far as I could see.

But I noticed some Scottish Chamber Orchestra recordings and one or two other things.” She paused. “I didn’t see The Pirates of Penzance . . .”

This was tremendously funny, and they both laughed, as did one or two people at neighbouring tables who had heard the joke and who were, strictly speaking, not entitled to laugh.

111. Matthew Bears Gifts

That afternoon, Matthew closed his gallery early – at two o’clock, in fact. He had sold two paintings at lunch time – one an early Tim Cockburn, painted during his Italian period, depicting an Umbrian pergola – and the other a luminous study of light and land by James Howie. He had felt almost reluctant to let the paintings go, as he had placed them on the wall immediately opposite his desk and had become very fond of them.

But they had been taken down, cosseted in bubble wrap, and passed on to their new owners. And then, looking out of the window, Matthew had decided that it was time to go shopping.

Matthew had done his arithmetic. The four million pounds which he had had invested on his behalf produced, as far as he could ascertain, a return of round about four per cent. That meant that his income – if one ignored the gallery – was, after tax had Matthew Bears Gifts 349

been taken off at forty per cent, ninety six thousand pounds per annum, or eight thousand pounds a month. Matthew had no mortgage, and no car; he had very few outgoings. With eight thousand pounds a month, he had an income of two hundred and fifty-eight pounds a day. On average, over the last few months, he had spent about seven pounds a day, apart from the occasion on which he had gone to the outfitters in Queen Street and bought his new coat and the distressed-oatmeal cashmere sweater, now languishing in a dark corner of his wardrobe. There had also been an expensive dinner to celebrate Scotland’s victory over England in the Calcutta Cup, an occasion on which Matthew paid for a celebratory meal for six new acquaintances he had met in the Cumberland Bar on the evening of that great rugby triumph. It was only after the dinner had been consumed that one of the guests inadvertently disclosed that they were in fact supporters of England rather than Scotland, but Matthew, with typical decency, had laughed at this and insisted that he had been happy to act as host to the opposition. At which point a further disclosure revealed that one of the party was actually Turkish, and had no idea what rugby was anyway – again a revelation that Matthew took handsomely in his stride. Turkey, he pointed out, might start to play rugby some day; if the Italians could do it, then there was no reason why the Turks should not at least have a try. The Turk agreed, and said that he thought that Turks would certainly be better rugby players than the Greeks. Matthew did not comment on this observation, and for a moment there had been silence.

That had been an expensive evening – three hundred and seventy-two pounds, to be exact, which was, for that day at least, an over-spend. But the overall position was undeniably rosy, and so Matthew decided that it was time to spend a bit more.

His comparative parsimony towards himself, of course, had not been reflected in what he had done for others. Matthew was a generous man at heart, and he had made handsome donations to a range of charitable causes, with particularly large cheques going to the Artists’ Benevolent Fund and the National Art Collection Fund. Matthew had, in fact, been the anonymous donor who had enabled a public collection to purchase, at a price of sixteen 350 Matthew Bears Gifts

thousand pounds, the Motherwell Salt Cellar, a fine example of the eighteenth-century silversmith’s art described by none other than Sir Timothy Clifford as “beyond important”. He had modestly eschewed publicity on this and had even declined to attend the unveiling of the salt cellar at a special exhibition in Glasgow.

There were many other examples of his quiet generosity, including his discreetly settling Angus Lordie’s coffee bill with Big Lou after Angus Lordie had consistently forgotten to bring his wallet over a period of eight weeks. That had amounted to a total of one hundred and thirty-two pounds, which Matthew calculated was really only twelve hours’ worth of his daily, after-tax income.

After he had locked the gallery, he walked up Dundas Street and turned left into a small lane of jewellery shops and designer studios. He paused outside a jewellery shop and looked in the window. He had no need for jewellery, of course, but then he remembered I have a girlfriend! Pat liked necklaces, he thought, although when he came to think of it he realised that he could not picture exactly what sort of necklace she wore. That, of course, was a male failing. Pat had once pointed out to him that men did not notice what women were wearing, whether it was clothing or jewellery. Matthew had defended men, but Pat had then asked him what she had been wearing the day before and he had no idea. And Big Lou? An apron? Under the apron? No idea. And the woman who had come in to look at that small still life an hour ago? Wasn’t that a man?

He spent an hour in the jewellers. When he came out, he had in his pocket a black velvet box in which nestled an opal necklace, early twentieth-century, provenance Hamilton and Inches of George Street. Then, on impulse, rather than walking down the street, Matthew made his way up to George Street and to Hamilton and Inches itself. Inside, attended to by a soft-voiced assistant, he purchased a silver beaker on which were inscribed the words of one of the sentences in the Declaration of Arbroath: For as long as there shall but one hundred of us remain alive . . . He paid for this – eight hundred and seventy-five pounds – and then went out into the street again.

He walked slowly back to his flat in India Street. It was quiet Giving and Receiving 351

inside, and it seemed empty, too, now that Pat had left. But he would see her that evening, when they were due to go out for dinner, and that is when he would give her the opal necklace.

And the other present – the solid silver beaker inscribed with those stirring words, that statement of Scottish determination, he would give to Big Lou, who came from Arbroath. But it was not just the Arbroath connection which prompted the gift; it was the confidence which Pat had revealed to him a few days ago. Big Lou could not remember when she had last been given a present, by any one. She could not remember.

112. Giving and Receiving

It seemed very strange to be back in Scotland Street. Domenica had looked forward to her return and had imagined that she would immediately feel at home, and now she did not. She knew that she would soon adjust, but for a few days everything seemed disjointed and not quite right. The very air, warm and languid on the Malacca Straits, was brisk and fresh here – almost brittle, in fact. And there was also the hardness of everything about her: this was a world of stone, chiselled out, solid, bounded by corners and angles. She had become used to the softness of vegetation, to the malleability of cane, the femininity of palm fronds; so different, so far away.

But if there were difficulties in becoming accustomed to her surroundings again – and these, surely, were to be expected, for what greater contrast can there be between a world of pirates and the world of Edinburgh – there were still compensations in being back at home. There were the consolations of finding that the streets, and the people, were exactly where she had left them; that the same things were being discussed in the newspaper and on the radio, by the same people. All of this was reassuring, and precious, and was good to get back to.

Domenica thought about all this at length and decided that she was happy, and fortunate, to be back. Now she would spend 352 Giving and Receiving

the next three months writing up her findings and preparing the two papers that she proposed to write on the community in which she had been living. She was confident that these papers would be accepted for publication, as the people with whom she had stayed had never been the subject of anthropological investigation before, if one discounted the efforts of that poor Belgian

– and what happened to him remained a mystery. She had tried to discover his fate, but had met at every point with evasion.

Nobody had anything to say.

But it was good to be back, and in recognition of this Domenica decided that she would give a dinner party. She had not entertained at all while away, and her social life had been limited to cups of tea with the village women. She believed that this had been enjoyable for them as it had been for her, and she had gone so far as to form a book group in the village, a development that had gone down well with the women, even if there were very few books to be had in the village. And she had also laid the founda-tions of a small credit union, whereby the poorer wives could be helped by the richer. These were positive achievements.

Pat had agreed to come and help Domenica with the preparations for the dinner, and now they were both in the kitchen on the evening on which the dinner was to be held. Domenica had planned an elaborate menu and Pat was busy cutting and preparing vegetables while Domenica cooked an intricate mushroom risotto.

“I heard about Matthew,” Domenica said, stirring chopped onions into her arborio rice. “I must say that you could do far worse. In fact, you have done far worse in the past, haven’t you?

What with Bruce . . .”

Pat had to acknowledge that her record had not been distinguished. “I only liked Bruce for a very short time,” she said.

“For the rest of the time I found him repulsive.”

Domenica laughed. “He was fairly awful, wasn’t he? All that hair gel and that preening in front of the mirror. And yet, and yet . . .” She left the rest unsaid, but Pat knew exactly what she meant. There was something about Bruce. Did he have it? Was that it? Yes. It.

Giving and Receiving 353

“Matthew’s such a kind person,” Domenica went on. “You’ll find him so different from Bruce. ”

Pat looked thoughtful. “He gave me this yesterday,” she said, pointing to the opal necklace about her neck.

Domenica put down the packet of dried mushrooms she was slitting open and peered at Pat’s neck. “Opals,” she said. “Look at their colours. Fire opals.”

“Do you like it?” asked Pat.

“I love it,” said Domenica. “I’ve always liked opals. I bought myself an opal ring in Australia when I was there ten years ago.

I often wear it. It reminds me of Brisbane. I was so happy in Brisbane.”

Pat was silent. She began to finger the necklace, awkwardly, as if it made her feel uncomfortable.

“Is there anything wrong?” asked Domenica.

Pat shook her head. “No . . . Well, perhaps there is.”

“Do you feel bad about accepting such an expensive present from him? Is that it?”

“Maybe. Maybe just a bit.”

Domenica took Pat’s hand and pressed it gently. “It’s very important to be able to accept things, you know. Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most of never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.”

“Why?”

“Possibly because of our subconscious fears about the gift relationship,” said Domenica. “The giving of gifts can create obligations, and we might not wish to be encumbered with obligations. And yet, there are gifts which are outright gifts – gifts which have no conditions attached to them. And you have to realise that accepting another person’s gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.”

Yes, thought Pat. You are right about this, as you are right about so many other things.

“He gave Big Lou a present as well yesterday,” Pat said. “I was there when he did it. A silver beaker with some words from the Declaration of Arbroath engraved on it.”

354 Domenica’s Dinner Party

“A somewhat odd gift,” mused Domenica. “And was Big Lou pleased?”

“Very,” said Pat. “She hugged him. She lifted him up, actually, and hugged him.”

Domenica smiled. “It’s very easy,” she said. “It’s very easy, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“To increase the sum total of human happiness. By these little acts. Small things. A word of encouragement. A gesture of love.

So easy.”

Domenica looked at her watch. “We must get on with our labours,” she said. “Angus, Antonia, and all the rest will be here before we know it.”

“Will Angus have a poem for us, like last time?”

“He always does,” said Domenica. “When we reach the end of something.”

“But is this really the end of something?” asked Pat.

Domenica smiled, somewhat sadly. “I fear it is.”

113. Domenica’s Dinner Party

One of Domenica’s little ways was to give each of her guests a different arrival time, thus staggering them at ten minute inter-vals. She felt that this was a good way of ensuring that each person got the attention a guest deserves right at the beginning of an evening, even if it should become, as it often did, more difficult for a hostess to devote herself to individual guests later on.

The first to arrive, of course, was Angus, whom she had already seen on her return, even if only briefly. He had been over-excited at that meeting, and had blurted out all sorts of news with scant regard to chronology or significance. He had told her about Cyril’s disappearance and miraculous return; about Ramsey Dunbarton’s demise; about his new shoes; about Lard O’Connor’s appearance in Big Lou’s café and the routing of Eddie – it had all come tumbling out.

Domenica’s Dinner Party 355

Then Antonia came from over the landing, and had brought with her a sickly orchid and a box of chocolates as a present.

Domenica thought that she recognised the box of chocolates as one that had been doing the rounds of Edinburgh dinner parties over a period of several years, passed from one hand to another and opened by no recipient. She did not reveal this, though, but put the box in a drawer for the next occasion on which she needed to take her hostess a present. It might even be Antonia, should she reciprocate the invitation, but by that time the chocolates would be wrapped in a fresh piece of gift paper and might not be identified. The real danger in recycling presents came in forgetting to remove the gift tag from the wrapping, as sometimes happened with recycled wedding presents.

Then Matthew arrived, wearing a curious off-green jacket, and her friends, Humphrey and Jill Holmes, and James Holloway, who brought her an orchid in much better condition, and David Robinson, bearing a small pile of novels which Domenica had missed and which he suspected she would enjoy.

That was the party complete; a small gathering, but one in which everybody knew one another and would be sure to enjoy this celebration of return and reunion.

They stood in Domenica’s drawing room, where the friendly evening sun came in, slanting, soft.

“Domenica,” said David Robinson. “Please reassure us that you are back for good.”

Domenica looked into her glass. “I have no immediate plans to leave Edinburgh again,” she said. “I suspect that my field work days are over, but you never know. If there were a need . . .”

“But you’ve finished with pirates?” asked James. “I really think that we’ve had enough pirates. Hunter gatherers are fine, but pirates . . .”

Domenica nodded. “My pirates proved to be rather dull at the end of the day. They were a wicked bunch, I suppose. Their attitude to intellectual property rights was pretty cavalier. But bad behaviour is ultimately rather banal, don’t you think?

There’s a terrible shallowness to it.”

356 Domenica’s Dinner Party

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Antonia. “I would have found Captain Hook a very dull companion, I suspect. Peter Pan would have been far more fun.” She looked at Angus as she spoke, but Angus, noticing her gaze upon him, looked away.

“Peter Pan needed to grow up,” said Matthew. “That was his problem.”

All eyes turned to Matthew as this remark was digested. Pat looked at his new off-green jacket and made a mental note to talk to him about it. But she knew that she would have to be careful.

And then, faintly in the background, the notes of a saxophone could be heard, the sound travelling up the walls and through the floor from the flat below. Domenica smiled. “Our downstairs neighbour,” she explained. “Little Bertie. His mother makes him practise round about this time. We get ’As Time Goes By’ a lot but this . . . what’s he playing now?”

Angus moved to a wall and cupped his ear against it. “It’s

‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ I believe. Yes, that’s it. ‘He is trampling out the vintage/where the grapes of wrath are stored’

– good for you, Bertie!”

The conversation resumed, but not for long. Angus now stepped forward, glass in hand, and addressed the company.

“Dear friends,” he began. “Domenica is back from a distant place. Would you mind a great deal if I were to deliver a poem on the subject of maps?”

“Not in the slightest,” said David Robinson. “Maps are exactly what we need to hear about.”

Angus stood in the centre of the room.

Domenica’s Dinner Party 357

“Although,” he began, “they are useful sources Of information we cannot do without, Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines Reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear On the location of Australia, and the Outer Hebrides; Such maps abound; more precious, though, Are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, Of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; Those maps of our private world

We use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, That is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner Once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, Things of that sort, our personal memories, That make the private tapestry of our lives.

Old maps had personified winds,

Gusty figures from whose bulging cheeks Trade winds would blow; now we know That wind is simply a matter of isobars; Science has made such things mundane, But love – that, at least, remains a mystery, Why it is, and how it comes about That love’s transforming breath, that gentle wind, Should blow its healing way across our lives. ”

Document Outline

44 Scotland Street: The Story So Far

1. Pat Distracted on a Tedious Art Course

2. A Picture in a Magazine

3. Co-incidence in Spottiswoode Street

4. At Domenica�s Flat

5. The Judgement of Neuroaesthetics

6. Gurus as Father Substitutes

7. Angus Goes Off Antonia, in a Big Way

8. Money Management

9. The Warm Embrace of the Edinburgh Establishment

10. Does He Wear Lederhosen?

11. The Bears of Sicily

12. Quality Time with Irene

13. An Average Scottish Face

14. Distressed Oatmeal

15. No Flowers Please

16. How To Let Down the Opposite Sex Gently

17. Anguish

18. Fibs

19. Leerie, Leerie, Licht the Lamps

20. Truth and Truth-Telling in Gayfield Square

21. Missing Domenica

22. An M.A. (Cantab.)

23. The Charms of Neo-Melanesian Pidgin

24. Pat Gets to Know Tessie a Bit Better

25. Matthew�s Friends

26. Matthew Meets an Architect

27. Leonie Talks

28. The Boy in the Tree

29. On the Machair

30. Schadenfreude

31. Bertie Makes His Statement

32. Sirens and Shipwrecks

33. The Ethics of Dumping Others

34. In the Elephant House

35. Setting Off

36. Singapore Matters

37. Ling�s Story

38. At the Queen�s Hall

39. Bertie�s Agony

40. Bertie Plays the Blues

41. Delta of George Street

42. Empower Points

43. Matthew Comforts Pat

44. Angus Lordie Prepares to Entertain

45. A Memory of Milanese Salami

46. A Conversation about Angels etc

47. Goodbye to Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.)

48. A View of a House

49. The Story of Art

50. Bad Behaviour

51. Sun-Dried Tomatoes

52. Casting Issues

53. The Sybils of Edinburgh

54. Political Truths

55. Domenica Settles In

56. By the Light of the Tilley Lamp

57. A Nocturnal Visitation

58. Moving In, Moving Out

59. A Person from Porlock

60. An Invitation to Dinner

61. Beside the Canal

62. Humiliation for Tofu

63. Irene Spoils Things

64. Lederhosen

65. Reunited

66. Bathroom Issues

67. Bathroom Issues (Continued)

68. The Rootsie-Tootsie Club

69. An Unfortunate Incident

70. Mrs Choo�s Tale

71. A Formic Discovery

72. Preparations for Paris

73. At the Airport

74. The Principles of Flight

75. Scotland�s Woes

76. Brunello di Montalcino

77. Angus Impresses Antonia

78. The Third Person

79. Smugness Explained

80. An Evening of Scottish Art

81. At the Sardi

82. Misunderstandings

83. Mothercraft

84. No More Nonsense, Nurse Knows Best

85. Poor Lou

86. A Letter to Edinburgh

87. Stendhal Syndrome

88. Girl Talk

89. Irene Has a Shock

90. Stuart Lends a Hand

91. Pat and Matthew Talk

92. Alone in Paris

93. Bertie�s New Friends

94. Deconstruction at the Sorbonne

95. A Portrait of a Sitting

96. Angus Reflects

97. Domenica Makes Progress

98. Poor Lou

99. And Here�s the Train to Glasgow, Again

100. Grey over Riddrie

101. On the Doorstep

102. Antonia Expounds

103. Imaginary Friends

104. Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates

105. At the Warehouse

106. An Unexpected Development

107. Wur Planets are oot o� alignment

108. On the Stairs

109. In the Ossian Chair

110. Domenica talks to Dilly

111. Matthew Bears Gifts

112. Giving and Receiving

113. Domenica�s Dinner Party