Unbearable Lightness of Scones

39. The Teacup Storm Revisited

Domenica Macdonald had always been a believer in good-neighbourliness. Having spent her early years in the same Scotland Street flat in which she now lived, she understood the ethos which underlay the communal life of a Scottish tenement: you did your duty by those who lived on the same stair – you washed the steps according to the rota, you cut the green when it needed cutting (and you took on the turn of anybody who was ill or infirm), and you avoided arguments with your fellow residents. It was, she reflected, very much the same code of communal living that applied in any society in any country, and perhaps the most universal and the most important part of it was this: don’t pick fights.

Forty-four Scotland Street had always been at the equable end of the spectrum when it came to neighbourly relations. Domenica had her views on the Pollock family downstairs – she found Irene almost too ridiculous to be true – but there had never been any open hostility between them. With the two young men on the ground floor she got on perfectly well, although they kept very much to themselves; and as for the flat in the basement – that was something of a mystery: it belonged to an accountant in Dundee who used it occasionally when he came to Edinburgh on business, but he was never seen by anybody.

It was natural that Domenica should have more contact with the other flat on her landing, the flat currently owned by Antonia Collie. When Bruce had owned that flat, Domenica had enjoyed cordial relations with him, even though she had immediately and correctly identified him as, in her words, an eighty-four horse-power narcissist. She had liked Pat, Bruce’s flat-mate, and had sympathised with her when the young student found herself falling for her well-coiffed landlord. Indeed, Pat had become a good friend, in spite of the forty years that separated them in age, and she missed her now that she had gone back to live with her parents in the Grange. It was only the other side of town, not much more than forty minutes’ walk away, and yet it was not a friendship that would survive geographical separation. And naturally so; Pat had a circle of her own age – and now that Matthew was married she would be less in evidence in Dundas Street, where she had worked closely with Matthew at his gallery.

When Antonia had moved in, Domenica had imagined that they would see a great deal of one another, but it had not worked out. Antonia had changed since the days when they were close; she seemed preoccupied with her novel about the early Scottish saints and her conversation often turned on the subject of men, the very topic where Domenica felt Antonia’s judgment was weakest.

But what had caused the biggest rift in the relationship, at least from Domenica’s point of view, was the matter of the blue Spode teacup that Antonia had stolen – there was no other word to describe it – from Domenica when she had flat-sat for her and that was now somewhere in Antonia’s kitchen, along with heaven knew how much other stolen crockery. After all, one who stole a teacup from a neighbour would surely not be above stealing crockery from all sorts of places – including Jenners tea room and the North British Hotel (currently demotically known as the Balmoral Hotel).

Now, however, a heaven-sent opportunity had arisen to set right this gross wrong. It had arisen because Antonia had asked Domenica if she would be in to receive a delivery that she was expecting the following morning.

“These people are hopeless,” said Antonia. She used the expression “these people” to refer to anybody of whom she disapproved. “These people are bad losers,” she had said of some politicians after they had been defeated in the Scottish parliamentary elections. And then she had said, “These people certainly like their whisky,” pointing to a picture of a political party conference in Aviemore. It was a useful expression, which she was now using in relation to a firm of deliverers who refused to disclose when they would deliver a new armchair that she had ordered from a furniture catalogue.

“I shall be out all morning,” Antonia said to Domenica. “And so I wondered if I could leave a note on my door asking them to deliver to you if they arrive in the morning. That is if you’re going to be in.”

“I shall be in,” said Domenica helpfully.

Antonia smiled, and handed her the key to the flat. “I thought as much.”

Domenica wondered how she should take that. Did Antonia mean to suggest that she, Domenica, was bound to be in because she never received any invitations to go out? Or had nowhere to go, even uninvited? How often did Antonia herself go out?

“I’m out quite a lot, of course,” Domenica found herself saying. “You know how it is. But, as it happens, I shall be in tomorrow morning. Until about twelve. Then I shall be going out for lunch with friends.”

There was no such meeting yet arranged, and Domenica felt a bit petty inventing it on the spot. But she would be going out, she decided; she would telephone her friend Dilly Emslie and meet her for lunch in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. So she had not exactly told a lie. And anyway, it was Antonia’s fault, with that silly implication that Domenica had a thin time of it socially. If you make that sort of comment, then people will feel it necessary to retaliate.

“Thank you,” said Antonia, adding, “I know how busy you are.”

Domenica pursed her lips. “Yes.”

“So if you wouldn’t mind getting them to put it in the sitting room, next to that green chair of mine. I’ve put four of those round casters out on the floor – ask them to rest the legs on those – you know how these people are. They don’t care a jot about your floors.”

Domenica took the keys and nodded. “I’ll do my best,” she said. Then she paused. “Going anywhere interesting?”

Antonia looked away. “National Library,” she said. “It’s my novel. I’m on to something.”

Domenica waited for more, but nothing came. The Scottish saints, in Antonia’s hands, were a strange and secretive quantity, quite unlike other saints, with their bland and worthy lives. The early Scottish saints were, Antonia had hinted, ever so slightly bitchy, but in the nicest possible way, of course. Had anything changed?