Angus dropped down to his knees and examined the jardinière at close quarters. He had seen a picture of it before somewhere; he was sure of that – somewhere, a jardinière, or a memory of a jardinière. He looked at Burns, and the poet stared back at him.
“Dear Rabbie,” he muttered. “We’re a parcel of rogues in a nation. I know that. But one day, maybe, that will all change. Maybe.”
62. The Marrying Kind of Man
“What on earth are you doing down on your hands and knees, Angus?” Domenica had knocked, but had not been heard. When Angus was in his studio, with the door closed, that could happen, and so, finding the front door ajar – Angus did not bother about security: “such a bourgeois notion,” he had said to Domenica – she pushed it further open and entered the flat.
Domenica wrinkled her nose. She had always found that Angus’s flat had a strange smell to it – not an entirely disagreeable smell, it must be said, but a strange one nonetheless. It was a mixture of oil paint from the studio, kippers from the kitchen – Angus bought kippers each week from Creelers at the farmers’ market – and dog. Domenica had been assured by Angus that Cyril was bathed regularly – at least twice a year – and that as dogs went he was not particularly smelly. But she could still detect his presence through the odour of slightly damp fur and gaminess that wafted about him.
She moved through the corridor, noticing that Angus had not opened his mail for a few days but had left it where the postie tossed it each morning, in a pile in the corner. If Angus were married – not that anybody would marry him, she thought – then all of this would be changed. The skylights, which she now looked up at, would be cleaned, the floorboards would be stripped and revarnished, Cyril would be shampooed once a week; everything would be sparkling.
And Angus himself would be spruced up. A wife could get rid of his clothes and march him round to Stewart, Christie for a complete new wardrobe. That Harris tweed jacket of his would be the first to go, although even a charity shop would draw the line at that. Perhaps the best thing would be to get the Council to come round for a special collection, in the way in which they came round to uplift old fridges and beds, if you booked them. The Council could come and take away all of Angus’s clothes.
But all of this was completely hypothetical, Domenica reminded herself. Nobody would marry Angus; nobody could bear to take the whole project on. Certainly she would not … She stopped herself. It was all very well for her to say that she would never marry Angus, but could she really say that nobody else would? There were many desperate women in Edinburgh – legions of them – who would probably be quite happy to marry any man, even Angus, if a man were to ask them, which alas he had not. These women would do anything to secure a husband, and would overlook any defects in a man if needs be. Domenica herself was not in this position, but she knew many who were. Lack of inclination on the man’s part to marry was a comparatively minor issue for such women. One friend of Domenica’s had married a man of such talent and sensitivity in the field of interior decoration that it was widely felt that he was unlikely to have the time to marry. Single-minded pursuit, traps and – or so Domenica felt – sheer force on the woman’s part had eventually settled that matter. Another friend, having despaired of finding a full-size husband, had settled for a man who was so thin as to be almost invisible when viewed from the side. He had himself been keen to marry, but had never found anybody, probably, Domenica thought, because nobody had ever actually seen him. “Better than nothing,” her friend had said philosophically. And it had been a very happy marriage; from the merest scraps, from part of something, may something whole be made.
But then the thought occurred to Domenica: what if another woman, one of these desperate women, were to marry Angus? Would she resent this other woman’s taking her friend from her? Angus would presumably not be allowed to drop in on Scotland Street with the comfortable frequency of their current arrangement. Women did not like their husbands to have other women as friends, no matter how innocent the relationship. Angus had always been there in her life; without him, things would be quite different. Perhaps … But what was the point of marrying Angus, other than to look after him? Did she really want to be in his company all the time, or at least for as much time as being married to him would entail? She thought not.
She pushed open the studio door and saw Angus on his hands and knees. He looked up, smiled and rose to his feet.
“I was inspecting a painting,” he said. “A very beautiful – and, if I am proved right – a very important painting too.”
Intrigued, Domenica crossed the floor of the studio to stand before the portrait.
“I see,” she began. “Is it who I think it is?”
Angus brushed the dust off the knees of his trousers. “It certainly is,” he said. “Or rather, I think it is.”
“And who painted it, do you think?” asked Domenica.
Angus let the question hang in the air for a few moments. Then he said, “Raeburn. Henry Raeburn.”
Domenica leaned forward and peered at the portrait. “It has that feel, doesn’t it? That richness.” She paused. “Is it signed?”
Angus shook his head. “Raeburn didn’t sign. You decide these things on technique and on the documentary evidence.”
“And the technique in this painting is right?”
Angus opened his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “I think so,” he said. “But then there are people who know more about these things than I do.”
“James Holloway?”
“Precisely. We’ll obviously have to show it to him and see what he says.” He moved away from the painting and took an outsize, red-bound book from a shelf. “This is Armstrong’s book on Raeburn,” he said. “There’s a long list of his sitters at the back here. Look.”
“And is Burns mentioned?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean too much. This list is not exhaustive.”
Domenica straightened up and took a few steps back to admire the painting from more of a distance.
“You know,” she said, “I’m not sure why women found Burns attractive.”
Angus frowned. “But Burns was handsome,” he protested. “Look at him.”
“To an extent,” said Domenica. “It’s what one might call an easy face. Reasonably harmonious.”
“Perhaps women liked him because he liked them,” said Angus. “Isn’t that how women feel?”
“I’ve heard that said,” answered Domenica.
63. A Dug’s a Dug for a’ That
What happened next was to change Domenica’s view of Angus and, indeed, of Cyril. It was in part a sudden moment of mystical insight, a vision of agape, a Cloud of Unknowing moment; but it was also a simple realisation on her part of the qualities of both man and dog. And the agent of this transformation was to be Robert Burns himself.
She was standing in the studio with Angus, looking at the Raeburn portrait of Burns. Cyril, who had been sitting on his blanket in another corner of the room, now joined them. He looked up at Domenica, whom he liked, and wagged his tail. Domenica, however, absorbed in the portrait, barely noticed this greeting and continued to talk to Angus. Cyril then sat down and looked about him. As a dog, he had that vague sense that all dogs possess that something was about to happen, although he was not sure what it was. A walk could be ruled out – he had already had that; and dinner-time, if it ever came, was hours away. So the most he could hope for was a word of encouragement or recognition, a pat on the head perhaps, some gesture which indicated to him that the human world was aware of his presence.
He looked about him, and it was at this point that he saw the portrait of Burns. Now dogs are usually insensitive to art. Even the dogs of great painters, whose existence has been footnoted by art historians, have been largely unaware of the artistic greatness of their masters. Botticelli’s dog, Nuovolone, an example of the no longer extant breed of Renaissance Terrier, appeared to be indifferent to the large canvases that dominated his master’s studio. And Verme
er’s dog, Joost, who was of an even rarer breed, a Still-Life Retriever – dogs known for their ability to retrieve objects which had fallen from the still life table – even he paid no attention to the light which shone forth from his master’s paintings. This is because dogs rely on smell, and for them a picture is an object with a single smell: a smell forged into one by the separate odours of stand oil, pigment, the hair of the paint-brush and so on. So if a dog comes into a studio, the smell of a painting bears no relation to the objects it depicts. Even a painting of something which would normally be expected to excite the attention of a dog – a hare hung up after the hunt, for example – will not be seen for what it is, but will just be something made of paint and a few other things. In this sense dogs are extreme reductionists.
But now Cyril, having failed to elicit a response from Domenica, turned and looked in the direction in which she and Angus were looking. And suddenly he saw Burns staring back at him. When this happened, he did nothing to begin with, but then he very slowly walked across the studio, approaching Burns as he would a stranger whose intentions he had not yet ascertained.
“Look,” said Angus, nodding in Cyril’s direction. “Cyril’s interested.”
Domenica looked at Cyril and smiled. “Surely not,” she said. “Doesn’t he only see in one dimension?”
“Watch,” whispered Angus.
Cyril was now crouching in front of the painting, his ears down, staring fixedly at the portrait. Then he wagged his tail, a quick backwards and forwards movement, like the motion of windscreen wipers in a storm. Angus now moved forward and went down on his haunches, next to Cyril.
“That’s Robert Burns,” Domenica heard him say to the dog. “Mr. Burns, this is Cyril. A gash an’ faithfu’ tyke/As ever lap a sheugh or dyke/His honest, sonsie, bawsn’t face/Ae gat him friends in ilka place/His breast was white, his touzie black/His gawsie tail wi upward curl/Hung owre his hurdies wi’ a swirl.”
Cyril looked up at Angus and smiled, as if acknowledging a compliment.
“Aye,” said Angus. “You liked dugs, Rabbie. And this dug here is your Luath, or as close to him as you’ll find these days. He’s a good enough dog, I think. He’s certainly been good enough for me.”
He placed a hand on Cyril’s head and ruffled his fur gently. Cyril looked up at his master in appreciation, and then returned his gaze to Robert Burns.
Angus addressed Domenica over his shoulder. “You’ll remember Caesar and Luath, won’t you, Domenica?”
Domenica did, but had not thought of the poem for years. But Burns was still there, engraved in her memory, drummed into her as a small child at school, in an age when children still learned poetry by heart, and took those lines as baggage, for comfort throughout their lives.
“I remember them,” she said.
“Caesar was the high-born dog,” Angus went on. “And Luath was a bit like Cyril here. Nothing grand. And they talked about the cares of men and whether the rich or the poor had the better time of it.”
Cyril now advanced slowly towards the painting. He was making a strange snuffling sound, a whimpering, looking up at Robert Burns, as if in some sort of supplication. Then, very slowly, as if expecting a rebuff, he touched the surface of the painting with his tongue.
“Did you see that?” Angus said over his shoulder. “That’s the biggest compliment a dog can pay. That’s his homage.”
Now Cyril had had enough; the moment was broken. With a final glance at Burns, he turned round and made his way back to his blanket on the other side of the room. And as he crossed the floor, he smiled at Domenica, the sunlight from the high studio windows glinting off his single gold tooth.
“I think he knew,” said Angus, rising back up to his feet. “Don’t you think he sensed that this was somebody special?”
In normal circumstances, Domenica would have dismissed this as sheer anthropomorphism. A dog could not appreciate Burns; to say otherwise would be to give in to the weak sentimentalism that animal owners were so prone to and that she always found so ridiculous. But there was something infinitely touching about what she had observed. Cyril, the malodorous Cyril, who was just a dog, no more, had seen something in the painting and had been visibly affected by it. She could not be indifferent to that. She could not be.
“I think that Cyril has just authenticated this painting,” pronounced Angus.
64. Childhood Memories
They withdrew from the studio. Angus covered the Raeburn with an old blanket, a threadbare square of hodden grey, and called Cyril to heel. Then, with the studio door closed behind them, they made their way into the kitchen.
Domenica resisted the temptation to open a window. It is not generally considered polite, she reminded herself, to go into the house of another and open a window, there being an element of judgment in such an action. Nor, she thought, should one rearrange any of the items in a room, nor even turn on a light. She did not think that Angus would notice any of these things, but she had been strangely moved by what she had witnessed in the studio, and she did not want to compromise the almost mystical moment of insight that had been vouchsafed her.
And what precisely was that? It was difficult to be too specific – the whole point about a moment of insight is that it defies quotidian description – but she had suddenly appreciated the sheer otherness of Angus. Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course we think that we do; indeed we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them, so to speak, and experience what it is to be them? She asked herself this, and remembered, vaguely, something she had read somewhere, about the I-Thou encounter. Martin Buber? That sounded right, but now, in the kitchen of Angus Lordie’s flat, the recollection was vague, and the moment, already, was passing.
She looked at Angus, at his paint-bespattered corduroy trousers; at his somewhat battered Harris tweed jacket; at the Paisley handkerchief-cum-cravat that he had tied round his throat; at his shoes, old brown brogues which he obviously tended with care, for they were polished to a high shine. How often have I looked at him in this way? she asked herself. How often have I noticed or, indeed, listened to him? We talk, but do I actually listen, or is our conversation mainly a question of my waiting for him to stop and for it to be my turn to say something? For how many of us is that what conversation means – the setting up of our lines?
She looked at him as he moved over to the sink and filled his ancient kettle with water. She looked at the sink itself, at the tottering pile of pots that surely could not be added to any further without collapse. She looked beyond the sink at the window behind it, in need of a clean on both sides. She looked at the notice-board he had created for himself from a large square of dark cork; at the photographs tacked onto it; the notes to self; the bills paid and unpaid. This was Angus. This was another. This was another life.
While he busied himself with the kettle and the ladling into a jug of several spoonfuls of coffee, Domenica moved over to the notice-board and bent down to examine the photographs. She had never seen them before. The notice-board was nothing new to the room, but she had never seen it before, and she felt ashamed, because Angus was her friend, one of her closest friends, and she had never even bothered to look at his notice-board.
“Do you mind?” she asked. “Do you mind if I take a look at these photographs?”
He half-turned from his position at the sink. “No,” he said. “I don’t mind. Of course you can look at them. I’ll tell you what they are, if you like.”
Domenica peered at the photographs. There were about a dozen of them, and they seemed to be of varying ages. Some, the older ones, had an almost sepia look to them, as if they had been taken from an old family album. Others were more vivid, the colours still there, even if fading slightly.
“I assume that’s you,” she said. “That’s you as a boy.”
Angus, who was f
etching cups from a cupboard, glanced over his shoulder. “Yes. That’s me. And a friend of mine. He came from Mull. His dad was a doctor over there. The doctor drove a Lagonda. I remember it. Beautiful car. We were at school together. He was called Johnnie.”
Domenica looked more closely. Two boys, age twelve or so, stood in front of a dry-stane dyke, both wearing kilts and jerseys. She noticed that the shadows on the ground were long; it was afternoon. Behind the dyke she could make out a field, a hillside, rising sharply to a high, empty sky. She closed her eyes, very briefly, and for some reason the words came into her mind, unexpected, unbidden, but from the region of the heart, from that very region: I love this country.
She became aware of Angus behind her. She heard his breathing.
“We had just started at Glenalmond,” he said. “Our first year there, I think. It was quite tough in those days – and they turned us out to roam the hills on a Sunday. In the summer term, at least. Johnnie and I used to go all over the Sma’ Glen. There was a farm called Connachan down towards Monzie where we used to go for tea when we were meant to be up at the top of the hill. The farmer had a couple of daughters our age and they’d tease us. We got on famously.
“And at the back of the farm,” Angus continued, “there was the River Almond. You probably know it. Well, further up, along the road to Auchnafree, the farmer had a wire cable across the river with a basket suspended from it. You could pull yourself across in the basket. He and his shepherds used to use this to get across the river without getting their feet wet. The sheep-dogs too. Dogs like Cyril. The dogs loved it. Dogs love anything like that.
“We used to swim in the river too. It was always freezing, even in summer. And then we’d eat sandwiches on the rocks. Bully beef sandwiches. Remember bully beef? Do you think anybody eats it now?”
The Unbearable Lightness of Scones Page 22