“Have you known Domenica for long?” he asked, as Antonia, returning from the bedroom, seated herself opposite him at the kitchen table.
“Twenty years,” she said abruptly. “Although I feel I’ve known her forever. Don’t you find that there are some friends who are like that? You feel that you’ve known them all your life.”
Angus nodded. “I feel that I’ve known Domenica forever too. That’s why…” He stopped himself. He was about to explain that this was why he felt her absence so keenly, but that would sound self-pitying and there was nothing less attractive than self-pity.
Antonia continued. “I met her when I was a student,” she said. “I was twenty and she was…well, I suppose she must have been about forty then. She was my tutor in an anthropology course I took. It was not my main subject–that was Scottish history–but I found her fascinating. The professors thought her a bit of maverick. They forced her out in the end.”
“Very unfair,” said Angus. He could not imagine Domenica being forced out of anything, but perhaps when she was younger it might have been easier.
“Very stupid, more likely,” said Antonia. “The problem was that she was far brighter than those particular professors. She frightened them because she could talk about anything and everything and their own knowledge was limited to a narrow little corner of the world. That disturbed them. And universities are still full of people like that, you know. People of broad culture may find it rather difficult in them. Timid, bureaucratic places. And very politically conformist.”
“I don’t know,” said Angus. “Surely some of them…”
“Of course,” said Antonia. “But, but…the trouble is that they’re so busy with their social engineering that they’ve lost all notion of what it is to be a liberal-minded institution.”
“I don’t know,” said Angus. “Surely things aren’t that bad…”
“Not that I’m one of these people who goes round muttering ‘O tempora, O mores’,” went on Antonia. “Mind you, I don’t suppose many people in a university these days understand what that means.”
Angus laughed. He had always enjoyed Domenica’s wit and had been missing it already; but now it seemed that relief was in sight. Or, as Domenica might have it, relief was insight…
“Scottish history,” Angus said.
Antonia nodded. “Indeed. I studied under Gordon Donaldson and then under that very great man, John Macqueen. Such an interesting scholar, Macqueen, with his books on numerology and the like. You never knew what he would turn to next. And his son writes too–Hector Macqueen. He came up with some very intriguing things and then for some reason wrote a history of Heriot’s Cricket Club–a very strange book, but it must have been of interest to somebody. Can you imagine a cricketing history? Can you?”
“I suppose it has lists of who scored what,” said Angus. “And who went in first, and things like that.”
They were silent for a moment, both contemplating the full, arid implications of a cricketing history. Then Antonia broke the silence.
“I’ve never played cricket,” she said. “Yet there are ladies’ cricket teams. You hear about them from time to time. I can’t imagine what they’re like. But I suppose they enjoy themselves. It’s the sort of thing that rather brisk women like to do. You know the sort.”
Angus did. He was enjoying the conversation greatly and had decided that he very much approved of Domenica’s new tenant. He wondered whether he might invite her for dinner that night, or whether it would be considered a little forward at this early stage in their acquaintanceship. He hesitated for a moment; why should he not? She had said nothing to indicate that she was spoken for, and even if she was, there was nothing wrong in a neighbourly supper à deux. So he asked her, suggesting that she might care to take pot luck in his kitchen as this was her first day in the flat and she would not have had time to get in supplies.
Antonia hesitated, but only for a moment. “How tempting,” she said quietly. “You really have been too kind to me. And I would love to accept, but I think that this evening I must work. I really must.”
“Work?”
Antonia sighed. “My poor book, you know. I’m writing a book and it’s suffering from maternal deprivation. Bowlby syndrome, as they call it.”
“Bowlby?”
“A psychologist. He was something of a guru once. He took the view that bad behaviour results from inadequate maternal attention.”
Angus thought for a moment. I need a guru, he said to himself. Would Antonia be his guru? He blushed at the unspoken thought. It would be wonderful to have a guru; it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.
“Of course it’s absurd, this search for gurus,” Antonia said. “People who need gurus are really searching for something else altogether, don’t you think? Fundamentally insecure people. Looking for father.”
Angus looked at her. He was beginning to dislike Antonia. How strange, he thought, that our feelings can change so fast. Like that. Just like that. And he thought of how the sky over Edinburgh could change in an instant, between summer and winter, as the backdrop can be shifted in a theatre, curtains lowered from the heavens in each case, changing everything.
7. Angus Goes Off Antonia, in a Big Way
Angus Lordie was deep in thought as he walked home. At his side, Cyril, sensing his master’s abstraction, had briefly tugged at his lead at the point where Dundonald Street joined Drummond Place; he had hoped that Angus might be persuaded to call in at the Cumberland Bar, but his promptings had been ignored. Cyril understood; he knew that his life was an adjunct life, lived in the shadow of his master, and that canine views counted for nothing; yet it would have been good, he thought, to sit on the bar’s black-and-white chequered floor sipping from a bowl of Guinness and staring at the assorted ankles under the table. But this was not to be, and he was rapidly diverted from this agreeable fantasy to the real world of sounds and smells. It is a large room, the world of smells for a dog, and Drummond Place, though familiar territory, was rich in possibilities; each passer-by left a trail that spoke to where he had been and what he had been doing–a whole history might lie on the pavement, like song-lines across the Australian Outback, detectable only to those with the necessary nose. Other smells were like a palimpsest: odour laid upon odour, smells that could be peeled off to reveal the whiff below. Cyril quivered; a strange scent wafted from a doorway, a musty, inexplicable odour that reminded him of something that he had known somewhere before, in his previous life in Lochboisdale, a long time ago. He stopped, and tugged at his leash, but Angus ignored his concern, yanking him roughly to heel. Cyril had never bitten his master, not once, but there were times…
Angus was thinking about what Antonia had told him. He had steered the conversation swiftly away from gurus, and had asked her about her book. So many people in Edinburgh were writing a book–almost everyone, in fact–and Angus had ceased to be surprised when somebody mentioned an incipient literary project. So he had inquired politely about Antonia’s book. She had looked at him sharply, as if to assess whether he was worthy of being told, whether he was serious in his inquiries; one could not tell everyone about one’s book.
“It’s nothing very much,” she said, after some moments of hesitation. “Just a novel.”
He had waited for further explanation, but she had merely continued to stare at him. At last he said: “A novel.” And she had nodded.
“Well,” he said, “may I ask what sort of novel it is?”
“Historical,” she said. “Very early. It’s set in early Scotland. Sixth century, actually.”
Angus had smiled. “You’re very wise to choose a period for which there is so little evidence,” he said. “You can’t go wrong if you write about a time that we don’t really know about. When people start to write about the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries–or even the twenty-first, for that matter–they can get into awful
trouble if they get it wrong. And they often get something wrong, don’t they?”
“Writers can make mistakes like anybody else,” said Antonia, rather peevishly. “We’re human, you know.” She looked at Angus, as if expecting a refutation, though none came. “For instance, was there not an American writer who described one of his characters on page one as unfortunately having only one arm? On page one hundred and forty the same character claps his hands together enthusiastically.”
Angus smiled. “So funny,” he said. “Although some people these days would think it wrong to laugh about something like that. Just as they don’t find anything amusing in the story of the man who went to Lourdes and experienced a miracle. The poor chap couldn’t walk, and the miracle was that he found new tyres on his wheelchair.”
Antonia stared at him. “I don’t find that funny, I’m afraid.” She shook her head. “Not in the slightest. Anyway, if I may get back to the subject of what we know and what we don’t know. We happen to have quite a lot of knowledge about early medieval Scotland. We have the records of various abbeys, and we can deduce a great deal from archeological evidence. We’re not totally in the dark.”
Angus looked thoughtful. “All right,” he said. “Answer me this: were there handkerchiefs in medieval Scotland?”
Antonia frowned. “Handkerchiefs?”
“Yes,” said Angus. “Did people have handkerchiefs to blow their noses on?”
Antonia was silent. It had not occurred to her to think about handkerchiefs in medieval Scotland, as the occasion had simply not arisen. I’m not that sort of writer, she thought; I’m not the sort of writer who describes her characters blowing their noses. But if I were, then what…
“I have not given the matter thought,” she said at last. “But I cannot imagine that there were handkerchiefs–textiles were far too expensive to waste on handkerchiefs. I suspect that people merely resorted to informal means of clearing their noses.”
“I read somewhere that they blew them on straw,” said Angus. “Rather uncomfortable, I would have thought.”
“I imagine that it was,” said Antonia. “But I am writing mostly about the lives of the early saints. Noses and…and other protuberances have not really entered into the picture to any great degree.
“And anyway,” she went on, “you should not expect fiction to be realistic. People who think that the role of fiction is merely to report on reality suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is all about.”
Angus Lordie’s nostrils flared slightly, even if imperceptibly. His conversations with Domenica had been conducted on a basis of equality, whereas Antonia’s remarks implied that he did not know what fiction was about. Well…
“You see,” went on Antonia, inspecting her nails as she spoke, “the novel distils. It takes the human experience, looks at it, shakes it up a bit, and then comes up with a portrayal of what it sees as the essential issue. That’s the difference between pure description and art.”
Angus looked at her. His nostrils had started to twitch more noticeably now, and he made an effort to control this unwanted sign of his irritation. He had entertained, and now abandoned, the notion that he might get to know Antonia better and that she would be a substitute for Domenica; indeed, as the lonely-hearts advertisements had it, perhaps there might have been “something more”.
He imagined what he would say if he were reduced to advertising. “Artist, GSOH, wishes to meet congenial lady for conversation and perhaps something more. No historical novelists need apply.”
8. Money Management
Matthew was crossing Dundas Street to that side of the road where Big Lou kept her coffee bar, at basement level, in the transformed premises of an old book shop. The Morning After Coffee Bar was different from the mass-produced coffee bars that had mushroomed on every street almost everywhere, a development which presaged the flattening effects of globalisation; the spreading, under a cheerful banner, of a sameness that threatened to weaken and destroy all sense of place. And while it would be possible, by walking into Stockbridge to get the authentic globalised experience, none of Big Lou’s customers would have dreamed of being that oxymoronic. One feature of the chain coffee shops was the absence of conversation between staff and customer, and indeed between customer and customer. Nobody spoke in such places; the staff said nothing because they had nothing to say; the customers because they felt inhibited from talking in such standardised surroundings. There was something about plastic surroundings that subdued the spirits, that cudgelled one into silence.
Big Lou, of course, would speak to anybody who came into her coffee bar; indeed, she thought it would be rude not to do so. Conversation was a recognition of the other, the equivalent of the friendly greetings that people would give one another in the street, back in Arbroath. And people generally responded well to Big Lou’s remarks, unburdening themselves of the sort of things that people unburden themselves of in the hairdresser’s salon or indeed the dentist’s chair in those few precious moments before the dentist’s probing fingers make two-sided conversation impossible.
Matthew had something on his mind, and he hoped that nobody else would be in Big Lou’s to prevent him from speaking frankly to his friend. Or if there were anybody else there, then he hoped that it would be one of the regulars, as he would not mind any of them hearing what he had to say. Indeed, it would be interesting to have Angus Lordie’s perspective on things, even if he would have to discard it immediately. Matthew liked Angus, but found him so quirky in his view of the world that he could hardly imagine taking advice from him. But at least Angus Lordie was prepared to listen, and that was what Matthew needed now more than anything else.
Exactly two weeks earlier, Matthew’s situation had changed profoundly. He was still the owner of the Something Special Gallery; he was still the only son of the wealthy and recently engaged entrepreneur, Gordon; he was still a young man with a disappointing business record and a somewhat low-key personality; all of this was unchanged. But in another, important respect, the Matthew of today was different from the Matthew of a short time ago. This was the fact that he now had slightly over four million pounds to his name, the gift of his father at the instance of Janice, his father’s new, and badly misjudged fiancée.
His father’s official disclosure of the transfer of the funds had come in a letter from his lawyer, a man who had always, although in private, been somewhat scathing of Matthew (whom he regarded as being weak and ineffectual). Now the tone was changed, subtly but unambiguously. Would it be possible for Matthew to call in at the office, at any time that was convenient to him, so that the modalities of the transfer could be discussed? Modalities was an expensive word, a Charlotte Square word; not a word one would catch a lesser firm of lawyers bandying about. Indeed, some lawyers would be required to reach for their dictionaries in the face of such a term.
Matthew had made his appointment and had been warmly received. And it had taken only fifteen minutes for the real agenda of the visit to be disclosed. It would be important to manage the funds that were coming his way in a prudent manner. This meant that professional advice on the handling of the portfolio would be needed, and, as it happened, they had a very successful investment department which would be able to come up with proposals for a balanced portfolio at very modest rates.
Sitting back in his chair Matthew allowed himself a smile. Let’s work it out, he thought. A management fee of one per cent of the capital at his disposal was, what, forty thousand pounds a year? That was a great deal to earn merely from watching money grow. But this, of course, was capitalism, and Matthew now found himself at the polite, discreet dinner-party end of the whole process. There were plenty of people in Edinburgh who were trained to sniff out money, rather like those friendly little beagles that one saw at the airports who were trained to sniff out drugs. These people, urbane to a man, knew when their services were required and circled helpfully. Then it was mentioned, discreetly, that of course there were others in your position
, in need of just a little help. That was good psychology. Those to whom good financial fortune comes are alone. Their money frightens them. They feel unsettled. To be told that there are others in exactly the same boat is reassuring.
So the lawyer said: “Of course, we have a number of clients who are pretty much in a similar position to yourself. They find…and I hope I don’t speak out of turn here, but they find that there are advantages in keeping everything under one roof.”
And here, unintentionally, he looked up at the ceiling, as if to emphasise that the roof under which they were sitting was quite capable of accommodating Matthew’s new-found wealth.
Matthew looked at the lawyer. He knew this man from the parties that his father occasionally gave. He knew his son too, a tall boy called Jamie, who had been at school with him and who had once hit him with a cricket bat, across the shoulders, and who had once said to the others–within Matthew’s hearing–that the reason why Matthew was then afflicted by a particular rash of pimples was…It was so unfair. And now here was the father of the same persecutor offering to handle his money.
“Thanks,” said Matthew. “But I propose to handle it myself. I enjoy reading the financial press and I think I’m perfectly capable.”
The lawyer looked at Matthew. He thought: Jamie once used a rather uncomplimentary word to describe this young man. How apt that epithet! Boys may be cruel to one another, but they were often very good judges of character.
9. The Warm Embrace of the Edinburgh Establishment
Matthew had left the lawyer’s office feeling slightly light-headed. He paused at the front door, and thought about what he had done; it would be easy to return, to go back to the man whom he had written off on the basis of his son’s unpleasant behaviour all those years ago. It would be easy to say to him that mature reflection–or at least such reflection as could be engaged in while walking down the stairs and through the entrance hall–had led him to believe that it would be best, after all, to have the funds consigned to the colleague whom the lawyer had so unctuously mentioned. Presumably it would be easy to stop the transfer that he had asked for–the transfer from the firm’s client account to Matthew’s own account–and once that was done the serious business of putting four million pounds to work in the market could begin. But he did not do this. All his life, money had come from somebody else (his father) and had been doled out to him as one would give sweets to a child. Now he had the money at his own disposal, and he felt like an adult at last.
Love Over Scotland Page 3