Love Over Scotland 4ss-3

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “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. “Yu
mitupela 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.