Love Over Scotland 4ss-3

by Alexander McCall Smith

  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 mu
shroom 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 su
bject 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