Love Over Scotland (16 page)

44. Angus Lordie Prepares to Entertain

Angus Lordie felt disgruntled. He had woken early that morning–rather earlier than he had wanted to–and had found it difficult to get back to sleep. Now it was six o’clock, and still dark. In the summer, when the mornings were so bright and optimistic, he would sometimes make his way into his studio and paint for several hours. He loved those summer mornings, when the city was quiet and the air so fresh. Life seemed somehow richer in possibilities at that hour; it was like being young again; yes, that was what it was like, he thought. When you are young, the world is in better definition, clearer; it is a feeling not dissimilar to that which one had after the first sip of champagne, before the dulling effect of excess. But now, in the autumn, with the drawing in of days, the morning hours lacked all that, and painting could only begin much later on, after breakfast.

What produced this sense of disgruntlement on that particular day was the fact that Angus was due to entertain that night. He enjoyed dinner parties–in fact, he relished them–but in general, he preferred to be a guest rather than a host. It was such a bother, he thought, to have to cook everything and then to serve it. He found it difficult to relax and enjoy the conversation if he had to keep an eye on the needs of his guests. And at the end of it all, of course, there was the mess which had to be cleared up. Angus kept his flat tidy–it was rather like the galley of a well-run ship, in fact; somewhat Spartan, with everything neatly stacked and stored.

Of course, this preference for being entertained rather than entertaining had not escaped the notice of others. If records were kept of these things, in the same way in which certain denizens of London society kept lists of the season’s parties–and that was never done in Edinburgh–then Angus Lordie’s debit columns would heavily outweigh anything in his credit columns. In fact, his credit columns would be completely blank, unless one counted buying lunch for one or two friends in the Scottish Arts Club as a credit. And the friends for whom he had bought lunch were themselves noted more for the eating of meals than for paying for them. And as for those who had invited him to their large parties in places such as East Lothian, they did so in the sure and certain knowledge that their hospitality would never be repaid. Not that they minded, of course; Angus was witty and entertaining company, and nobody expected a bachelor to be much good at reciprocation.

“He’s such a charming man,” remarked one hostess to a friend. “Men like that are such fun.”

“But he’s absolutely no good,” said the friend. “A convinced bachelor. No use at all.”

“Such a waste,” said the first woman.

“Criminal.”

They were both silent. Then: “Remember when”–and here she mentioned the name of a prominent lawyer who, some years back, had become a widower–“Remember when he came on the market and there was that mad dash, and she got there first?”

The other thought for a moment. She shook her head. There were other cases too, though none as egregiously tragic for a number of hopefuls as that one.

“Of course, Angus is very friendly with that woman who lives in Scotland Street. That frightful blue-stocking…”

“Domenica Macdonald.”

“Exactly. The one who went off somewhere on some madcap project.”

“But there’s nothing between them, surely?”

“No. They gossip together. That’s all.”

“So sad.”

“Criminal.”

But now Angus was cornered and found himself committed to the holding of a dinner party in Drummond Place. This situation had come about as a result of an undertaking he had rashly given to Domenica shortly before her departure for the Malacca Straits. She had asked him to give her an assurance that he would invite to his flat Antonia Collie, her friend who was occupying her flat in her absence.

“She knows very few people in Edinburgh, Angus,” Domenica had said. “And she is an old friend. I don’t expect you to fall over yourself, but do at least have her round for a meal. Promise me that, will you?”

Angus felt that he could hardly refuse. He gave his word that he would invite her within a week of her arrival, and on the sixth day he had pushed an envelope through Antonia’s letterbox and walked down the stairs quickly in case she should come out and invite him in. He did not want to see much of her. She’s insufferably pleased with herself, he thought. And she has that arrogance of those whose modest amount of talent has gone to their head.

He considered how he might dilute her company. If he invited four other guests, then he could place her at the far end of the table, opposite his own seat at the head, and then he would have two guests on either side of the table between himself and Antonia. In this way, he would not have to listen to her at all and she would, in turn, find it difficult to condescend to him.

But it was not just the seating plan that Angus had been contemplating–there was also the menu to consider. His own taste tended towards uncomplicated fare–to lamb chops with mashed potatoes, to smoked salmon on brown bread, to venison stew with red cabbage. But he was aware that such dishes would not do for a dinner party of sophisticates–and Antonia would certainly consider herself a sophisticate. She may have drawn the conclusion that he knew little about fiction–but he would not allow her to draw a similar conclusion about his culinary ability. With this in mind, he had gone to some trouble to plan a meal of considerable complexity. He had consulted the book which he had received for his birthday from a female cousin some years previously,
Dear Francesca
, a book of memoirs and recipes, and had made a note of the ingredients he would need: pasta, extra virgin olive oil, anchovy fillets, Parmigiano Reggiano. His mouth watered.

“Come, Cyril,” he announced. “Time to go shopping.”

Cyril looked at his master. For some reason, he experienced a sudden sense of foreboding. But, being a dog, he had no means of articulating this, no means of warning.

45. A Memory of Milanese Salami

With Cyril trotting beside him, Angus Lordie made his way along London Street and turned up Broughton Street to complete his journey to Valvona & Crolla. Although he rarely bought anything more adventurous than a packet of dried pasta, he liked the authentic Italian feeling which he derived from browsing its shelves. On this visit, of course, there were more ambitious ingredients to be bought: fresh Parmesan cheese, for example; tagliatelle which were rich in eggs; olive oil from tiny, named estates in the Sienese hills; perhaps even a small jar of Moscatelli’s grated truffles, as a treat. He would choose these ingredients with care, so that when that opinionated Antonia Collie came to dinner he could subtly put her in her place (what would she know about truffles, or vintage olive oil?) He thought of her condescension, and bristled. Who did she imagine she was? Breezing into Scotland Street like that from Perthshire and implying–or even doing more than that–stating, in fact, that he did not understand the nature of fiction. Domenica, for all her faults–and he thought that one day he might present her with a list of them, just to be of some assistance–never condescended to anybody. Indeed, she went to the opposite extreme, and assumed that those to whom she was talking shared her understanding, which was generous of her, as they usually did not. That was such a courtesy, and it was so refreshing to see it in operation. Such people made one feel better by just being with them. One was admitted to the presence of a liberal intelligence and made to feel welcome; made to feel at home.

Outside the shop, Angus looked down at Cyril, who gazed back up at him in expectation. Cyril loved going to Valvona & Crolla, but Angus had been reluctant to take him inside ever since Cyril had lost control of himself and snatched a small but expensive Milanese salami from the counter and gobbled it up before Angus had a chance to snatch it from his jaws. Nobody in the shop had noticed a thing, and Angus had felt torn over what to do in such circumstances. There were many different responses to such a situation. On the one hand, there were those who felt no compunction over eating in supermarkets and then walking out, replete, and not paying for what they had consumed. Angus himself had once witnessed a woman feeding processed cheese to her child in the dairy-products section of his local supermarket. He had stopped and stared at her in astonishment and their eyes, for a few instants, had met. What he had seen was not shame, as he had expected, but something quite else: the look of challenge of those who believe that they are doing nothing wrong.

Such a view was unconscionable–eating the food in a supermarket was simply theft, and could be distinguished from shoplifting only by virtue of the nature of the container used to remove the property. But in this case, when the salami had been eaten by Cyril, he had not intended to take any property that did not belong to him, and that made a difference. As he thought about it, he saw that there was a similarity with a situation where one mistakenly took the umbrella of another in the belief that the umbrella was one’s own. That was not theft; that was a mistake. Of course then, when one discovered the error, the umbrella should be returned to the person to whom it belonged, or one might then become a thief by keeping. So, too, in this situation, although the salami could not be returned to its rightful owner, there was clearly a moral duty to report the incident at the cash desk and offer to pay.

Angus had ordered Cyril to desist, but for a short time the dog had completely ignored him, so lost was he in the pleasure of eating the salami. But then, the salami consumed and lingering only in the faint odour of garlic that hung about him, Cyril had been struck by the enormity of what he had done and had looked up at his master in trepidation. Angus rarely struck Cyril, and now he merely shook his head and spoke to him quietly and at length in a low voice that was every bit as effective as one that was raised. The words, of course, meant nothing to Cyril, apart from bad dog, which he recognised and which cut him to the quick. Cyril had no word for temptation, nor for irresistible, and could not explain that what had happened had been beyond his control. So he lay there and endured the shame.

Angus offered to pay, and when his offer was cheerfully declined on the grounds that such things happened–a most understanding response, he thought; but Italians, and this included Italo-Scots, always had a soft spot for dogs, and people too, for everything in fact–he had voluntarily offered to leave Cyril outside on his next visit to the shop. Now, standing outside the delicatessen, he looked about for a suitable place to tie Cyril’s lead. The pavement at that point was broad and without railings, but the civic authorities had thoughtfully placed a bicycle rack nearby, and he thought that this would provide a handy tethering post for Cyril.

“I won’t be long,” he explained, as he fastened the leash to the rack. “Sorry, you can’t come in. It’s your record, you see. A small matter of a Milanese salami. Remember?”

He gave Cyril a pat on the head and entered the shop. A few minutes later, while Angus was examining a small bottle of olive oil, holding it up to the light to determine its clarity, a young man in a black T-shirt and jeans walked up to Cyril and bent down to ruffle his fur.

Cyril, always eager for human company, but particularly so when tied up on the street, licked at the young man’s hand. His keen nose smelled tobacco, and something else, something he could not identify and which was unfamiliar, and sharp. He drew back a bit, and looked at the young man. He felt unsure, and he looked at the door of Valvona & Crolla. A bus passed, and Cyril smelled the fumes. He looked up; there was a seagull hovering nearby, and he caught a slight smell of fish and bird.

The young man was undoing his lead. He was being dragged. He was confused. Was he being sent away? What had he done?

46. A Conversation about Angels etc

Inside the delicatessen, unaware of the drama being enacted outside, Angus Lordie carefully replaced on its shelf the bottle of olive oil he had been examining.

“That,” said a voice behind him, “is a particularly good oil. We’ve been selling it for some time now. Poggio Lamentano. It’s made from the Zyws’ olives. Gorgeous stuff. This is the new vintage, which has just arrived–you can taste it, if you like.”

Angus turned round and recognised Mary Contini. He had met her socially once or twice–and of course it was she who had written
Dear Francesca
–but he was not sure whether she remembered him. Her next comment, however, made it clear that she did. “You’re a painter, aren’t you? We met at…” She waved a hand in the air.

Angus nodded, although he, too, had forgotten the name of their host. He, too, waved a hand in the air–in the direction of the New Town. “It was somewhere over there,” he said, and laughed. Then there was a brief silence. “I’m cooking a meal,” he said lamely, as if to explain his presence. It was rather a trite thing to say, of course, but she did not seem to mind.

“They’re a painting family too,” she said, pointing at the bottle of oil. “They had a studio down in the Dean Village, overlooking the Water of Leith. But they have this place in Tuscany and they produce the most beautiful oil. I’ve visited it. Wonderful place.”

“I would be very happy living in Italy,” said Angus. “Tuscany in particular.”

“What artist wouldn’t be?” asked Mary Contini.

Angus gazed up at the ceiling. He knew of some artists who would not like Italy; some artists, he thought, have no sense of the beautiful and would be ill at ease in a landscape like that. He was tempted to name them, but no, not amidst all this olive oil and Chianti. “In Tuscany, I have always thought one is in the presence of angels,” he said. “In fact, I am sure of it.”

Mary Contini looked intrigued. “Angels?” she said.

“Yes,” said Angus, warming to his theme. “Have you come across that marvellous poem by Alfred Alvarez? ‘Angels in Italy’. Written in Tuscany, of course, where Alvarez has a villa.”

Mary Contini thought for a moment, and then shook her head.

“He describes how he is standing in his vineyard and suddenly he sees a choir of angels–that is the collective term for angels, I believe–or shall I say a flight of angels?–somehow that seems more appropriate for angels in motion; choirs are more static, aren’t they? He sees this flight of angels crossing the sky, and it seems so natural, so right. Isn’t that marvellous? And there they are, flying across the Tuscan sky while below them everybody is just carrying on with their day-to-day business. Somebody is cutting wood with a buzz-saw. The leaves of the vines rattle like dice. And so on.”

“I can just see it,” said Mary Contini.

Angus smiled. “Of course, angels are an intrinsically interesting subject. Especially if one has little else to do with one’s time. Like those early practitioners of angelology who speculated about the number of angels who could stand on the head of a pin.”

“I’ve always thought of angels as being rather big,” said Mary Contini.

“Exactly,” said Angus. “Mind you, there are an awful lot of them, I believe. The fourteenth-century cabalists said that there were precisely 301,655,722. Quite how they worked that out, I have no idea. But there we are.” He sighed. He enjoyed a conversation of this sort–but ever since Domenica had gone away, there seemed to be so few people with whom to have it. And here he was taking up this busy person’s time with talk of angels and the Tuscan countryside. “I must get on,” he said. “One cannot stand about all day and talk about angels. Or olive oil, for that matter.”

She laughed. “I am always happy to talk about either,” she said, and she nodded to him politely and moved on. He reached for a bottle of olive oil and placed it in his shopping basket. Then, with his small collection of purchases selected, he made his way to the till, paid, and went out into the street.

He looked for Cyril, and saw that he was not there. He stopped, and stood quite still. Fumbling with the bag of purchases, he dropped it, and it fell onto the pavement, where the bottle of olive oil shattered. A slow green ooze trickled out of the crumpled bag. It soaked into his loaf of rosemary bread. It trickled down into a crack in the pavement.

Somebody passing by hesitated, about to ask what was wrong, but walked on. Angus looked about him frantically. He had tied Cyril’s leash quite tightly–he always did. But even if Cyril had worked it loose, he would never leave the spot in which Angus had left him. He was good that way–it was something to do with his training in Lochboisdale, all those years ago. Cyril knew how to stay.

Angus saw a boy standing nearby. The boy was watching him; this boy with a pasty complexion and his shirt hanging out of his trousers was watching him. He walked over to him. The boy, suspicious, stiffened.

“My dog,” he said. “My dog. He was over there. Now…”

The boy sniffed. “A boy took it,” he said. “He untied him.”

Angus gasped. “He took him? Where? Did you see?”

The boy shrugged. “He got on a bus. One of they buses.” The boy pointed to a red bus lumbering past.

“You didn’t see which one?”

“No,” said the boy. He looked down at the packet on the ground and then back up at Angus. “I’ve got to go.”

Angus nodded. Bending down, he picked up the oil-soaked bag and looked about him, hopelessly. Cyril had been stolen. That was the only conclusion he could reach. His friend, his companion, had been stolen. He had lost him. He was gone.

He walked back to Drummond Place slowly, almost oblivious to his surroundings. Worlds could end in many ways, but, as Eliot had observed, it was usually in little ways, like this.