The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (46 page)

As this conversation proceeded, Cyril dozed beneath the table. As a dog, human speech was a mystery to him – a babble of sounds that was so hard to interpret, no matter how hard he strained. Tone of voice, though, provided a key: when the sounds were low and constant, all was well; when the pitch was raised, something was happening, and that might have consequences for dogs. Then there were the few words he really did understand – words laden with meaning, from the canine point of view. “Walks,” that rich and promising word, was of immense importance in the canine vocabulary; a word that activated every pleasure centre in a dog’s brain. “Good dog,” a more complicated phrase, standing, in its complexity, at the very outer limits of canine understanding, as obscure as the rules of quantum physics. That two words should combine to produce a single meaning – that was the conceptual challenge for a dog. So the canine brain ignored the word “dog” as a superfluous complication, and focused, instead, on “good.”

But when Cyril awoke from his brief nap, the problem that confronted him was not one of understanding what was being said over the table, but what he saw underneath, down at dog level, close to the floor. For there before him, only inches away,
were Matthew’s ankles; half clad in socks, half exposed. It was a sight of which Cyril had dreamed, and in some of his dreams he had acted. This was Cyril’s temptation, and it was an immensely strong one. Indeed, had Mephistopheles himself concocted a challenge for Cyril, he could not have come up with a stronger, more tempting enticement. Matthew’s ankles were Sirens, and they beckoned from the rocks of his ruination.

He could not resist. For years he had gazed upon these ankles and restrained himself. But now he knew he could do that no longer. His life would soon be over; dogs did not last all that long, and he wanted to do this before he passed beyond temptation. So, suddenly, and without giving Matthew any warning, Cyril moved forward and nipped Matthew’s right ankle; not too hard – he liked Matthew – but enough for Matthew to give a start and look down.

Cyril looked up, his jaws still loosely fixed around the ankle; he looked up into Matthew’s surprised eyes. This was the end; Cyril knew there would be shouting and he would be beaten with a rolled up copy of
The Scotsman
. He would be in disgrace, perhaps forever. This was truly the end.

Matthew stared at Cyril. He opened his mouth, ready to say something, to shout out in outrage even, but he did not. He looked down upon Cyril and then, reaching down, he gently pushed him away. He did not want Cyril to be punished. He said nothing.

Thus we forgive one another; thus reconciliation and healing begin.

Domenica rose early that Saturday and dressed with care. She liked the idea of dressing with care, a notion she had come across in a Michael Longley poem addressed to Emily Dickinson, in which he described her as “dressing with care
for the act of poetry.” She would dress with care for the social act that lay before her: the entertaining of her friends to dinner.

The choice of courses was an important one. Domenica was not an enthusiastic cook, in the sense that she did not derive a great deal of pleasure from cooking; but she was a good one. And the meal her guests would be given that evening would give them no cause for complaint. It would have an Italian flavour, of course; that was the cuisine with which she felt most comfortable and the one for which the ingredients were the most readily available in Valvona & Crolla.

And the guest list was chosen with equal care. There were several invitations that had to be repaid, and others that would be allocated purely on the basis of merit. James Holloway would come, of course; and Judith McClure and Roger Collins; and Michael and Mona Shea; and the Duke of Johannesburg; Pippa and Hugh Lockhart from round the corner; and Andrew and Susanna Kerr; and … She paused. She had noted down on a piece of paper the names of those who were invited and hoped that she had forgotten nobody; Angus, of course – no dinner party in Scotland Street would be complete without him; and Matthew and Elspeth. That would be enough; her table in the kitchen, when extended at each end with the addition of a bridge table, could seat up to sixteen in conditions of elbow proximity.

She had arranged to meet Angus in Valvona & Crolla that morning.

“I shall help you to choose the wine,” he had said. “Not that you can’t choose it yourself, it’s just that one can make so many mistakes when it comes to wine.”

She had accepted his offer. Wine was something Angus knew about, and she trusted his judgment. At Valvona & Crolla, though, when inspecting a range of obscure Puglian wines, Angus turned to her suddenly and said, “Domenica, why are we doing this? Why are we having all these people round to dinner?”

It might have been another occasion on which Mallory’s reply would have been called for: because they’re there, but she said instead: “Friendship.”

He had not expected that answer. “Just that?”

“Yes. Because a dinner party provides the ideal opportunity to sit with people. To talk to them.”

“You don’t think, then, that it’s simply a bourgeois ritual?”

Domenica smiled. “I might have thought that in the past,” she said. “No more, though. I now realise, I think, how important these bourgeois rituals are. Or all rituals, for that matter, bourgeois or not.” She reached out and took from him the bottle he had extracted from the shelf to show her. “Bari, I see. Do you know what you can find in Bari, Angus?”

Angus shrugged. He knew little of the Italian south, even if he liked its wines.

“The Bones of Father Christmas,” said Domenica. “Santa Claus, no less, or Saint Nicholas of Myra, to give him his full title. He was the basis of the Santa Claus legend, and they keep his relics in a candy-striped box in the Church of San Nicola in Bari.”

Angus was busy examining the wines; only half-listening.

“There is so much to see in Italy,” Domenica continued. “The Holy House in Loreto, for example. That’s the Virgin Mary’s house. It was carried over from the Holy Land by angels, I believe.”

“How very remarkable,” said Angus, moving along the shelf to examine a small selection of Tuscan wines.

“But to return to rituals,” said Domenica. “In the Sixties we thought we could get rid of everything. Rituals were exposed as meaningless. Restraint was taken as a sign of inhibition. Personal authenticity was all. Behave as you wanted to. Liberate yourself.”

Angus nodded. Domenica was right about these things, he felt, and he was prepared to go along with her.

“Of course, we’re now finding out the consequences of all that,” said Domenica. “Look at the way people behave in the
streets at night. Look at the rudeness, the discourtesy, the ugliness and violence of our public space.”

“Yes,” said Angus. “It’s very bad. Very bad indeed.”

“Yet anybody who points it out is laughed at. It’s very uncool, isn’t it, to point out that we are a society in dissolution?”

Angus nodded. His eye had been caught by a jar of artichoke hearts. “Yes,” he said. “Quite so.”

“And as for that Government minister who attacked the Proms,” said Domenica. “Don’t you despair? She said the audience was not inclusive. Since when, may I ask, has it become mandatory to have an audience which is representative of society at large? What an absurd idea. Sinister too.”

“There are some very unsettling people around these days,” agreed Angus. “People who tell us what to think. People who have no understanding of the concept of artistic freedom.” He paused. “Have you thought, Domenica, of doing a first course of tagliatelle with white truffle sauce? Look, here is some of that truffle paste. It’s not at all expensive, and it tastes delicious. It really does.”

“And then?”

“And then you can follow it with a fish stew. One of those strong Neapolitan ones. Octopus and the like.”

“I could,” said Domenica. “But returning to rituals, Angus – don’t you think they are the absolute cement of any society? Rituals and key institutions. And when you destabilise them, when you point out the emperor has no clothes, you find you’ve got a void where society used to be. Just a whole lot of individuals, all strangers to one another.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Angus. He looked at her. “But what are we going to do, Domenica? What’s the solution?”

“We have to recivilise society,” said Domenica quietly. “The whole of Britain: England, Scotland, the works, everything has to be recivilised. We have to rebuild. We have to re-create the civilisation we have so casually destroyed.”

Angus knew she was right. But the task of recivilising
seemed so daunting, so extensive, that he wondered if he and Domenica were up to it, especially when one had to cook dinner as well.

James Holloway was the first to arrive, that is if one did not count Angus, who had spent most of the day in Domenica’s flat, helping her with preparations. While James and Angus talked together about the Raeburn portrait of Burns, she attended to the laying of the table in the kitchen. Then others arrived, let in by Angus, who, as usual on these occasions, was acting as host. How pleasant it would be, thought Domenica, to have Angus here all the time, helping about the place, doing the sort of things he was doing this evening. But no, she dismissed the thought; Angus, came with baggage – there was Cyril, and there was all that paint and turpentine and mess. There were few men, she reflected, who came without such clutter.

After she had finished in the kitchen she went through to the drawing room to meet her guests. Almost everybody had arrived now, and the din of conversation had risen markedly. Angus had opened a window, not only to ventilate the room, but also to allow some of the noise to escape. Domenica imagined the sentences spoken by her guests drifting out of the window and over Drummond Place Gardens, rising slowly, like Buddhist prayer slips, and then floating out over the Forth: little snippets of conversation, observations, small asides. Marconi had said, she recalled, that sound never dies – it merely gets fainter and fainter. And that meant that somewhere out there, floating above the cold plains of the Atlantic, was the ever-fainter sound of the Titanic’s band playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” Such a strange thought …

And then she thought: I should have invited Antonia. The unsettling thought distracted her, and she crossed the room to where Angus was talking to Susanna Kerr.

“Yes,” said Susannah, “it will be marvellous if that is the real Raeburn portrait of Burns.”

“It is,” said Angus. “I’m absolutely convinced of it.”

He was drawn aside by Domenica. “We forgot to invite Antonia,” she whispered. “Should I go and see if she’s in?”

Angus thought for a moment. This was not a time to nurse a grudge. “I shall go and get her,” he said. “I’ll tell her the truth. We forgot.”

Angus was dispatched to deliver Antonia’s invitation and returned a few minutes later saying that Antonia had accepted, and would join them shortly. “I suspect that she had already eaten,” he said. “But she accepted nonetheless. It’s rather greedy, don’t you think, to have two dinners?”

“Not if you do it out of politeness,” said Domenica. “What appears to be greed in such a case becomes an act of courtesy. And we must be more charitable towards Antonia. She is, I fear, one of the weaker brethren and needs our help.”

After a while, they moved through to the kitchen and seated themselves around the extended table. Angus sat at one end, and Domenica at the other: host and hostess, with their guests ranged between them. The conversation, which started the moment they sat down, rose in a hubbub of opinion, conjecture and friendly refutation. Elspeth, seated next to Matthew, took his hand under the table and pressed it gently. He looked at her fondly and smiled. “It doesn’t matter about the clothes,” he whispered. “I can get new ones.” Relieved at his forgiveness, she pressed his hand again.

Each had his or her thoughts: pleasure at being in company – and such good company too; delight at the pungent smell of the white truffle sauce and the texture of the tagliatelle; eager anticipation of the course, and discourse, yet to come. For her part, looking down the table, Domenica caught Angus’s eye and raised her glass to him, a private toast, which he
responded to with a toast of his own. And then, half-way through the meal, Domenica tapped her now empty glass with a spoon. It was the right moment, she thought; any later and people might feel maudlin, or tired. It was just the right moment.

“Every year,” she said, “Angus kindly recites a poem of his own composition. The time for that poem has now arrived.”

“We would not have it otherwise,” said Roger Collins.

“No indeed,” agreed Hugh Lockhart.

Angus looked down, in modesty. “Dear friends,” he said. “My heart is full …”

And he continued:

“But not so full that I cannot speak of love;

For that, you know, is the truest of words

Most profoundly spoken, in any tongue,

And in any circumstances.

May we who are blessed in friendship

Find it always in our hearts

To speak that word and make it the fulcrum

Of all our acts; proclaim it, too,

Our guiding light in moral gloaming.

Love heals, makes whole,

Restores the delicate balance

That so long ago went out of kilter,

When hatred and suspicion first

Uttered their beguiling, primeval snarl.

I am a Scot, and a patriot;

I love this country, for all its ways,

I am as moved as any when I see

That landscape of quiet glens,

Those pure burns and rivers,

Those blue seas and islands

Half blue. I love all that,

And the people who dwell therein;

But I love, too, our neighbours

And those who are not our neighbours;

I shall never relish their defeats,

Nor celebrate their human difficulties;

For, frankly, what is the alternative?

I see no other way.

I see no other way but that;