44 Scotland Street

artist, and I know what beauty is all about. That beautiful young man has worked a spell on you.

That’s what beauty does. We see it and it puts a spell on us. It’s most extraordinary. We want to merge ourselves with it. We want to possess it. We want to be it. You want to be that young man, you know. That’s what you want.”

Pat listened in astonishment as they made their way round Poetry of the Tang Dynasty

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Drummond Place towards the top of Scotland Street. As they walked past the house of the late Sydney Goodsir Smith, makar, Angus Lordie looked up at the empty windows and gave a salute.

“I like to acknowledge Sydney’s shade,” he said. “Guidnicht, then, for the nou, Li Po/ In the Blythefu Hills of Tien-Mu. ” He turned to Pat. “Those lovely lines are by Sydney, God rest his great rambunctious soul. He wrote a lovely poem, addressed to the Chinese poet, Li Po, about an evening’s goings-on in an Edinburgh bar, a cheerie howf, peopled by a crousi companie o’

philosophers and tinks. What a marvellous picture! And all this going on while the world in its daith-dance/ skudder and spun/ in the haar and wind o space and time.”

He stopped and looked down at his dog. “Do you think this is awful nonsense, Cyril? Will you tell Pat that I don’t always go on like this, but that sometimes . . . well sometimes it just seems the right thing to do. Will you tell her that, Cyril?”

Cyril stared at his master and then turned to look up at Pat.

He winked.

“There,” said Angus Lordie. “Cyril would have got on very well with Sydney. And he does like to hear about the Chinese poets too, although he knows that the Chinese eat dogs – a practice of which Cyril scarcely approves, tolerant though he is of most other human foibles. A dog has to draw a line.”

“Do you enjoy Chinese poetry, Pat? No. I suppose that you’ve never had the pleasure. You should try it, you know. The Arthur Waley translations. These Chinese poets wrote wonderful pieces about the pleasure of sitting on the shore of their rivers and waiting for boats to arrive. Nothing much else happens in Chinese poetry, but then does one want much to happen in poetry? I rather think not.”

They turned down Scotland Street, walking slowly in order to allow Cyril to sniff at every kerbstone and lamp- post.

“It’s really rather easy to write eighth-century Chinese poetry,”

said Angus Lordie. “In English, of course. It requires little effort, I find.”

“Make one up now,” said Pat. “Go on. If you say it’s so easy.”

Angus Lordie stopped again. “Certainly. Well now, let us think.”

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He paused. Then turning to face Pat, he addressed her gravely: I look across this street of stone, This street which takes a country’s name, To the house with lights, where a gentle companion Prepares her jug of wine, brings to mind The hours that we have spent together In that quiet room; each stair that lies Between ourselves and her, will raise the heart a little, Will tidy the unhappiness from your courtyard, Will make you smile again. My unhappy friend; I tell you so; I tell you this is true.

He finished speaking, and bowed slightly to Pat. “My Chinese poem,” he said. “Not as good, perhaps, as that which might have been written by Li Po, if he were with us, which he is not, but capable perhaps of preparing you for an evening with Domenica and myself and conversation about things that really matter. And if, incidentally, this is balm for your undoubted unhappiness, then I shall consider myself to have done no more than any neighbour should do. N’est-ce-pas, Cyril ?”

91. God Looks Down on Belgium

“And where,” asked Domenica Macdonald, as she opened her door to them, “is your malodorous dog?”

Angus Lordie seemed not to be taken aback by what struck Pat as a less than warm welcome. But Pat’s concern proved to be misplaced. The relationship between her neighbour, Domenica, and her newly-acquired friend, Angus Lordie, was an easy one, and the banter they exchanged was good-natured. In the course of the evening, Angus Lordie was to describe Domenica – to her face – as a “frightful blue-stocking”, and in return she informed him that he was a “well-known failure”, a “roue” and

“a painter of dubious talent”.

“If you are referring to Cyril,” said Angus Lordie, “he is outside, tied to a railing, enjoying the smells of this odiferous street. He misses such smells in Drummond Place, with its rather better air. He is quite happy.”

Domenica ushered them into her study. “I really am rather pleased that you came to see me,” she said, as she took a half-full bottle of Macallan out of a cupboard. “I’ve been worrying about this fatwa of yours, Angus. Have those dissident Free Presbyterians shown their hand yet?”

Pat remembered the talk about the dissenting Free Presbyterian fatwa imposed upon Angus Lordie as a result of his uncomplimentary portrait of their Moderator. Angus Lordie had not mentioned anything more about it, and certainly his demeanour was not that of one labouring under a fatwa.

“Oh that,” said Angus Lordie, accepting the generous glass of whisky which Domenica had poured for him. “Yes, they’ve done one or two things to signal their displeasure, but I think that the whole thing will probably blow over.”