Love Over Scotland

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 cafe and the routing of Eddie – it had all come tumbling out.

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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 subject 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.

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“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