44 Scotland Street: Antonia writes from Italy

The nineteenth installment of Alexander McCall Smith’s new daily novel

Volume 9

Episode 19

Antonia writes from Italy

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WHILE the increasingly acrimonious exchange between Irene and Stuart was raging, upstairs at 44 Scotland Street, in their now-shared flat, Domenica Macdonald and her new husband, Angus Lordie, were talking about something that had every bit as much unsettling potential as the topic being discussed below. This was the arrival that morning of a letter from their erstwhile neighbour, Antonia Collie, announcing that she would shortly be arriving from Italy and proposing that she stay with them for a couple of weeks.

“Read me her letter again, Angus,” said Domenica. “I really have to savour the nuances. One gets so few letters with nuances these days.”

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Angus retrieved the envelope from its place on the kitchen dresser.

“She has such peculiar writing,” he began, glancing at the face of the envelope. “A graphologist would have a field day with her.”

“Graphology’s nonsense,” said Domenica. “It’s pop psychology at its worst.”

“Her writing slopes all over the place,” said Angus. “And Antonia herself is all over the place, isn’t she?”

“Possibly. But we must not be uncharitable, Angus. We must bear in mind that Antonia is a new person since she joined that convent. I’m sure that the old Adam is well and truly put in his place by now.”

“Or Eve,” said Angus.

“No, I never felt that Eve had a fair trial. But let’s not get bogged down in such minor details. The letter – read it to me.”

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Angus took the letter from the envelope. It was written on two thin sheets of paper – paper of the sort that used to be employed for the airmail edition of The Times.

“My dear friends,” he began.

“Stop there,” said Domenica. “Note the tone, Angus. Who addresses people as “my dear friends”? Who does she think she is? The Pope, now that she’s so cosy with Rome?”

“I think she’s being friendly,” said Angus.

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“Perhaps,” said Domenica. “Although it would have been more natural to say ‘Dear Domenica and Angus’. Or even, ‘Dear Angus and Domenica’.”

Angus looked thoughtful. “That raises an interesting question,” he said. “Are we Angus and Domenica or are we Domenica and Angus?”

“Interesting,” said Domenica. “I suppose a couple’s names do tend to find their order, so to speak. Interesting.”

“You put the more forceful, more outgoing person first,” said Angus, thinking, as he spoke, In that case, it’s Domenica and Angus, definitely.”

Domenica thought the same thing, and then thought that she would make an effort to sign cards from Angus and Domenica. A man might well feel destabilised if he saw his name taking second place all the time.

“Perhaps why she wrote dear friends,” said Angus. “It meant that there was no issue as to whose name went first.”

“Read on,” said Domenica.

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“Dear friends,” read Angus, “At the moment we are having gorgeous weather here in Tuscany – so different from the dreary weather you are no doubt having in Scotland, poor you.”

“Well!” exclaimed Domenica. “How rude! You should never crow over somebody else’s weather.”

“Even if what you say is true?”

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“Especially if what you say is true,” emphasised Domenica. “You do not remind somebody of their geographical misfortunes – or indeed any other misfortune. But carry on.”

“And here at the convent we are busy with so many things that need to be done – the sort of tasks that I never even thought about when I lived in Edinburgh – clearing paths, tending vegetables, gathering wood for the fire.”

“Listen to that!” exclaimed Domenica. “She implies that we have no paths to clear.”

“We don’t.”

“Nor wood to gather for the fire.”

“And we don’t have that either,” said Angus.

“Carry on.”

Angus looked down at the letter. “How I envy the two of you your leisure,” he continued.

“So we have nothing to do,” said Domenica. “Sitting here idly. Read on.”

“Being busy, though, is such a privilege, as I can offer up all my works to my Creator and know that they are good in His sight.”

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“So she hopes,” said Domenica. “Although frankly I doubt whether the Supreme Being is all that interested in her path clearing and wood gathering. He has bigger fish to fry, no doubt. Carry on, Angus.”

“Now we get to the interesting part,” said Angus. He returned to the letter. “I hope that you don’t mind if I come to Edinburgh for a few weeks, as I have some work to do in the National Library in connection with my Scottish Saints book. I am so looking forward to staying in my flat again – it will be just like old days, looking out of my window on to Scotland Street again!”

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“That’s the bit,” said Domenica. “My flat. She should say ‘My former or erstwhile flat’. I don’t like to stand on ownership, but there are occasions when people make remarks as if they had no regard at all for what the Registers of Scotland have to say to us on these matters. Her flat is now our flat, Angus. She is not entitled to use the term my flat. She has no flat at all. She is quite without a flat. That’s not to say that she doesn’t have many other things in this life – she has her path-clearing and wood collecting, for instance – but she does not have a flat.” She paused. “Nor does she have a window. My window. Where, one might ask, is this window? I know of no window in Edinburgh out of which Antonia is entitled to look and think, contemporaneously, I am looking out of my window. I just don’t.”

Angus gazed at Domenica in sheer admiration. In his eyes, she was like a galleon in full sail, a fully-rigged vessel prepared for engagement on the highest of high seas. Before such opposition, what chance did somebody like Antonia, an ill-equipped minor ship of the line, have? None, he thought.

“I’d be perfectly prepared to have Antonia to stay,” he said. “But I do think it’s a bit much proposing yourself on somebody for, what is it? Three weeks. And…”

Domenica completed his sentence. “And to bring somebody with you. Finish the letter, Angus.”

“And I do hope,” Angus went on, “you won’t mind if I have one of the sisters with me. She won’t take up much space – she’s very small – and she eats like a bird. You’ll love her, and never having set foot outside Italy, poor dear, she can’t wait to see Scozia, as she charmingly calls it. I know you won’t mind, because I know that at heart you both have a very strong sense of your moral duty.”

“That’s the bit!” Domenica exclaimed. “That’s the bit that takes the shortbread.”

THE STORY SO FAR...

Up to Episode 3

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Normally, a seventh birthday party is something to be eagerly looked forward to – especially when one is six. And Bertie Pollock, in his last week of being six, would normally be looking forward to his seventh birthday party very much indeed. Unfortunately, his mother Irene, insists on a guest list of gender-equality, and that means that Olive will be invited too. For Bertie, this stirs memories of Olive’s own seventh birthday party, when he discovered to his horror that not only was he the only boy invited, but that he was expected to play a game Olive had devised called Jane Austen. …. in which he was expected to play the role of Mr Darcy...

Up to Episode 5

Psychiatrist’s daughter Pat Macgregor is beginning to worry about her father. There hasn’t been a woman in his life since her mother left him to move in with a woman she met on a botanical course in Dundee. So why is he, all of a sudden, having his hair cut by a woman called Angie at a unisex salon in Bruntsfield? Who is he trying to impress?

Up to Episode 7

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Convinced her father is having a mid-life crisis (well, how else do you explain a man who has always only ever worn black socks now wearing striped ones?) Pat sets about trying to find out more. And when her father, having escorted her to the bus-stop and said goodbye, heads off in another direction, she decides to follow him ...

Up to Episode 9

Meanwhile, for anthropologist Domenica Macdonald, married life is taking some adjusting to. This isn’t the fault of her new husband, Angus Lordie – or at least not knowingly his fault. All the same, some questions have to be asked – for example, why does he mutter about the Declaration of Arbroath in his sleep? And why, when sleepwalking, does he appear to be looking for it in the kitchen drawers? Time, suggests Domenica, to make a n appointment with a sleep expert at the Royal Edinburgh. There’s a man she knows there who might be able to help. A psychiatrist called Dr Macgregor ...

Up to Episode 11

Depressed at the thought that he might require the attentions of a psychiatrist, Angus heads off to the Cumberland Bar for a ruminative pint. Once there, his dog Cyril is served his customary dish of Guinness. Soon they are joined by Matthew, also out for a ruminative pint after finishing work for the day before returning to face the noise and nappies of his toddler triplets. He clearly isn’t thinking straight, and pours half a pint of lager into Cyril’s dish. Canine drunkenness beckons.

Up to Episode 13

The sight of Cyril apparently dancing an Irish jig doesn’t impress one of the customers at the bar – an animal welfare officer. Despite assurances from both Angus and Matthew that no dog in Edinburgh is better cared for, the man asks for Angus’s name and address. He is, he says, going to file a report with a view to taking Cyril into care....

Up to Episode 15

After discussing the merits or otherwise of reincarnation, and in particular how it applies to residents of Edinburgh’s New Town, Big Lou admits to Matthew that her romance with Alex, the pig farmer from Mains of Mochle, has run its course. Worse, her biological clock is ticking particularly loudly these days.

Up to Episode 17

Perhaps it was entirely predictable that Matthew’s casual suggestion that Big Lou could have one of their triplets wouldn’t have gone down well with his wife Elspeth. To a mere man, of course, it seemed to make perfect sense: Big Lou would be an excellent mother, and Elspeth had her hands so full looking after three toddlers that she wanted another au pair in order to give their ultra-capable Danish au pair Anna a break...

Up to Episode 19

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The omens aren’t good for Bertie’s seventh birthday party – not just because Olive and her girl friends have invited themselves to it but so have some of Tofu’s more thuggish friends too. As for presents, although he has set his heart on a bicycle and a Swiss Army pen-knife, the chances of his mother Irene buying either are remote. Indeed, as she prepares a talk for her bookclub on hidden meanings children’s literature – a talk that will savage Tintin for its amount of head trauma and Captian Haddock’s anger issues and attack AA Milne for the infantilisation of Winnie the Pooh – she reveals to her husband Stuart that what she really wants for Bertie is that he should be able to face up to the world as a woman does, to see everything through though female eyes.

© 2013 Alexander McCall Smith

• Alexander McCall Smith welcomes comments from readers. Write to him c/o The Editor, The Scotsman, 108 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh. EH8 8AS, or via e-mail at [email protected]

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