Scotland Street Volume 15, Chapter 2: Galileo, orthodoxy, dinner

“People like you to dress up a bit,” he said. “It shows that you regard them as worth the trouble.”

Domenica was in complete agreement. As an anthropologist, she understood the significance of uniform, and of the way in which clothing sent signals. “When I go to my dentist,” she had once remarked to Angus, “I expect to find him in one of those natty blue jackets with buttons down the side. Such outfits reassure those facing the drill.”

Angus nodded. “And pilots should wear blue uniforms with a bit of gold braid. That, too, is reassuring. I would not feel confident if I boarded a plane to find the pilot wearing jeans with rips in the knees.”

Domenica rolled her eyes. “Rips in the knees! Have you ever worked out what’s going on there, Angus?”

He shook his head. “It’s very fashionable. You buy them with the rips ready-made. It’s most peculiar.”

“Perhaps it signals indifference to formality,” suggested Domenica. “Rips proclaim that you don’t care about being smart.”

“And that you’re not ashamed of your knees,” added Angus. “Rips say: I don’t mind if you see my knees.”

Domenica looked thoughtful. “Are the knees an erogenous zone?”

Angus was not sure. “I’ve never been attracted to knees myself,” he said. “But there may be some who are.” He was not sure whether gallantry required him to say something here about the attractiveness of Domenica’s knees, but he decided to say nothing. Anybody could tell the difference between sincerity and insincerity when it came to comments about their knees.

Domenica did not seem interested in pursuing the subject of knees, as she now asked, “What about trousers that hang down low, and display the wearer’s underpants? I saw a young man at Waverley Station once who was wearing trousers with the crotch roughly level with his knees. He was finding it very difficult to walk. He did a sort of penguin waddle.”

“Another statement,” said Angus. “But I’m with the prudes on that one, I’m afraid: underpants are definitely private. Exhibitionists may not agree, of course.”

Now, as Angus reflected on what he was to wear to Matthew and Elspeth’s dinner party, Domenica had already changed into her favourite trouser-suit that she found fitted the bill for just about every occasion except those specifying evening dress. And she had few such invitations, she thought, with a momentary regret. Her full-length dress, with its optional tartan sash, lay folded away, and she was had no idea when it would next be needed.

While Angus chose between his two linen jackets, she stood before the window from which, by craning one’s neck, one might look up towards Drummond Place Gardens, that were touched at that moment – it was six o’clock – by summer evening light. She was not looking in that direction, though, but was gazing, rather, at a patch of empty blue sky. She was contemplating something that she had put off thinking about until that very moment – a request to write a letter that she did not want to write.

Domenica still considered herself to be a practising anthropologist. She held no institutional position – and had not done so for some years – being one of those rare private scholars who pursue their subject without the comfortable safety-net of an academic salary. It was not easy being a private scholar: for one thing, you had to overcome a certain scepticism rooted in people’s assumption that if you were any good you would have a university post. Why, after all, do research for nothing when there were institutions that would pay you to do the exact same work, give you grants to attend conferences in exotic places, and, if you stayed the course, dignify you with a professorial title?

The private scholar also had to put up with the condescension of those holding academic positions. When applying for research grants from public bodies, he or she had to write none in that part of the form that demanded disclosure of institutional affiliation. It was a statement of independence, but one that had long borne considerable risks. And yet the private scholar was now being recognized as being of increasing importance, for all this marginality. In an age of intellectual conformity, the private scholar could ask questions that probed received ideas. That was what Galileo had done, and yet there was no room for contemporary Galileos, it seemed. If those who called the tune, which now meant those who could shout loudest, said that the sun revolved around the earth, then the sun really did behave in that way, and it was no use echoing Galileo’s eppur si muove – and yet it moves.

She sighed. It was precisely because she was a private scholar that they had written to her and asked for a letter. She would have to respond, although not just yet. She would do that tomorrow for now they were about to go out to dinner and there were other things to think about.

And one of these was what Bertie was up to, because there was the small boy from the flat below, leaving the front door of No 44, accompanied by his grandmother, Nicola, and that spindly-legged little friend of his, Ranald Braveheart Macpherson. They paused briefly, as Nicola bent down to say something to the two boys, and then continued their way up the sharply-sloping street.

Angus came into the room and stood behind her.

“I’ve decided not to wear a tie,” he said. “Matthew won’t be wearing one – not in his kitchen. But I’m going to wear this jacket, I think.”

She did not look around. She knew his clothes off by heart. One day she would replace them, lock stock and barrel. She would buy him an entirely new wardrobe and throw out those two dreadful suits and those threadbare jackets. Wives had to do that sort of thing from time to time, as that was the only way husbands could be kept looking vaguely presentable.

Then Angus said, “I’m going to take Cyril for a quick walk around the gardens,” he said. “Then I think we should think of setting off for Nine Mile Burn.”

Domenica nodded, without turning round. “I see that Nicola has had the same idea with the boys,” she said. “Boys are just like dogs, don’t you think, Angus? They need to be exercised.”

Angus laughed. “Possibly,” he said.

© Alexander McCall Smith, 2021. A Promise of Ankles (Scotland Street 14) is available now. Love in the Time of Bertie (Scotland Street 15) will be published by Polygon in hardback in November 2021.