Scotland Street Volume 18, Chapter 57: Crushed avocado

Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna arose early that morning. In their shared flat in Drummond Place, just round the corner from Scotland Street, she and her friend, the hagiographer, Antonia Collie, had drawn up a carefully-prepared rota to decide who did which domestic tasks. That week, while Antonia was in charge of cleaning and laundry, it was Sister Maria-Fiore’s turn to do the cooking from Sunday breakfast to Saturday dinner. She much preferred this to vacuuming and dusting – tasks that, in the convent in which she had lived in Tuscany, had been relegated to novices. The Mother Superior, a scion of a prominent aristocratic family from Umbria, had firm views on hierarchy, and had expressed these in terms that were readily grasped by even the youngest and least sophisticated girls consigned to the convent by their contadini parents.

44 Scotland Street

“There’s you,” said the Mother Superior – known fondly by the other nuns as la Principessa. “You are down at the bottom. Then above you there is me. Then, above me, is the Bishop; and above the Bishop there’s the Holy Father – each one in his or her place. Then there’s the Lord himself, who is the Holy Father’s line manager, so to speak. There’s no room for ambiguity or vagueness. That’s how it works.” She paused. “Do you all understand? Good.”

It was a bit of a comedown for Sister Maria-Fiore to have to undertake menial housekeeping duties when she moved to Edinburgh, especially after she began her meteoric rise up the social ladder. There was something fundamentally wrong with a trustee of the National Gallery – and a member of the New Club Management Committee – having to do the washing up, even of her own dishes in her own flat, but Antonia had not been persuaded that they should hire domestic staff. “Who’s going to pay for them?” she enquired, knowing that the only person with sufficient means in their flat would be herself.

“I thought we might find a volunteer,” suggested Sister Maria-Fiore. “We could call her an intern. In Italy, I knew several people who staffed their houses with unpaid interns. It’s work experience, you see.”

Antonia was dismissive. “One may be able to do that in Italy,” she said. “Not here, I’m afraid. Our young people don’t take to work terribly well, even when you pay them. That’s why all our hotels and bars are staffed by Eastern Europeans. They’re very hard workers.”

Sister Maria-Fiore considered this. “Do you think we might be able to get an Eastern European to do our kitchen work?” she asked. “On a work experience basis?”

Antonia thought not. “I’m afraid we’ll just have to roll up our sleeves and make do,” she said.

And that is what Sister Maria-Fiore did, in spite of her misgivings, offering up her efforts as a penance for past sins, all of which were in the venial category and therefore nothing to feel too bad about: the occasional yielding to feelings of envy, for instance, or the passing on of a scrap of gossip, or impatience with some of the weaker brothers and sisters. These were all things that could be readily forgiven, although she tried, as far as possible, to avoid them. Some temptations, of course, remained strong, and were almost impossible to resist. Sister Maria-Fiore enjoyed the occasional cigar, which she knew was frowned upon – and she would also sometimes find it difficult to walk past a betting shop without going in briefly to put a very small bet on a horse. That she tended to justify on the grounds that the betting shop employees would lose their jobs if nobody came in to bet, and so she was directly helping them in her minor flutter.

That morning she had only a small breakfast herself – a bowl of muesli and two slices of Parma ham she had bought from Valvona & Crolla the previous day. For Antonia, though, who usually rose a bit later, she prepared a much larger meal. This included peeled kiwi fruit, crushed avocado on toast, a poached egg, and sourdough toast spread with patum peperium. On the table at Antonia’s place was a copy of The Scotsman that Sister Mari-Fiore had slipped out to purchase from the local newsagent, along with the morning’s post, that had come through the letterbox only a few minutes earlier. Antonia maintained a wide correspondence with historians in Glasgow and Aberdeen, and in such other centres where there was interest in the lives of the early Scottish saints – her principal subject of research. She also had various correspondents working in Byzantine history, which was her other main academic interest. One day she would write a life of Acacius, the father of the Empress Theodora. Acacius was a bear-trainer in the Constantinople Hippodrome; his daughter, Theodora, became an actress, and caught the eye of Justinian, who married her in spite of strong opposition from members of the senatorial class to those who earned their living on the stage. Antonia was convinced that many of the enlightened attitudes and diplomatic skills of Theodora were attributable to her upbringing, and, in particular to paternal influence, but was having great difficulty in finding out anything about the life of this man, whose deeds appeared completely unrecorded. But that was the incentive to write such a book: if nothing is known about a particular figure, then a biography is all the more necessary.

Now, over her crushed avocado, Antonia looked up from her newspaper and asked her friend about her plans for the day.

Sister Maria-Fiore sat down to explain. “I’m going to transfer the stone. It will be more secure elsewhere.”

Antonia considered this. “A good idea,” she said at last. “Drummond Place Gardens are just too public for an artefact of such significance.”

“That’s exactly what I think,” said Sister Maria-Fiore. “I’ve spoken to Big Lou about it. She says that her sister-in-law farms up near Aberfeldy. I’m going to leave it with Big Lou, who will keep it under her counter until her sister-in-law comes down to Edinburgh for some dental work she’s having.”

Antonia approved. “That sounds like a reasonable plan,” she said. “It may only be a fragment of the Stone of Scone, but it is of great significance. The English would love to get it again. They must be prevented at all costs.”

“Precisamente,” said Sister Maria-Fiore.

Antonia gazed at her friend in complete admiration. “You’re wonderful,” she said. “You really are.”

© Alexander McCall Smith, 2025. Bertie’s Theory of Ice Cream will be published by Polygon in August, price £17.99. The author welcomes comment from readers and can be contacted at [email protected]