Angus had ordered Cyril to desist, but for a short time the dog had completely ignored him, so lost was he in the pleasure of eating the salami. But then, the salami consumed and lingering only in the faint odour of garlic that hung about him, Cyril had been struck by the enormity of what he had done and had looked up at his master in trepidation. Angus rarely struck Cyril, and now he merely shook his head and spoke to him quietly and at length in a low voice that was every bit as effective as one that was raised. The words, of course, meant nothing to Cyril, apart from bad dog, which he recognised and which cut him to the quick. Cyril had no word for temptation, nor for irresistible, and could not explain that what had happened had been beyond his control. So he lay there and endured the shame.
Angus offered to pay, and when his offer was cheerfully declined on the grounds that such things happened–a most understanding response, he thought; but Italians, and this included Italo-Scots, always had a soft spot for dogs, and people too, for everything in fact–he had voluntarily offered to leave Cyril outside on his next visit to the shop. Now, standing outside the delicatessen, he looked about for a suitable place to tie Cyril’s lead. The pavement at that point was broad and without railings, but the civic authorities had thoughtfully placed a bicycle rack nearby, and he thought that this would provide a handy tethering post for Cyril.
“I won’t be long,” he explained, as he fastened the leash to the rack. “Sorry, you can’t come in. It’s your record, you see. A small matter of a Milanese salami. Remember?”
He gave Cyril a pat on the head and entered the shop. A few minutes later, while Angus was examining a small bottle of olive oil, holding it up to the light to determine its clarity, a young man in a black T-shirt and jeans walked up to Cyril and bent down to ruffle his fur.
Cyril, always eager for human company, but particularly so when tied up on the street, licked at the young man’s hand. His keen nose smelled tobacco, and something else, something he could not identify and which was unfamiliar, and sharp. He drew back a bit, and looked at the young man. He felt unsure, and he looked at the door of Valvona & Crolla. A bus passed, and Cyril smelled the fumes. He looked up; there was a seagull hovering nearby, and he caught a slight smell of fish and bird.
The young man was undoing his lead. He was being dragged. He was confused. Was he being sent away? What had he done?
46. A Conversation about Angels etc
Inside the delicatessen, unaware of the drama being enacted outside, Angus Lordie carefully replaced on its shelf the bottle of olive oil he had been examining.
“That,” said a voice behind him, “is a particularly good oil. We’ve been selling it for some time now. Poggio Lamentano. It’s made from the Zyws’ olives. Gorgeous stuff. This is the new vintage, which has just arrived–you can taste it, if you like.”
Angus turned round and recognised Mary Contini. He had met her socially once or twice–and of course it was she who had written Dear Francesca–but he was not sure whether she remembered him. Her next comment, however, made it clear that she did. “You’re a painter, aren’t you? We met at…” She waved a hand in the air.
Angus nodded, although he, too, had forgotten the name of their host. He, too, waved a hand in the air–in the direction of the New Town. “It was somewhere over there,” he said, and laughed. Then there was a brief silence. “I’m cooking a meal,” he said lamely, as if to explain his presence. It was rather a trite thing to say, of course, but she did not seem to mind.
“They’re a painting family too,” she said, pointing at the bottle of oil. “They had a studio down in the Dean Village, overlooking the Water of Leith. But they have this place in Tuscany and they produce the most beautiful oil. I’ve visited it. Wonderful place.”
“I would be very happy living in Italy,” said Angus. “Tuscany in particular.”
“What artist wouldn’t be?” asked Mary Contini.
Angus gazed up at the ceiling. He knew of some artists who would not like Italy; some artists, he thought, have no sense of the beautiful and would be ill at ease in a landscape like that. He was tempted to name them, but no, not amidst all this olive oil and Chianti. “In Tuscany, I have always thought one is in the presence of angels,” he said. “In fact, I am sure of it.”
Mary Contini looked intrigued. “Angels?” she said.
“Yes,” said Angus, warming to his theme. “Have you come across that marvellous poem by Alfred Alvarez? ‘Angels in Italy’. Written in Tuscany, of course, where Alvarez has a villa.”
Mary Contini thought for a moment, and then shook her head.
“He describes how he is standing in his vineyard and suddenly he sees a choir of angels–that is the collective term for angels, I believe–or shall I say a flight of angels?–somehow that seems more appropriate for angels in motion; choirs are more static, aren’t they? He sees this flight of angels crossing the sky, and it seems so natural, so right. Isn’t that marvellous? And there they are, flying across the Tuscan sky while below them everybody is just carrying on with their day-to-day business. Somebody is cutting wood with a buzz-saw. The leaves of the vines rattle like dice. And so on.”
“I can just see it,” said Mary Contini.
Angus smiled. “Of course, angels are an intrinsically interesting subject. Especially if one has little else to do with one’s time. Like those early practitioners of angelology who speculated about the number of angels who could stand on the head of a pin.”
“I’ve always thought of angels as being rather big,” said Mary Contini.
“Exactly,” said Angus. “Mind you, there are an awful lot of them, I believe. The fourteenth-century cabalists said that there were precisely 301,655,722. Quite how they worked that out, I have no idea. But there we are.” He sighed. He enjoyed a conversation of this sort–but ever since Domenica had gone away, there seemed to be so few people with whom to have it. And here he was taking up this busy person’s time with talk of angels and the Tuscan countryside. “I must get on,” he said. “One cannot stand about all day and talk about angels. Or olive oil, for that matter.”
She laughed. “I am always happy to talk about either,” she said, and she nodded to him politely and moved on. He reached for a bottle of olive oil and placed it in his shopping basket. Then, with his small collection of purchases selected, he made his way to the till, paid, and went out into the street.
He looked for Cyril, and saw that he was not there. He stopped, and stood quite still. Fumbling with the bag of purchases, he dropped it, and it fell onto the pavement, where the bottle of olive oil shattered. A slow green ooze trickled out of the crumpled bag. It soaked into his loaf of rosemary bread. It trickled down into a crack in the pavement.
Somebody passing by hesitated, about to ask what was wrong, but walked on. Angus looked about him frantically. He had tied Cyril’s leash quite tightly–he always did. But even if Cyril had worked it loose, he would never leave the spot in which Angus had left him. He was good that way–it was something to do with his training in Lochboisdale, all those years ago. Cyril knew how to stay.
Angus saw a boy standing nearby. The boy was watching him; this boy with a pasty complexion and his shirt hanging out of his trousers was watching him. He walked over to him. The boy, suspicious, stiffened.
“My dog,” he said. “My dog. He was over there. Now…”
The boy sniffed. “A boy took it,” he said. “He untied him.”
Angus gasped. “He took him? Where? Did you see?”
The boy shrugged. “He got on a bus. One of they buses.” The boy pointed to a red bus lumbering past.
“You didn’t see which one?”
“No,” said the boy. He looked down at the packet on the ground and then back up at Angus. “I’ve got to go.”
Angus nodded. Bending down, he picked up the oil-soaked bag and looked about him, hopelessly. Cyril had been stolen. That was the only conclusion he could reach. His friend, his companion, had been stolen. He had lost him. He was gone.
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He walked back to Drummond Place slowly, almost oblivious to his surroundings. Worlds could end in many ways, but, as Eliot had observed, it was usually in little ways, like this.
47. Goodbye to Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.)
The car in which Domenica Macdonald was travelling–the car belonging to Edward Hong M.A. (Cantab.)–came to a halt on the outskirts of a small settlement about an hour’s drive from the city of Malacca. Ling, the young man who was to be Domenica’s guide and mentor in the pirate community, had tapped Edward Hong on the shoulder as they neared the village.
“I’m sorry,” Ling said. “We’re going to have to walk from here. I’ll find a boy to carry the suitcase.”
“There are always boys to do these things,” said Edward Hong to Domenica. “That’s the charming thing about the Far East. I gather that in Europe these days one has run out of boys.”
Domenica nodded. “Boys used to be willing to do little tasks,” she said. “But no longer.”
Edward Hong looked wistful. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I was a Scout. Baden-Powell was much admired in these latitudes, you know. And we were taught: always do at least one good deed every day. That’s what we believed in. And I did it. I did a good deed every day. Do you think that happens today?”
“Alas, no,” said Domenica, as she prepared to get out of the car. “Most children have become very surly. That is because they are not taught to think about others any more. They are, quite simply, spoiled.”
“I fear that what you say is right,” said Edward Hong. “It is very sad.”
They stood outside the car and stretched their legs while Ling went off to the village. Domenica, her head shaded by a large, floppy sun hat–for even with cloud cover, she could feel the weight of the noonday sun–stood on the roadside and gazed out over the surrounding landscape. The village, which seemed to consist of twenty or so houses, straddled the road, which had now narrowed to a single track. The houses were small square buildings, each raised a couple of feet above the ground on wooden pillars. This, she knew, provided both protection from floodwaters and allowed the air to circulate in the heat. The roofs, which were made of palm thatch, were untidy in their appearance, but everything else seemed neat and well-kept. A small group of children stood on the steps of the nearest house, staring at them, while a woman, wearing a red sarong, attended to some task on the veranda. On one side of the village stood a small shop, on the front of which was pinned a sign advertising Coca-Cola. The shop-keeper, standing outside, clad in a dirty vest and a pair of loose-fitting green trousers, seemed to be talking into a mobile telephone, gesticulating furiously with his free hand.
“Village life,” said Edward Hong, pointing. “Children. Dogs. A shop-keeper in a dirty vest. It holds no romantic associations for me, I’m afraid.”
Domenica laughed. “I don’t romanticise these things either,” she said. “Most anthropologists know too much about such places to romanticise them. I’m sure that life for these people is thoroughly tedious. They’d love to live in Malacca–I’m sure of it.”
“And yet they are better off out here,” said Edward Hong. “They may not know it, but they are. Wouldn’t you rather live here, in relative comfort, than in some hovel in town–for the privilege of which you would be working all hours of the day in some sweatshop?”
“I don’t know,” said Domenica. “I just don’t know.”
Ling now reappeared, accompanied by a teenage boy, bare-shouldered, a printed cloth wound about his waist. He pointed to Domenica’s large suitcase, which had been taken out of the car by the chauffeur, and the boy cheerfully picked it up.
“We must go,” said Ling. “It’s at least two hours’ walk from here. Do you have your water bottle?”
Domenica answered by pointing to her small rucksack. Then she turned to Edward Hong and shook his hand. “You have been more than kind, dear Mr Hong,” she said. Edward Hong lowered his head in a small bow. “I shall miss your company,” he said. “And my daughter will too.”
“I shall think of her playing Chopin,” said Domenica. “If the company of the pirates becomes a trifle wearisome, I shall think of her playing her Chopin.”
They said their final farewells, and then the small party set off, led by Ling, with Domenica in the middle, and the teenage boy bringing up the rear. Edward Hong waved from the car, and Domenica waved back. She knew that she would miss his urbane company; indeed she knew that there was a great deal that she was already missing, and would miss even more over the coming months. She missed her conversations with Angus Lordie. She missed looking out of her window onto Scotland Street. She missed her morning crossword in The Scotsman. And when would she next have a cup of foaming cappuccino and a freshly-baked croissant?
I shall not think of any of this, she told herself. I shall be thoroughly professional. I am an anthropologist, after all, heir to a long tradition of endurance in the field. If I had wanted a quiet and comfortable life, then I would have become something else. The furrow I have chosen to plough is a lonely one, involving hardship, deprivation, and danger. Danger! She had forgotten about Ling’s almost throwaway comment about the Belgian anthropologist, the one who had preceded her to the village and who was now buried there. She had meant to ask Ling about this, but the direction of the conversation had changed and she had not had the opportunity. Besides, she did not want to give Edward the impression that she was frightened. If she did, then she knew that he would fret for her, and she did not want that.
She looked at Ling’s back as he walked in front of her. A large patch of sweat had formed between his shoulder blades, making a dark stain on his shirt. Such circumstances as these, she thought, remind us of just what we are: salt and water, for the most part.
“Ling,” she said. “That Belgian anthropologist you mentioned. Could you tell me more about him?”
Ling glanced back at her, but kept on walking. “We don’t like to talk about him,” he said. “Do you mind?”
Domenica was quick to say that she did not. But his comment puzzled her and, if she were to be honest about her level of anxiety, she would have to admit that it had grown. Considerably.
48. A View of a House
The small party followed a track that led away from the village. The track was narrow, but was wider than a footpath and had obviously been used by vehicles. There was white, sandy soil underfoot, and here and there this had been churned up by the wheels of a vehicle. There were other signs of human passage too–a discarded tin can, roughly opened and rusting; a fruit-juice carton, waxy and crumpled; the print of a sandal on the soil.
Trees grew on either side of the path. These, together with an undergrowth of creeping vines and thick-leaved shrubs, made for a barrier that was dense, if not entirely impenetrable. It would be easy to lose oneself in such surroundings, thought Domenica; one might wander about in circles for days, unable to see any reference points, unable even to work out the direction of the sun’s movement. At moments such as this, she mused, dependence on one’s guide reminded one of the mutual reliance of human existence. In large numbers, in towns and cities, we forget that without the help of others we are fragile, threatened creatures. But the moment that support is removed, then the reality of our condition becomes apparent. We are all one step from being lost.
After walking for half an hour, Ling called a halt and they sat down on the trunk of an uprooted tree. Domenica reached for her water bottle and took several swigs. The water, which had kept cool in the air-conditioned interior of Edward Hong’s car, was now tepid–the temperature of the soupy air about them–and it bore the chemical taste of the purification tablets she had dropped into it. The boy, who had been uncomplainingly carrying Domenica’s suitcase, shifting it from hand to hand every so often, was given a small sugared bun, which Ling had extracted from a packet secured to his belt. Domenica was offered one of these buns too, but declined.
“It must be very difficult living in such isolated conditions,” she said to
Ling. “I suppose they have to bring their supplies all the way down this track.”
Ling shook his head. “This track is not used a great deal,” he said. “The people in the village we are going to do not come this way very often. They have boats, you see.”
Domenica nodded. Of course, the village for which they were heading was on the coast, or close enough to it.
“Where shall I be staying?” she asked. She had been told that accommodation would be arranged, but Edward Hong had not gone into details. All he had said was: “You will probably be somewhat uncomfortable, but I suppose that you anthropologists are used to that sort of thing.” And then he had shuddered; not too noticeably, but he had shuddered.
Ling wiped his brow. “You will stay in the village guest house,” he said. “It is a small place, just two rooms, which is used for any visitors to the village. It is clean and it is cool too. There is a big tree beside it. That will give you shade.” He paused, and smiled. “You will be very happy there.”
“Oh, I’m sure I shall,” said Domenica. His description of her accommodation had cheered her slightly. A small, cool house in the shade sounded as if it would be perfect.
“And there is another house beside it,” Ling went on. “The woman from that house will be your friend. She speaks a little English–not much–but a little. And she is making her sons learn English too. They are just boys, but they will speak to you too.”