“So?”
“So, given that we really have no idea about why we are here—and it’s true that we have no idea about that, no matter how much we like to think we do—then our options are … are what? To shrug and accept that we mean nothing, or to create some sort of system of beliefs, some myth that will sustain us. Which of these do you think makes life less terrifying? A belief in nothingness and irrelevance, or a state of denial of the emptiness?”
Angus did not take long to answer. “The latter,” he said. “If it’s empty, that is. But …”
Domenica looked at him expectantly. “But?”
“But believing in something that you know is inherently likely to be false is surely a form of self-delusion. And isn’t it counter-intuitive to believe in something that you suspect doesn’t exist? I could tell myself that Santa Claus exists, or fairies, and I may be happier for thinking that, but I’m abusing my capacity for reason and that means I’ll be less of a rational man.”
Domenica sighed. “I know. But, on the other hand, look at results. The rational person will believe only those things he can see—and prove. He tends, therefore, to be a materialist. But where does materialism lead us?” She pointed out of the window, in the direction of Princes Street. “Go up there,” she said. “Stand on Princes Street for a few minutes. Look at the people walking along the street. Look at their faces. Look into their faces. All those people going shopping. Buying things that they probably don’t really need.”
“They’re satisfying reasonable material appetites,” said Angus.
“Yes, I suppose we all need shoes and pullovers and … and whatever people buy on Princes Street. But look at the emptiness. Look at the aimlessness of people’s expressions. How many people will you see on Princes Street who look really alive?”
“Oh come on, Domenica!” said Angus.
“No,” she said. “I’m serious. The materialist view is like weedkiller. It kills all possibility of the spiritual.”
“So you’re saying that the people you see on Princes Street have nothing in their lives?”
Domenica did not answer immediately. One could not condemn an entire cross-section of the population of Scotland too quickly. One needed to think about it.
But then she had a thought. If God existed, his other name, she felt, might be Good. And good existed because we felt it, as surely as we felt the sun on our faces. We knew it was there.
64. The Unexpected
“I think,” said Angus Lordie to Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, “that we should start off the day with a cup of coffee in a typical Edinburgh coffee bar …”
He paused, and asked himself: was Big Lou’s coffee bar in any sense typical? A coffee bar run by a widely read but down-to-earth autodidact from Arbroath? A coffee bar that used to be a bookshop, down the stairs of which the late Christopher Murray Grieve—Hugh MacDiarmid, the poet—had once tripped, and avoided serious injury, unlike the Glasgow informal businessman, the late Lard O’Connor (Aloysius Xavier O’Connor) R.I.P., who had left this world while trying to negotiate his bulk down those very steps? A coffee bar frequented by the occasional Jacobite and art dealer and the only dog in Scotland with a gold tooth? Was any of that typical?
“Perhaps not entirely typical,” Angus added.
“What exists is typical,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “There is nothing that is not created for a purpose. Everything has its point.” She looked at Angus, as if to ensure that he had understood. “And so a flower that may have no apparent reason for existence is there because it beautifies that little bit of space.”
Angus stared at her. “I see …”
Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna smiled benignly. “May I tell you a little story, dear Mr. Lordie?”
“Of course,” said Angus. “But would you like to tell me as we walk to the coffee bar? It’s a fine morning, and it’ll be very pleasant walking along and listening to you.”
Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna said that she thought this was a good idea. “I do love to walk,” she said.
Angus waited for her to say something else, as this statement seemed rather short for her. Surely there was some greater purpose in walking—some connection between walking and understanding, for instance; but no, she had nothing to add.
Cyril, who had been sitting at Angus’s feet, recognised the word walk, even when uttered with an Italian accent, and immediately shot off in search of his lead. This he brought back and dropped before his master.
“Your dog is very charming,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “St. Francis himself would have loved him. I am quite sure of that.”
“Possibly,” said Angus. “He can be a bit malodorous at times, but I suppose that was nothing to St. Francis. I assume that he loved smelly animals too.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “All types and conditions of animal flocked to St. Francis. There is that lovely picture in Florence of him preaching to the birds. Perhaps you know it? And all the birds are lined up before him, entranced by the saint’s words.”
They set off, Cyril straining eagerly at the leash.
“Your story?” said Angus.
“Ah yes,” replied Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “My story is about a monastery in Tuscany—a very beautiful place, tucked away in the Sienese hills.”
“A very fine setting for a story,” Angus ventured.
“Indeed,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, giving Angus a cautionary glance; she clearly did not want interruptions. “Now, in this monastery there was a young novice—not much more than a boy, really—a young man of nineteen; but very spiritual, of course.”
Angus thought of the few Scottish nineteen-year-olds he knew—more interested in spirits (such as vodka, for example) than in spirituality; but he did not say anything.
“And this young man used to go for a walk every day. He left the monastery and walked along a path that went up a hillside. It was very beautiful, with groves of olive trees on both sides and a small stream—almost invisible in the dry summer months. At the foot of the hill was a farmyard in which were kept two white oxen of quite exceptional loveliness. They were used to pull an ancient wooden cart kept by the farmer—a cart that might have been there for hundreds of years, pulled by the oxen’s ancestors.”
Angus could picture the scene. He had seen white oxen in the Tuscan countryside before, and he could picture them now, with their drooping ears and their black noses, and their sweet oxen’s breath.
“Now, one of the other monks,” continued Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, “became suspicious of this young man’s regular walks. It occurred to him that he might be meeting one of the village girls, which, of course, was something that the Order discouraged. So he went to the Father Superior and voiced his doubts to him. The Father Superior listened gravely and then said, ‘We should not think the worst of our brethren, but at the same time, we should not close our eyes to the obvious. Follow that young man—discreetly—and then report back to me.’ ”
They had now reached Great King Street. “So,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, “the senior monk followed the young man, taking care not to be spotted. His route took him up the path almost to the top of the hill, and then he went off on a much smaller path that ran along a ridge. The senior monk was now certain that the young man was meeting a girl, as he had stopped to pick a number of wild flowers and had made these into a posy. Keeping well back, the senior monk followed the young man round a corner, and then, quite suddenly, all was revealed. The young monk had stopped and was placing the flowers in a small vase that had been placed on a ledge in the rock. And on this shelf was a small picture of a Madonna and child.”
Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna turned and smiled at Angus. “You see?” she said.
Angus nodded wisely. “The suspicious mind!” he said. “I am sure that he felt bad about harbouring
such suspicions.”
“He did indeed,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “As did the Father Superior.”
“I bet he did,” said Angus.
“Mind you,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, “because the senior monk sneaked away guilty and ashamed, he did not see what the young man did next.”
“What was that?” asked Angus.
“He went round the corner, where he met a local girl from the village. They had been meeting every day.”
Angus stopped. “Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna smiled. “I’m sure you weren’t. The unexpected, you see, dear Mr. Lordie, is what we do not expect, except when, as is sometimes the case, we expect it.”
65. La Vie Bédouine
Stuart received the telephone call at the office. It came at an awkward time, in the middle of a meeting with his immediate superior. The two statisticians had been discussing how to present the results of a major survey that had revealed that the Government’s claims of improvement in many areas of Scottish life were, to say the least, optimistic.
“It breaks my heart to see these figures,” said Stuart’s boss, Andrew. “Those poor government ministers—working away to put a positive gloss on things, and then all this …” He searched for a word to express his distaste. “All this … all this evidence.”
Stuart shrugged. “I suppose that’s the risk,” he said. “You ask a question and you get an answer you don’t like. Then what do you do?”
“You try to see what scraps of comfort are in the answer,” said Andrew. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve always done.”
Stuart looked at the papers before him. “Well, let’s try that. Let’s look at obesity rates.” He read out some figures.
“Those sound as if they’re inflated,” said Andrew.
Stuart shook his head. “No, it’s the people who are inflated.”
Andrew was not one to give up. “Are you sure those aren’t pounds you’re talking about? It sounds … well, it makes a difference, you know.”
“No, the figures are in kilos.”
“So the country’s getting bigger,” said Andrew. “Perhaps we could regard that as something positive. People are always going on about growth …”
“In the economy,” said Stuart. “Not in the national girth. And …”
“And what?”
“The country itself is actually getting smaller.” He turned to another page in the document before him. “Look, this column here is all about land area. It seems that because of erosion caused by the sea, Scotland is actually being washed away.”
Andrew shook his head. “Are you sure? Where’s it going?”
“I haven’t got a clue,” said Stuart. “I suppose if bits of land are washed away on the east coast, they must end up on the shores of continental Europe or …” He hesitated.
Andrew pressed him. “Yes?”
“Or if the sea currents run north to south, they end up being added to England.”
Andrew’s eyes flashed a warning. “Don’t say that,” he muttered. “Some ministers will not like that.”
Stuart had an idea. “Of course, it might be possible for them to say that England is actually taking Scottish territory. How about that?”
Andrew made a note. “Possible. We can run it past them.”
Stuart looked thoughtful. “What was that research we had to dig out last month? That stuff about air quality?”
Andrew looked puzzled for a moment, but then remembered. “Oh yes, there was that MSP who wanted to find out whether Scotland got more carbon dioxide from England than England got from Scotland. He wanted to find out whether England was using more than its fair share of air.”
Stuart smiled. “And we found out they were,” he said. “That went down well.”
“But there was a bit of a problem, wasn’t there? Didn’t the scientists say that the only way in which that could be addressed would be for the English to breathe a bit less? Quite a bit less, in fact.”
“A sort of West Lothian question,” mused Stuart.
It was at this delicate point that Stuart’s mobile phone rang.
“Mr. Pollock?” enquired a woman’s voice.
Stuart rose to his feet to take the call by the window, leaving Andrew at the desk. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” said the woman. “I’m actually calling from the Foreign Office in London. Are you in a position to take this call?”
Stuart’s heart lurched. He was back at Glasgow Airport. He saw Irene walking towards the entrance of the security bay. He saw the ceiling, which, curiously, he remembered. There were air-conditioning ducts.
“I’m very sorry to inform you,” said the woman, “that your wife has been involved in an incident in the UAE. She’s still alive, I hasten to tell you—it’s not bad news in that sense.”
He breathed again. More carbon dioxide, he said to himself; and then he thought: how strange that the mind can be irreverent, juvenile, at a time like this.
“Is she all right …”
“We think so,” said the woman. “It’s a rather strange affair. We’ve had a call from our chargé d’affaires there who says that for some reason your wife was attired in such a way that she was mistaken for one of the new wives of a Bedouin leader. She was bundled off into the desert, apparently.”
Stuart was at a loss.
“Are you still there, Mr. Pollock?”
“Yes,” he answered weakly. “I’m still here.”
“Well, when the hotel noticed that she hadn’t slept in her bed they made enquiries and pieced the whole thing together. Apparently she purchased a traditional desert outfit and, for some reason, wore that in the hotel lobby. That led to her being mistaken for the other lady—the wife—and carted off by this Bedouin chap’s men. We’ve used our contacts to try to get a picture of what happened then. The Dubai police have been tremendously helpful—as usual—but the problem is that communications in the desert are a bit difficult. We’ve found out where she is, though.” There was a pause. “Mr. Pollock? Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“She’s in a desert encampment—in the wives’ quarters, we’re told. Apparently she’s in good health, so there’s no worry on that score.”
Stuart breathed a sigh of relief. “When’s she coming back?” he asked.
“Well, that’s a bit of a problem, I’m afraid. They’re touchy, these Bedouin. Noble sons of the desert, and all that—but they’re tough negotiators. This chap says that she’s his wife now and so it’s going to take quite a bit of time for the authorities out there to lean on him. It could be weeks—months, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” That was all Stuart could say.
“Here’s your Foreign Office Distressed Person reference number,” said the woman.
She gave him a number and Stuart wrote it down. As a statistician, he could not help noticing that it contained an inordinate number of sevens and threes.
66. A Paternalistic Issue
Stuart decided that he would not tell Bertie about what had happened to Irene. In general, he did not like to keep the truth from his son, and had always answered his questions as truthfully as he could. Very occasionally, though, there were situations in which a paternalistic concealment of reality was justifiable—and if a father could not legitimately be paternalistic, then, he wondered, who could?
Bertie was an intelligent child, though, and would need some explanation of why his mother, who was due to arrive home from Dubai any day now, might not be returning for some time—weeks or months, according to the Foreign Office.
That afternoon when Stuart, using his entitlement to flexi-hours working, collected Bertie from the Steiner School, he raised the subject of Irene’s delayed return in as casual and non-alarmist a tone as he could.
“The desert has its attractions, you know, Bertie.”
Stuart made this
remark as the 23 bus began its dignified way along George IV Bridge. They were sitting on the top deck, in Bertie’s favourite position, one that afforded them a good view of the road ahead.
Bertie nodded. “If you like sand, the desert must be very nice.”
“Ah,” said Stuart, “but there’s more to the desert than sand, Bertie. Much more.”
Again Bertie nodded. “T. E. Lawrence thought that,” he said.
Stuart’s eyebrows shot up. “T. E. Lawrence? Where on earth did you hear about him, Bertie?”
Bertie shrugged. “I read something—I forget where. T. E. Lawrence was also called Lawrence of Arabia, Daddy. He was very brave. Everybody was very brave in those days.”
Stuart smiled. “Do you think so? I wonder whether there weren’t lots of people just like …” He was about to say “me,” but he stopped himself. He did not want his son to think him a coward; every boy likes to think of his father as being brave, and able to take on anything. Is that what I am? Stuart asked himself. Have I ever stood up to … my wife?
He finished his sentence. “Just like the rest of us, Bertie.”
“Maybe,” said Bertie. “But I think they might have been a bit braver because they were allowed to be.”
Stuart was puzzled by this. “Because they were allowed to be, Bertie? What do you mean by that?”
Bertie took a few moments to answer. “Their mothers …”
Stuart watched his son. He wanted to hug him, to comfort him, to reassure him.
“They were allowed to have penknives,” Bertie said quietly. “I bet Lawrence of Arabia had a Swiss Army knife, Daddy. I bet he did.”
Stuart touched his son on the shoulder. “The desert, Bertie. Mummy is going to spend a bit more time in the desert. Maybe a few weeks—maybe even a few months. She’s not quite sure.”