Back in Scotland Street itself, Domenica Macdonald had devoted herself to what she described as a day of necessary administration. Her husband, Angus, was used to this particular dedication of Saturday, and was content to spend the morning in his studio, lunchtime in the Scottish Arts Club in Rutland Square, and the afternoon back at his easel. He did not inquire too closely as to what Domenica did on Saturday, nor did she make enquiry of him. It was part of the secret of a successful marriage, he believed, that each person should have the space, emotional and physical, to follow at least some pursuits of his or her own.

  It was perhaps just as well that Angus did not ask Domenica what she planned to do that day, as she had in mind a particularly delicate mission directly affecting him. Like most wives, Domenica had grave misgivings about her husband’s clothes. It is a familiar truth, known to most women, that men have no dress sense. There are, admittedly, one or two men who dress with proper attention to color coordination and such matters, but they are, of course, men who are in touch with their feminine side. For most men, clothes are more or less functional—mere cladding that serves to keep out the elements and disguise the shocking truth within. As long as clothes do that, then their color, shape and texture are not of particular concern. And yet, in spite of this aesthetic blunting, men do have a strong sense of loyalty when it comes to clothes, and, unlike women, will not abandon a serviceable garment in favour of something newer or more fashionable. So it is that a man will keep a jacket, with pride, for twenty years or more if he possibly can. If it continues to fit, and if it is, to an extent, still in one piece, then why change it? In the view of most men, that question simply cannot be answered satisfactorily by women. Women just do not understand clothing loyalty. They do not get it.

  Domenica had become increasingly exasperated by the unwillingness of Angus to revitalise his wardrobe. Their marriage, a few years previously, had given her the opportunity to throw at least some of his clothes away, but she had discovered that he had not made a full and frank disclosure. It transpired that he had kept a cupboard of old, familiar clothes in his studio, and these had been reintroduced into his mainstream wardrobe. Now it was these old tweed jackets and corduroy trousers that were preferred to the few new outfits she had succeeded in buying for him. That they were becoming increasingly threadbare did not seem to exercise Angus in the slightest. That they were losing such vestiges of color as they had once possessed seemed similarly irrelevant to him: if all your clothes were a faded brown, roughly the color of a bracken-covered Scottish hillside in the winter, then all that meant was the color coordination issue was resolved. And if your hair was brown, as Angus’s was, then that further coordinated you.

  But then Domenica had happened upon a passage in Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering. One of the characters in the novel refuses to get new clothes. His wife, however, works out how to deal with the problem: replace them by stealth, while he is asleep. When he wakes up, he won’t notice, and will get into the new clothes without realizing it, as long as they are placed in the spot where he got out of the old clothes the previous night. Brilliant, thought Domenica. Can’t go wrong.

  And it was with Walter Scott in mind that she set out that afternoon for Stewart Christie & Co in Queen Street, tailors and stockists of just the sort of clothes that a well-dressed Angus Lordie might sport.

  38

  The Aphorist

  A number of Angus’s jackets and pairs of trousers had migrated from his studio and were now to be found blatantly hanging in his wardrobe. These would be thrown out in due course; in the meantime, all that Domenica required was a sample or two that could be used for sizing purposes. This was necessary as she had no idea what size Angus took in various garments. Some months ago, when she had tried—unsuccessfully—to buy him a new shirt, she had resorted to slipping a tape measure around his neck while he was eating breakfast. He had shrugged the tape off, though, and had looked at her as if demanding an explanation. And she did find it rather difficult to explain why one should suddenly place a tape measure around one’s husband’s neck. Idle curiosity might explain many things, but this was not one of them. Absent-mindedness was similarly unconvincing, and so Domenica had simply said, “Oh, nothing,” and changed the subject. Now, with a jacket, a pair of trousers, and a shirt tucked into a large shopping bag, she had all that would be needed by the experts up at Stewart Christie & Co. They could apply their own tape measures to the clothes and work out just what was required for Angus, even in his absence.

  Scotland Street was deserted when Domenica shut the stair door behind her. It was a still afternoon, and the boughs of the trees in Drummond Place Garden, heavy with full summer leaf, were motionless. A cat prowled between parked cars, looked out over the setts, and then dashed out on some urgent errand of its own. A strident herring gull, having drifted up from Leith to scavenge amongst the pickings, noticed the cat and flapped up in the air ex abundanti cautela, mewing as it did so. And then another movement caught her eye, and she saw two female figures walking briskly along the pavement toward her.

  Antonia Collie, Domenica’s former neighbor in Scotland Street, was in the company, as she more often than not was, of her friend and flatmate, Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. Antonia, who dressed in a way that would previously have been described as blue-stockingish, was wearing a thick gray skirt and matching top—far too warm, Domenica thought, for mid-summer—while Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, who was altogether more stylish than her companion, was wearing a lightweight blue habit that looked as if it was made of soft linen.

  When the two women saw Domenica, they waved in a friendly fashion, and increased their pace to catch up with her. Domenica, who would have preferred not to be distracted from her mission, nonetheless slowed down to accommodate them.

  “Well, well,” said Antonia. “Fancy seeing you.”

  Domenica smiled weakly. Why should it be considered in the slightest bit extraordinary that she should be walking on Drummond Place when she lived just around the corner? It really was a very banal greeting—almost, if not quite, as trite as long time no see. That was a particularly odd expression, reminiscent of the pidgin languages which Domenica, as an anthropologist with experience of Melanesia, had once mastered. And yet people who knew no other words of Tok Pisin still said long time no see like the denizens of a Chinese laundry in an old black-and-white film. Strange, she thought.

  Then Antonia continued, “Long time no see, Domenica.”

  Domenica struggled to maintain her composure. “Well, actually, it was last week, wasn’t it?”

  “Perhaps,” said Antonia, lightly. “Time passes so quickly these days, doesn’t it?”

  This was the signal for Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, who had said nothing until now but had smiled sweetly, as nuns are expected to do, to say, “The speed of time is the speed of our lives proceeding toward God.”

  Domenica looked at her. Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna had become famous for her aphorisms, which had propelled her from obscurity to a near-central position in the society of Scotland’s capital. It had been an astonishing phenomenon, thought Domenica: an Italian nun, of no particular distinction, had somehow made her mark in a country she barely knew by coining aphorisms of immense vapidity. These utterances had been seized upon by people who seemed, for quite unfathomable reasons, to be in need of such sustenance.

  Domenica struggled with the temptation to say, “What on earth does that mean?” And succeeded in that struggle, because she simply said, “Well, that’s one way of looking at it.”

  Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna took this as a compliment, replying, with suitable modesty, “Thank you. You are very kind, dear Domenica.”

  Domenica bristled, firstly because she had not meant to be kind, and secondly, because there was something condescending about being called dear Domenica. Again, she let this pass: one cannot defeat an aphorist, she told herself. A trite aphorism will always win.

  They walked together in silence for a few moments. Then Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna observed, “The sunlight is upon the trees. Look.”

  Domenica looked at the trees. It was undoubtedly true: the sunlight was upon them. But why should that be a matter of remark? It would be odd, surely, were the sunlight to fall upon everything else but somehow miss the trees.

  “Well, it certainly is sunny today,” she said.

  “At the moment it is,” cautioned Antonia. “But in Scotland, can one ever be sure? We get sunlight one moment and then the next, what? Rain. Or even snow. Our weather is so fickle.”

  “Of course, we have our micro-climates in Edinburgh,” said Domenica. “It can be warm and sunny down here but go up to the Braids or Fairmilehead and it’s a different story.”

  Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna listened to this with interest. “It is always a different story,” she said. “You get one story, and then you get another.”

  Domenica decided to move the conversation on. “And how’s your work going, Antonia?”

  Antonia answered briskly. “Very well. I am casting my net a bit wider and dealing now with more recent Scottish saints, along with the older ones. Light and shade, you know. The lives of the more recent saints illuminate the lives of the earlier ones. So I’ve been doing a bit of research into the Venerable Margaret Sinclair.”

  Domenica knew exactly who Margaret Sinclair was. There was to be seen, she had been told, a relic of this remarkable Edinburgh woman: her handbag—an item of considerable interest, and inspiration, to the devout. Relics often struck Domenica as macabre—fingers and so on, lodged in reliquaries, were a peculiar obsession for anyone to harbor—but a holy handbag, now there was something rather different.

  39

  The Contents of a Private Bag

  Domenica did her best with Antonia Collie and Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. She had always found Antonia’s manner hard to deal with, particularly since her erstwhile neighbor had suffered an attack of Stendhal Syndrome in the Uffizi Gallery. That was not Antonia’s fault, of course: anybody could fall victim to Stendhal Syndrome, and if one of its sequelae was behavioral oddity, then that was something that should not be laid at one’s door. So, if Antonia now tended to go on about the early Scottish saints, the subject of her long-awaited book, then the least one could do was to listen—even if some of the saints were not only apocryphal, but also themselves somewhat irritating.

  The story of the Venerable Margaret Sinclair, though, and her holy handbag, was far from irritating. Margaret Sinclair was a good woman, born in humble circumstances in the Cowgate of Edinburgh and devoted, through her short life, to helping others. She deserved beatification, thought Domenica, irrespective of the necessary miracles that would be needed for her to complete the cursus honorum of a candidate saint. Domenica was happy to hear about her, but less interested in the wildly unlikely pursuits of some of the earlier Scottish saints, which took one, she felt, firmly into the territory of myth, credulity, and sheer nonsense.

  As they walked together up Nelson Street and into Northumberland Street, Antonia told Domenica about a chapter she had recently completed on the minor saints of Whithorn, including one who was not only a saint himself but had married a saint and had several children, all of whom subsequently became saints.

  “His local legend is really rather moving,” said Antonia. “He was a sort of St. Francis figure, actually—terribly good with animals.”

  “St. Francis was a friend of animals,” Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna continued.

  “So we have been told,” said Domenica drily, adding, “Many times before.”

  “Indeed,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “The animals trusted him.”

  “Was St. Francis a vegetarian?” asked Domenica. “Or did he eat the animals who trusted him, I wonder.”

  Antonia shot her a sideways glance, but Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna gave the question due thought. “History does not record that. I think it was rare in those days for people to be vegetarian.” She paused. “Back in Tuscany, where my home convent is, we have bees that give us honey.”

  “How interesting,” said Domenica.

  “Yes,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “Very.”

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Then Antonia pointed at Domenica’s bag and said, “I see you’re carrying a bag, Domenica.”

  “Yes,” said Domenica. “I am.” Noticing that Antonia was craning her neck slightly to see into the top of the bag, she adjusted its position slightly to prevent its contents being seen.

  “It looks quite heavy,” Antonia observed.

  Domenica shrugged. “Not really. No, it’s not all that heavy.”

  “No bag is ever heavy if the heart of the carrier is light,” pronounced Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna.

  Domenica looked at her, and pursed her lips. From what wells of cliché sprang these observations, she wondered? And were those wells inexhaustible, like the magic water-barrel of St. Catherine of Siena that never ran dry?

  “Yes,” said Antonia. ‘That’s a really useful aperçu, Maria-Fiore, dear flower.”

  Domenica took a deep breath. Really, this was too much. Aperçu! Dear flower!

  Antonia’s curiosity now got too much for her. “What’s in the bag, Domenica?”

  Domenica sucked in her cheeks. “Which bag?”

  Antonia pointed at the bag. “That bag. The one you’re carrying.”

  Domenica chose her words carefully. “Oh, that bag…You mean, my private bag.”

  She put as much emphasis on the word private as she could, without being overtly rude. But it was not, as it happened, sufficient to deter Antonia.

  “Yes, that bag.”

  Once again this brought forth an aphorism from Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “The bag that is not heavy because of the lightness inside your heart,” she added, helpfully.

  “This and that,” Domenica responded. “The sort of things you might expect to find in somebody’s private bag.”

  “Books?” asked Antonia. “Are you heading up to the library?”

  “No,” answered Domenica. “I’m not going to the library.”

  There was a brief silence. “Where are you going, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Antonia.

  “Yes,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “Where?”

  Domenica stared studiously at the ground. She had decided she would simply ignore this question. It was none of Antonia’s business, and even less of Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna’s, where she was going. You should never ask somebody where they are going because it might be somewhere very private—an assignation with a lover, for instance, or something of that sort. You might as well ask a friend, whom you met in the doctor’s waiting room, why he or she was there.

  Sorely tested, Domenica struggled with herself. Eventually she replied, “I’m going to see somebody.”

  This did not satisfy Antonia. “With a bag? With something for somebody—in your bag?”

  “You could say that,” said Domenica.

  This spawned a further aphorism from Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “There are so many things we could say,” she said. “And yet we say so little. So much on one side, and so little on the other.”

  Something within Domenica snapped. “I don’t know about that,” she said abruptly. “You could argue—and I might be inclined to do so myself—that we have actually rather little to say—or some of us do—and yet we say an awful lot. You could argue that, you know.”

  “You could,” conceded Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “But to do so would be to fall into a trap. There are many traps set for the unwary. Traps are all about us.”

  “You could start by shutting yours!” muttered Domenica. This was sotto voce, but was it sotto enough?

  Antonia frowned. “What was that, Domenica? Did you say something?”

  Domenica immediately felt ashamed of herself. Being from Edinburgh, she was of course not given to vulgarity, but there were times…“There is so little we have to say,” she said mildly.

  “Precisely,” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “Dear Domenica puts it so well.”

  At the junction of Heriot Row and Dundas Street, Domenica was able to peel off from her two companions and make her solitary way to Stewart Christie at the far end of Queen Street. She was not proud of herself; Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna was a guest in Scotland and should be treated with all the courtesy that should be shown to any guest, while Antonia, for all her irritating ways, was a Stendhal Syndrome survivor, a former neighbor, and, underneath it all, a rather lonely woman, the sort of woman for whom it might be important to know what was in other people’s bags. To understand everything was to forgive everything. Domenica remembered that, and resolved there and then, at the junction of Howe Street, to try harder with the two women when she next encountered them. But now an enjoyable task was at hand: the purchase of a new outfit for Angus, and buying clothes for men was always a pleasant task if you were a woman, because most women knew, at heart, that men really had no idea what to wear and could only benefit from this sort of loving attention.