“Don’t get mixed up with that young man again,” he said quietly.
Pat looked up sharply. “I wasn’t planning to,” she protested.
“I really disliked him.”
Dr Macgregor nodded. “Maybe you did. But that type of person can be very destructive. They know how powerful their charm is. And they use it.” He paused. “I don’t want you to be hurt. You know that, don’t you? That’s all that a father wants for his daughter. Or most of them. Fathers don’t want their daughters to get hurt. And yet they know that there are plenty of men only too ready to treat them badly. They know that.”
Pat thought that her father was being melodramatic. Bruce was no danger to her. He may have been in the past, but not now. She was like somebody who had been given an inocula-tion against an illness. She was immune to Bruce and his charms.
And yet she had felt unsettled when she saw him; it had been exciting. Would one feel that excitement if one was immune to somebody? She thought not.
Her father was looking at her now. “Are you going to seek him out?” he asked.
14
An Unexpected Conflict and News of Cyril Pat looked down at the ground. It was so easy to fob other people off with a denial, with a half-truth, but she could not do this to her father, not to this gentle psychiatrist who had seen her through all the little doubts and battles of childhood and adolescence. She could not hide the truth from him.
“I think I’d like to see him,” she said.
5. An Unexpected Conflict and News of Cyril Domenica Macdonald, freelance anthropologist, native of Scotland Street, friend of Angus Lordie and Antonia Collie, owner of a custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz, citizen of Edinburgh; all of these were facets of the identity of the woman now striding up Scotland Street, a battered canvas shopping bag hanging loosely from her left arm. But there was more: in addition to all of that, Domenica was now the author of a learned paper that had recently been accepted for publication in the prestigious journal Mankind Quarterly. This paper, “Past Definite; Future Uncertain: Time and Social Dynamics of a Mangrove Community in Southern Malaysia,” was the fruit of her recent field trip to the Malacca Straits. There, she had joined what she imagined was a community of contemporary pirates, with a view to conducting anthropological research into their domestic economy. The pirates, it was later revealed, were not real pirates after all – or not pirates in the sense in which the term is understood by the International Maritime Safety authorities in Kuala Lumpur. Although they disappeared each morning in high-powered boats, Domenica had discovered that their destination was not the high seas at all, but a town down the coast, where they worked in a pirate CD factory, infringing the intellectual property rights of various crooners and inexplicably popular rock bands. That had been a setback for Domenica, but it had not prevented her from completing a useful piece of research on the way in which the community’s sense of time affected social relationships.
An Unexpected Conflict and News of Cyril 15
The paper had been well-received. One of the referees for the journal had written: “The author demonstrates convincingly that a sense of being on the wrong side of history changes everything.
The social devices by which people protect themselves from confronting the truth that there is a terminus to their existence as a community are laid bare by the author. A triumph.” And now here it was, that triumph, in off-print form, with an attractive cover of chalk blue, the physical result of all that heat and discomfort.
When the box containing the sixty off-prints had been delivered by the postman, Domenica had immediately left the house and walked round to Angus Lordie’s flat in Drummond Place, clutching one of the copies.
“My paper,” she said, as Angus invited her in. “You will see that I have inscribed it to you. Look. There.”
Angus opened the cover and saw, on the inside, the sentence which Domenica had inscribed in black ink. To Angus Lordie, the inscription read, who stayed behind. From your friend, Domenica Macdonald. He reread the sentence and then looked up. “Why have you written who stayed behind?” he asked. His tone was peevish.
Domenica shrugged. “Well, you did, didn’t you? I went to the Malacca Straits, and you stayed behind in Edinburgh. I’m simply stating what happened.”
Angus frowned. “But anybody reading this would think that I was some . . . some sort of coward. It’s almost as if you’re giving me a white feather.”
Domenica drew in her breath. She had not intended that, and it was quite ridiculous of Angus to suggest it. “I meant no such thing,” she said. “There are absolutely no aspersions being cast on . . .”
“Yes, there are,” said Angus petulantly. “And you never asked me whether I’d like to go. Saying that somebody stayed behind suggests that they were at least given the chance to go along.
But I wasn’t. You never gave me the chance to go.”
“Well, really!” said Domenica. “You made it very clear that you didn’t like the idea of my going to the Malacca Straits in the first 16
An Unexpected Conflict and News of Cyril place. You said that in the little speech you gave at my dinner party before I left. You did. I heard you, Angus. Remember I was there!”
“It would be a very strange dinner party where the hostess was not there,” said Angus quickly. “If one wrote a note to such a hostess one would have to say: ‘To one who stayed away.’ Yes!
That’s what one would have to write.”
Domenica bit her lip. She knew that Angus had his moody moments, but this was quite ridiculous. She was now sorry that she had come to see him at all, and was certainly regretting having brought him the off-print. “You’re behaving in a very childish way, Angus,” she said. “In fact, I’ve got a good mind to take my paper away from you. There are plenty of people who would appreciate it, you know.”
“I doubt that very much,” said Angus. “I can’t see why anybody would want to read it. I certainly won’t.”
Domenica bristled with anger. “In that case,” she said. “I’m taking it back. The gift is cancelled.”
She reached across to snatch the off-print from Angus. She felt the cover in her fingers and she tugged; but he resisted, and with a ripping sound “Past Definite; Future Uncertain” was torn into two roughly equal parts. Domenica let go of her part, and it fluttered slowly to the ground.
“Oh,” said Angus, looking down. “I’m very sorry. I know you started it by writing that cruel thing about me, but I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry . . .”
What upset him was the destruction of another artist’s work.
An anthropologist was not really an artist, but this was creative work – even if a rather dull sort of creative work – and he had destroyed it. Angus felt very guilty. “I’m so sorry,” he said again.
“I would never have torn up your work intentionally. You do know that, don’t you? It’s just that I feel very out of sorts today.”
He hesitated, as if wondering whether to entrust Domenica with a confidence. Had he forgiven her? Yes, he thought, I have. He lowered his voice. “Something really awful has happened. It’s made me very tetchy.”
An Unexpected Conflict and News of Cyril 17
Domenica’s expression of irritation was replaced with one of concern. “Awful? One of your paintings . . .”
Angus shook his head. “No, it’s nothing to do with my work.
It’s Cyril.”
Domenica looked past Angus into the flat. There had been no sign of the dog, who usually greeted any visitor with a courteous wagging of the tail and a pressing of the nose against whatever hand was extended to him. This had not happened.