We cannot all have a dream as beautiful as Auden’s – the dream he described in his Bucolics, the dream that brought him face-to-face with the god of mortal doting, the dispenser of love; not for us, but Domenica’s dream that day seemed to her to be close enough to that. She sat up in bed, wide-eyed. She had been with Magnus Campbell again, and they were both as they had been when they had been together on Harris all those years ago. She closed her eyes in an effort to invoke again the setting of her dream. A burn, and a path by that burn, leading down to an expanse of machair. And he had suggested that they should take off their shoes and walk barefoot across the sand that stretched out beyond the machair – fine sand that the wind blew in tiny whirls of white.
Magnus Campbell, looking at her and smiling; Magnus Campbell telling her that he had once fished for herring in this very bay and caught a bucketful of what he called the silver darlings; and Magnus Campbell taking her hand; she in the arms of Magnus Campbell. She opened her eyes. That had all happened; they had followed the course of that burn; there had been machair with abundant tiny flowers; they had walked on the sand, holding their shoes. That had all happened and now, in her room in Edinburgh, it had happened again, on the day that Magnus Campbell was due to arrive at Antonia’s flat and she would see him once more.
She got out of bed and went into the kitchen to put on the kettle for tea. She stopped, and thought, I have never dreamed of Angus in that way. Not once. And he is the man whom I am to marry.
She looked down at the floor. She had been in love with Magnus Campbell. He had been her first love, and it had been an utter revelation. How could one feel so intensely about another person? How could one want nothing but to see him, to be with him, to hear his voice, to touch him? She had been in no doubt at all but that this feeling, this raw, helpless sensation was love. It had all made sense – at last. Now she understood what the poets were driving at, where previously she had had only a theoretical, intellectual understanding of what they meant. Now she knew.
39. The Landscape of Dreams
Standing in her kitchen at barely five o’clock in the morning, a steaming cup of tea in her hand, Domenica looked out of the window over the roofs of Edinburgh. It was close to the summer solstice, and it had been light for over an hour – a reminder of latitude. The early light was bright and optimistic, kissing all that it touched. Not far away, circling above some morsel in the street below, a couple of seagulls mewed and cawed, the sun lighting up their wings against the background of chimney pots and sky. She felt a moment of pity for the screeching birds; we have eaten all their fish, she thought, and reduced them to this: bickering clients of our scraps, of the detritus of our lives.
The experience of her dream was vivid. Having being recalled on waking, it was now committed to more permanent memory, and it had begun to trouble her. She felt guilty, first and foremost, at the thought that she had somehow allowed herself to dream of Magnus, and certainly to dream of him in that carnal way. But then she reminded herself that this was ridiculous: we had no control of our dream life – even children understood that. What happened to us in dreams was ultimately insignificant: the events of a dream were merely things that happened in the same way as rain, or earthquakes, or lightning happened and had nothing to do with human agency. It was a reassuring reminder, and she felt momentarily relieved. How terrible it must be, she thought, to believe that one was in some sense accountable for one’s dreams. The loyal husband dreams he is in the arms of another – some Siren – and concludes that he is an adulterer. The dieter finds himself enjoying a feast – and reproaches himself for his failure. The timid one commits acts of insane bravado – and quakes at the thought of his recklessness. All that would be a terrible burden; would make one dread going to sleep at night for fear of what one might do.
Domenica took a sip of her tea and then put her cup down on the table, relieved at the thought that she could forget her dream of Magnus. I am not in love with him, she told herself; it’s simply a matter of … And there she stopped. We may have no control over what we dream about, but that did not mean that dreams were meaningless. It was trite psychology, but were dreams not wish-fulfilment? Was that not the whole point of dream analysis – that dreams told us about what we really wanted? Magnus had come to her that night because she wanted him. He might have slipped back into her life under the barrier of consciousness, but that did not mean he was an unwelcome caller – he was a visitor she wanted and welcomed.
She sat down, appalled at the thought. She had accepted Angus Lordie’s proposal of marriage. They were publicly engaged and had celebrated their engagement in the presence of a number of friends. There had been a notice in The Scotsman, the words having been chosen with great care: Domenica Macdonald and Angus Lordie, both of Edinburgh, have great pleasure in announcing their engagement … Not pleasure but great pleasure, which was significantly warmer, more joyful, than those stiff bulletins that begin: The engagement is announced … Of course there were social niceties at work: Both families are delighted to announce … was a form of words looked down upon by some. But that was nonsense, Domenica thought; a vestige of a social code that judged by secret shibboleths. If both families were delighted, then why should they not announce the fact publicly? It was surely better to say that both families were delighted than to say that both families regretted to announce the engagement. It is with great regret that we announce the engagement of our daughter … No doubt there were cases where that was exactly what the parents felt, but of course to say so would hardly be a good start to the marriage.
Thinking of engagement announcements, and families, Domenica wondered what her parents would have made of Angus. Had they been alive, would they have wholeheartedly announced the engagement with great pleasure? She did not have to think about it for very long. Of course they would. They would have loved Angus, because he was a good and generous man. Her father, in particular, had had no time for meanness, and he would have seen that Angus shared this view. And as for her mother, she had been interested in art, had haunted the National Gallery of Scotland and knew every picture it contained; she loved the Ramsays and the Raeburns, and would have been so proud of the fact that Angus was a portrait painter.
And here am I, Domenica thought, their daughter, engaged to a man whom they would have been delighted to welcome into the family; here am I dreaming that I am in the arms of another man, a former boyfriend, and on the eve, as it were, of my wedding …
Domenica closed her eyes. I am not going to think these thoughts, she told herself. A ridiculous dream is just a ridiculous dream. It means nothing. Nothing. I love Angus Lordie and I am going to marry him. I love Angus Lordie …
She opened her eyes. Did she? Did she really love Angus, or was he merely a friend with whom she was now planning to share her life? If the latter were true, then should she not do something now, before it was too late? Should she not confess to Angus that she did not love him and that it was wrong that in such circumstances they should proceed with their marriage? Was that not the right, the sensible thing to do?
She sat down. A voice within her asked a question. How many marriages are based on love, at least in the beginning? How cynical, she thought. And the voice within retorted, Realistic, Domenica; realistic.
40. Kenyan Matters
Domenica had a rough idea from the intercepted postcard when Magnus would arrive from Waverley Station. She had toyed with the idea of leaving her front door open so that she would hear him come up the steps to the landing, but had decided that this would seem a little overeager, perhaps even pushy. So instead she had fixed a notice on Antonia’s door reading, Please ring the doorbell opposite when you arrive.
The hour before his arrival did not pass quickly. She was no longer thinking of her dream, nor of the unsettling doubts it had released – she would deal with all that later – but her mind now was occupied with anticipation, and the thoughts that prompted. Would Magnus be surprised to find that she was Antonia’s neighbour
, or had Antonia perhaps told him? Would he even recognise her? She had not weathered too badly, she told herself – although there was never any room for smugness in that respect – but how would the years have treated Magnus? He had been devastatingly good-looking when young, an effortless turner of heads (thankfully unaware of it), but that had been a long time ago. He would not be like that now: many men lost their looks in no time at all, became coarse, sagged. It could happen quite quickly, within the space of a few years indeed, when the boy became the man. And then only too quickly there came the indignities of the flesh – the thickening of the torso, the appearance of jowls, the dulling of the light in the eyes. It was different with women, whose beauty was softer and seemed to fade more slowly; a beautiful woman also had at her disposal more tricks than were available to a man, even in these days of male makeup, of man-liner and manscara.
Her thoughts turned to the sheer coincidence of Magnus’s arrival. She wondered how Magnus and Antonia knew each other. Antonia, for all her sudden enthusiasm for the order of nuns that had taken her in, had always been a man-eater. It was a rather crude term, thought Domenica, but it was accurate enough, expressing the voraciousness of such appetites. She had on her shelf a book given to her by an aunt, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, a curious old memoir by a hunter who had dealt with a plague of man-eating lions that had terrorised railway builders in colonial Kenya. That book had been about real lions, but could have been about a group of man-mad women, inhabitants of Tsavo, who could not resist any passing male … She imagined them, heavily made-up, wearing revealing dresses, lying in wait under a tree for a passing male. And Antonia would be the alpha-female of such a group, a man-eater’s man-eater.
That same aunt who had given her the book had been in Kenya in those days and had told her of what she called the fishing fleet.
“The fishing fleet, Domenica,” she explained, “was made up of women who were determined to get a husband. They went off to Kenya with that in mind and by and large were successful. Those who were not made their way home like all unsuccessful anglers – talking about the one who got away.”
Domenica had wanted to ask her aunt whether she too had angled.
Her question was anticipated. “Honestly requires me to say that I, too, could be said to have been a member of that fleet. I knew them all – all the other girls. I was just like them. And do you know who we all looked up to? The late Diana Delves Broughton, that’s who. She was very, very good at keeping men exactly where she wanted them.”
It was just the sort of story that Domenica liked. “Oh yes?”
“She went out to Kenya shortly after her first marriage,” said the aunt. “They travelled out by steamer to Cape Town and Mombasa and do you know what? She was said to have had an affair on the way. On her honeymoon!”
“That takes some doing,” said Domenica.
“Indeed it does. It indicates, if you’d like my view, a certain determination, would you not say?”
“Yes. And her poor husband?”
“She had a number of husbands,” said the aunt. “They were generally long-suffering. The one who had real difficulty was Jock Delves Broughton. He was a complete gentleman. A real gentleman doesn’t notice if his wife is having an affair – do you know that? The reason for that is that it would be ungentlemanly to speak critically of one’s wife, whatever the circumstances. So poor Jock just accepted it and let her get on with it. He was tremendously forgiving.”
“Tremendously.” Domenica imagined the cuckolded husband eventually confronting his wife, “I say, old thing, you seem frightfully friendly with that fellow …” They were so naïve in those days; so unworldly; whereas we … what were we? Suspicious, sneeringly cynical, disbelieving of innocence …
“And then she took up with the late Lord Erroll, the one who was shot. Remember? His motto, famously, was To hell with husbands! His car was found in a ditch with him slumped over the wheel. He had been at a dinner party at Jock and Diana’s.”
“Who shot him?”
“The matter remains unsolved. Jock was tried for it, you know. They said that during the trial he had on him a silver syringe and a large dose of morphine so that he could do the decent thing if he was convicted. It would never have done for a baronet to be hanged. The polite thing for a gentleman in those circumstances is to take action himself and save everybody the embarrassment.”
“He was acquitted?”
“Yes.”
“So who really shot Lord Erroll? Does anybody know?”
“Oh, everybody knows. I certainly know. But do you mind if I don’t tell you who it was? I have this rather old-fashioned view, you see, that one does not speak ill of the dead, even if they richly deserve it. All I would say is this: what a gentleman Jock was. He would do anything for his wife.”
“So he shot him?”
“Certainly not. My dear, you really have a tendency to draw the wrong conclusion. I do hope you grow out of it. Otherwise you might … well, you might go through life drawing the wrong conclusions about everything.”
41. I Am Come from Copenhagen
Anna, the Danish au pair promised to Matthew and Elspeth by the helpful firm of Domestic Solutions, arrived from Copenhagen rather earlier than expected. Even so, her arrival was not a moment too soon; Elspeth, suffering from chronic sleep-deprivation, was awake to receive her, but only just. Matthew had not slept at all the previous evening and although Elspeth had managed an hour or two, this had been snatched at odd moments and had not come in one sequence. The two of them felt dizzy with fatigue and barely had the energy to answer the door when the bell went; in fact, Matthew nodded off even as the bell rang and it was Elspeth who went, and found herself faced with a fresh-faced young woman with a large rucksack on her back.
“My name is Anna,” said the young woman. “And I am come from Copenhagen to help you.”
It was an extraordinary introduction, and even in her drowsy state Elspeth was struck by its sheer poetry. I am come from Copenhagen to help you – not I have come but I am come. The archaic form was undoubtedly accidental, thought Elspeth, wondering whether Danish used the auxiliary verb to be to achieve the past tense of verbs of motion, as French did. And yet the effect in English was a fine one. I am come from Copenhagen to help you had such a strong ring to it; it was the sort of thing that an angel might say to some helpless mortal as he gazed up at great wings and strong arms. An angel cannot simply say hello, or, worse still, hi; nor can he reveal himself as emergency services; I am come to help you is altogether more appropriate.
Angel, thought Elspeth as she stood at the doorstep and stared at the young Dane before her. You angel!
She wanted to say so much; to embrace the young woman then and there; to hand everything over – Matthew, the flat, the triplets, the kitchen, the sterilising equipment for the babies’ bottles, the babies’ bottles themselves, that awful breast pump – everything. She wanted to hand all that over to Anna as the representative of Domestic Solutions, who had come, or was come, rather, from Copenhagen to help her. But she said nothing, as no words came; instead there were tears, copious, warm, utterly unscripted tears.
Anna stepped forward, slipping out of her rucksack as she did so. “Oh dear,” she muttered. “Please don’t cry, Mrs.…”
“Elspeth,” sobbed Elspeth. “Call me Elspeth. And I can’t help it, I’m sorry, I just can’t …”
Anna put her arms around Elspeth, as naturally and spontaneously as one might embrace another on first meeting, but with gentleness and sympathy too.
“You cry, Elspeth,” she said. “It is always best to cry.”
“I feel so foolish. You’ve just arrived, and I’m crying …”
“Shh, shh. That doesn’t matter.”
Anna propelled Elspeth gently away from the open door and then closed it behind her. “You sit down, Elspeth. Then we can see what’s what. I have done this before, you know.”
Elspeth dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief that Anna had produce
d from the pocket of her jeans. “Before?”
“Yes. I have worked as mother’s help – is that the word? – twice before. Once in Germany and once in the United States. They were both very sad mothers, but I hope I made them happier.”
“Sad?” sniffed Elspeth.
“Yes,” said Anna. “A bit like you. The husband of one of them had gone off with another woman and the other had a baby with a hip problem. The poor baby had to have big splints and the mother was very upset as a result.”
Elspeth wondered whether there was implicit criticism in this story. She had three healthy boys and a husband who had shown no signs of going off with another woman. Matthew couldn’t, she decided: he was far too tired. If he decided to go off he would probably reach only as far as India Street or Ainslie Place before he dropped from exhaustion – that would be no good for another woman. Other women tended to have greater expectations of the men they seduced away from their proper station.
This meeting had taken place against a background of silence. Now this was disturbed by a sudden crying from the nursery.
“They’ve woken up,” said Elspeth.
Anna frowned. “They? You have twins?”
Elspeth looked at the floor. She was suddenly afraid that this young woman – this angel – would now take flight. Had Domestic Solutions not revealed the true state of affairs to her? Had they expected her to refuse the assignment if told in advance that she was expected to look after triplets? She sighed. One could hardly conceal anything at this stage.
“Triplets,” she said quietly.
Anna looked at her in disbelief, holding up three fingers. “Three babies? Three?”
Elspeth nodded miserably. “I didn’t mean to have three,” she said. “Nor did my husband …”