44 Scotland Street:
Episode 2 of Alexander Mccall Smith’s new series
IVOLUME 13 CHAPTER TWO
can see the point, of course,” said Angus. “We have to protect species, and cats are certainly a threat to birds. But …”
Domenica nodded. “You can’t have unfettered freedom. We certainly can’t, and nor should cats have it. There has to be a compromise.”
Angus looked thoughtful. “You say we can’t have that freedom. It’s interesting to think about what the reach of we is: we as individuals, or we as bigger groups – nations and so on? They’re separate issues, aren’t they?”
“Yes, I suppose …”
Angus cut Domenica short. “You see,” he continued, “people talk a lot about freedom at the individual level – liberal individualism has secured that particular conversation. But what about freedom at a higher level: the freedom of nations? Have we given up on that, do you think?”
“You mean sovereignty?”
Angus nodded. “Yes, I suppose I do. Isn’t it the same thing? The right of selfdetermination?”
“It still exists,” said Domenica. “There was some discussion of it in the paper the other day. It was about Woodrow Wilson and the rights of nations to determine their future. The Americans have always disliked other people’s empires. Their own, of course, was a different matter …” “Unacknowledged.”
“Yes, but to be fair to then, it was different from the old European empires. And they do take freedom seriously, the Americans. They really do. They fight over it in the courts all the time. They still seem to believe in freedom. I’m not sure if we do.”
“No,” said Angus. “There are plenty of people only too ready to stop other people from saying things with which they disagree. It’s grossly illiberal, of course – intolerance, in fact – not that they’d see it as such.”
“The intolerant never do. How few of them look in the mirror and confess their intolerance? Or their pride?”
Domenica smiled. “Looking in the mirror is a useful exercise. Looking straight into it and describing yourself. Who likes to do that?”
“Narcissists?” suggested Angus. “Perhaps. But their descriptions are rarely honest. In fact, they’re compliments rather than descriptions. There’s a difference.”
Angus remembered something. “Bruce Anderson – you’ve met him in the Cumberland Bar.”
“The building surveyor? The one with the hair?”
Angus nodded. “Yes, him. His hair’s cut en brosse and he puts gel on it. It smells of cloves. Which makes me think of dentists. Cloves trigger Proustian memories for me – when I was a boy, my dentist must have used oil of cloves.” “What about Bruce?” asked Domenica. “I saw him in the gents’ at the bar,” Angus said. “He was standing in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection, grinning with satisfaction.”
“Well, he is good-looking, after all. If you look like him, what you see in the mirror won’t be exactly displeasing.”
Angus wrinkled his nose with distaste. “Good looks are something that should be accepted with proper diffidence. It’s rather like having money, or an enviable talent. Like being able to play the piano rather well, or having a low golf handicap. You don’t parade it. You close the piano lid modestly when somebody comes into the room, and you say, Just practising or, I never seem to get that particular piece right. That’s what you say. You don’t boast, I’m a bit of a Paderewski. Or, mutatis mutandis, Tiger Woods.”
Domenica laughed. “I hate to say it, Angus, but you sound distinctly old-fashioned. Expectations have changed. If you have it these days, you flaunt it. You blow your own trumpet. You bask in your good fortune, and you don’t care if it makes others feel inadequate.”
Angus sighed. “So it seems. But I still believe we should be modest.”
Domenica agreed. “Oh yes. You and I should be modest – and I hope we are. But I suspect we’re in a minority. Have you seen anybody’s CV these days – their resumé? People trumpet their achievements to the rafters – and beyond. They tell you themselves how marvellous they are: how good they are at doing this that and the next thing. How popular they are. How effective.”
“Do people believe them?” asked Angus.
Domenica doubted it. “I suspect they disregard it. That’s the trouble with formulae of any sort. People get to know that it’s no more than going through hoops – uttering the necessary shibboleths.” “Noise,” said Angus.
“Yes, noise. It’s rather like these mission statements that clutter up the announcements and advertisements of public bodies. They signal their virtue. They tell us how they’re there to serve us and how they are even-handed in everything they do. Of course they should be even-handed; of course they should behave correctly, but the problem of this constant signalling of virtue is that it weakens the message when the message really needs to be put across. People just don’t hear it any more because it’s always there. The message loses its power. People don’t see it because it has become so omnipresent, so ritualistic.”
“Yes,” said Angus. “It’s very interesting how …”
But he did not finish; Domenica had more to say. “I have a Russian friend,” she said. “I met her at a conference. She teaches anthropology at St Petersburg University. She told me that in Soviet days people got so accustomed to strident propaganda – you know, those great red posters and so on – that they simply did not see it. They filtered it out – they didn’t see it. And when she told me this, we were sitting with somebody from Los Angeles, and she said, ‘It’s odd that you should say that because we’re the same with adverts. We don’t see the billboards all over the place. We don’t hear the inane jingles on the radio. It’s there, of course, but we become blind to it.’”
Angus tapped a finger on the table. “How did we get onto this?” he asked.
“Sovereignty,” said Domenica. “We were talking about freedom and sovereignty.”
“Ah, yes.”
“And you said …”
Angus remembered. “I said that we no longer seemed to be all that concerned about nations – or states, perhaps – having the right to control their future. I wondered if we were losing that altogether.”
“Or just being realistic?” asked Domenica. “We’re all interdependent now, aren’t we? John Donne redivivus?”
“Yes, but …” He was not sure how to go on. He felt uncomfortable about giving up freedom, and yet so many people seemed to be enthusiastic about doing just that. Perhaps the idea that a country could control its own destiny was just no longer possible, not in the world in which we now lived. Brussels. London. Berlin. Washington. Places where there’s real power. Not us, not us. Not small people like us.
He thought of Hamish Henderson and his lovely lament, Freedom, come all ye. One might try to sing that, he thought, but what if the choir has gone away – or no longer cares?
‘They do take freedom seriously, the Americans. They really do. They fight over it in the courts all the time. They still
seem to believe in it. I’m not sure whether we do’