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By Root 524 0

while a group of students enacted a scene from Macbeth, a taster of their show that evening. There was an element of desperation in their performance, which suggested that they were at the end of an unrewarding stint on the Fringe. Lady Macbeth upbraided her husband, a tall young man with the residue of teenage acne about his chin. Pat watched for a few minutes, trapped in a small audience. But then her chance to leave came: she had spotted Domenica Macdonald, her neighbour from across the landing at Scotland Street, and she could slip away to join her. Domenica was on the edge of a growing crowd that was surrounding a man dressed as Punchinello and who was about to swallow a sword. The performer held the sword above his upturned mouth and it glinted in the afternoon sunlight.

“Domenica,” she whispered. “Is he really going to do that?”

Domenica turned and smiled warmly. “How nice to see you,”

she said.

“I have always loved a spectacle, and there are spectacles galore at the moment. Of course he’s going to swallow it. And then we shall all applaud. We are very vulgar at heart, you know. We love this sort of thing. All of us. We can’t resist it. Behind us in the gallery are all the treasures of Western art, as assembled for us by Sir Timothy Clifford, and we choose instead to watch a man swallowing a sword. Isn’t that peculiar?”

Pat nodded. It was very peculiar; of course it was; she began to say this, and then she stopped. Wasn’t that Sir Timothy Clifford himself, on the other side of the crowd, watching the sword swallower? She nudged Domenica, who looked in the direction in which Pat was pointing, and inclined her head in affirmation.

“He appreciates a bit of a spectacle,” Domenica said. “And why not? He’s put on such wonderful shows in the gallery. Besides, art is theatre, is it not – and theatre art?”

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Chapter title

5. All Downhill from Here

The sword was swallowed, and regurgitated, as had been expected. There were gasps, and then applause. Many of those present expressed the view that they would not like to try that

– no thank you! – and Sir Timothy was heard to mutter something about Titian before he retreated into his gallery. Domenica, who had seen considerably more entertaining spectacles during her time in India, turned to Pat and said: “Such feats, without a religious dimension, are less impressive, I feel, than those that allude to the sacred. What’s the point of swallowing a sword if one gives the process no spiritual significance?”

Pat was puzzled by this remark, and as they crossed Princes Street to begin the walk back down the hill, she asked Domenica to explain.

“In India, we used to see such things from time to time,”

Domenica said. “We lived in Kerala, in the Christian south, but Hindu holy men used to pop down from time to time to remind us of the old gods. Some of these were fakirs, who would walk across beds of hot coals or swallow fire, or whatever. They did this to show that spirituality could conquer the body – could overcome the material world. And you could offer the whole thing up to the glory of the gods, which gave it a religious point. But our sword swallower on the Mound won’t have any of that in mind, I’m afraid. Mere spectacle.”

Pat felt that she could add little to this. She had never been to India, and she knew nothing about Hinduism, or indeed about many of the other topics on which Domenica seemed to have a view. And yet she was open-minded enough to know that she did not know, and she was a listener. That was her gift. The streets were crowded with Festival visitors, and their progress down Dundas Street was slow, interrupted by knots of people standing in the middle of the pavement, some, their eyes glazed, in a state of cultural indigestion, some consulting maps and programmes. Domenica gave directions to a puzzled Japanese couple and bowed politely at the end of her explanation, setting off a sequence of further bows and inclinations of the head. All Downhill from Here

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“They find us so rude, in general,” she said. “A few bows here and there serve to redress