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and it seemed to him that it was far more sympathetic. As a little boy, in Perthshire, there had been a girl from a neighbouring farm who had helped look after him. She had comforted him when he had cried, holding him to her, and he remembered how soft she had been, when all around him there was hardness – the hardness of the byre floor on which he had tripped and scraped his knee, the hardness of the shepherds and their smell of tar remedy and lanolin, the hardness of his remote father, with his smell of whisky and the fishing flies in his bonnet. And that girl had cuddled him and said: “Dinnae greet, Angus. Dinnae greet.”

268 Poor Lou

For a few moments she said nothing. Angus kept his hand on her arm, though, and she let him. He squeezed it gently.

“Lou? Come on, Lou. Tell me. It’s Eddie, isn’t it?”

She nodded, but did not speak.

“He’s not the right man for you, Lou,” said Angus gently. “He really isn’t. He’s . . .” He tailed off, and Lou looked up. Her voice was strained, her eyes still liquid with tears. “He’s what?”

“He’s just not a good enough man,” said Angus. “You know, other men can tell. Women don’t always see it, but men are the best judge of other men. Men know. I’m telling you, Lou. They know. I could tell that Eddie wasn’t right, Lou. I could just tell. Matthew too.”

She frowned. “Matthew? Has he talked to you?”

Angus nodded. He and Matthew had spoken at length about Eddie one evening in the Cumberland Bar and they had been in complete agreement.

“He’s after Lou’s money,” Matthew had said. “It’s glaringly obvious. He’s got some stupid idea of a club. He needs her dough.”

And Angus had agreed, and added: “And then there’s the problem of girls. He goes for younger women. Traceys and Sharons galore. Eighteen-year-olds.”

He could not reveal that conversation to Big Lou, but he had been left in no doubt but that Matthew thought of Eddie in exactly the same way as he did.

“I thought that he loved me,” said Big Lou. “I really thought that he loved me.”

Angus squeezed her arm again. “I think he probably did, Lou. I think that he did – in his way. Because you’re well worth loving. Any man would love you. You’re a fine, fine woman, Lou. But . . .”

She looked at him, and he continued. “Some men just can’t help themselves, Lou. They just can’t help it. Eddie’s one. He’s not a one-woman man. That’s all there is to it.”

“And then there’s the money,” said Big Lou.

Angus grimaced. He had hoped that she had not actually paid over any money, but it seemed as if it might be too late. He A Letter to Edinburgh 269

knew that Lou had a bit of money, the legacy from the farmer she had nursed, but how much would have been left after the purchase of the flat and the coffee bar?

“How much, Lou?” he asked quietly. “How much did you give Eddie?”

“Thirty-four thousand pounds,” said Lou.

86. A Letter to Edinburgh

Domenica was fussy about the circumstances in which she wrote. In Scotland Street, she would sit at her desk with a clean block of ruled foolscap paper in front of her and write on that, with a Conway Stewart fountain pen, in green ink. There were those who said that writing in green ink was a sign of mental instability, but she had never understood the basis for this. Green ink was attractive, more restful on the eye than an intense black, and she persisted with it.

Such rituals of composition were impossible in that small village near Malacca.

There, she made do with a simple, rather rickety table, which provided a surface for her French moleskin notebook and for a rather less commodious writing paper. But there was still the Conway Stewart pen, and supplies of green ink, and it was with this pen that she now wrote a letter to James Holloway in Edinburgh.

“Dear James,” she began, “I know that you are familiar with the Far East and will be able to picture the scene here – the scene of me upon my veranda, at my table, with a frangipani tree directly in front of me.

“The tree is in flower, and its white blossoms have that gorgeous, slightly sickly smell which reminds me of something else, but which I cannot