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By Root 816 0

bustling, and even George Street was thronged with shoppers. But they were well-behaved shoppers, who did not push and shove, as shoppers did on Princes Street, but moved aside graciously to allow others to pass, lifting their hats where appropriate, making sure that nobody felt that he or she was about to be crowded off the pavement and into the road. Even the motorists, contending for the scarce parking places in the middle of the road, would concede a space if they saw another car about to turn in, gesturing with a friendly flick of the wrist for the other driver to go ahead. It was just as life in Edinburgh should be ( c.1950). Dilly ordered a pot of coffee for two and found a table. She looked about her, glanced idly at a magazine which had been left behind by a previous customer, and began her wait. This was not long; barely five minutes later into the coffee room came Domenica Macdonald, smart in her newly-acquired Thai silk trouser-suit, her face and her forearms deeply tanned by exposure to the sun. Dilly rose to greet her long-absent but now-returned friend. She was not quite sure what to say. If she said, simply: “You’re back!” it would come out in a surprised tone, because she had half-expected Domenica not to return. And a simpler “Hallo” would clearly be inadequate to mark return after several months in the Malacca Straits. And of course she could not say: “You’ve caught the sun”, because that would be on the same level of triteness as the late President Nixon’s words on being taken to the Great Wall of China (“This surely is a great wall.”). So she said: “Domenica!”, which was just right for the circumstances.

When two friends meet for the first time in months, there is usually a fair amount to be discussed. How much more so if one of the friends has spent those months in a remote spot, the guest of pirates, living amongst them; and yet that was not the first topic of discussion. First there were books to be talked about: 346 Domenica talks to Dilly

what was new, what was worth reading, and what could safely be ignored.

Domenica confessed that she had read very little in the village.

“I had my Proust with me,” she said. “The Scott-Moncrieff translation, of course. But I must admit that I got as far as volume four and no further. I also had Anna Karenina in reserve, and of course I always take Seth’s A Suitable Boy with me in the hope that this will be the year that I actually read past page forty. But, alas, I did not. It’s a wonderful book, though, and I shall certainly read it one of these days. I carry it, you see, in optimism.”

“Rather like A Brief History of Time,” observed Dilly.

“Everybody has that on their bookshelves, but very few people have read it. Virtually nobody, I gather.”

The conversation continued in this vein for a while, and then Dilly, reaching forward to pour a fresh cup of coffee, said: “Now, what about the pirates?” She spoke hesitantly, as it was she who had urged Domenica to go out to the Malacca Straits in the first place and she felt a certain responsibility for the expedition. It was, in fact, a matter of great relief to her that her friend had returned safely to Edinburgh.

“Oh yes,” said Domenica. “The pirates. Well, they were very hospitable – in their way. And I certainly found out a great deal.”

Dilly waited expectantly. What exactly had Domenica seen, she wondered. And had it changed her?

“I spent a lot of time on their matrilineal succession patterns,”

said Domenica. “And I also unearthed some rather interesting information about domestic economy matters. Who does the shopping and matters like that.”

“It must have been fascinating,” said Dilly. “And the pirates themselves? What were they like?”

“Smallish, for the most part,” said Domenica dryly. “I was a bit taller than most of them. Small, wiry people, usually with tattoos. Their tattoos, by the way, would make an interesting study. They were mostly dragons and the like – more or less as one would expect – but then I came across quite a number with very interesting contemporary motifs. Fascinating, really.”