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know about. When people start to write about the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries–or even the twenty-first, for that matter–they can get into awful trouble if they get it wrong. And they often get something wrong, don’t they?”
    “Writers can make mistakes like anybody else,” said Antonia, rather peevishly. “We’re human, you know.” She looked at Angus, as if expecting a refutation, though none came. “For instance, was there not an American writer who described one of his characters on page one as unfortunately having only one arm? On page one hundred and forty the same character claps his hands together enthusiastically.”
    Angus smiled. “So funny,” he said. “Although some people these days would think it wrong to laugh about something like that. Just as they don’t find anything amusing in the story of the man who went to Lourdes and experienced a miracle. The poor chap couldn’t walk, and the miracle was that he found new tyres on his wheelchair.”
    Antonia stared at him. “I don’t find that funny, I’m afraid.” She shook her head. “Not in the slightest. Anyway, if I may get back to the subject of what we know and what we don’t know. We happen to have quite a lot of knowledge about early medieval Scotland. We have the records of various abbeys, and we can deduce a great deal from archeological evidence. We’re not totally in the dark.”
    Angus looked thoughtful. “All right,” he said. “Answer me this: were there handkerchiefs in medieval Scotland?”
    Antonia frowned. “Handkerchiefs?”
    “Yes,” said Angus. “Did people have handkerchiefs to blow their noses on?”
    Antonia was silent. It had not occurred to her to think about handkerchiefs in medieval Scotland, as the occasion had simply not arisen. I’m not that sort of writer, she thought; I’m not the sort of writer who describes her characters blowing their noses. But if I were, then what…
    “I have not given the matter thought,” she said at last. “But I cannot imagine that there were handkerchiefs–textiles were far too expensive to waste on handkerchiefs. I suspect that people merely resorted to informal means of clearing their noses.”
    “I read somewhere that they blew them on straw,” said Angus. “Rather uncomfortable, I would have thought.”
    “I imagine that it was,” said Antonia. “But I am writing mostly about the lives of the early saints. Noses and…and other protuberances have not really entered into the picture to any great degree.
    “And anyway,” she went on, “you should not expect fiction to be realistic. People who think that the role of fiction is merely to report on reality suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is all about.”
    Angus Lordie’s nostrils flared slightly, even if imperceptibly. His conversations with Domenica had been conducted on a basis of equality, whereas Antonia’s remarks implied that he did not know what fiction was about. Well…
    “You see,” went on Antonia, inspecting her nails as she spoke, “the novel distils. It takes the human experience, looks at it, shakes it up a bit, and then comes up with a portrayal of what it sees as the essential issue. That’s the difference between pure description and art.”
    Angus looked at her. His nostrils had started to twitch more noticeably now, and he made an effort to control this unwanted sign of his irritation. He had entertained, and now abandoned, the notion that he might get to know Antonia better and that she would be a substitute for Domenica; indeed, as the lonely-hearts advertisements had it, perhaps there might have been “something more”.
    He imagined what he would say if he were reduced to advertising. “Artist, GSOH, wishes to meet congenial lady for conversation and perhaps something more. No historical novelists need apply.”

8. Money Management
    Matthew was crossing Dundas Street to that side of the road where Big Lou kept her coffee bar, at basement level, in the