The Unbearable Lightness of Scones Read Online Free PDF

trying to remember.
    “Yes,” said Angus. “She scared everybody. She was nanny, you see. She was a stern nanny who marched into the nursery and read the Riot Act. She told us to tidy up our rooms, that’s what she did.”
    “I suppose she did,” mused Domenica. “But did people listen?”
    “At first they didn’t,” said Angus. “But then they realised how strict she was. Nanny had a hairbrush and she whacked people with it. The miners. The Argentines. The railways. The universities. Whack, whack!”
    Domenica remembered. Yes, there had been a great deal of chastisement, and not everybody had enjoyed it. “Didn’t Oxford refuse her an honorary degree?”
    Angus nodded. “Yes, it was a bit petulant, I thought. Rather like a child saying, I won’t invite you to my birthday party. You know how children are always doing that – it’s their only little bit of power.”
    “Yes. And what did Maggie say?”
    “Oh, she was wonderful,” said Angus. “She replied in kind. She said she didn’t want to come anyway. Which is exactly what one child says to another when that particular threat is made.”
    But now he had to go to answer the door. It was most tiresome.
    And there was nobody there – just a note, which he picked up, unfolded and read. The puppies are downstairs, said the note. In a large cardboard box. Your dog produced them and you are therefore responsible for them. There really is no alternative.
    Angus stared at the note. Margaret Thatcher herself could not have put it more succinctly.

8.
Puppy Facts
    Old friends, like old shoes, are comfortable. But old shoes, unlike old friends, tend not to be supportive: it is easier to stumble and sprain an ankle while wearing a pair of old shoes than it is in new shoes, with their less yielding leather.
    In his despair, Angus decided that it would be Domenica to whom he would turn. He did not have much choice, of course; in recent years he had not paid as much attention to friendships as he should have done, and there were relatively few people with whom he had preserved a dropping-in relationship. And there are many of us, surely, in that category; we may feel that we have numerous friends, but how many can we telephone with no purpose other than to chat? Angus was aware of this. He had spent evenings on his own when he ached to talk to somebody and he had decided that he really should do something about acquiring more friends.
    Fortunately, Domenica was in. She was due that morning to attend a Saltire Society meeting, but that was not until eleven, and it was barely half past nine when Angus knocked on her door. She sensed from his expression that something was wrong, and invited him in solicitously.
    “Something’s happened?” She thought immediately of Cyril. To have a dog is to give a hostage to fortune, and Domenica had occasionally reflected on the fact that when Cyril went – and dogs do not really last all that long – Angus would be bereft. Yes, she thought; something has happened to Cyril – again. It was only a month or so ago that he had been arrested and had faced being put down for biting – an unjust charge which had in due course been refuted. And then there had been his earlier adventure when he had been kidnapped whileAngus had been buying olive oil in Valvona & Crolla. Cyril, it seemed, was destined to bring drama to their lives.
    “Cyril?” asked Domenica, putting an arm around Angus’s shoulder.
    Angus nodded miserably.
    “Oh, dear Angus,” said Domenica. “He was such a fine dog. One of the great dogs of his generation. An example to … to other dogs.”
    The eulogy was premature; Angus was shaking his head. “Is, if you don’t mind. Is, not was.”
    Domenica was momentarily taken aback. While she might have described Cyril in those glowing terms once he was safely dead, she was not sure if she would compliment him thus during his lifetime. In fact, she thought rather the opposite; Cyril, in her view, was distinctly