Once the house move was completed, Catriona’s oldest and best Scottish friends, two of them, came to stay for a week. Now that Catriona lives in France they see each other but infrequently.
A seven-day female catch-up feast did not appeal to me. Neither would a shadowy male presence about the house appeal much to them, I imagined. An unenlightened point of view, perhaps. But gender is more sharply defined in Scotland than south of the border. The lassies are proud of their lads’ outrageous, even ludicrous, masculinity, but they sympathise with each other more. Scottish gender begs to differ. So I planned to bugger off back to England the day after they arrived and leave them to it. The three of them had lots to get through, including respectively a death, a divorce and a desertion. And that was just for starters.
The pal whose husband has run off with another woman has been off her grub for six months. She has lost about half of her body weight and developed a chronic digestive problem. This was the subject under discussion when I blundered out on to the terrace where they were gathered around the table for elevenses on the first morning after their arrival. Had I any advice to give, said one of these three glamorous, tragic women, to someone wanting to increase their own gut flora? The question surprised me. Of the three, one is a full-time nurse, another a former practice nurse of 20 years’ experience. So why ask me? Perhaps asking a bloke a technical question the moment he appears on the scene is the age-old Scottish lassies’ technique for diverting the masculine mind away from its customary channels of drink, football and violence and giving him the opportunity to pontificate impressively on something about which he knows nothing.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in