This was a result of the lure of the distant and the different – she knew that very well. And she knew, too, that the days of anthropological condescension from the West towards everybody else were over, and rightly so, a matter that she had discussed with Angus Lordie on more than one occasion.

‘Do they send anthropologists to Scotland?’ Angus once asked.

‘Of course they do,’ replied Domenica. ‘The notion that it’s we who study them is quite abandoned now. We are all the object of anthropological interest – potentially. All of us. Even you and that malodorous dog of yours, although strictly speaking he’s nothing to do with anthropos.’

Angus ignored the gibe at Cyril but thought about Domenica’s broader point. ‘So would you get anthropologists going to, say, Saltcoats?’ He paused, and then added, ‘Not that I’m suggesting that there’s anything wrong with Saltcoats. It’s a great place, of course.’

Domenica nodded. ‘I knew an American anthropologist who went to do field work in Glasgow,’ she said.

There was something about the tone with which she said this that interested Angus. Had something untoward occurred? ‘How did he get on?’ he asked.

Domenica looked out of the window. They were having tea in her kitchen in Scotland Street and she was staring at the view of the chimney pots on the other side of the road. We did not need these chimney pots any more, now that we no longer used our fires, but how bare, she thought, would rooftops seem without them.

‘How did he get on?’ She repeated Angus’s question. ‘Not too badly, to begin with.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, there was an incident. He was head-butted.’

Angus felt a momentary shame; a shame for Scotland. There was so much we had to be ashamed of: too much drinking, too much aggressive swearing, too much head-butting … And what did people do about it? Nothing, he thought. Because it was unfashionable, uncool, to protest the values of civilisation, those discarded, despised notions that actually made life in society less like Hobbes’s nightmare.

‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ he said.

Domenica nodded. ‘He was a very agreeable man,’ she said. ‘He came from Chicago, I seem to recall, and he had that typical mid-Western politeness about him. He wrote to me for a few years after his return to the United States, always referring to what he described as his very happy memories of Scotland. He never talked about the head-butting.’

‘They are very considerate people, Americans like that,’ said Angus.

They were both silent, as there was nothing more to be said. Did anybody actually apologise, Angus asked himself.