Sunshine on Scotland Street

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Bruce was unsure. He thought that it was over one hundred thousand pounds, but he was not sure. “Over one hundred grand?”

  “Yes,” said Jonathan. “If he’s senior and with a pukka airline. One hundred and twenty, and more. So you’re not going to get them admitting to the fact that their job could be done just as well by the cabin crew – let alone the passengers. Mind you, if you fly for one of those budget outfits – the real cheap and cheerful end of things – then you get minimum wage. And you have to take your own sandwiches. Did you know that? Those guys have to take their own lunch with them – or they buy the bacon roll for four quid like the rest of us.”

  Bruce decided to move the conversation on. “All right,” he said. “So you go into my office and I go into yours. What then?”

  “We take it from there,” said Jonathan. “You lead my social life, and I lead yours.”

  “But what about our friends?”

  Jonathan had his answer ready. “That’ll be the fun part – the big test, if you like. If we can fool them, we can fool anybody.”

  “I’m not sure …” Bruce was beginning to feel doubtful.

  “Of course, if you’ve got cold feet …”

  This had the effect that Jonathan had imagined it would.

  “Of course I haven’t got cold feet,” Bruce protested. “I’m just raising some of the practical problems we might encounter.”

  “Fair enough,” said Jonathan. “So you’re still committed?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well then I’ll tell you something about myself,” said Jonathan. “Listening? All right. Here goes. First bit of information – not important, but you should know: first bit: I’m gay.”

  44. Shuggie McGrath and Other Memories

  Bruce said nothing. He was aware that Jonathan was watching him, assessing his reaction to the disclosure he had made, but he had nothing to say about it really. Jonathan’s preferences were of no particular interest to him, and were certainly not any sort of threat. Like all profoundly narcissistic people, Bruce imagined that everyone was as admiring of him as he was of himself, and it did not particularly matter to him whether this admiration was male or female in origin. So, after a brief moment during which he registered what Jonathan had just said, he merely shrugged and said, “I’m cool with that.”

  Jonathan raised an eyebrow, but only slightly. “You sure?”

  Bruce shrugged again. “Yes, whatever.”

  “All right,” said Jonathan. “So let’s …”

  But now Bruce had thought of something. “Are you in a relationship at the moment?”

  Jonathan smiled. “I thought you might want to know that.”

  “Not that I care,” said Bruce hurriedly. “It’s nothing to do with me, but it suddenly occurred to me that if you were in a relationship then it could be awkward if …”

  Jonathan continued to smile. “Yes? If?”

  Bruce looked embarrassed. “If you had a friend, then the friend might think …”

  “Yes?”

  Bruce was now blushing. “He might expect me to …”

  “Like him?” prompted Jonathan gently.

  Bruce became flustered. “Well, I’m sure I’d like him. I’m sure he’s great …”

  “But he doesn’t exist,” said Jonathan. “I just told you.”

  “I mean, if he did exist, then he could think that I had suddenly gone off him.”

  Jonathan frowned. “But why would you do that? You just said that you were sure that he’d be great.”

  “Of course he’d be great,” blustered Bruce. “I told you: I’m cool with people like that.”

  “Like what?” asked Jonathan.

  “Like your friend.”

  Jonathan looked puzzled. “But how can anybody be like somebody who doesn’t exist?”

  Bruce tried to look amused. “Hah!” he said. “I see what you mean.”

  Jonathan looked thoughtful. “Let’s forget about him,” he said. “He doesn’t exist, and so there’s no problem. I live by myself.”

  “So do I,” said Bruce. Then again a further thought occurred. “You’d live in my place then? And I’d live in yours?”

  “Yes,” said Jonathan. “I’ve got more furniture, of course.”

  “I’m not sure that I want to,” said Bruce. “I thought we were just going to exchange jobs – that sort of thing.”

  “No,” said Jonathan. “We exchange the whole deal. You wear my clothes, live in my flat, go to work as me. The whole deal.” He paused, looked at Bruce with a mixture of amusement and something that struck Bruce as condescension. “Unless you are getting cold feet.”

  Whether or not it was intended as such, this remark was exactly the one to stiffen Bruce’s resolve. He had never been able to take a loss of face, and even if he felt this exchange of identities was a pointless and rather hazardous exercise, he would be loath to say so.

  “Of course I’ve not got cold feet,” he retorted, rather too loudly. “I said I’d do it.”

  “Good,” said Jonathan. “And now I’ll tell you a bit more about myself. I’ll give you my history so that you’ll ring true.”

  Bruce sat back in his chair. “Fire away.”

  “I spent my first seventeen years in Glasgow,” Jonathan. “Bearsden.”

  Bruce nodded. “I know Bearsden a bit. I’ve got cousins there.”

  “Good,” said Jonathan. “So if somebody says something about Bearsden you’ll know what they’re talking about.”

  “Of course,” said Bruce. “No problems.”

  “Right,” continued Jonathan. “I went to school at Hutchy.”

  Bruce said that his cousins did so too. “Maybe you know them. There were two of them.” He paused. “How old are you?”

  Jonathan did not reply for a moment. Bruce stared at him.

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “Same here,” said Bruce.

  “Birthday?”

  Bruce hesitated. “Eighth of June.” He knew what was coming.

  “Same here.”

  There was another silence. Then Bruce cleared his throat. “Coincidence,” he said. “Put a bunch of people in a room and there’s always a chance you’ll find two with the same birthday – a much higher chance than you’d imagine. I read about it.”

  “But there are only two of us in this room,” Jonathan pointed out. “Not a whole bunch.”

  Bruce was not persuaded. “As I said, coincidence.”

  Jonathan made a gesture of acceptance. “All right, coincidence.”

  “So my cousins were called McGrath,” said Bruce. “Bob and Hugh. We called Hugh Shuggie. Still do. Shuggie’s our age. He would have been in your year at Hutchy.”

  Jonathan laughed. “Shuggie McGrath? Of course I knew him. He was a runner, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. A sprinter. And he played bass in a band, the Shugs. There were two of them called Hugh, you see.”

  “I remember them,” said Jonathan. “And he was also in the Pipe Band, wasn’t he?”

  Bruce nodded. “He played the pipes at another cousin’s wedding over in Ayrshire. Kilwinning.”

  Jonathan seemed to be mulling over a memory – a fond one. “Shuggie and I were quite friendly,” he said. “I think he liked me.”

  Bruce shook his head. “He’s not …” He stopped himself.

  “Not what?” asked Jonathan.

  “Not playing the pipes any more,” said Bruce quickly. “But carry on.”

  Jonathan continued. There had been Hutchy, he said, and then there had been the bit that came after Hutchy, which was the world. “As between the two, I think I prefer Hutchy to the world.”

  Bruce looked unbelieving. “I didn’t like being at school,” he said. “All those rules. Being told: do this, do that. I couldn’t wait to get out of it.”

  Jonathan said that he could not disagree more. “I loved it,” he said. “We were a group of friends together. And I don’t think I’ll ever make friends like that again. Never.”
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  “You can’t live in the past,” said Bruce.

  “Maybe not. But when there was a time that you were really happy, then why shouldn’t you think about it? Why shouldn’t you keep memories alive?”

  Bruce looked up at the ceiling. If Jonathan was unhappy now, was that the reason why he had suggested this exchange? Did he think that he would be happier leading somebody else’s life – was that it? Or was it possible that Jonathan had a reason to escape his life, some reason that was pressing, undisclosed – and serious?

  45. A Visit to St. Bennet’s

  It was with some relief that Cyril followed Cardinal O’Brien. The dog had been sure enough of the need to escape from the shed in which Ranald Braveheart Macpherson had locked him for the night. He had no sense of obligation to stay with Ranald – Bertie, by contrast, had been a different matter, Cyril having known him for years, as a companion with whom to romp in the Drummond Place Gardens and as somebody whom he occasionally met on his walks with Angus. He was also familiar enough with Scotland Street, as Angus had been accustomed to taking him there on his visits to Domenica – rather tedious visits, in Cyril’s opinion, as he was often made to stay on the landing for long periods, his leash tied to the banister, while his master visited the person who, unknown to Cyril, had now become his mistress according to the law of Scotland – if the law of Scotland can be bothered to regulate such matters as the lives of dogs. Those lives are led somewhere below us, in a region of shoes and ankles and detritus, in a place of rich smells and rough textures of which we have only the faintest of ideas, but that for dogs constitutes the whole world; for dogs in Scotland don’t know that England exists, or France, or America – or anywhere, really, and are none the unhappier for it.

  Cyril followed the Cardinal that evening because he had no idea what to do otherwise. Some dogs are happy to follow their noses – one sees them in the street looking as if they know where they are going, but they do not. If their nose were to be pointed in a completely different direction then that is where they would go, with the same apparent sense of purpose as before – at that comfortable, relaxed pace of a dog who has all the time in the world. Cyril, though, was in a strange part of town and was feeling confused as a result; and here was somebody who had spoken to him kindly and had that vague sense of authority to which dogs, as pack animals, are so sensitive.

  From Cardinal O’Brien’s point of view, the dog he encountered had clearly strayed from his home. While there were some of the neighbourhood dogs he recognised, Cyril was not one of them and could not be left to wander. There was, he thought, a council department that was concerned with strays – and in that he was right. These people used to be called dog-catchers but he doubted if such an insensitive term would be used these days. Dog-catchers had been redescribed as dog wardens, which was less threatening, even if catching dogs was what dog wardens actually did. (Traffic wardens, by contrast, had never been described as car catchers, even if that, as in the case of dog wardens, was exactly what they did.) But even dog warden had a dated feel to it now, and the hunt was on for a less custodial, less prescriptive name. Dog consultants was very much a favourite, and, it was widely believed, would probably win.

  “You’d better come along with me,” said Cardinal O’Brien, looking down at Cyril fondly. “Then we can try to get you home tomorrow morning.”

  He had examined Cyril’s collar, hoping to find some indication of his address, but there was nothing. He had found, though, a small metal tag, rather ornately inscribed with the letters RSA. Those, he imagined, were the initials of the dog’s owner, and it struck him as odd that somebody should put such information on a collar when a far more useful bit of information would be a telephone number or a street address.

  Cyril looked up at the Cardinal and wagged his tail. He could tell that he was in safe hands here and when the Cardinal invited him to follow him, he readily acceded to the suggestion. So the two of them made their way back to St. Bennet’s, the Cardinal’s official residence. This house was one among many such houses in the area – substantial, but not in the slightest bit ostentatious; ostentation was for places like London and the flashier parts of Dublin, not for Edinburgh. All that marked this house out from its neighbours was a domed archiepiscopal chapel in the grounds – a charming building by R. Weir Schultz, and built in the early years of the twentieth century by the generosity of the third Marquess of Bute. The Butes, an illegitimate off-shoot of the Stuart dynasty, were great swells, having acquired a considerable fortune by inventive talent. While some Victorians contented themselves with inventing industrial processes, the Butes distinguished themselves by inventing Cardiff. That proved to be a good invention: inventing a port city can be profitable, and they acquired great wealth. This in due course came into the hands of the third Marquess, a man of broad interests and serious mind, who converted to Catholicism and became the model for the hero of Disraeli’s novel Lothair. This marquess was to die rather early – he was in his early fifties – but he succeeded in building a large number of buildings, public and private, including this chapel. Today those who drive past it, and see its green copper dome rising above the high wall that marks the curtilage of the house, probably do not think of the high-minded Victorian who caused it to be built. In his time, people must have imagined that nobody could ever possibly forget the man who enabled its construction, but everybody is forgotten, no matter what physical reminders they leave behind them.

  For Cyril, of course, the gates of St. Bennet’s were like any other gates, the house like any others. And the kitchen into which he was taken was much like any other kitchen; and the dish of cold beef that was generously put before him was just like any other dish of cold beef – to be wolfed down greedily in spite of the fact that the last meal, the Irish stew given to him by Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, had been consumed less than an hour before.

  The Cardinal then took Cyril into a small scullery where he placed an old cushion on the ground for his bed.

  “Goodnight, my boy,” said the Cardinal. “And God bless.”

  It was a kind thing to say to a dog, and a good thing. Because the least of us, the very least, has the same claim as any other to that love, divine or human, which makes our world, in all its turmoil and pain, easier to comprehend, easier to bear.

  46. Pleasant Semi-Somnolence

  Cyril slept well in the Cardinal’s house, comfortable on the cushion that had been provided for him. By the time the scullery door was opened in the morning, he was ready for the day, his tail wagging in anticipation.

  “You’re looking cheerful,” said Cardinal O’Brien. “Breakfast first, and then I might arrange a bit of exercise for you.”

  Cyril had no idea what was being said to him, but readily acceded to the suggestion. Dogs agree with us in all that we say to them, which is what makes them such agreeable companions. And their sycophancy is so complete, so natural and unforced, that we never really object to it.

  He followed the Cardinal through to the kitchen, where a plate of porridge and gravy was placed on the floor for him. This did not take him long to polish off and then, while the Cardinal had his own breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, Cyril sat politely on the floor beside his chair, waiting for any scraps that might come his way. There were several of these: two bacon rinds and the crust from a slice of toast.

  “You dogs are always hungry, aren’t you?” said the Cardinal.

  Cyril looked at his host and cocked his head. He was pleased with his new guardian and wanted only to be noticed by him and secure his approval. But there were newspapers to read, and the Cardinal busied himself with these and with a steaming cup of coffee before a secretary arrived at the house with correspondence to attend to.

  “I see Your Eminence has acquired a dog,” said the secretary, reaching down to pat Cyril on the head.

  “He acquired me,” said the Cardinal. “And I think we’ll have to get in touch with the council about him. They may be able to trace his owner.” He p
aused. “You know that my immediate predecessor had a dog?”

  The secretary shook his head. “Before my time, Eminence.”

  “Well he did,” said the Cardinal. “Cardinal Gray had a dog called Rusty. And when he celebrated Mass in the chapel here the congregation was regularly three religious sisters and his dog, who used to sleep quietly in his basket near the altar and never uttered a whimper.”

  The secretary smiled. “I can just see it,” he said.

  “Yes,” continued the Cardinal. “And the extraordinary thing was this: when Cardinal Gray returned from the Second Vatican Council with instructions that Mass should be said in English rather than in Latin, Rusty started howling in anger at the change in language! He left the chapel and never came back in – to the consternation of the nuns! It was quite astonishing.”

  “Rusty was a traditionalist?” said the secretary.

  The Cardinal smiled. “That might be one conclusion,” he said.

  They passed on to a discussion of the day’s business, at the end of which the Cardinal asked the secretary whether he would mind picking up some provisions at Valvona & Crolla if he was going down to the Cathedral. The secretary agreed to do this, and he also agreed to take Cyril with him for the outing.

  “Dogs like to get out and about,” said the Cardinal. “But be sure to remember to keep him on his leash. We don’t want him running off into the traffic or anything like that.”

  Cyril set off with the secretary, walking off jauntily in the direction of Bruntsfield Place, where the 23 bus might be picked up. After the short trip to the centre of town, they got off just before Queen Street and completed the rest of the journey on foot. Cyril sniffed at the air, and then sniffed at it again. There was something very familiar about this air, and he felt that although he might not be able to find it exactly, he was now rather close to his home. And if he was close to home, then he should be close to Angus, and that set his tail wagging like the arm of an hysterical metronome.