The World According to Bertie

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Pat’s father, a psychiatrist, found the location very convenient. In the mornings, he could walk from his front door to the front gate of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital within fifteen minutes, and if he was consulting privately in Moray Place he could walk there in twenty-five minutes. The walk to Moray Place was something of a paysage moralisé – easier on the way down than on the way back, when the cares of patients would have been deposited on his shoulders, making Frederick Street and the Mound seem so much steeper and Queen Street so much longer. But apart from this undoubted convenience, what suited him about Dick Place was the leafy quiet of the garden that surrounded the house on all four sides. If they were to pass any comment on Dr Macgregor’s garden, John Gifford and his friends might be sniffy about the small stone conservatory and potting shed, with its fluted and rusticated mullions; they might even describe the whole thing as ‘an oddity’, but for Dr Macgregor it was his sanctuary, the place where he might in perfect and undisturbed peace sit and read the Journal of the Royal College of Psychiatry or the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

  When Pat came home that Saturday, Dr Macgregor was ensconced in the conservatory, a small pile of such journals beside him. He became aware of his daughter’s presence as she opened the French windows across the lawn, but he was so thoroughly immersed in his reading that he looked up only when Pat pushed open the conservatory door and stood before him.

  ‘That must be interesting,’ she said.

  He smiled, taking off his glasses and placing them down on the table beside him. ‘Very,’ he said. ‘Some of these articles are intriguing, to say the least. Do you know what Ganser’s Syndrome is? That’s what I was reading about.’

  Pat shook her head. ‘No idea,’ she said.

  Dr Macgregor gestured to the journal lying open on his lap. ‘I was just reading this case report about it. A classic case of Ganser’s walked through the author’s door. He was asked what the capital of France was and he replied Marseilles. And how many legs does a centipede have? Ninety-nine. When did the Second World War begin? Nineteen thirty-eight. And so on. Do you see the pattern?’

  ‘Just marginally out on everything?’

  ‘Yes. People who have Ganser’s talk just round the edge. Dr Ganser identified it and he called that aspect of it the Vorbeireden. They may not know that they’re doing it, but their answers to your questions will always be just a little bit off-beam.’

  Pat looked at her father in astonishment. ‘How odd! Why?’

  Dr Macgregor spread his hands in a gesture of acceptance. ‘It’s probably a response to intolerable stress. Reality is so awful that they veer off in this peculiar direction; they enter a state of dissociation. This poor man in the report had lost his job, lost his wife, lost everything, in fact, and was being pursued by the police for something or other. You can imagine that one might start to dissociate in such circumstances.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, you’re home.’

  He smiled at Pat, and was about to ask her what sort of morning she had had. But then Pat said: ‘Remember Bruce? I saw him this morning. Or at least I thought I saw him.’

  ‘You thought you saw him?’

  ‘It may not have been him. Maybe I just thought that it was him. Maybe it was somebody who was just dressed like Bruce.’

  ‘How interesting,’ said Dr Macgregor. He looked thoughtful. ‘Fregoli’s Syndrome.’ He added quickly, ‘I’m not being serious, of course.’

  But Pat was interested. ‘Who was Fregoli?’

  ‘An Italian clown,’ said Dr Macgregor. ‘An Italian clown who never had the condition bearing his name.’

  4. Some Words of Warning

  ‘Yes,’ said Dr Macgregor. ‘Fregoli came from Naples, or somewhere in those parts. He found himself in the forces of an Italian general sent to Abyssinia back in the late nineteenth century. The Italians, as you know, bullied Abyssinia . . .’ He tailed off. ‘You did know that, didn’t you?’ Pat shook her head. Her father knew so much, it seemed to her, and she knew so little. The Italians bullied Abyssinia, did they? But where exactly was Abyssinia?

  Dr Macgregor looked away, tactfully, as any sensitive person must do when he realises that the person to whom he is speaking has no idea where Abyssinia is. ‘Ethiopia,’ he said quietly. ‘Haile Selassie?’ He looked up, in hope; but Pat shook her head again, in answer to this second query. Then she said: ‘But I do know where Ethiopia is.’

  That, at least, is something, he thought. And he realised, of course, that it was not her fault. His daughter belonged to a generation that had been taught no geography, and very little history. And no Latin. Nor had they been made to learn poetry by heart, with the result that nobody now could recite any poems by Burns, or Wordsworth, or Longfellow. Everything had been taken away by people who knew very little themselves, but did not know it.

  ‘Ethiopia used to be called Abyssinia,’ he said. ‘And the Italians had skirmishes with it from Somaliland. In due course, Mussolini used this as the casus belli for later bullying, and he invaded them. The world stood by. The Ethiopians went to the League of Nations and begged for help. Begged. But they were little men with beards, and it took some time before anyone would listen. Little dark men with beards.’

  They were both silent for a moment. Pat thought: he makes it all sound so personal. He thought: we have all been such bullies; all of us. The Italians. The British. The Americans. Bullies.

  Pat looked at her father. ‘Mussolini was the one they hanged upside down, wasn’t he?’

  He sighed. ‘They did.’

  ‘Maybe he deserved it.’

  ‘No. Nobody deserves it. Nobody deserves even to be hanged the right way up. Whatever somebody does, however bad he is, you must always forgive him. Right at the end, you must forgive him.’

  For a moment, they were silent. He felt like saying to her that there were people, right at that moment, somewhere, even in advanced countries, who were awaiting capital punishment; people whose days and hours were ticking away under such sentence; such was the hardness of the human heart, or of some human hearts. But he did not say it; instead, he looked up at her and smiled.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our friend Fregoli impressed this Italian general – and can’t you just imagine the splendid uniform that generald would have had? Such stylish people. He impressed him so much with his quick-change act that he was taken off military duties and became a performer. He would appear on stage wearing one thing, nip off, and then appear within seconds wearing a completely different outfit. People loved it.’

  ‘And why . . .’ Pat began to ask.

  ‘The human mind,’ said Dr Macgregor, ‘is capable of infinite deception – both of others and of itself. If you began to think that somebody in your life was really another person in disguise, then you would have, I’m afraid, Fregoli’s Syndrome. You might begin to think that I was not really myself, but was a very accomplished actor.’

  ‘How strange.’

  ‘Yes, how strange,’ said Dr Macgregor. ‘But it gets even stranger. There’s another condition, one called Capgras Syndrome, where you believe that people you know have been replaced by imposters. The whole thing is a carefully orchestrated act put on by a team of imposters. That may be your best friend talking to you, but you’re not fooled! You know that it’s really an actor pretending to be your best friend.’

  Pat laughed. ‘But it was Bruce,’ she said. ‘Or at least I thought it was.’

  ‘Then I’m sure it was,’ said Dr Macgregor. ‘You’re a very reliable witness of things. You always have been.’

  But now it was Pat’s turn to doubt. ‘Isn’t it true, though, that the mind can fill in the details if it sees just one thing that it recognises? One of our lecturers said something about that. He was talking about how we look at paintings.’

  ‘It’s certainly true,’ said Dr Macgregor. ‘We want to reorganise the world, and that makes our brains jump the gun – sometimes. You look at a newspaper headline, take in one word, and before you know it you
r brain says: yes, that’s what it says. But it may not.’

  Pat looked thoughtful. What had she seen? A rugby shirt. And a pair of trousers. Perhaps her mind had filled in the rest; filled in the hair with the gel; filled in the look of Bruce.

  Dr Macgregor decided to get up from his chair. He stood, and then walked over to the window and looked out over the garden. The lawn was dry.

  ‘Don’t get mixed up with that young man again,’ he said quietly.

  Pat looked up sharply. ‘I wasn’t planning to,’ she protested. ‘I really disliked him.’

  Dr Macgregor nodded. ‘Maybe you did. But that type of person can be very destructive. They know how powerful their charm is. And they use it.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want you to be hurt. You know that, don’t you? That’s all that a father wants for his daughter. Or most of them. Fathers don’t want their daughters to get hurt. And yet they know that there are plenty of men only too ready to treat them badly. They know that.’

  Pat thought that her father was being melodramatic. Bruce was no danger to her. He may have been in the past, but not now. She was like somebody who had been given an inoculation against an illness. She was immune to Bruce and his charms.

  And yet she had felt unsettled when she saw him; it had been exciting. Would one feel that excitement if one was immune to somebody? She thought not.

  Her father was looking at her now. ‘Are you going to seek him out?’ he asked.

  Pat looked down at the ground. It was so easy to fob other people off with a denial, with a half-truth, but she could not do this to her father; not to this gentle psychiatrist who had seen her through all the little doubts and battles of childhood and adolescence. She could not hide the truth from him.

  ‘I think I’d like to see him,’ she said.

  5. Past Definite; Future Uncertain

  Domenica Macdonald, freelance anthropologist, native of Scotland Street, friend of Angus Lordie and Antonia Collie, owner of a custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz, citizen of Edinburgh; all of these were facets of the identity of the woman now striding up Scotland Street, a battered canvas shopping-bag hanging loosely from her left arm. But there was more: in addition to all of that, Domenica was now the author of a learned paper that had recently been accepted for publication in the prestigious journal Mankind Quarterly. This paper, ‘Past Definite; Future Uncertain: time and social dynamics of a mangrove community in Southern Malaysia’, was the fruit of her recent field trip to the Malacca Straits. There, she had joined what she imagined was a community of contemporary pirates, with a view to conducting anthropological research into their domestic economy. The pirates, it was later revealed, were not real pirates after all – or not pirates in the sense in which the term is understood by the International Maritime Safety authorities in Kuala Lumpur. Although they disappeared each morning in high-powered boats, Domenica had discovered that their destination was not the high seas at all, but a town down the coast, where they worked in a pirate CD factory, infringing the intellectual property rights of various crooners and inexplicably popular rock bands. That had been a setback for Domenica, but it had not prevented her from completing a useful piece of research on the way in which the community’s sense of time affected social relationships.

  The paper had been well received. One of the referees for the journal had written: ‘The author demonstrates convincingly that a sense of being on the wrong side of history changes everything. The social devices by which people protect themselves from confronting the truth that there is a terminus to their existence as a community are laid bare by the author. A triumph.’ And now here it was, that triumph, in off-print form, with an attractive cover of chalk-blue, the physical result of all that heat and discomfort.

  When the box containing the sixty off-prints had been delivered by the postman, Domenica had immediately left the house and walked round to Angus Lordie’s flat in Drummond Place, clutching one of the copies.

  ‘My paper,’ she said, as Angus invited her in. ‘You will see that I have inscribed it to you. Look. There.’

  Angus opened the cover and saw, on the inside, the sentence which Domenica had inscribed in black ink. To Angus Lordie, the inscription read, who stayed behind. From your friend, Domenica Macdonald. He reread the sentence, and then looked up. ‘Why have you written who stayed behind?’ he asked. His tone was peevish.

  Domenica shrugged. ‘Well, you did, didn’t you? I went to the Malacca Straits, and you stayed behind in Edinburgh. I’m simply stating what happened.’

  Angus frowned. ‘But anybody reading this would think that I was some . . . some sort of coward. It’s almost as if you’re giving me a white feather.’

  Domenica drew in her breath. She had not intended that, and it was quite ridiculous of Angus to suggest it. ‘I meant no such thing,’ she said. ‘There are absolutely no aspersions being cast on . . .’

  ‘Yes, there are,’ said Angus petulantly. ‘And you never asked me whether I’d like to go. Saying that somebody stayed behind suggests that they were at least given the chance to go along. But I wasn’t. You never gave me the chance to go.’

  ‘Well, really!’ said Domenica. ‘You made it very clear that you didn’t like the idea of my going to the Malacca Straits in the first place. You said that in the little speech you gave at my dinner party before I left. You did. I heard you, Angus. Remember I was there!’

  ‘It would be a very strange dinner party where the hostess was not there,’ said Angus quickly. ‘If one wrote a note to such a hostess one would have to say: “To one who stayed away.” Yes! That’s what one would have to write.’

  Domenica bit her lip. She knew that Angus had his moody moments, but this was quite ridiculous. She was now sorry that she had come to see him at all, and was certainly regretting having brought him the off-print. ‘You’re behaving in a very childish way, Angus,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’ve got a good mind to take my paper away from you. There are plenty of people who would appreciate it, you know.’

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ said Angus. ‘I can’t see why anybody would want to read it. I certainly won’t.’

  Domenica bristled with anger. ‘In that case,’ she said. ‘I’m taking it back. The gift is cancelled.’

  She reached across to snatch the off-print from Angus. She felt the cover in her fingers and she tugged; but he resisted, and with a ripping sound ‘Past Definite; Future Uncertain’ was torn into two roughly equal parts. Domenica let go of her part, and it fluttered slowly to the ground.

  ‘Oh,’ said Angus, looking down. ‘I’m very sorry. I know you started it by writing that cruel thing about me, but I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry . . .’

  What upset him was the destruction of another artist’s work. An anthropologist was not really an artist, but this was creative work – even if a rather dull sort of creative work – and he had destroyed it. Angus felt very guilty. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again. ‘I would never have torn up your work intentionally. You do know that, don’t you? It’s just that I feel very out of sorts today.’ He hesitated, as if wondering whether to entrust Domenica with a confidence. Had he forgiven her? Yes, he thought, I have. He lowered his voice. ‘Something really awful has happened. It’s made me very tetchy.’

  Domenica’s expression of irritation was replaced with one of concern. ‘Awful? One of your paintings . . .’

  Angus shook his head. ‘No, it’s nothing to do with my work. It’s Cyril.’

  Domenica looked past Angus, into the flat. There had been no sign of the dog, who usually greeted any visitor with a courteous wagging of the tail and a pressing of the nose against whatever hand was extended to him. This had not happened. ‘He’s ill?’ she asked. As she spoke, she realised it could be worse: Cyril could be dead. Dogs were run over in cities. There were other dangers too.

  ‘No,’ said Angus. ‘Not ill. He’s been removed.’

  Domenica looked puzzled.

  ‘Accused of biting,’ said Angus morosely. ‘Removed by the p
olice.’ Domenica gasped. ‘But whom did he bite?’

  ‘He bit nobody,’ said Angus firmly. ‘Cyril is innocent. Completely innocent.’

  6. Cyril’s Misfortune

  ‘I think you should invite me in,’ said Domenica, from the hallway of Angus Lordie’s flat. ‘Let me make us a pot of coffee. Then you can tell me about it.’

  Angus Lordie’s earlier – and most uncharacteristic – churlishness evaporated. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘How rude of me. It’s just that . . . well, it’s just that this business over Cyril has left me feeling so raw.’

  Domenica understood. She had not had a dog since childhood, but she remembered the sense of utter desolation she had experienced after the loss of the scruffy Cairn terrier which her mother had taken in from a cousin. The terrier had disappeared down a rabbit hole in the Pentlands when they had been taking it for a walk, and had never reappeared. A farmer had helped with the search, and had dug away the top part of the burrow, but all that this had revealed was a complex set of tunnels leading in every direction. They had called and called, but to no avail, and as dusk descended they had gone home, feeling every bit as bad as mountaineers leaving behind an injured fellow climber. They had returned the next day, but there had been no sign of the terrier, and it was presumed lost. The dog had not been replaced.