The World According to Bertie

by Alexander McCall Smith

  But for this evening, as she stared out at Scotland Street, at the sun on the tops of the roofs, so beautiful, so beguiling, she reflected that she had spared no expense, or trouble, in preparing the meal for her friends. With their pre-dinner drink they would have Spanish olives from Hasta Mañana in Bruntsfield, generous olives the size of a small ping-pong ball.

  Then they would sit down to table, to a salmon timbale made with smoked salmon from the smoke house in Dunbar, followed by a venison cassoulet, and finally a sort of apple tart which she had constructed and covered with strips of pastry in Celtic designs (a touch of which she felt inordinately proud).

  She looked at her watch again. Twenty minutes had passed in reverie, and it was time to get things ready. She hesitated. She had not invited Antonia, and now she felt the first twinges of guilt; perhaps she should go and ask her right now, at the last moment. But do we really have to love our neighbour? she wondered. Really?

  Domenica looked out of the window again. The sky was clear, with just the slightest trace of cloud, high, attenuated, so delicate. And the answer came to her quite clearly: yes, we do. Thus do epiphanies come in Scotland Street, as elsewhere in Edinburgh; across the tops of roofs, from an empty sky, when the city’s fragile beauty can touch the heart so profoundly, so unexpectedly.

  98. On Kindness

  ‘Olives!’ said Angus Lordie, reaching out to the bowl which Domenica had placed on the table. ‘Yes,’ said Domenica. ‘For you– and others. So please don’t eat them all. Exercise restraint if you can, Angus.’

  Angus gave her a reproachful look – as if he, of all people, with his ascetic attitudes, would exercise anything but restraint. But if he looked reproachful he did not feel it; quite the opposite in fact: Angus liked to be told off by Domenica, and the more she scolded him, the more he liked it. What a masterful woman, he thought; so calm, so assured; so much like . . . Mother. The realisation came to him quite suddenly. Domenica was his mother. That was why he liked her; that was why he did not mind being told what to do and what not to do, especially at the table. Now it was olives; all those years ago it had been soor plooms that the late Patricia Lordie, wife of Fitzroy Lordie, innovative agriculturist and pioneering figure in the Perthshire soft fruit industry, told her son Angus not to eat in excess; but the tone, and the authority, were much the same. Women are here to tell us what to do, thought Angus; that is why they are here, and we are here to do their bidding.

  Angus looked at Domenica with moist, admiring eyes. How comfortable it would be to be married to her; to have her running his life for him, looking after him. They would breakfast together in this very room, looking out over the tops of the roofs, with the glorious day before them. They could discuss what was in the news – or such bits as bore discussion – and then they would take a walk and Angus would go to Valvona & Crolla, with a list drawn up by Domenica, to purchase whatever it was that she needed in order to prepare the evening meal. Oh bliss! Oh sheer matrimonial bliss!

  But then it occurred to him that none of this would be possible, fond though its imagining might be, for the simple reason that Domenica did not like Cyril. She had made this perfectly clear to him – and to Cyril – on a number of occasions, and she would never agree to having the dog live with them. But this practical obstacle did not stand too much in the way of fantasy, and in his mind’s eye he saw the pair of them standing before the altar at St John’s in Princes Street, he in his kilt, Domenica in an elegant cream-coloured outfit, while beside him, neatly groomed, Cyril watched proceedings with interest. They could modify the vows, perhaps: do you, Domenica, take this man, and his dog . . . No, it was impossible. And Angus could hardly fire Cyril after all those years of devotion that the dog had shown him. No, it could never be.

  Domenica looked at her watch. Angus always arrived half an hour early at her parties, something which she encouraged, as it gave them time to discuss the guests before they came. She often consulted Angus on the proposed guest list and was prepared to strike people off if he raised a sufficiently weighty objection.

  ‘Oh, we can’t have her,’ Angus once said, pointing to a name on Domenica’s list for an earlier dinner party. ‘She talks about nothing but herself. All the time. Have you noticed it? Yak, yak, yak. Moi, moi, moi.’

  ‘True,’ said Domenica, drawing a line through the name. ‘Mind you, that is the most perennially fascinating subject, don’t you find? Ourselves.’

  Angus thought about this. He did not talk about himself, and so he could not agree, but when he thought of others he could see the truth of Domenica’s observation. Most people were delighted to talk about themselves and their doings, asked or unasked.

  ‘And we can’t have him,’ he said, pointing at another name. ‘Because if we have him, then we can’t have her. And if one had to choose, I would have thought that she was the one we really wanted.’

  Domenica scrutinised the list. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten about that. Was it true, do you think? Do you think that he really did that?’

  ‘Apparently he did,’ said Angus, shaking his head over the foibles of humanity. Edinburgh was a city that took note of these things. Indeed, he had heard that there was a book somewhere in Heriot Row in which these things were all written down, so that they could be remembered. The book, he had been told, was in the hands of a carefully chosen committee (although anybody was entitled to nominate an incident for inclusion), and went back as far as 1956. It had once been proposed that the record should be expunged ten years after an event, but this suggestion had been turned down on the grounds that many of the older scandals still gave a great deal of enjoyment to people and it would be wrong to deprive them of that.

  The guest list that evening had been fully approved by Angus, and he was looking forward to the good conversation that he knew would take place. As he sat there, watching Domenica carry out a few last-minute preparations, Angus thought about the painting he had begun a few days before and which now dominated his studio. It was an extremely large canvas, ten feet by six, and he was at present sketching in the outlines of his planned great work on kindness: a seated woman, beneficent, portrayed in the style of Celtic illuminations, comforts a crouching boy, a figure of modern Scotland.

  ‘I’m working on an important picture,’ he said to Domenica. ‘On the theme of kindness.’

  Domenica, who had been peering into a pot on the top of the stove, looked over her shoulder at Angus. ‘A very good subject for a picture,’ she said. ‘I approve. Do you have a title for it yet?’

  Angus shook his head. He thought of it simply as Kindness, but he knew that this sounded a bit weak, a bit too self-explanatory.

  ‘In that case,’ said Domenica, ‘I suggest that you call it Let the More Loving One.’

  Angus frowned. ‘Let the More Loving One?’

  Domenica turned away from the stove. ‘It’s a line from Auden,’ she said. ‘“If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me.”’

  They were both silent for a moment. Behind Domenica, the pot on the stove simmered quietly; there was a square of light on the ceiling, reflected off window-glass, shimmering, late light. Angus thought: yes, that is precisely the sentiment. That’s it exactly. That’s all we need to remember in this life; two lines to guide us.

  99. Humphrey Holmes tells a Joke

  They sat at the table, Domenica’s guests, all in perfect agreement, at least on the proposition that the first course was exceptional. At the head of the table sat Domenica herself, anthropologist, widow of the late proprietor of the Cochin Sunrise Electricity Factory, author of numerous scholarly papers including, most recently, ‘Intellectual Property and Piracy in a Malaccan Village’. At the opposite end of the table, in a position which indicated his special status in this house as old friend and quasi-host, sat Angus Lordie, portraitist and occasional poet, pillar of the Scottish Arts Club, and member of the Royal Scottish Academy. On Domenica’s right sat James Holloway, art historian and a friend of Domenica o
f many years’ standing, whose advice she had sought on many occasions, and followed. On his right, Pat, the attractive but somewhat bland student who had got to know Domenica when she lived next door as tenant of Bruce Anderson, the surveyor – now the fiancé of Julia Donald – an unrepentant, a narcissist, a success. Then there were David Robinson and Joyce Robinson, both old friends of Domenica; her neighbour, Antonia, invited at the last moment out of guilt; Ricky Demarco, that great man, the irrepressible enthusiast of the arts, artist, impresario; Allan Maclean of Dochgarroch, chieftain of the Macleans of the North, and Anne Maclean; and, of course, Humphrey and Jill Holmes. That was all, but it was a good sample of Edinburgh society, and there were many who were not there who, had they known, would have given much to have been present.

  Angus looked about the table. He had been charged by Domenica with responsibility for ensuring that everybody’s glass was well filled, and they were. Now, sitting back, he savoured both the timbale and the conversation.

  ‘It’s a disaster,’ said Ricky Demarco. ‘A complete disaster.’

  Silence fell about the table as all eyes turned to Demarco. Was he referring to the timbale?

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The Festival Fringe is in great danger.’

  Most were relieved that the subject was the arts and not salmon timbale; David Robinson, in particular, looked interested. People were always predicting the demise of the Edinburgh Festival, he reflected, but somehow it always got better. And the same was true of the Fringe, the Festival’s unruly unofficial partner, which seemed to get bigger and bigger each year.

  ‘Danger of what?’ asked David.

  ‘Drowning in stand-up comics,’ said Demarco. ‘Haven’t you seen how many of them there are? They flock to Edinburgh, flock like geese over the horizon.’ He waved a hand airily. ‘Thousands of them.’

  Pat picked at a small fish bone that had become lodged in her teeth. She rather enjoyed going to hear stand-up comics, even if there were rather a lot of them.

  ‘I quite like them,’ she said quietly.

  Fortunately, nobody heard her; and she was only twenty anyway.

  ‘I must admit, for the most part, they’re very unfunny,’ said Angus. ‘Or am I out of touch?’

  ‘You’re out of touch,’ said Domenica. ‘But you may nonetheless be right about their unfunniness. I find most of them rather crude and predictable. No, I agree with Ricky. These people are getting a bit tedious.’

  ‘They are,’ said Demarco. ‘And the problem is this: they charge so much, some of them, that they mop up all the ticket money. The Fringe should be about the arts, about drama, music, painting. And all these people do is stand there and tell joke after joke. Just think of it: the world’s biggest, most exciting arts gathering reduced to a motley collection of comedians telling jokes. Is that what we’ve come to?’

  Angus looked down at his plate. ‘I wish I found more things funny,’ he said. ‘But I don’t. The only people who can make me laugh any more are Stanley Baxter and Myles Na Gopaleen.’

  David Robinson agreed about Na Gopaleen. ‘Yes, Flann O’Brien was a very funny writer. Do you remember his book-distressing service for the nouveau riche?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Angus. ‘They would come and make newly acquired books look suitably used. And for an extra fee they would write appropriate marginalia so that people thought that you had actually read the books.’

  ‘Irish writers can be very entertaining,’ said Domenica. ‘But what about public life? How long is it since we’ve had an amusing politician?’

  There was a complete silence. Mrs Thatcher had been tremendously funny, but she had gone now.

  ‘Harold Macmillan,’ said Humphrey, after a while. ‘He made the entire United Nations laugh once, although the laughter took a long time to travel round the Assembly as his remark had to be translated into numerous languages. The Germans laughed last, only because of their word order, I hasten to add.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Domenica.

  ‘Well,’ said Humphrey. ‘Mr Khrushchev started to get very heated when Macmillan was making his speech and he took off his shoe and started to bang it on the table. Whereupon Macmillan looked up and said, in a very cool drawl: “Could we have a translation of that, please?” The whole place collapsed.’

  They all laughed. Then Humphrey raised a finger in the air.

  ‘Mind you, I know an even funnier story about Khrushchev.’

  They looked at him.

  ‘This story concerns Chairman Mao,’ said Humphrey. ‘He was said to have had a very good sense of humour. He was asked once what he thought would have happened had it been Nikita Khrushchev rather than President Kennedy who had been assassinated. He thought for a moment and then said: “Well, one thing is certain: Aristotle Onassis would not have married Mrs Khrushchev!”’

  Angus let out a hoot of laughter, but he noticed that Pat looked puzzled. Leaning across the table he whispered to her: ‘Mrs Khrushchev, my dear, was a terrible sight. One of those round, squat Russian women whom one imagined picking potatoes or working in a tractor factory.

  ‘Mind you,’ he went on, ‘Russian women weren’t the only frumps. I had a friend who was once invited to meet a foreign leader (a delightful chap, now, alas, deceased) and was being shown around the leader’s tent – he lived, you see, under canvas. Anyway, he saw this picture of a very ugly-looking chap hanging on the side of the tent and he was about to ask: “Who’s that man?” when an official leaned forward and whispered to him: “That, sir, is our beloved leader’s mother.”’

  100. Along which Fault Lines . . .

  The salmon was entirely consumed, and at least one pair of longing eyes was directed to the empty plate on which the large timbale had stood; but there was to be no more, and those who had hoped for a second helping were sent empty away. But more was to come; now they progressed to the venison cassoulet, accompanied by Sardinian Rocca Rubia, a wine which Philip Contini himself had pressed into Domenica’s hands; and beyond that to the apple tart with the Celtic-inspired pastry strips.

  The conversation around the table was noisy and enthusiastic, as wide-ranging as it always was in Domenica’s flat – that was her effect upon others, a freeing of the tongue, an enlargement of confidence. Even Pat, who might have felt inhibited in such accomplished company, found herself expounding with ease on obtuse topics, emboldened by Domenica’s smile and encouraging nods of agreement. And outside, slowly, the light faded into that state of semidarkness of the Scottish midsummer; not dark, not light, but somewhere in between, a simmer dim perhaps, or something like it.

  At one point, at an early stage of the dinner, Domenica heard, but only faintly, the sound of Bertie practising his saxophone downstairs, and grinned. She glanced at Angus and at Pat; they as well had both heard, and smiled too, for they could picture Domenica’s young neighbour at his music stand, under the supervising gaze of his mother. Poor Bertie, thought Angus; what a burden for a boy to bear in this life, to have a mother like that, and how discerning Cyril had been when he bit her ankle in Dundas Street. And although on that famous occasion he had been obliged to look apologetic and to administer swift punishment to Cyril, his heart had not been in the retribution, and, as soon as possible, he had rewarded the dog with a reassuring pat on the head and the promise of a bone for his moral courage.

  And as Angus remembered this incident, Domenica found herself thinking of how well Auden’s words in his poem on the death of Freud fitted Bertie’s situation. He had written there of the child ‘unlucky in his little State’, of the hearth from which freedom was excluded; such powerful lines to express both the liberating power of Freudian insights, but also to describe the plight of a child. Of course, Auden had believed in Freud then, had imagined that the problem of human wickedness was a problem for psychology, a belief which he had later abandoned when he had come to recognise that evil could be something other than that. On balance, Domenica thought that she agreed here with the younger rather than the
older Auden. What tyrant has had a happy childhood?

  When they rose from the table to go through for coffee, Angus came up to Domenica and took her hand briefly. It was an unusual gesture for him, and Domenica looked down, almost in surprise, at his hand upon hers; and he, embarrassed, let go.

  ‘I wanted to thank you for the apple tart,’ he said. ‘You know I like it.’

  ‘That is why I chose it,’ she said.

  ‘Well, thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You heard Bertie playing back then?’ she asked. ‘I believe it was “Mood Indigo”.’

  Angus nodded. ‘It was.’ He paused for a moment. ‘He’ll be all right, that wee boy. He’ll be all right.’

  Domenica hesitated before she replied. But yes, she thought, he would be, and this comforted her. As they entered the drawing room, she turned to Angus and whispered to him: ‘You will say something, won’t you? They’ll be expecting it, you know. You always have a poem for these occasions.’

  Angus glanced at his fellow guests. ‘Are you sure they want to hear from me?’

  Domenica was sure, and a few minutes later, when everybody was settled with their coffee, she announced to her guests that Angus had a poem to read.

  ‘Not exactly to read,’ he said.

  ‘But it is there, isn’t it?’ pressed Domenica. And she thought, as she spoke: perhaps I would get used to canine company after all. Yes, why not?

  Angus put down his cup and moved to the window. There was still a glow of light in the sky, which was high, and empty, the faintest of blues now, washed out. Then he turned round, and he saw then that every guest, every one present, was a friend, and that he cherished them. So the words came to him, and he said:

  Dear friends, we are the inhabitants

  Of a city which can be loved, as any place may be,