The Importance of Being Seven

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Bruce preferred to go to the gym by himself, and would usually call in for an hour or so each evening after he had finished work in the offices of Macaulay Holmes Richardson Black or, as Bruce called the firm, Mac and Co. After that, he would go to pick up Lizzie from her parents’ home in the Braids and take her out for a meal somewhere, or they would go to a restaurant or bar. Then they would go back to Bruce’s shared flat for coffee and to listen to music. That was what they did.

  Recently, however, the routine had been disturbed by a new feature of their lives that Lizzie had insisted on introducing. She had joined a bridge class attended by her friend Diane, and had suggested that Bruce should join her. He had viewed the invitation with suspicion.

  ‘Where is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s in a room in the university,’ she said. ‘Buccleuch Place. They rent it out cheaply as a sort of community service.’

  Bruce was silent. Community service? Cheap university rooms? This was not, as he put it, ‘part of the plan’.

  ‘Bridge,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, bridge. Have you ever played it?’

  Bruce shook his head. ‘My parents used to play,’ he said. ‘In Crieff.’ There was a lot of bridge played in Crieff, he thought. He drew some air in through his teeth – a habit that Lizzie had begun to notice in him; she would have to say something, she thought; but not just yet.

  Bruce looked at her quizzically. ‘Excuse my saying this,’ he said, ‘but isn’t bridge a bit old?’

  Lizzie knew exactly what he meant, but would not show it. ‘It was invented in the nineteenth century,’ she said. ‘Lots of the rules are twentieth century, though. So, no, I wouldn’t call it old. Chess is an old game. Did you mean chess?’

  Bruce laughed politely. ‘No, I don’t think you get my meaning. I meant that the people who play the game tend to be … well, they tend to be pretty old, don’t they?’

  Again Lizzie answered brightly. ‘Old? Not in our class. Everyone’s under thirty-five, as far as I can make out. One or two are eighteen or nineteen. Students. You don’t think eighteen’s old, do you?’

  Bruce shrugged. ‘When you see it on television, they’ve all got one foot in the grave,’ he said. ‘Seriously old. But it doesn’t matter. Old people need to do something, I suppose. Keeps them off the streets.’

  Bruce laughed, but Lizzie did not join him. ‘Would you like to learn?’ she said. ‘I’d like you to, you know. You need a bridge partner, you see, and since we’re going to get married and everything, I thought it might be nice if we could go to bridge together.’

  Bruce looked thoughtful. ‘What’s the big attraction?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Intellectual,’ said Lizzie. ‘It involves memory and strategy and so on. And there is so much to learn – you could spend a lifetime learning bridge.’

  Bruce shrugged. ‘If you’re so keen, I could give it a try.’

  They had gone to their first class together that week. The instructor, a Dundonian with a central parting and horn-rimmed spectacles, had welcomed Bruce warmly and had pressed Ron Klinger’s Bridge Guide into his hand. ‘This is the Bible,’ he said. ‘Think of Mr Klinger as Moses and this guide as the Ten Commandments.’ He put on a deep, stentorian voice. ‘Thou shalt not open with less than twelve points,’ he intoned. ‘Thou shalt not communicate with thy partner other than by bidding.’

  Bruce stared at him blankly, and the instructor laughed nervously. ‘It’s a useful book,’ he said lamely.

  Lizzie dug Bruce in the ribs. ‘Bruce is really looking forward to learning, Arthur,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you, Bruce?’

  They went to their table, where Lizzie introduced the other players. ‘This is Carol and this …’ she hesitated very slightly, ‘this is Diane.’

  Bruce greeted the two young women. He had never seen Carol, as far as he knew; Diane, for some reason, seemed slightly familiar. Edinburgh was not a large place, of course, and one ran into people here and there.

  Diane looked at Bruce and smiled warmly. ‘Lizzie says that she thinks you’ll be really good,’ she said. ‘She said you were good at figures.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bruce. ‘I appreciate figures.’

  He raised an eyebrow suggestively, and Diane looked away. Carol did not notice. Lizzie was busy shuffling the cards.

  ‘Right,’ said Diane. ‘This is the way it works. We play four hands to begin with. Then Arthur gives us a talk on some convention or some tactic. That takes about half an hour. Then we play a whole rubber. Then we go to the pub.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Bruce. ‘Lizzie has explained the basic rules of bidding. I’ll pick up the rest as we go along.’

  The cards were dealt and the bidding began. Bruce opened with an impossibly high bid, which led to a sharp telling-off from Carol. The bidding resumed and eventually Carol played to Diane’s dummy. Bruce watched the cards go out and tried to remember them. For her part, Lizzie played carefully and confidently and Carol and Diane were two tricks down.

  ‘So,’ said Bruce. ‘My first game, and we’ve won!’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Bruce,’ said Diane. She was watching him closely, and now and then exchanged a glance with Lizzie. Bruce was unaware of this. He could think of many better ways to spend an evening. Yet he had noticed that Diane’s gaze was upon him rather more than necessary. Fancies me, he thought. It was what he would always have thought in such circumstances, even if, since he had turned over a new leaf, he had thought it less often. But now it was coming back, as an ancient habit will return, persistently, perversely, as a weed with a long root will come up from below no matter what is done on the surface.

  29. Underneath the Lamplight

  It was a ten-minute walk from the bridge class in Buccleuch Place to Sandy Bell’s bar in Forrest Road. It was not a large group that made its way there – six in all: Bruce and Lizzie were joined by Diane and Carol, their partners at the bridge table, and then there was another couple, Alex and Frances. Alex was a Glaswegian, and, unusually for one from that gregarious and entertaining city, almost completely silent; Frances made up for this, though, with a high-pitched, penetrating laugh. Bruce noticed that her eyes stayed on him as they were introduced. Hello! he said to himself. So Frances isn’t entirely satisfied with Alex! Diane noticed this too; she saw the smile play about Bruce’s lips. She looked at Lizzie, but Lizzie was talking to Carol and had not noticed.

  They walked through George Square. Lizzie was still engaged in the conversation with Carol that she had started as they left the bridge class and so Bruce moved to Diane’s side.

  ‘I think we’ve met before,’ he said. It was a gambit he used even when he had not met somebody, but on this occasion it was more than that. He was sure that he had seen her somewhere before.

  She smiled at him. ‘I don’t think so. I would have …’ She did not finish what she was saying.

  Bruce laughed. ‘You would have remembered me? Is that what you were going to say?’

  Diane bit her lip. ‘Well, maybe. I remember faces.’

  ‘Especially some?’ asked Bruce.

  ‘Meaning?’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘One remembers some people and not others.’

  ‘Maybe. But I don’t think we’ve met. I really don’t. I’ve heard about you, of course. When you and Lizzie got engaged. I was working down in London then and that’s why we didn’t meet.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bruce. ‘London. I worked there for a while. I got a bit bored and came home. Give me Edinburgh any day. London – everything’s stale and used up. Even the air has been breathed twenty times before by somebody else. All sorts of people.’

  ‘But you could say that about the air anywhere, surely,’ she said. ‘Aren’t all the world’s molecules mixed up? I remember reading somewhere that there are fragments of Julius Caesar in every bit of dust.’

  ‘Julius Caesar?’

  ‘Yes. We breathe in tiny bits of him – and everybody else – when we fill our lungs.’


  Bruce laughed. ‘He gets about.’

  Diane was silent for a moment. They were walking rather faster than the others, and she looked back towards them. ‘Poor Lizzie,’ she said. ‘I was worried that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate this evening.’

  Bruce frowned. ‘Why? Something’s wrong?’

  Diane looked over her shoulder again. ‘I’m not sure whether I should be telling you this. Lizzie said that she didn’t want you to know about it – she doesn’t want you to worry.’

  Bruce raised an eyebrow. ‘Doesn’t want me to worry? Worry about what?’

  Diane hesitated, as if uncertain whether or not to continue. Then she said, ‘You won’t tell her I told you? Promise?’

  Bruce nodded. ‘Yes. I promise.’ He paused. ‘Is there something wrong with her?’

  Diane shook her head. ‘No, there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s not ill. It’s just that …’

  ‘Go on,’ Bruce encouraged her.

  ‘It’s just that Lizzie has had a really horrid bit of news. She knows that it’s not the end of the world, but it’s still pretty hard to take.’

  ‘Her job?’ prompted Bruce.

  ‘No. But yes, it’s to do with money. Yes. She used to have quite a bit, you know. But her father’s had a bit of a financial disaster. Something to do with insurance – he signed up as a name, whatever that means.’

  ‘I know what that means,’ said Bruce. So Todd was a name. Disaster.

  ‘Anyway, her dad’s lost a serious amount of money,’ Diane continued. ‘Big time. Lizzie said that she had to give everything back to him – she had some money, and a flat from her grandmother. But if she didn’t hand it over to her dad, then he stood to lose their house. The lot. She felt she had no choice.’

  Bruce listened in silence. They were now passing the university union and a group of students had spilled out onto the square outside. Nineteen, thought Bruce inconsequentially. To be nineteen again, instead of twenty-something and getting this bad, bad news.

  ‘Better to know,’ he muttered.

  Diane heard. ‘Better to know? Better for you to know?’

  Bruce did not reply. He seemed deep in thought.

  ‘At least she’s still got you,’ said Diane. ‘And that’s what counts, isn’t it?’

  Bruce said nothing to this. He looked up at the sky, which was overcast and was reflecting the light of the streetlamps. He was conscious of Diane’s eyes upon him, but he was unconcerned. It was no business of hers how he reacted to the news of Lizzie’s misfortune. And what did she expect? That he should break into tears?

  Diane knew, of course. She could tell from his expression how Bruce had reacted to this story. He was thinking; of course he was thinking. He would be wondering how he could get rid of Lizzie – poor Lizzie – because that was the reason why he had become engaged to her in the first place. Money. Now she had flushed him out, and that meant that Lizzie had been saved.

  Bruce suddenly turned and looked at Diane. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘I was …’

  Diane waited. She noticed the effect of the streetlight on Bruce’s profile. She caught her breath. Cupid’s dart. She began to panic. Don’t be ridiculous. And yet it was like a pain, an excruciating pain. I’ve fallen for him, she thought. No, impossible. She allowed herself to look again. How could she ignore this? How could she be indifferent to this … she struggled to find the word. Then it came to her: vision. He was a vision, and she was smitten.

  Bruce smiled at her and bent down to whisper to her. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  She shook her head. Impossible. Stupid, stupid girl.

  ‘Don’t fight it,’ whispered Bruce. ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she stuttered.

  ‘Never fight it,’ said Bruce. ‘I don’t.’

  30. Trust and Revelation

  That Saturday morning, Angus Lordie called on Domenica Macdonald. It was not unusual for him to visit his friend in Scotland Street on a Saturday, although Domenica had made a point of warning him that he could not always expect to find her in. ‘I can’t sit here waiting for you, Angus,’ she said. ‘It would be just too pathetic a spectacle. I am not one of those spinsters who waits in her flat for a man to call. Be warned.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Angus hurriedly. ‘I know just how busy your Saturdays are. What with …’ He tried to recall what it was that Domenica liked to do on a Saturday; was it something to do with the Farmers’ Market? Or did she go to see somebody, some old trout (as he referred to her) who lived down in Stockbridge and was something to do with the Labour Party? Angus had a habit – a most annoying one, Domenica thought – of calling any woman over forty an old trout. He had not dared do with this Big Lou, of course, who was thirty-eight, or thereabout – nobody quite knew, and it was well known that people from Arbroath often looked younger than they really were. And even if he had not trouted her, she had taken him to task for this, although he had defended himself vigorously.

  ‘You call women hen, Lou. You’re one to talk.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Big Lou. ‘It’s a term of endearment.’

  ‘As is trout,’ said Angus.

  They had left it at that.

  Even if Domenica had been intending to go to the Farmers’ Market or visit a woman in Stockbridge to discuss Labour Party matters, she would not be doing this on that particular Saturday as she had a very good reason to have a word with Angus. Ever since she had heard that he was included in the planned Italian trip, she had been anxious to discuss the matter with him. What she wanted to find out was the circumstances in which the invitation had been extended, and what Angus thought about it. Did he know, she wondered, that she was coming too? If he did not, then she might wait to see if he mentioned the trip; a failure to do so would indicate that Angus was hoping to slip away to Italy with Antonia without letting her know about it. That would be an unequivocally disloyal thing to do and their friendship, she feared, would surely run aground on such dishonest and duplicitous rocks. Angus was not a dishonourable man, but he was a man, after all, and men were unquestionably weak. Jezebels like Antonia – or would-be Jezebels, perhaps – would know how to exploit a man’s weakness, how to turn his head by inviting him to a villa in Italy.

  By the time that Angus arrived in Scotland Street that morning, Domenica had worked herself up into a considerable lather at the thought of Antonia’s tactics. Angus, though, appeared breezy.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Here I am. Cyril, you’ll be pleased to hear, has chosen to remain on your landing, tied – ignominiously, for such an intelligent creature – to a railing. Uninvited, be it noted, in spite of having had a bath only two or three weeks ago.’

  Domenica tried to smile. ‘I’m sure that he doesn’t mind too much. And I’m sure that Antonia will pay him some attention if he feels left out. She is, after all, quite willing to include him in things.’

  It was the first of a number of attempts to flush out some mention of the Italian trip; Cyril was included in that, as Antonia herself had revealed.

  Angus appeared to ignore the remark. ‘He’ll be all right. He knows that I’m in here and that I can’t go anywhere without walking past him. Dogs are always worried that their owners will leave them.’

  ‘To go on holiday, for example,’ said Domenica quickly.

  Angus nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  Domenica led the way into the kitchen. ‘Would you ever take Cyril on holiday with you?’ she asked. It was an innocent question, posed casually.

  ‘He’d like it,’ said Angus. ‘Dogs love to be involved.’

  ‘And of course now they have these pet passports, don’t they?’ said Domenica. ‘There used to be such a fuss about rabies and quarantine. Now they can have their injections and go off with their owners. France, Germany, Italy … The world is a dog’s oyster nowadays, or bone perhaps.’

  Standing in the kitchen, Angus looked out of the window
over the rooftops on the other side of Scotland Street. ‘Are you looking forward to Italy?’ he asked suddenly.

  For a moment Domenica said nothing. Angus turned round and smiled at her. She noticed his eyes; they were so clear, the colour one imagines to be that of the eyes of those born in high, northern places. He was smiling – wryly. ‘You’re very transparent, you know,’ he said. ‘All this business of taking Cyril on holiday and so on. Utterly transparent!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Come on, Domenica! Italy. Antonia. We both know what you’re driving at. So let me set your mind at rest: yes, she asked me. And my first reaction, naturally, was that I wouldn’t dream of going off with her. Not after that business of the blue Spode teacup. It would be an appallingly disloyal act. So I said no, and then she said that I could bring Cyril. I still said no, but then I thought: what if I say I shall only go if you ask Domenica? So that’s what I said.’

  Domenica thought: you wonderful, loveable man. And there I was thinking ill of you, and all the time you were on my side.

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She looked a bit put out, but then she came round.’

  Domenica looked down at the floor. She felt ashamed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought that you and she might be …’ She broke off.

  ‘Us?’ exclaimed Angus. ‘She and I? Oh, really, Domenica!’

  ‘She’s such a man-eater, you see. That Pole. That other man. That twenty-year-old, barely out of short trousers.’

  ‘Tsk, tsk!’

  ‘Exactement.’

  They sat down at the kitchen table. The air had been cleared; suspicions of treachery had been dispelled, and now it was time to do some concrete planning.