The Importance of Being Seven

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘I mean that she’s generally desperate,’ she said. ‘On all matters – desperate across the board.’

  Angus shrugged. It’s all very well having one new outfit, he thought, but I can’t wear that all the time. Should I go back to Stewart, Christie and get some more clothes?

  ‘Yes,’ said Domenica. ‘Her desperation is quite extraordinary. There is nothing to which she will not stoop. Remember the blue Spode teacup? Remember that business?’

  Angus frowned. ‘But I thought that you found your teacup in here – after we had gone in next door to pinch it back.’

  Domenica waved a hand airily. ‘Well, another one did indeed turn up. But I’m not sure that it was the same as the one that went missing. I still think it’s likely that the one I saw in Antonia’s flat was mine. After all, she had no other blue Spode – not a scrap. And you don’t have single teacups – you usually have a set.’

  ‘Well, whatever that was all about, we shall have to watch Antonia very carefully.’

  Domenica thought this good advice. ‘And you, Angus, are just going to have to refuse to share a room with her. Be direct. Tell her to her face.’

  Angus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘There must be a more tactful way of dealing with her. Perhaps we could write to one of those social advice columns and ask how to deal with a situation like this.’

  ‘Those columns are certainly useful,’ she said. ‘I suspect that they would advise you to come up with some reason for wanting to sleep alone. Perhaps you could say that you’re a terrible snorer and nobody could possibly sleep in the same room as you. They’re very good with answers like that, those columns.’

  ‘I could tell her I was a somnambulist,’ said Angus brightly. ‘I could say that I pose some – not a great deal, but some – danger to those around me when I’m asleep.’

  Domenica thought this a very good idea. ‘And perhaps you could pretend to sleepwalk while we’re in the villa. That would confirm what you said.’

  ‘Cyril suffers from somnambulism,’ said Angus. ‘Not very often, but from time to time.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. He gets up out of his bed and wags his tail. Then he walks off to the cupboard where I keep his lead and he sits outside it. I’ve seen him do it several times. I just gently lead him back to his basket and he lies down again. The vet says that it’s nothing to worry about.’

  Domenica glanced at Cyril, who looked back at her and smiled, his gold tooth flashing in a ray of sun. ‘Somnambulism raises some very interesting issues,’ she said. ‘I read somewhere about an experiment which some sleep researchers had conducted in Montreal. They had a woman who suffered from nocturnal somnambulistic snacking.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She sleepwalked at night and raided the refrigerator. She was putting on an awful lot of weight as a result. But she had another problem – she had a phobia for snakes – ophidiophobia, I believe it’s called. So they told her to drape a large rubber snake over the fridge before she went to bed at night.’

  ‘And that worked? No more nocturnal snacking?’

  ‘Yes, that worked. But – and this is the interesting part. She forgot to put the snake in position one night, and when she went downstairs the next morning, she had a Mother Hubbard moment – no food. All snacked.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Indeed. This shows that while she was asleep she was, at some level, aware of the fact that she had forgotten to put the snake in place. The inhibition against going to the fridge was therefore not operating. So this suggests that …’

  Angus waited. He was interested to find out just what the implications of this were.

  Domenica looked thoughtful. ‘It means,’ she went on, ‘that we can still be expected to behave ourselves when we are asleep.’

  ‘Surely not,’ said Angus. ‘If I say something terrible in my sleep, I would hope not to be held accountable. I don’t think—’

  ‘But it shows what you really want to say,’ interrupted Domenica. ‘It’s rather like drunkenness. Nice people are nice when they’re drunk – nasty people are nasty.’ She paused. ‘Auden said something similar about the weather, if I remember correctly. He said that nice weather is what nasty people are nasty about and the nice take pleasure in observing. Something like that.’

  Angus rose to his feet and crossed to the window. ‘I never tire of your view,’ he said. ‘Never.’

  ‘It’s a great consolation,’ said Domenica. A consolation for … for … Well, it was a consolation for everything, really.

  ‘And look at that sky,’ said Angus. ‘We’re so fortunate, aren’t we? To live in a country where the sky changes virtually every moment; where its colours, its attenuated blues, its whites, its purples break the heart, and then break it again, afresh, every single day.’

  49. Chinoiserie

  When he saw Elspeth collapse, for a moment Matthew was unable to do anything, experiencing, for the first time in his life, a complete paralysis of disbelief and indecision. Then, once the initial shock had passed, he leaped forward, knocking over a small mahogany table. The noise of the toppling table, which had supported a glass bowl, now smashed, was drowned by Matthew’s cry of anguish.

  The solicitor’s assistant was in the kitchen, where she was absorbed in a copy of Scottish Interiors. The feature she was reading was an article on a house in a Fife fishing village that had been restored by a Dundee architect and his wife. Everything was white, as far as she could make out, and minimalist. She held the page away from her to test the perspective. No, definitely too many sharp corners and hard surfaces. Could minimalism not be a bit softer?

  Then she heard Matthew. She looked up. It was not the first time that she had heard people exclaim – and very occasionally swear – when looking round a house. These exclamations were often the result of disappointment with the décor – or, on occasion, vociferous disapproval. Then there were arguments, when one member of a couple liked the layout of a house and another did not. That led to tension and, again very occasionally, open arguments. But this was different: something had clearly happened. They’ve broken something, she thought. People will insist on picking things up and then they break them. And then we have to go back to the owner and explain what has happened. Never they, be it noted – we.

  She put aside Scottish Interiors and made her way into the drawing room. There she saw Matthew bending over Elspeth, who appeared to be half draped over one of the chairs. For a moment she thought that he had knocked her down – that the scream had come from her, not him, and that a disagreement over architecture had taken a rather serious turn. But then Matthew turned to her and shouted that she should call an ambulance.

  The assistant took out her mobile phone and dialled the emergency number. A voice answered quickly and took the address. ‘Stay where you are. Somebody will be with you very soon.’

  Then Elspeth sat up. Matthew looked at her for a moment in complete astonishment, as if she, a female Lazarus perhaps, was defying death itself.

  ‘I think I slipped,’ said Elspeth. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You didn’t slip,’ said Matthew. ‘You collapsed. Oh, my darling, are you all right?’

  ‘Of course I’m all right,’ said Elspeth, struggling to get to her feet.

  ‘You should sit down,’ said the assistant. ‘I’ll make some tea and then the ambulance will arrive.’

  Elspeth laughed. ‘I don’t need an ambulance. I slipped, that’s all.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Matthew. ‘You collapsed. Your eyes were closed. You were unconscious.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Elspeth. ‘If I had been unconscious, then I wouldn’t remember what happened. I slipped, on that rug.’

  ‘Then should I call the ambulance people and cancel?’ asked the assistant.

  ‘No,’ said Matthew. ‘We must get Elspeth to hospital as soon as possible.’

  Elspeth reached out and placed a hand on Matthew’s arm – a calming gesture. ‘Come on, Matthew
, let’s not over-dramatise the situation. Maybe I did faint. People faint during pregnancy.’

  Matthew frowned. ‘Only if something’s wrong.’

  The solicitor’s assistant shook her head. ‘No, I think your wife’s right. I know somebody who fainted quite a few times when she was expecting her first baby. I saw her do it several times. And the doctor explained that it was all to do with inadequate blood supply.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’m expecting triplets, you see.’

  The solicitor’s assistant gasped. ‘Poor you … I mean, congratulations.’

  Elspeth thanked her. ‘It’s exciting,’ she said. ‘For both of us.’

  ‘Triplets,’ said the assistant. ‘That’s probably why you fainted. Anyway, I’m going to phone the ambulance people and call them off. All right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Matthew. ‘Although I do wish you’d go and be checked up on. People shouldn’t faint just like that.’

  The assistant went back into the kitchen to make the call, leaving Matthew and Elspeth in the drawing room.

  ‘I’d like to look at the rest of the flat,’ said Elspeth. ‘I really like this place, you know. That lovely garden. This room. Everything, so far.’

  Matthew took her arm solicitously. ‘You should hold on to me,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Matthew! Don’t be ridiculous. I’m unlikely to faint again. I’m fine.’

  He looked doubtful, but relinquished his grip. ‘Please be careful.’

  ‘I shall.’ She smiled at him. He cared so much for her, and if that meant that he fussed a bit, then that was better than the opposite, an indifferent husband. Would it last forever, she wondered; would he be like this when they were middle-aged, and beyond? She imagined that it would; Matthew was not fickle in any way, she had noticed that.

  They heard the solicitor’s assistant on the telephone. ‘No, she’s absolutely fine. It was just a faint. About thirty seconds, I think. Yes, I’ll tell them they should go the health centre. Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t need to see the doctor,’ said Elspeth. ‘You don’t go to the doctor every time you faint. Victorian and Edwardian women fainted regularly – every day, didn’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Matthew. ‘I don’t see why they should have done that.’

  ‘Because it was considered ladylike,’ said Elspeth. ‘If you fainted a lot, it showed that you were a person of refined temperament. The world was just all too much, and so you fainted. You fainted if you saw something unpleasant.’

  ‘Like Aunt Ada,’ said Matthew. ‘Remember? Ada Doom in Cold Comfort Farm. She saw something nasty in the woodshed and never recovered.’

  Elspeth smiled. ‘I always wondered what it was.’

  ‘Best not to ask,’ said Matthew. He opened a cupboard on the landing. ‘Nothing nasty inside,’ he said.

  They went into the first of the bedrooms.

  ‘So restful,’ said Elspeth. ‘Look at that lovely wallpaper, Matthew. Chinoiserie.’

  Matthew looked at the wall behind the bed. The wallpaper was of a pale green shade; the design, which was Chinese in style, depicted delicately rendered birds perching on twigs and branches; a tiny bird, one of those birds so small that they would disappear within the clenched fist, balanced upon a wisp of grass.

  ‘This is where we’ll sleep,’ whispered Elspeth.

  He looked at her. She was smiling at him gently, with that smile that made him so proud to be the one she had chosen to be her husband, to be the father of her baby … babies.

  50. Matthew is Decisive

  Matthew continued to press Elspeth to visit the doctor, but she was adamant. ‘I just don’t need to go,’ she said. ‘My blood pressure was checked two days ago and they said it was more or less what they would expect. I’m fine, Matthew – I really am. You can’t wrap me in cotton wool.’

  That came across as criticism rather than imprecation – which was not her intention. ‘I’m sorry, my darling,’ she said quickly. ‘I very much appreciate your concern – I really do, but you mustn’t worry too much about me. I’m quite strong, you know.’

  He put his arm around her shoulder. They were walking back around Moray Place after having viewed the flat and, had they been watched from a window above – and they were – they would have seemed to all intents and purpose as the young couple in love – he with his arm about her shoulder, in perfect step with each other; such tenderness.

  ‘Look,’ said the watcher to her companion. ‘Look down there. That young couple we’ve seen in India Street. He has that gallery, I think. She’s got a lovely, gentle face. Rather like a Madonna.’

  ‘So touching,’ said the companion. ‘Do you think they’ve been looking at that flat? The one for sale?’

  ‘I’m not sure that a young couple could afford that,’ said the watcher.

  ‘We can hope.’

  ‘Yes, we can hope.’

  ‘Perhaps they might even join the Federation.’

  ‘That might be nice. We could pop a leaflet through their door once they move in.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a really good idea.’

  Unaware of the eyes upon them, Matthew and Elspeth turned the corner into Darnaway Street. ‘Well?’ said Matthew. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I like it,’ said Elspeth. ‘There’s something special about it. It’s so quiet. Did you notice that? Not a whisper of traffic.’

  ‘I heard the trees moving in the wind,’ said Matthew. ‘That’s all.’

  Elspeth looked at him enquiringly. ‘Did you find out about the price? I’ve left my copy of the brochure back there. I suppose we could get another copy from that nice woman who showed us round.’

  But Matthew had seen the price. ‘It’s not cheap,’ he said. ‘But then it’s Moray Place.’

  Elspeth hardly dared ask. She had bought her flat in Sciennes at what seemed to her to be an exorbitant price, but it would be nothing when compared with the price of these flats in the Georgian New Town.

  ‘We can afford it,’ said Matthew. ‘We’d get a good price for our flat. People like India Street.’

  ‘You’re holding back,’ said Elspeth, in mock accusation. ‘I can take it, you know.’

  ‘All right,’ said Matthew. ‘They’re asking for offers over eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’

  Elspeth stopped walking. ‘Eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds?’ she repeated slowly.

  Matthew confirmed the figure with a nod. ‘So that means we’ll have to pay quite a bit more than that if we want to get it. You heard what the lawyer at McKay Norwell said. She said they had several notes of interest. That means there’s going to be competition.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t bother,’ said Elspeth. ‘I’m not sure if I want to get into a bidding war.’

  Matthew, who still had a protective arm about her, gave her a squeeze. ‘But you loved it,’ he said. ‘I could tell. You really felt at home, didn’t you?’

  He knew; he had seen her expression. Yes, she did want it; she wanted it badly; but eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds? For a flat? With eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds one could buy a small farm in Ayrshire; or a slightly down-at-heel chateau in a less fashionable part of France; or … there were so many things one could do with eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

  ‘How much do you think we’d get for India Street?’ she asked.

  Matthew thought for a moment. ‘I saw an advertisement for a flat like ours in Northumberland Street,’ he said. ‘And Northumberland Street is a little bit less desirable than India Street. Five hundred and twenty thousand.’

  Elspeth, being a teacher – even one who had been obliged to resign – at least could do mental arithmetic. ‘A three hundred and thirty thousand pound shortfall,’ she said. It seemed such a discouragingly large sum; surely Matthew would see that.

  But all he said was: ‘Yes. That’s about it.’

  ‘Well, we can’t afford that,’ she said. ‘So we need to find somewhere else.�
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  Matthew shook his head. ‘No, we don’t. I can get hold of that. Have you forgotten …’

  He did not complete his question. He felt embarrassed about his situation, even with Elspeth.

  ‘Have you got that much?’ she asked.

  Matthew was taken aback. Had he never told her? Perhaps not.

  ‘Elspeth,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not short of cash.’

  She looked away. ‘I didn’t suppose you might be. But that’s a very large sum.’

  ‘But we can easily afford it,’ said Matthew. ‘If you want it.’ He paused. ‘And as far as I’m concerned, I’d really love to live there.’

  ‘Then let’s go for it,’ said Elspeth.

  ‘All right,’ said Matthew. ‘I’ll phone our lawyers the moment we get back to the flat.’

  Our lawyers: it was not a phrase that Elspeth had ever had occasion to use. It sounded immensely grand to be able to say our lawyers, but it seemed entirely natural for Matthew.

  ‘I didn’t know that we had lawyers,’ said Elspeth.

  ‘Well, we do. And I’m going to phone them and ask them to put in an immediate offer.’

  They had now reached India Street and were beginning to make their way down it to their doorway. After Moray Place, India Street seemed rather modest, and yet it was comfortable and on a human scale. Did they really want to move somewhere more formal? Elspeth was not sure. And yet, the thought of all those steps, even now, in early pregnancy, was beginning to daunt her.

  ‘How much will we offer?’ Elspeth asked.

  ‘I’ll see what the solicitor says. But it’s likely to be nine hundred and fifty. Nine hundred and sixty, maybe.’

  She said nothing. That was almost a million pounds, and when stamp duty and lawyers’ fees and all the rest were added, it probably would end up being at least that much. Is this what she wanted? To be living in what the popular press would describe as ‘a million-pound flat’? Is that what she wanted, when there were so many people who made do with such small and cramped space; people for whom a million pounds was an impossible, distant dream? Did she want to be part of that world; the world of elegant Georgian interiors and the quiet ticking of clocks? Had she made a mistake in marrying Matthew, and was she now simply confirming that mistake by going along with something that seemed to be so alien, so far away from all that she had ever been, as to be about somebody else, some other Elspeth Harmony who had nothing to do with the real Elspeth Harmony – whoever that was?