The Importance of Being Seven

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Matthew swallowed hard. ‘I’m very pleased,’ he said. But he did not sound very convincing.

  ‘Entry will be in two weeks’ time,’ went on the lawyer. ‘They insisted on that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Matthew weakly. ‘That will give us time to get things organised at this end.’

  ‘I hope that you’re very happy in your new home,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘We shall be,’ said Matthew.

  He rang off and went back to the kitchen to give Elspeth the news. He found her with her head in her hands, in tears.

  ‘Darling! Darling, darling! Why … Why are you crying? It’s good news. It’s ours.’

  This did not bring the desired reaction, but only seemed to increase her tearfulness.

  ‘Please don’t cry,’ pleaded Matthew, placing an arm around Elspeth’s shoulder. She nestled her head against him. He felt her tears, warm against his cheek. The tears of another person, he thought; another’s tears.

  ‘I didn’t mean to cry,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t. It’s just that everything is suddenly so complicated. I thought that getting married would be simple – that I would feel just the same, but married, if you see what I mean.’

  Matthew did not. He stroked her hair gently.

  ‘And then,’ Elspeth went on, ‘it all seemed so strange. The babies. The house. The million pounds. Everything.’

  ‘Don’t you want to move?’ asked Matthew. ‘Don’t you want to live in Moray Place?’

  He had not expected her answer. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to stay here. I want to stay here with you. I want it just to be us. Just the two of us. That’s what I want.’

  Matthew tried to comfort her. Just the two of us. But they were no longer just two – they were five. Did this mean that she did not want her triplets? Is that what she meant?

  ‘Not just the two of us,’ he whispered. ‘Five.’

  Elspeth caught her breath, and then sobbed all the more. Matthew did not know what to say, or what to do. He remembered what his father had once said. It had been at a Watsonian rugby match, and Matthew’s father had turned to his son and said, apropos of nothing, ‘Matthew – remember one thing. Women see things differently from the way men see them. You remember that.’

  54. The Therapeutic Hour

  Dr St Clair opened the door to Irene and Bertie. He smiled. ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Mrs Pollock and young Bertie. It’s that time already, is it? I was reading something and didn’t notice what time it was.’

  ‘Bertie and I were just talking about subjective time,’ said Irene. ‘Weren’t we, Bertie?’

  Bertie nodded. He did not want to be here, and he did not want to start discussing subjective time all over again with Dr St Clair.

  They went into the waiting room.

  ‘Bertie, you just sit there like a good boy for a minute or two while I have a wee talk with Dr St Clair,’ said Irene.

  Bertie sat down obediently.

  ‘You can read those magazines,’ went on Irene. ‘Bertie is a great reader, Dr St Clair. He was reading when he was three.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Dr St Clair. ‘That’s early.’

  Bertie buried himself in an old copy of Scottish Field. He wished that his mother would not discuss him in front of other people, but she always did.

  ‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘He read quite voraciously – fairly advanced things too – if you can call Stevenson advanced, which I do not. He read Kidnapped when he was four. And he had read all of Roald Dahl by the time he was five. All of it. Not that I approve of Dahl, who is, I think, very misguided on a number of points, but it was quite an achievement on Bertie’s part.’

  ‘I’ve always liked Roald Dahl,’ said Dr St Clair. ‘There’s a certain anarchic tendency there.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘And patriarchal too. Do you think that he was one of those authors who punished women?’

  Dr St Clair looked puzzled. ‘Punished them?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Irene. ‘Look at Flaubert. Madame Bovary was punished – and punished very convincingly. And what about poor Anna Karenina? She was punished, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Dr St Clair. He looked at his watch. ‘But time is marching on and maybe—’

  Irene interrupted him. ‘I’d just like a few words with you first, if you don’t mind.’ She moved decisively towards the door of Dr St Clair’s consulting room and he followed her, glancing back at Bertie as he did so. The door closed behind them.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ asked Dr St Clair, gesturing for Irene to sit down. ‘He seems cheerful enough.’

  ‘On the surface,’ said Irene. ‘But I’m not sure if all is well underneath. He took my other child – little Ulysses – off to school the other day. Abducted him.’

  Dr St Clair frowned. ‘Abducted?’

  ‘Yes. He removed him from the flat while I was having a lie-in and my husband – rather thoughtlessly, it must be said – had gone off to work. Bertie took it upon himself to remove Ulysses and take him to school. The first thing I heard of it was when I received a frantic call from the school.’

  ‘Unconscious hostility towards a sibling,’ said Dr St Clair. ‘It’s common enough.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Irene.

  ‘He might grow out of it, of course. Sometimes these things are resolved naturally and the children end up being the firmest of friends.’

  ‘And sometimes they don’t.’

  Dr St Clair conceded that Irene was right; sometimes the hostilities of the nurseries lasted well into adult life. He had seen that in cousins of his who did not talk to one another, even at family funerals.

  ‘I had a professor in Melbourne who wrote about that,’ he mused. ‘A rather wonderful book, actually, Siblings but not Siblings. I always thought that a rather good title.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Irene. ‘Tell me: did you do all your training in Melbourne?’

  ‘My bachelor’s degree in psychology,’ said Dr St Clair. ‘And my PhD as well. Then I went to Sydney for a rotation of hospital attachments. Clinical psychology departments.’

  ‘And your PhD,’ probed Irene. ‘What was the topic?’

  ‘Attachment theory,’ said Dr St Clair.

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Irene. She had noticed Dr St Clair’s boots; they were ankle-length, in brown leather, like the boots she had seen in pictures of Australian stockmen.

  ‘Did you come from a farm?’ she asked. He seemed taken aback by the question, and she sought to reassure him. ‘I just wondered,’ she said.

  ‘My father was an accountant in a stock agency up in Queensland,’ said Dr St Clair. ‘So it was a farming background in a way. But I wanted to get away. I wanted to get to Melbourne, Sydney – anywhere.’

  ‘We all do,’ said Irene encouragingly.

  ‘Yes. I went off to university. My father wanted me to study commerce, and that’s what I applied for. But when I got to university I discovered that I couldn’t stand the BCom curriculum and I decided to transfer to philosophy or psychology. I actually tossed a coin – would you believe it? It landed on tails, which was psychology.’

  ‘How symbolic,’ said Irene. ‘Heads for philosophy – for the mental – and tails for the psychological.’

  Dr St Clair nodded. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. Anyway, so I did the degree in psychology and my parents only found out about it when they came for the graduation. My father said, “Look, son, they’ve put your name in the wrong column! They’ve got you down for some fancy degree in psychology. Better make sure they give you a pukka BCom certificate!” That’s when I told him.’

  ‘And how did he take it?’

  Dr St Clair sat back in his chair. ‘He was a bit nonplussed. He asked me why on earth I wanted to do something like that when a degree in commerce could have got me started with one of the larger companies. I explained that I was interested in human nature and that human nature was infinitely more exciting than business. He said nothing after that, and I think he eventual
ly accepted my choice. I never wanted to kill my father, you know.’

  Irene tilted her head slightly. ‘Not even subconsciously?’

  ‘Who knows what we think subconsciously?’ said Dr St Clair. ‘That’s why it’s called the subconscious.’

  Irene laughed. ‘Of course. So what happened then?’

  ‘I enrolled for the PhD. I did not have much money, and so I stayed as a sort of lodger I suppose with a widow called Phyllis who lived in a Melbourne suburb. She came from a family that had interests in a chemicals factory, and the house was quite comfortable. I was quite happy there.’

  ‘She was your mother,’ said Irene.

  Dr St Clair smiled. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, she looked after me very well. She always had something cooked for me when I came back in the evening – things I liked – tapioca pudding, ox-tail stew – but not in that order, of course! After dinner we fed the scraps to the two dachshunds that Phyllis had. They were called Eugene and Riley.’

  He paused. He was enjoying himself, talking about his life back in Melbourne.

  ‘Do carry on,’ said Irene. ‘Eugene and Riley. Do tell me about them.’

  55. Men Can Cry

  ‘They were rather odd little dogs,’ said Dr St Clair, looking up at the ceiling. ‘They were both long-haired dachshunds, which I rather prefer to the smooth variety – you know, the ones that look to all intents and purposes like a frankfurter. They were intelligent little dogs, and very loyal once they had accepted you as a friend. And I wanted a loyal friend, I think.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Irene. ‘Why do you say that?’ His comment sounded like a complaint, she thought – the complaint of one who had suffered, perhaps, from disloyalty in friends.

  He hesitated before replying, and she had to urge him on. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘I’ll understand.’

  Dr St Clair looked out of the window. It was such a long distance away, such a long distance; a different world. And it was a long time ago, too, when he was twelve and had been sent to the Anglican school in Toowoomba. ‘It was a boarding school,’ he said. ‘We lived in Toowoomba and so I was able to go as a day boy – most of the others were boarders. They were the sons of pastoralists. Some of the stations they came from were the size of Scotland, you know – or almost. Vast places. ‘I was fairly unhappy there. The boarders knew one another well and so the day boys were the outsiders. You know how cruel boys can be – children in general. Girls are as bad, I suppose.’

  ‘Some girls,’ said Irene. ‘Not all.’

  Dr St Clair nodded. ‘Well, you had to look after yourself. And you needed friends for that. And anyway, at that age friendship is terribly important for all sorts of reasons. You yearn for a friend, a good friend, a loyal friend. David and Jonathan, so to speak.

  ‘There was a boy in my year called Gavin. His father had one hundred and twenty thousand acres up on the Tablelands. He told me that he had shot a crocodile when he was ten. “I wasn’t meant to,” he said. “But I did. It got too close to us. I had to. Dad said, ‘Get that croc, Gav. Quick, before he gets us.’”’

  Irene said nothing. She was watching Dr St Clair. This is a very fascinating man, she thought.

  ‘So, he shot a crocodile.’

  ‘Yes. But he was not like most of the others. He seemed … well, kinder than them. He used to do my mathematics homework for me sometimes, when I found it a bit difficult. We used to take it to a place behind the cricket grounds, where there was a stand of eucalyptus trees. When the wind came up, the sound that these trees made was like that of the sea breaking on the shore. You know that sound. Boys went there to smoke – we didn’t care, did we? We were immortal. Cigarettes killed other people, not us.

  ‘We became blood brothers. We each made a cut in our palms and then pressed our hands together so that the blood would mingle. Then we shook hands again and swore that we would be loyal to one another for the rest of our lives. “You ever need help,” said Gavin, “come to me.” And I said, “Same here.”

  ‘Two years later, Gavin said to me, “Get out of my sight, St Clair. I hate you.” Just like that. I went home that day and my mother found me sitting in my bedroom looking at the ceiling. She said, “Something upset you? What is it?” And I said nothing, because children don’t tell their parents about what is wrong; they deny grief and the all the cruelties that they inflict on one another. So once she had gone out of the room, I remember just sitting there crying – crying in private – for the end of my friendship. I thought I would never find another friend like him. Never.

  ‘But I was really telling you about those two dachshunds, wasn’t I? I got sidetracked onto loyalty. Yes, they were loyal little dogs, even if they were a bit snappy from time to time. They had back problems, you see, because of being so long. Eugene had the worst twinges, I think. He was very low-slung and sometimes his stomach would touch the ground as he walked along. And if somebody patted him too vigorously his back would hurt and he could nip them. Not badly – just a small nip.

  ‘When I lodged at Phyllis’s place, the dogs became quite fond of me. They used to follow me around, and if there was a storm they would come into my room and hide under the bed. They were frightened of thunder, I think – Riley in particular. He used to whimper if there was any thunder or lightning about.

  ‘They used to love going out into the garden and digging up the flowerbeds. They were looking for something, I suppose, but I never found out what it was. Ancient bones, perhaps? Dachshund song-lines? Who knows? We’re all looking for something, of course, even if we don’t know what it is. And most of us don’t know, do we?

  ‘I left Phyllis’s place after I finished my PhD. A few years later, when I was working in Sydney, I had a Christmas card from her. Eugene died, she wrote. Poor dear, his back gave out eventually. Riley sends his love. He still remembers you. That’s what she wrote. And you know what? I cried. Not just for Eugene, or for Riley, who must have missed Eugene, but for everything. For the end of friendship, for loss, for the great spaces that exist between us, for the loneliness that is a condition of even this most crowded world. I cried for everything. I’m not ashamed to say it. Most men won’t admit it – but I will. I don’t care. And Gavin? I never saw him again, except once when I was in Sydney. I saw him on television. He had invented a new form of padlock and had won a prize for his invention. I saw him on the news, getting the prize. They showed a close-up of his padlock.’

  He stopped; Irene sat quite still.

  56. From Scotland With Love

  Of course the long conversation that Irene enjoyed with Dr St Clair took most of Bertie’s therapeutic hour. In fact, by the time that Dr St Clair had finished his reminiscences – having been encouraged by Irene at regular intervals – there was not much more than five minutes left for his real patient. This suited Bertie, who much preferred to sit in the waiting room than to field the often impenetrable questions which his psychotherapists, both Dr Fairbairn and Dr St Clair, threw at him. Of the two, Bertie had a slight preference for Dr St Clair, who appeared less disturbed, he thought, than Dr Fairbairn, but it certainly suited him very well if his mother diverted the psychotherapist’s attention for virtually the whole hour.

  ‘Well, Bertie,’ said Irene as they left the consulting rooms and began to walk back along Queen Street, ‘that wasn’t a very long session for you, I’m afraid. Mummy needed to talk to Dr St Clair about one or two little matters.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Mummy,’ said Bertie cheerfully. ‘I don’t mind sharing Dr St Clair. You can take as long as you like, you know.’

  Irene smiled, and bent down to give her son’s cheek a playful pinch. ‘That’s very kind, darlingissimo,’ she said. ‘But next week you must have the lion’s share. Mummy doesn’t need help.’

  Bertie looked at his mother doubtfully. He thought that she probably did need help, but he was a polite little boy and did not like to say that.

  ‘And you had a good read of Scottis
h Field?’ asked Irene.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bertie. ‘I read an article about Mr Darnley.’

  ‘Mr Darnley?’

  Bertie explained. The article had been fascinating, and he had read it three times, as he often did with things that really interested him. ‘Mr Darnley married Mary, Queen of Scots, you see. He was a tall man with very long legs …’

  ‘Oh, that Darnley,’ said Irene. ‘Henry Darnley. Soi-disant king of Scotland. Yes, I see.’

  ‘And they blew him up,’ went on Bertie. ‘When he was walking along Chambers Street, near where the Museum is. They blew him right up and he died.’

  ‘I don’t think it was Chambers Street in those days,’ said Irene. ‘Edinburgh was terribly small then, Bertie. That would have been fields with cows and other bucolic creatures. Even Scotland Street was just a hillside, you know.’

  Bertie absorbed this. ‘It was very sad,’ he said. ‘Do you think he came to bits when they blew him up, Mummy?’

  Irene smiled. ‘He undoubtedly would have felt somewhat disjointed,’ she replied. ‘But you must remember, Bertie, that they were all pretty shocking people in those days. Scotland was full of warring factions. That’s what they were like.’

  ‘And is it any different now?’ asked Bertie.

  Irene thought for a moment. ‘One might be tempted to say that not much has changed,’ she said. ‘But that’s a large subject, Bertie.’

  ‘I felt very sorry for Mr Darnley,’ said Bertie. ‘He was much taller than most people in those days and they were all plotting against him. There was a man called Bothwell.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Irene. ‘And I suspect that he might have had something to do with Darnley’s unfortunate end. But then Darnley was rather wicked too, Bertie. You must remember that. Mary had a secretary called Rizzio who was stabbed to death by some of these noble hooligans. Darnley was pretty clearly implicated in that.’