The World According to Bertie 4ss-4

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Bruce smiled at her. “That so?” he said. “Well, I can tell you that there’s subsidence. Nobody will find it easy to get a mortgage on this place. Bad news.”

  The young woman fiddled with the top of her folder. “That may be your view,” she said primly. “Others,” and it was clear that she numbered herself amongst such others, “others obviously think differently.”

  Bruce gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen. She did so hesitantly and saw him extract a golf ball from his pocket.

  “Know what this is?” he asked.

  “Of course I do. A golf ball.”

  “Right,” said Bruce. “Clever girl. Now watch.”

  He bent down and placed the golf ball on the kitchen floor, giving it a slight nudge as he did so. Then he stood up and smirked.

  Bruce Goes Off Flat-Hunting in the New Town 35

  The golf ball rolled away from Bruce, gathering momentum as it did so. By the time it hit the wall at the other end of the kitchen, it was travelling quite fast.

  “See?” said Bruce. “That ball agrees with me. The floor slopes.”

  The young woman bit her lip. “These buildings are very old,”

  she said. “The whole town is very old.”

  Bruce nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s why one has to be so careful.”

  “I take it that you don’t want to see the rest of the flat?”

  Bruce caught his reflection in the kitchen window and turned his head slightly. “No,” he said. “I don’t. Thanks anyway for showing me the place. I hope you sell it.”

  They went downstairs in silence.

  “Coffee?” said Bruce at the bottom of the stairs.

  The young woman looked at him. She was, he thought, on the verge of tears. “No,” she said. “No, thank you.”

  Bruce shrugged. “Oh well,” he said. “Another flat to look at.

  Sorry about that place.”

  She had hesitated, he thought. She had hesitated when he had asked her to accompany him for a cup of coffee, which meant that she had been tempted. Of course she was tempted – they all were; they simply could not help themselves.

  The next flat was in Abercromby Place, a basement flat that described itself as lower ground-floor. Bruce smiled to himself as he walked along Forth Street. He remembered writing the particulars of flats when he had worked as a surveyor in Edinburgh; he had referred to lower-ground-floor flats before, and had once even described a sub-basement as a pre-lower-ground flat, well-protected from excessive sun exposure. The lighting in that flat, which had to be kept on all day if the occupants were to see anything at all, had been described as imaginative and helpful.

  And the atmosphere of damp he had described as cool.

  The Abercromby Place flat did not take long.

  “You’re not seeing it at its best,” said the owner. “It’s not a very bright day today.”

  36

  Bruce Goes Off Flat-Hunting in the New Town Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought the sun was shining when I came in.”

  The owner looked down at the floor. “All the wiring has been renewed,” he said. “And everything in the kitchen’s new, or next to new.”

  “Hard to see that,” said Bruce.

  “Well, I assure you it is.”

  Bruce pointed to a door leading into gloom. “Is that a dark room?” he asked. “Do you do photography?”

  “It’s the dining room.”

  The owner now became silent, and he remained silent as Bruce made a cursory inspection of the remaining rooms. Then they moved back to the entrance hall and Bruce thanked him for showing him round.

  “You didn’t like it,” said the owner miserably. “You didn’t, did you?”

  Bruce reached out and patted him on the arm. “You’ll find somebody,” he said. “Just lower your price far enough and you’ll get a buyer. I’m a surveyor. I shifted dumps like this. It’s just a question of getting a buyer who’s desperate enough.”

  “That’s very reassuring,” said the owner.

  Outside in the street, in the light, Bruce took out the scrap of paper on which he had noted the address of the third flat he was to look at. This was in Howe Street, a street which went sharply down the hill from the end of Frederick Street and then curved round into Circus Place. It was one of Bruce’s favourite streets in the Georgian New Town, and he had a good feeling about the flat that he was about to see.

  It was not only a question of the address, but the name of the owner. It was a woman called Julia Donald, and if Bruce was not mistaken that was the name of somebody he had known when he had first come to Edinburgh. She had, he thought, been rather keen on him, but he had had his hands full at the time with . . . it was difficult to remember who exactly it was, but it was some other girl; there had been so many.

  Bruce hummed a tune as he walked towards Howe Street. It

  An Old Flame Flickers: as Well It May 37

  was grand to be back in Edinburgh, grand to be back on the scene, utterly in control, the world at his feet. And what feet!

  he thought. Just look at them!

  12. An Old Flame Flickers: as Well It May

  “Brucie! So it was you!” exclaimed Julia Donald. “My God, what a surprise! I thought, you know, when the lawyers phoned and said that a Mr Bruce Anderson would be coming to look the place over, I thought: Can it be the one and only? And here you are!”

  “And I thought just the same,” said Bruce. “I thought, there’s only one Julia D. in Howe Street that I want to see again, and here you are, it’s you!”

  He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Long time no kiss,” he said. “And here’s another one.”

  “Brucie! You haven’t changed!”

  “Why should I? No point changing when you’ve got things just right, is there?” He paused. “But you’ve changed, Julia.”

  A shadow passed over her face. “Oh? Have I?”

  Bruce smiled. “You’ve become more beautiful. More ravishing.”

  “Brucie!”

  “No, I mean it. I really do. Look at you!”

  38

  An Old Flame Flickers: as Well It May Julia led him into the living room. “I go to the gym, every day. Every single day.”

  “And it shows.”

  “Thank you. What about you? Do you still play rugby?”

  Bruce did not. “Now and then. Not much really. Too busy.”

  Julia nodded. “I know what it’s like. I almost got a job the other day, but I found I couldn’t. I was just far too busy.”

  He looked about the living room. A large sofa, piled with cushions, dominated one wall. Opposite it was an ornate, gold-framed mirror above a large marble chimney piece. Bruce noticed, too, the expensive glass table piled with fashion magazines.

  “You’re quite a reader,” he said, gesturing to the copies of Vogue and Harper’s.

  Julia seemed pleased with the compliment. “I like to keep my mind active. I’ve always liked to read.”

  Bruce, who had seated himself on the sofa, reached forward and flicked through one of the magazines. “No!” he said. “Would you believe it? I knew these people in London. That girl there, in the black dress, I met her at a party in Chelsea. And that’s her brother there. The tall one. Terribly dim, but a good chap once he’s had a drink or two.”

  Julia joined him on the sofa. “I can’t wait to get to London,”

  she said. “That’s why I’m selling this place. One of Daddy’s friends has arranged for me to work with a woman who cooks directors’ lunches in the city. You know, they make lunches for the boardroom. And they cater for dinner parties. Party planners, sort of.”

  Bruce turned a page of the magazine. There was an advertisement for perfume, with a flap down the side of the page. He ripped open the flap and sniffed at the page. “Great,” he said.

  “That’s the stuff. It really is. Sexy, or what?”

  Julia took the magazine from him and sniffed. “Mmm. Spicy.

/>   It reminds me of Mauritius.”

  “Yes,” said Bruce. “Mauritius.”

  An Old Flame Flickers: as Well It May 39

  He laid the magazine back on the pile and turned to Julia.

  “So. London.”

  “Yes,” she said. “London.”

  “When?” asked Bruce.

  “Oh, I don’t know. After I sell this place. Or before. I don’t know.”

  Bruce looked thoughtful. “Great place, London,” he said.

  “But I’m pretty glad to be back in Edinburgh, you know. It’s great here too. And not so crowded.”

  “No,” said Julia. “I’ve enjoyed myself here.”

  “The important thing,” said Bruce, “is not to burn your boats.

  Never make a decision in a rush.”

  He rose to his feet, rubbing his hands together. “You going to show me around?”

  Julia laughed. “Of course. I forgot. Where shall we start?”

  “The kitchen,” said Bruce. “You’ve got a kitchen?”

  Julia reached out and punched him playfully on the arm.

  “Cheeky! It’s a great kitchen, actually. All the stuff. Marble tops.

  Built-in wine racks. Everything.”

  They moved through to the kitchen. Bruce ran his fingers over the marble surfaces. “Smooth,” he said. He looked at Julia.

  “Are you hungry? Seeing the kitchen makes me realise that I haven’t had lunch. You had lunch?”

  Julia had not, and Bruce offered to cook it for her, in her kitchen. “You’ve got pasta?” he asked. “And some butter?

  Parmesan, yes? Well, we’re in business.”

  “This is fun,” said Julia.

  Bruce winked at her. “Better than selling a flat?”

  Julia giggled. “Much better.”

  Bruce found a bottle of white wine in the fridge and opened it. He poured Julia a glass and they toasted one another as Bruce cut a piece of cheese off the block of Parmesan.

  “I went to the place where they make this stuff,” he said, breaking off a fragment of the cheese and passing it to Julia.

  “Reggio Emilia. Near Parma. That’s where they make it. I knew an Italian girl. They lived in Bologna, but her father had some 40

  An Old Flame Flickers: as Well It May sort of farm there. Big place, with white oxen. And this great villa.”

  Had Bruce been paying attention to Julia’s expression, he would have noticed the trace of a frown. But she recovered quickly. “An Italian girlfriend? Very exotic.”

  Bruce looked at her from the corner of his eye. He appeared to be concentrating on slipping the pasta into the water, but he was watching her.

  “No more Italian girlfriends for me,” he said. “I’ve had enough of all that. It’s settle-down time now. Comes to us all.”

  He watched her response. She had picked up her glass and was gazing at the rim. But he could tell.

  “You? Settle down?” She forced a smile, but there was a real point to her question.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “I want a bit of quiet. I want a bit of domesticity. You know . . . going out for dinner, coming back and putting one’s feet up on the sofa with a . . . with a friend.

  Lazy weekends.” He paused. “Long lie-ins on a Sunday. Then brunch somewhere. Some jazz. The Sunday papers.”

  Julia had closed her eyes, just momentarily, but she had closed them. It’s working, thought Bruce: she’s imagining what it would be like. And there’s no reason for me to feel bad, because it really would be like that. That’s exactly what we could do in this place. It’s ideal. And the other great attrac-tion of it all was that the need to find a job would be less urgent. Julia, as everybody in Edinburgh knew, was not impe-cunious. An indulgent father, the owner of three large hotels and a slice of a peninsula in Argyll, made sure that his daughter wanted for nothing. It was surprising, thought Bruce, that she had not been snapped up by some fortune hunter. If she went to London, there would be a real danger of that happening. And that was why he was doing her a good turn. That’s what it was: an act of pure selflessness – considerate and sympathetic, pure altruism.

  13. Matthew Gets Ideas from a Blank Canvas After he had finished his cup of coffee at Big Lou’s, Matthew made his way back across Dundas Street to the gallery. It was always a bit of a wrench leaving Big Lou: he felt she was the most relaxing, easy company, rather like a mother, he thought –

  if one had the right sort of mother. Or an aunt perhaps, the sort of person with whom one could just pass time without the need to say anything. Not that Matthew had ever had an aunt like that, although he did have vague childhood memories of an aunt of his father’s who lived with them for a time and who worked all day, and every day, at tapestry. Matthew’s father had told him an amusing story about this aunt’s older brother, a man who suffered from a mild mental handicap and who had been taken in by Matthew’s grandfather. Uncle Jimmy had been a kind man, Matthew’s father said, and although there was little other contribution he could make to the household, he had been adept at fixing clocks.

  “During the war, Jimmy had been largely uninterested in what was going on,” Matthew’s father had said. “But he was in great demand as a fixer of clocks, and his war service consisted of repairing the clocks of naval vessels that came into the Clyde.

  They brought the clocks round to the house because he couldn’t really be left wandering around the ships unattended.

  “After the war, he was disappointed that his supply of ships’

  clocks dropped off. He liked the shape of these clocks, and it was not much fun going back to the fixing of mantelpiece clocks for the neighbours. Eventually he asked why there were so few ships coming in and was told that the war had finished three years ago.”

  “Oh,” said Uncle Jimmy. “Who won, then?”

  Matthew’s father had for some reason found this story vastly amusing, but Matthew thought: poor Uncle Jimmy, and remembered those Japanese soldiers who had come out of the jungle twenty, thirty years after the end of the war. Presumably they knew who won, or did they?

  42

  Matthew Gets Ideas from a Blank Canvas He unlocked the door of the gallery, removing the notice which said Back in half an hour. Surveying his desk, from which he had earlier cleared the day’s mail, he realised that there was not much to do that morning. In fact, once he thought about it, there was nothing at all. He was up to date with his correspondence, such as it was; he had paged through all the catalogues for the forthcoming auctions and knew exactly which pictures he would bid for. There were no invoices to send out, no bills to be paid. There was simply nothing to do.

  For a few moments, he thought of what lay ahead of him.

  Would he be doing this for the rest of his life – sitting here, waiting for something to happen? And if that was all there was to it, then what exactly was the point? The artists whose work he sold were at least making things, leaving something behind them, a corpus of work. He, by contrast, would make nothing, leave nothing behind.

  But was that not the fate of so many of us? Most people who made their way to work each day, who sat in offices or factories, doing something which probably did not vary a lot –

  pushing pieces of paper about or moving things from one place to another – these people might equally well look at their lives and ask what the point was.

  Or should one really not ask that question, simply because the question in itself was a pointless one? Perhaps there was no real point to our existence – or none that we could discern –

  and that meant that the real question that had to be asked was this: How can I make my life bearable? We are here whether we like it or not, and by and large we seem to have a need to continue. In that case, the real question to be addressed is: How are we going to make the experience of being here as fulfilling, as good as possible? That is what Matthew thought.

  He was dwelling on this when he saw Angus Lordie walk past, carrying a parcel. On impulse, Matthew waved and gestured to hi
m to come in.

  “I was on my way to Big Lou’s,” Angus said. “And you?”

  “Going nowhere,” said Matthew. “Sitting. Thinking.”

  Matthew Gets Ideas from a Blank Canvas 43

  “About?”

  Matthew waved a hand in the air. “About this and that. The big questions.” He paused. “Any news of Cyril?”

  Angus shook his head. “In the pound,” he said. “It makes my blood boil just to think of it. Cyril will be sitting there wondering what on earth he did to deserve this. Have people no mercy?”

  “They used to try animals for crimes,” said Matthew thoughtfully. “Back in medieval times. I read something about it once.

  They had trials for pigs and goats and the like. And then they punished them. Burned them alive.”

  Angus said nothing, but Matthew realised that he had touched a raw nerve and changed the subject. He gestured to the parcel that Angus was carrying.

  “That’s a painting?”

  “It will be,” said Angus. “At the moment it’s just a primed canvas. There’s a man down in Canonmills who does this for me. I can’t be bothered to make stretchers and all the rest.”

  “Well, don’t leave it lying about,” said Matthew. “It might be picked up and entered for the Turner Prize. You know the sort of rubbish they like. Piles of bricks and unmade beds and all the rest.”

  “But they wouldn’t even consider this,” said Angus. “Although it’s only a primed canvas, it comes too close to painting for them.”

  Matthew smiled. An idea was coming to him.

  “Antonin Artaud,” he muttered. He looked up at Angus. “You know something, Angus. I would like to try to sell something of yours. I really would.”

  “You know that I don’t sell through dealers,” said Angus.

  “Even a semi-decent one like you. Why should I? No thank you, Mr Forty Per Cent.”

  “Fifty,” corrected Matthew. “No, I’m not asking for any of your figurative studies. Or even those iffy nudes of yours. I’m thinking of something that wouldn’t involve you in much effort, but which would be lucrative. And could make you famous.”