The World According to Bertie 4ss-4

by Alexander McCall Smith

  When, for some reason, life seems speeded up?”

  “Most certainly,” said Angus. “And do you think we are in such a time right now?”

  “It seems a little bit like that to me,” said Domenica. “Here I am, back from the Malacca Straits. No sooner have I returned than Antonia announces her intention of becoming my neighbour on a permanent basis. Not that she asked me, mind you.

  I’ve always thought that one should ask one’s neighbours before one gets too firmly settled in.”

  “Impossible,” said Angus. “Neighbours are given to us on the same basis as we are given our families. There is no element of choice involved – none at all.”

  “Is there not?” asked Domenica. “Well what about Ann Street? I was under the impression that the people who live in Ann Street will buy up any house that comes on the market in order to make sure that it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.”

  “Nonsense,” said Angus. “That really is an ancient canard, Domenica. People have been saying that about Ann Street for years. But it’s complete nonsense. It’s a very inclusive street.

  138 A Powerful Ally in the Campaign to Free Cyril Anybody who’s got a million pounds to spend on a house is in.

  They’re terrifically accepting.”

  “Then all these stories about Edinburgh being full of icy types are false?”

  “Absolutely,” said Angus frostily.

  Domenica was not convinced, but she did not want to get involved at that moment in a discussion about the mores of Edinburgh; she had other news to impart to Angus.

  “Yes,” she said. “Developments seem to be occurring at a frightening rate. And here am I with somebody else coming to live with me. No sooner have I dispatched Antonia, than I hear from my aunt that she would like to come and spend a few months in Edinburgh with me.”

  “How nice for you,” said Angus. “Company, and so on.”

  “Yes,” said Domenica. “I don’t begrudge her the visit. It’s just that she belongs to a generation that was used to paying rather long visits. We think in terms of three days; they thought nothing of descending on people for three months.” She paused.

  “And she’s virtually one hundred years old; ninety-six I think.

  But remarkably sprightly.”

  “Then she will have a great deal to talk about,” said Angus.

  “A lot will have happened in those ninety-six years.”

  “Indeed,” said Domenica. “We can expect to hear a great deal about it.”

  “Do I detect a certain lack of enthusiasm?” asked Angus.

  “Well . . .”

  “Because I would love to have somebody like that stay with me,” said Angus. “You should be more appreciative, Domenica.”

  Domenica thought for a moment. “All right,” she said. “She can stay with you, Angus. Thank you for the offer.”

  Angus looked flustered. “But I’m not sure that she would approve of my lifestyle,” he said. “You know . . .”

  “My aunt is very tolerant,” said Domenica. “So thank you, Angus, it really is very kind of you.”

  “No, Domenica. Sorry. She’s your responsibility. Blood is thicker than whisky.”

  A Dinner Date with Pat . . . and a Surprise 139

  “Whisky?”

  “Why, thank you,” said Angus.

  42. A Dinner Date with Pat . . . and a Surprise After leaving the Cumberland Bar, where he had been regaled by Angus Lordie with all the details of that extraordinary evening with the Jacobites, Matthew had returned to his flat in India Street to prepare for his dinner outing with Pat. Angus had not been much help in recommending restaurants, and so he had consulted a guide and chosen a small place, Le Bistrôt des Arts, at the Morningside end of Colinton Road, convenient for Pat –

  it was ten minutes’ walk from the Grange – and well-reviewed by a normally picky critic.

  He was at the table when she arrived. He appeared to be studying one of the spoons, but he was really looking at his reflection in the silver. The concave shape distorted him, but even taking that into account, Matthew felt that it captured the essential him. And the problem with that was that the essential him, he thought, was nothing special. I really have nothing to offer this girl, he told himself; me, with my distressed-oatmeal sweater – a failure – and my crushed-strawberry trousers –

  another failure – and my Macgregor tartan underpants. I just don’t have it.

  She slipped out of her coat. “You’ve been waiting for ages?

  I’m sorry.”

  “No,” he said. “Five minutes. If that.” He stood up to greet her, and she kissed him on the cheek. She did not always do that, and he flushed with pleasure. Matthew wanted this to work; he thought that it would not, but he wanted it.

  “I’m going to order champagne,” he said impulsively. He might be a failure, but he was a failure with more than four million three hundred thousand pounds (the market was doing well). “Would you like that?”

  140 A Dinner Date with Pat . . . and a Surprise She swept the hair back from her forehead, and he saw that there were small drops of rain on her skin. “What’s the occasion?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Meeting you here. Being with you.”

  He stopped. Did that sound corny? Nobody said that sort of thing, he thought. But he had said it spontaneously; he had meant it, and now, to his relief, he saw her return his smile.

  “That’s a very sweet thing to say, Matthew. Thank you.”

  He felt emboldened. “Well, I meant it. I like being with you.

  I like you so much, you see. So much.”

  She looked down at the table. I’ve embarrassed her, he thought.

  I should not have said that. She doesn’t want to be liked by me.

  “I like you too, Matthew.”

  Well, he thought, that’s something. But how much did she like him? As much as he liked her? As much as she had liked Wolf? Or Bruce for that matter? Or was that a different sort of liking? Wolf and Bruce were sexy; they dripped with sexual appeal, if one can drip with such a thing. Dripping came into it somewhere, but Matthew was not sure where and did not like to think about it really, about the things that he did not have.

  For a few moments there was silence. Then he said: “Do you think there’s much of a future for us?”

  Pat raised her eyes to meet his. “What do you mean?”

  “A future. You know. Are we going to carry on going out together?”

  She seemed to relax – quite visibly – and it occurred to him that she might have misinterpreted him. He imagined that she had thought that he was proposing to her, and the thought appalled him. It was not that he would not like to marry Pat, but he had never thought of marriage to anybody. She would do fine, of course, if he did; but he hadn’t . . .

  “I’d like to carry on seeing you,” she said, reaching for the menu. “So let’s not talk about it anymore. Let’s just carry on.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand, gave it a squeeze, released it. He thought: she might do that with a brother – take his hand, squeeze it, and let go. If he had been A Dinner Date with Pat . . . and a Surprise 141

  Wolf, would she not have taken his hand, squeezed it, and then clung on?

  “All right,” he said.

  “Now let’s choose something to eat,” she said.

  Matthew turned round to catch the proprietor’s eye. “I’m going to order that champagne,” he said. “Bollinger.”

  She glanced at the menu. It looked expensive, and she could not tell the difference between champagnes. “A bit extravagant.”

  He shrugged. “Why not?”

  She said: “Have you forgiven me?”

  He was puzzled. “For what? What have I got to forgive you for?”

  “For that business over Angus Lordie’s painting. For selling it to . . .”

  “To that man with the mustache? The Duke of . . .”

  “Johannesburg. Yes. For doing all that. Because, anyway, I’ve sort
ed it all out.”

  He looked puzzled. “Has he paid?”

  He had not. But she had felt guilty about it and been in touch with him. He had said that he would pay, she explained. “He was very nice about it,” she said. “He said that he had been meaning to get in touch and that he was glad that I had phoned.

  And he’s asked us to a party.”

  “Hold on,” said Matthew. “He – the Duke, that is – has asked us – you and me, that is – to a party?”

  “Yes,” said Pat. “Tonight. Any time before twelve. He said that things get a bit slower at midnight.”

  Matthew shook his head. “I can’t believe this! You went off and set all this up – why didn’t you ask me? What if I had been going to do something else?”

  “But you wouldn’t,” Pat said. “You never do . . .” She left the sentence unfinished, as well she might – she had not intended even to begin it. It was true, of course; Matthew never did anything, never went out. His life, when one came to think of it, was remarkably empty, not that she had meant to tell him that.

  142 Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow But he had heard. “I never do what?” There was an edge to his voice, disclosing, perhaps, a sense of having been misjudged.

  “You never do anything on a Tuesday night,” Pat said quickly.

  “It’s Wednesday.”

  “Same difference,” she said. “Anyway, the point is this: the Duke has invited us and I think we should go. And he said that he’d give us the cheque there. So we have to go.”

  “All right,” said Matthew. But he did not think that it was all right; it was all wrong in his view. He was so passive, so useless, that she had to make the decisions. He looked down at his new pair of midbrown, handmade shoes that had arrived from John Lobb that morning. She had not noticed them; she never would.

  43. Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow After dinner, Matthew and Pat took a taxi out to Single-Malt House, on the southern extremes of the city. Matthew had cheered up during the course of the meal, and they had both laughed to the brink of tears when a garlic-buttered snail had slipped off Matthew’s fork and disappeared down his shirt front.

  Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow 143

  “You’re so sweet,” Pat had said suddenly. “With your snails and . . .”

  Matthew was not sure whether it was a good thing to be called sweet. Being called cute was a different matter; that was a compliment, and one did not have to be in short trousers to receive it. But most men, he thought, would object to being called sweet. Indeed, the Scots term sweetie-wife was commonly used, in a pejorative sense, for a man who liked to gossip with women. Matthew, for his part, saw nothing wrong in gossiping with women, which he rather enjoyed when he had the chance. He liked talking to Big Lou; he liked talking to Pat; in fact, he liked talking to any woman who was prepared to talk to him. At the heart of Scots culture, though, was an awful interdiction of such emotional closeness between men and women; a terrible separation inflicted by a distorted football-obsessed emotional tyranny, such a deep injury of the soul.

  Yet it was not an evening to take offence at what was undoubtedly intended as a compliment, and so Matthew said nothing, but merely nodded in acknowledgement. “And you’re sweet too,”

  he said, adding, “in a different way.”

  The conversation moved on.

  “Who was in the Cumberland Bar this evening?” asked Pat.

  “The usual crowd,” said Matthew. “But I only spoke to Angus Lordie. You’ve heard about Cyril?”

  “I have,” said Pat. “And it’s awful. My father says that they’ll have him put down, for sure. He said that he has a patient whose dog was put down for biting. My father said that the owner experienced real grief and suffered from depression for a long time. You’d think that they’d take that into account before they order dogs to be destroyed. Those dogs are members of somebody’s family.”

  “Exactly,” said Matthew. “And Angus is really upset, as you can imagine. Anyway, he told me about Big Lou’s new boyfriend, Robert something-or-other. It’s one of those very Scottish surnames – Crolloch or something like that. Crumblie, maybe.

  Robert Crumblie? No, I don’t think so.”

  144 Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow

  “Smellie? That’s a common name.”

  Matthew laughed. “Yes, it is. I knew a boy called Smellie at school. The family came from Fife, where they often have these interesting names. There are people called McSporran up there, which is fine, but you have to admit it is a pretty striking name.

  Like Smellie.”

  Pat was intrigued. “What was Smellie like?”

  Matthew thought for a moment. He was trying to remember what Smellie’s first name was. Archie MacPherson Smellie. That was it. And then he smiled at the memory.

  “Archie,” he said. “Archie Smellie. He was a great betting man, or, I suppose, betting boy. He had a numbers racket at school, which we all paid into. You would choose a number between one and fifty and Archie would write it down in his book. Then, each week, Archie would announce which number he was going to pay up on, and you’d get fifteen times your stake if it was your number.”

  “How did he choose the number?”

  Matthew laughed. “That’s the point. Archie never told us that, and sometimes there were weeks in which he said no number came up and he pocketed the whole proceeds. You’d think that we would have seen through it, but we didn’t. I suppose we were very trusting.”

  “And what became of him?”

  “He became an accountant,” said Matthew. “I saw him the other day in Great King Street. He was walking along in the opposite direction. I stopped him and said: ‘Hello, Smellie,’ and he stared at me for a moment. Then I think he vaguely recognised me and muttered: ‘Actually, it’s Smiley these days.’ ”

  “That’s sad that he felt that he had to change his name.”

  Matthew agreed, but said that he understood. “Your name defines you,” he said. “And I don’t see why you should go through life being called something that embarrasses you. Mind you, some people make a point of sticking to an embarrassing name.

  They more or less challenge you to laugh. People like that show great courage, I think.”

  Like a Couple of Boxers, Waiting to Land a Blow 145

  Pat tried to think of people she knew who had shown courage in the face of an embarrassing name. She could not think of anybody.

  But Matthew could. “I know somebody called Winterpoo,”

  he said. “Martin Winterpoo. Poor chap. But he’s stuck to his name, which shows great qualities, in my view.” He paused.

  “Would you like to be called something different, Pat?”

  Pat hesitated before answering. The truth of the matter was that she would. Pat was such a brief name, so without character.

  It said nothing about its bearer. And it was androgynous.

  She looked at Matthew. “You think I should be called something else? Is that what you think?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I just asked you. There’s nothing wrong with being called Pat.”

  Pat looked down at the tablecloth. “And what about your own name, Matthew? What about that? If I’m Pat, then you’re Matt.”

  Reaching for the champagne, Matthew topped up Pat’s glass.

  We’re arguing again, he thought. It seems to happen rather too often recently. We’re like two boxers dancing around one another in the ring, waiting to land a blow. This thought depressed him, and he did not want to be depressed; not tonight, with the Bollinger on the table and the prospect of a party at the Duke’s house. He decided to change the subject.

  “What should we call the Duke?” he asked. “Your Grace?”

  “No,” said Pat. “That’s far too formal. I think that we should probably just call him Johannesburg.”

  “Is that what dukes are called by their friends?”

  Pat shrugged. “No, they use their first
names. Harry, or Jim, or whatever. But he called himself Johannesburg.”

  “I see,” said Matthew. He paused. “Do you think that he’s a real duke, Pat? I looked him up in Who’s Who in Scotland, and he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there under Johannesburg or Duke.

  Nothing.”

  “I think he’s a fraud,” said Pat. “His real name is probably Smellie, or something like that.”

  “We’ll find out,” said Matthew.

  146 Dukes Don’t All Live in Grand Houses

  “Will we?”

  “Maybe not.” Then he asked: “I wonder who else will be there, Pat? Le tout Edimbourg?”

  44. Dukes Don’t All Live in Grand Houses Single-Malt House was a comfortable, rather rambling farm-house on the very edge of town. It stood on the lower slopes of the Pentland Hills, those misty presences that provide the southern backdrop to Edinburgh. To the east, dropping slowly towards the North Sea, lay the rich farmland of East Lothian, broken here and there by pocket glens sheltering the remnants of old coal mines – the villages of miners’ cottages, the occasional tower, the scars that coal can leave on a landscape.

  The house itself was not large, but was flanked by a byre, behind which a garden sloped up to a stand of oaks, and beyond the oaks, the steeper parts of the hillside itself, pines, scree, the sky.

  “I’ve driven past this place hundreds of times,” said Matthew, as he and Pat alighted from the taxi in the driveway. “And never noticed it. That’s the Biggar road out there. We used to go out to Flotterstone Inn when I was a boy. We’d have sandwiches and cakes from one of those three-tiered plate things and then go for a walk up to the Glencorse Reservoir.”

  “So did we,” said Pat. “And there were always crows in those trees near the reservoir wall. Remember them? Crows in the trees, and sheep always on the wrong side of the dyke.”

  They stood for a moment under the night sky, the taxi reversing down the drive behind them. Matthew reached out and put his arm around Pat’s waist. “We could walk over there now,” he said. “We could go over the top of the hill, then down past the firing ranges.” He wanted to be alone with her, away from distraction, to have her full attention, which he thought he never had.