The Revolving Door of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  16. Hen Parties and the Scottish Enlightenment

  Bertie, his father, and Ulysses arrived in the hall where liveried drivers, some bearing small boards on which names were displayed, were waiting to whisk their charges off to their destination. A driver from Gleneagles Hotel patiently waited for the Yamimoto party—golf was their goal—while Stuart imagined a more prosaic day awaited a couple of accountants from London being met by a driver holding up a placard announcing Deloittes.

  “Should we not have a placard with Granny’s name on it?” asked Bertie. “Just so that she knows.”

  Stuart laughed. “I think she just might recognise us, Bertie, whereas Mr. Yamimoto and his friends won’t know the driver who’s taking them up to Gleneagles. That’s why he needs a sign.”

  “But we haven’t seen her for ages,” persisted Bertie. “And she’s never even met Ulysses. She doesn’t know how ugly he is.”

  “Poor wee Ulysses,” said Stuart, and then reprovingly to Bertie, “Your brother’s not ugly!”

  Bertie looked down at his brother, strapped into his pushchair. He was fond of Ulysses, but he felt nothing could disguise the fact that he was a girning little boy who was prone to regurgitation. “I’m not saying it’s his fault,” Bertie protested. “It’s just that his face looks so funny. Olive said that she thought he was upside down when she saw him for the first time. She thought that his face was actually his bottom.”

  Stuart made a dismissive gesture. “Olive is badly informed,” he muttered.

  “I told her he was the right way up,” Bertie continued.

  “Good,” said Stuart. “Now perhaps we should concentrate. Passengers are beginning to come through and any moment we’ll see Granny. Pay attention, Bertie.”

  They had only a couple of minutes to wait before Nicola emerged through the arrivals door. She was pushing a wheeled cabin-bag, and she left this to one side as she opened her arms in delight. Bertie, feeling himself being gently pushed forward by his father, hesitantly took the few steps that separated him from his grandmother.

  “Bertie,” said Nicola, embracing the small boy. “Darlingest, dearest Bertie!”

  Small boys are undemonstrative; small boys may freeze when enveloped by the arms of relatives; but on this occasion Bertie did not. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His grandmother smelled of perfume and aniseed.

  She reached into a pocket of her jumper and extracted a small bar of Toblerone that she thrust into his hands. “I love this stuff, Bertie,” she said. “It’s got honey in it. Chocolate and honey is such a delicious combination.”

  Bertie fumbled with the yellow cardboard and the silver wrapping paper beneath it. He sank his teeth into the hard, delicious confection; she was right—he could taste the honey.

  Nicola stood up again and embraced her son, planting a kiss on each cheek. “Stuart, my dear,” she muttered, and for a moment the tears that had welled up when she first saw Scotland from above reappeared. “So this is dear little Ulysses,” she said, bending down to kiss the infant. “Oh dear, has he been sick?” She dabbed at his front with a muslin cloth that had been lying on his lap. “Poor wee fellow.”

  “He’s always sick,” volunteered Bertie, mumbling somewhat as his mouth was full of Swiss chocolate. “Mostly he’s sick when he sees Mummy, but he’s still a bit sick even when she’s away.” He paused. “Mummy’s in the desert, you know.”

  Nicola glanced at Stuart. “Oh well, there we are; that’s cleaned him up a bit.”

  “We should pick up your cases,” said Stuart. “Carousel five.”

  They moved across to the baggage carousel, where a number of Nicola’s fellow passengers were milling about, waiting for their suitcases to appear from behind an opaque flap of thick plastic.

  “Look out for a large red suitcase,” said Nicola to Bertie, “and a medium-sized black one with a striped strap round it. You see if you can recognise them, Bertie. A fifty pence prize if you can.”

  Bertie, whose pocket money had long been pegged by his mother at twenty pence a week, was immediately excited by the prospect of such riches. “Can I hold Ulysses?” he asked. “We don’t want him to be sick over everybody’s luggage, and he’s never sick if I pick him up.”

  “Yes, you may,” said Stuart. “But be careful with him—he’s getting a bit heavier. Don’t let him drop.”

  “You dropped him once, Daddy,” said Bertie. “Remember? He landed on his head. It was in the kitchen.”

  Nicola laughed. “They bounce, thank heavens. I dropped you, Stuart, when you were about two. It was at Kelso Races, and you landed on the grass and seemed perfectly happy.”

  A warning light was suddenly switched on and a discordant siren sounded. “Stand well back, Bertie,” said Stuart. “The luggage belt is about to move.”

  Holding Ulysses was an effort for Bertie, and his arms were beginning to ache. But Ulysses himself, for whom nothing was nicer than to be held by his much-admired older brother, was emitting satisfied cooing sounds, and this made Bertie determined to persist.

  Suitcases started to emerge. There were many more people around Bertie now, including the members of a rowdy hen party who had travelled up from Stansted to spend a weekend in Edinburgh; a weekend of binge drinking, of screeching in the streets, of tottering along the pavements from club to club on unsteady high heels and clad in absurdly short skirts. Stuart tried to control his visceral distaste; Essex girls, he thought, and then silently reproached himself; Edinburgh had people every bit as awful as these and they were just here to enjoy some harmless fun. “I’m going to get seriously wrecked,” shrieked one of the girls, addressing her friends, but also all those standing round the carousel. “First bar we get to!” This brought cheers from others of her party. “Wicked!” shouted another. “And I’m going to find a…” The end of this statement of intent was drowned out by the delighted screeching that greeted it. Stuart heard a whining sound outside; a jet engine revving up, he thought, or the sound of Enlightenment philosophers, not to say John Knox himself, birling in their graves.

  A large red suitcase hove into sight and Bertie, in the excitement of recognition, and in eager anticipation of his reward, put Ulysses down. On the carousel.

  17. Suitcases as Hostages to Fortune

  As his grandmother’s suitcase drew level with him, Bertie struggled to manoeuvre it off the carousel. A preliminary pull succeeded in getting it to the edge and then a further tug, administered as he ran alongside it, brought it tumbling to the ground. From where he had been standing with Nicola, Stuart suddenly realised what Bertie was up to, and rushed forward to help him.

  “You should have called me, old fellow,” he said, laying a hand on his son’s shoulder. “That looks a bit heavy.”

  Stuart leaned forward to check the label. “Well, at least it’s the right one. You have to be careful that you don’t take…” He stopped, straightened up, and looked about him. “Where’s Ulysses?”

  Bertie who had followed his father’s lead and had been examining the label, gave a start. “He’s over there,” he said, pointing to the suitcase-laden carousel. “I had to…”

  He became aware of his father’s look of alarm. “I’m sure he’s all right, Daddy. Maybe he’s…” Unable to think of anything to say, he became quiet.

  Stuart lunged forward and pressed a large red button prominently placed on a nearby pillar. As he pressed it, the carousel lurched to a stop.

  “What did you do that for?” complained a young man standing by. “That’s for emergencies.”

  “This is an emergency,” hissed Stuart. “My son!” He began to run round the side of the carousel, pushing people out of his way, desperately scanning the luggage piled on the belt. In a few seconds he had reached the point where the luggage disappeared once again through a hatch before reappearing a minute or so later on the other side of the hall.

  Bertie had followed him. “Maybe somebody picked him up,” he panted. “Maybe they’ve taken him to the lost property.
Do you think that might have happened, Daddy?”

  Stuart did not answer his question. “You wait here, Bertie,” he shouted. “I’m going to climb through there.” He pointed to the hatch and began to clear the now static suitcases that were blocking it.

  “Be careful, Daddy!” shouted Bertie. “There’s a notice that says you shouldn’t…”

  His words were drowned in the sound of the carousel starting up again. Stuart, on his hands and knees, felt the belt jerk into motion, and was then carried ignominiously through the hatch, the plastic curtain brushing roughly against him as he made the transition into the behind-the-scenes region of the airport; so might it feel descending to Hades; so might one be greeted by Charon; so might one first see the waters of Lethe.

  Instead of which he saw a small group of astonished men dressed in blue work outfits standing around a small tractor and its attendant cart. One of the men detached himself from the group and strode over towards Stuart, apparently ready to admonish him. But then Stuart saw that one of the other men was holding Ulysses, while another spoke urgently into a mobile phone.

  Stuart brushed past the man coming towards him and ran over towards Ulysses.

  “This yours, Jim?” one of the men asked.

  Stuart was relieved to hear the traditional Scottish honorific—Jim. The world of officials and busybodies would never use the term. Jim was friendly; Jim was understanding, implicitly recognising that anybody might leave his baby on a luggage carousel—it could happen to the best of us just as easily as to the worst.

  “Yes,” he said. “My other son put him on the belt. Sorry about that.”

  The man who had been holding Ulysses passed him over to Stuart. “Aye, well, he’s none the worse for wear,” he said. “Mind you—it could have ended differently.”

  One of the other men nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “Somebody put their baby on the luggage belt at check-in the other day. It was a mistake, of course, but the baby was checked through to Antigua via Gatwick. Fortunately they noticed in time.”

  Stuart blanched. “Well, thanks to you that’s not happening.” He looked at the men. “I’ll leave you to finish loading the luggage. Thanks very much for…for taking care of him. Sorry to keep you from your work.”

  “Oh, there’s no hurry,” said one of the men, looking at his watch. “It’s almost time for our coffee break. We’ll start that a bit early.”

  Stuart frowned. “But you’ve still got all that luggage to load on the carousel,” he said.

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that after our coffee break,” said the man who had been holding Ulysses.

  Stuart raised an eyebrow. These men had done him a favour, and he did not wish to press them, but he could not help but wonder about the people awaiting their luggage in the other side.

  Picking up his concern, one of the men gave an explanation. “Those folk will be all right,” he said. “They’ve got their mobile phones and their Blackberries. They can read their e-mail for a while. They’ll get their suitcases all in good time.”

  “Instant gratification can be bad for you,” said one of the others. They all laughed—except Stuart.

  “You disapprove?” asked one of the men. “You think it takes too long for your luggage to come out?”

  “Well,” began Stuart, tentatively. “I would have thought…”

  The tallest of the men approached him menacingly. “Listen, Jim,” he said. “You do your job and we’ll do ours. Ken what I mean?”

  “I understand perfectly,” said Stuart.

  “Technically that baby should have been handed into lost property,” said the baggage handler. “We could still do that, you know.” He paused. “And hand you in as well.”

  Stuart edged away. “Thank you very much,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll be making my way now.”

  “One final thing,” called out one of the men. “You keep what you’ve seen back here to yourself. Understand?”

  Stuart said that he did understand—perfectly.

  “Because every so often people come through that hatch and see things they shouldn’t see,” continued the handler. “They see suitcases being dropped…”

  “Never our fault,” chipped in one of the other men. “Weak handles.”

  There was general laughter at this.

  “Of course,” said Stuart.

  “And people who talk about what happens to their suitcases in the airport,” the man continued. “Well, they find out—or rather their suitcases find out just how unwise that is. Suitcases can be made to encounter problems, you know. To come adrift, for instance, and spill all their contents on the floor. You wouldn’t believe what we see.”

  Stuart gasped. And then, as if one man, the baggage handlers burst out laughing. “Don’t believe a word of what we say,” one said. “We’re just having our little joke. You see, we get a bit bored here behind the scenes. Anything to liven things up a bit.”

  “Yes,” said another. “Although we do have a very good game we play. It’s called Test the Strength of the Suitcase.”

  “Sshh,” said one of the other handlers. “Not for publication.”

  “Tell it not in Gath,” said another. “Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon.”

  “Or indeed of Edinburgh,” said yet another, to general laughter.

  18. Tartan Light

  For Big Lou, owner of the newly renamed Big Lou’s Coffee and Conversation Bar, the summer, which had started late, damp and miserable, was at last starting to pick up. And not before time, she felt: winter, with its dreich days and snell winds, had kept a longer grip on Scotland than was usual. Arctic air, trapped by the jet stream, had settled over the land for weeks, whitening the hills in both highlands and lowlands with a democratic sternness. The mercury fell, and stayed low; waterfalls froze in mid-leap, delighting hardy practitioners of curling. Some of the older curlers remembered regular competitions on open ice. The severe winter made such things possible, although caution was still advisable: two curlers, tempting thin ice on Duddingston Loch, paid the price: ignominious rescue by their fellows and frozen extremities. All those years ago the Reverend Robert Walker, of course, had had no such fears when he went out on the ice in that exact spot and was noticed by Raeburn, who happened to pass by and witness the sharp-nosed minister skate by. The Reverend Walker had less fickle climate patterns to rely on, otherwise he would not have been looking so confidently ahead, as he is in the painting, but down, prepared for the tell-tale cracks that precede the breaking of ice.

  The animal world was so much more vulnerable: in the north, deer became more and more bedraggled and increasingly miserable; at Tomintoul, birds fell from the air, their tiny wings heavy with rime, the sun—their only deicer—too far away to help. Sheep on hill farms huddled together for warmth, their breath hanging in tiny clouds above them; cattle sought the shelter of trees and dykes; a stray cat was found frozen to the Playfair Steps, a small death in the scale of things, but the end of a fellow creature’s life, thought the man who found it, and regretted it for that.

  Big Lou was made of stern stuff, of course; you don’t grow up on a farm in Angus without being able to withstand a blast of cold. Throughout her childhood there had been no central heating in the farmhouse, the kitchen being warmed by the range, the living room by a log fire, and the bedrooms by the body heat of those sleeping within. That was entirely natural—and bearable. Nobody sat around very much, and therefore nobody complained of the cold. When you went outside you wrapped up; when you came inside you took off the outer wrapping but not the inner: two sweaters, in Big Lou’s case, knitted for her by her Shetland aunt, Mrs. Spence of Unst, whose intricate handed-down patterns identified each sweater as being by her and by nobody else. These served Big Lou well, and were replaced every other year at Christmas, which was in January, as Mrs. Spence, who was originally from Foula, observed the old Norse Christmas and could not be doing, she said, with the modern Christmas nonsense from more southerly latitudes. I
f they miscalculated the date of Christmas, she was fond of saying, then who should be surprised that they got so much else wrong? She supplied the answer to that: nobody.

  Mrs. Spence had other distinctions in life apart from that of being Big Lou’s aunt. She was a well-known teller of traditional tales, mostly concerning seals, kelpies, and various other unidentifiable creatures, and mostly taking place in or around peat cuttings, cliffs, and remote crofts. She was interviewed several times by folklorists from the School of Scottish Studies, and even entertained Professor Sandy Fenton, regaling him with accounts of her grandfather’s herring fishing and his stories of his time as a flenser on a Salvesen whaler in the South Atlantic. She prepared Professor Fenton oatcakes on her griddle and showed him her cupboard of natural wool dyes. And all the time she knitted with prodigious energy.

  In her flat in Canonmills, in the depth of one particularly severe winter, Big Lou remembered her Shetland sweaters. Mrs. Spence was no more, and with her had died a whole world of knowledge of wool and its possibilities. Even if the Borders mills continued heroically, so many sweaters now came from other places, the products of soulless machines and relentless globalisation; people seemed to want them in spite of their inadequacy for the Scottish climate, and in spite of the fact that no human eye had conceived them and no human fingers had brought them into existence stitch by stitch, row by row.

  Big Lou, of course, now had central heating, but she used this frugally and still believed in dressing warmly for indoors. That winter, though, had made her realise something that she had not previously understood: she had a vitamin D deficiency. And having read about serotonin levels, she concluded, too, that hers were low—a common winter complaint in northern countries.

  It was Angus Lordie who suggested the remedy. “A light box, Lou,” he said. “Put it on a table and sit beside it for forty minutes a day. It makes your brain believe you live in Italy or somewhere like that. It gives you a blast of light—something we can be a bit short of in the Scottish winter.”