A Promise of Ankles

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Over the years, Nicola had bitten her tongue. She had put up with Irene’s lectures, with her knee-jerk contradiction of any opinion she – Nicola – expressed; she had done her best to forgive her bone-deep condescension; she had turned a deaf ear to her recited catalogue of instances of male insensitivity, many of them imaginary or at least blown out of all proportion. And as each fresh Irene story came to light, Nicola had struggled to conceal her mirth or, in some cases, horror. She had heard from Domenica, who had heard from Angus, who had heard from Matthew, who had been told by Big Lou, who had had it from Stuart himself, that when Irene travelled to a Melanie Klein conference in Milan, flying by way of Amsterdam, she had asked the KLM captain why he was flying the plane. The captain, cap under arm, had strolled down the aisle in mid-flight to greet the passengers and had chanced to enquire of Irene as to whether she was being well looked after. Irene had taken the opportunity to ask him why men seemed to be in the cockpit while women were in the galley.

  “Doesn’t that strike you as wrong?” she demanded.

  The pilot had done his best. There were many female pilots, he assured her, and they had a better safety record than men on the whole. That had not pacified Irene, who had then pointed out the visible cabin crew and announced that they were all female whereas there appeared to be three men in the nose of the plane.

  The pilot had been tactful, but was still treated to a dressing-down. Eventually, he asked her whether she would like to fly the plane herself, and returned to the controls.

  There were many other instances of Irene’s insufferable behaviour, including, of course, her hijacking of the production of Waiting for Godot put on by Bertie’s Primary Three class. That was just the tip of a bulky iceberg: Nicola had listened to accounts of episode after episode of Irene’s posturing, of her virtue signalling on a positively semaphoric scale, and of her interdiction of any newspaper other than the Guardian appearing in the flat. Stuart actually enjoyed the Guardian, a good newspaper by any standards, but he also rather liked the Financial Times – especially the Saturday edition – the Scotsman, the Herald and the New York Times, which he read online. He thought it only reasonable to read more than one paper, so as to get a balanced view of the issues of the day, but in that open-minded stance he found himself at odds with his wife.

  “I will not have the bourgeois press in the flat,” she said. “Sorry, Stuart, but there are limits.”

  “But is the Scotsman bourgeois?” asked Stuart mildly. “I thought they were open to a wide range of opinion.”

  “There’s such a thing as repressive tolerance,” Irene retorted. “I would have thought that even you knew that, Stuart.”

  Even you is a wounding phrase at the best of times, but when said slowly, allowing for the full measure of its connotations of disparagement to sink in, it may have a devastating effect on amour propre.

  Nicola, hearing of the newspaper ban, had gone out of her way to defy it. When she knew that Irene would be coming down from Aberdeen for one of her visits, she made a point of leaving other newspapers lying around, even placing two copies of severely interdicted newspapers, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, on the hall table, where Irene could not miss them. Irene had taken them and thrown them out of the window into the street below, unfortunately at precisely the time that the local community police officer was making his way to begin his shift at Gayfield Police Station round the corner. Noting the source of the litter, the policeman had knocked on the door of the flat and produced the gathered-up pages as evidence of the littering offence. Irene had been fined, much to the delight of Nicola and her friends to whom she told the story. Great was their pleasure on hearing the tale: “You must be as terrible in her sight as an army and all its banners!” one remarked. “Oh, joyous, happy prospect!”

  “Such a pity it was one of those ticketed fines,” Nicola observed. “It would have been so entertaining to be at the Sheriff Court and see her answer for her crimes. I would have issued invitations – edged in black – to attend her trial. What a pity!”

  But here was an irresistible consolation prize indeed: the chance to pack Irene’s books and papers into boxes, and then take over what she called her space. If challenged, she would stand up to Irene and say, “Sorry, it’s my space now. You’ve got a space up in Aberdeen, haven’t you?”

  What a delight that would be. And she would take down all of Irene’s pictures, too, and put in their place the polar opposite of what had been there. Nicola did not like fox hunting, which she saw as an organised celebration of cruelty, but in view of Irene’s previous history as a prominent saboteur of the Fife Hunt – the meetings of which she was happy to travel some distance to in order to pour invective on the huntsmen – in view of that she was prepared to hang a sporting picture on the wall, in exactly the spot where Irene’s portrait of Gramsci had been. So it was that Taking the Stirrup Cup Together: the Fife Hunt Prepares for a Day Out, a sentimental and idealised Edwardian lithograph, found a home on that wall. Nicola did not like the picture at all, and would not have chosen for company any of those portrayed in it, but, in the circumstances, she derived great pleasure from its presence. After all, she thought, one could put up with any amount of aesthetic discomfort when the prospect of revenge was so delicious as to be positively exquisite.

  32

  A Suitable Education

  Now, having settled Ulysses for the night and having read a chapter of The Thirty-Nine Steps to Bertie, who was always allowed a further half hour of private reading before lights-out, precious minutes that made him feel so adult, Nicola went into the kitchen, where she found Stuart browsing through a men’s clothing catalogue.

  “It’s all about blue this year,” he said, pointing to a picture in the catalogue. “Listen,” he said, “Blue is the new you. That’s what this says. And then: Blue is so much more than a mere colour – blue is a statement.” He looked up from the catalogue. “And then they have a picture of a man in blue – making a statement, I suppose.”

  “That he likes blue?”

  Nicola was dismissive. “That’s the obvious inference. Mind you, I have no interest in whether or not I’m wearing this year’s colours.”

  “No,” agreed Stuart, tossing aside the catalogue. “Nor do I. I’ll wear…well, the usual things.”

  Nicola looked at her son. “There’s nothing wrong with your clothes, Stuart. They’re a bit…” She searched for a tactful adjective. “Functional, perhaps. Of course, clothes should be functional. There are always those poor souls who have wardrobe malfunctions – a wonderful euphemism for one’s clothes falling off or suddenly becoming too revealing.”

  “I’ve been thinking of getting a new sweater,” said Stuart.

  “Perhaps you should.”

  “I was thinking of blue…”

  Nicola smiled. “If it’s you, why not?”

  “And I might get Bertie some new clothes too. He still has those trousers that Irene bought him. Those pink ones. He seems resigned to them, but I know he doesn’t like them.”

  “I’ll take him into town tomorrow,” said Nicola. “I’ll get him a pair of jeans. Denim.”

  Stuart looked doubtful. “Irene was very anti-denim.”

  Nicola waited, but he did not explain. Of course, it would be obvious, if one thought about it, why Irene would not like denim. Denim was faux workwear for the bourgeoisie, who wore it ironically. But what about corduroy – a reactionary material, surely, in Irene’s book: corde du roi – its alleged etymology gave it away. It was the sort of material even a monarchist might embrace.

  “So, get him some denim jeans,” said Stuart. “I’m sure he’d love a pair.”

  Irene nodded. She would get Ulysses something too – perhaps a red bandana to tie round his neck. She had seen a baby wearing a red bandana a few days ago and had thought it very fetching.

  But there were other matters she wanted to
talk to Stuart about, and now she raised them. “You may recall, Stuart,” she began, “that we talked about Bertie’s education.”

  Stuart gazed out of the window. I have not been a good father, he thought. I gave up, and left it to Irene. I’ve been weak.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked.

  Nicola frowned. “Do you not want to talk about this?”

  He took a deep breath. The days of being weak are over. Irene is in Aberdeen; I’m in Edinburgh. I can get into the water – it’s safe.

  “No, I would like to talk about it. But sometimes a glass of wine helps.”

  She agreed, and Stuart poured a glass of red for each of them.

  “You know,” said Nicola, raising her glass to her lips, “whenever I drink red wine, I think of Abril. I can’t help it. It’s a seemingly inescapable association. I see Abril. I hear him going on about his wine. I used to doze off sometimes when he started to talk about fermentation tanks and so on.”

  Nicola had been married – it was her second marriage, after she had been widowed – to a Portuguese wine producer, Abril Tamares de Lumares, who had left her for his housekeeper, on the alleged instructions of the Virgin Mary. Ever since then, she had had a poor opinion of both the Portuguese wine trade and the Virgin Mary.

  “You need to get over Abril,” said Stuart. “I never liked him. Not that I really knew him, but still.”

  “The Cinderella Syndrome,” said Nicola. “Stepmothers are never liked – I imagine there is a counterpart for antipathy towards stepfathers.”

  “Possibly. I found him a bit…” Stuart hesitated. He did not want to offend his mother, and he had rarely talked about his feelings for Abril, who had married Nicola well after Stuart had become an adult and who therefore had played no part in his life. Of course, he had taken his mother away – to Portugal – and that might be a cause for resentment; but there was no point, Stuart thought, in exploring feelings that were now so firmly consigned to the past.

  “You found him a bit what?” prompted Nicola.

  Stuart swallowed. He might as well be honest; as his mother, Nicola had an uncanny ability to discern what he was really feeling: mothers, he thought, see through their sons. The sons don’t notice it, but they can never fool their mothers.

  “I found him a bit greasy,” said Stuart apologetically.

  Nicola gave him an intense look.

  “Which of course he wasn’t really,” said Stuart hurriedly.

  “But he was,” said Nicola. “He used to leave greasy stains on the back of the chairs, where his head touched the fabric. And his nose was quite greasy too. If he peered through a window, he would leave a grease mark on it. You could always tell if Abril had been pressing his nose to the glass.”

  “Was it dietary?” asked Stuart. “What do the Portuguese eat? Lots of sardines. I’ve heard that pasta gives you oily skin. And sardines too, I gather.”

  “Possible,” said Nicola. “But then again, possibly not.”

  Stuart shrugged. “Let’s not talk about Abril. You were going to say something about Bertie’s education.”

  Nicola took another sip of her wine. “All right,” she began. “I’ve been thinking, as you know, of how Bertie might benefit from a change. The Steiner School is wonderful, and it’s been great for Bertie, but I think he might benefit from different surroundings – even if only for a short time.”

  “For a term?” asked Stuart. “A few months?”

  “Maybe just a month or so,” said Nicola, “as a sort of treat. To get him away from that dreadful Olive. And Pansy. And that ghastly Tofu.”

  “All schools have kids like that,” said Stuart. “They’re a fact of life.”

  “Oh, I know that,” said Nicola. “But taking him out of their orbit for a while might provide him with a…a breath of fresh air, I suppose.”

  Stuart looked thoughtful. “You mentioned a boys’ boarding school when we spoke about this last time. You said something about Merchiston.”

  “Yes,” said Nicola, “I did. But since then, I’ve been thinking of something even more radical.”

  Stuart waited. Then Nicola dropped her bombshell.

  “Glasgow,” she said.

  33

  The Best News Ever

  Stuart took a large sip of wine. He had not expected this.

  “Glasgow?” he said. And then, “Well, I must confess I hadn’t…”

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t have,” said Nicola. “And nor would I have contemplated bringing Glasgow into the equation, but then…Well, you know how Bertie goes on about Glasgow. You’d think he was talking about Shangri-La.”

  Stuart smiled. “He loves it.” He remembered their earlier visit to Glasgow – the first time that Bertie had been there. They had gone to retrieve the family car after Stuart had driven over to Glasgow for a meeting and then, absent-mindedly, returned by train. They had ended up spending time in the company of the late Lard O’Connor ( RIP), a much-regretted Glasgow gangster, who had been impressed by Bertie and who had taken both him and Stuart to see the Burrell Collection. In Bertie’s mind, Glasgow was a promised land, a shining city upon a hill, and the River Clyde, upon whose sylvan banks the city nestled, was a holy river, as compelling a source of pilgrimage, in Bertie’s view, as any Ganges, Narmada, or Godavari.

  “Well,” Nicola continued, “I had a conversation yesterday with Ranald Braveheart Macpherson’s parents. It was when I went to collect Bertie from his play date with Ranald. And over a cup of tea, Ranald’s mother revealed that Ranald is going on an educational exchange for a month to the Glasgow Academy Primary.” She paused. “And furthermore, she said that they have another place available in the same scheme, and that if we were interested, Bertie could possibly go as well.”

  Stuart was silent. Then, “Bertie? Go to school in Glasgow? The Glasgow Academy.”

  Nicola inclined her head. “It’s a very good school. The Primary has various branches – this one is at Milngavie.”

  Stuart gasped. “Milngavie?”

  “Yes. Of course, there would be fees involved, but I’d cover those.”

  “But he’d have to board? I think he’s far too young to board. I mean, think of Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Lord of the Flies, and all that. I’m no great fan of boarding schools.”

  Nicola shook her head. “Lord of the Flies is hardly apposite, Stuart. We’re hardly proposing to send Bertie to a desert island. And he wouldn’t have to board at the school itself. Part of this arrangement is that the children stay en famille with a member of the Academy staff. One of the teachers, who lives in Bearsden, would have them staying with her.”

  Stuart gasped again. “Bearsden?”

  “Yes. She has a slightly older daughter. She often takes children whose parents have to be away for one reason or another. Her husband is a cello maker and he works in a workshop at home, and so he’s always in. According to Ranald’s mother, it’s a tried and tested arrangement, and is usually a great success. They had a Greek child from Corfu last time and it all went very well – a Greek father and a Scottish mother, so the child spoke quite good English. These exchanges can be wonderful for children – as long as they’re robust enough to be away from home.”

  “Well, Glasgow’s not exactly at the other end of the country.”

  “No,” said Nicola. “And he could come back for weekends. So he would only be there Monday to Friday.”

  “And if he became homesick I could pop over and collect him,” mused Stuart.

  “Precisely. And remember – he’ll have Ranald Braveheart Macpherson with him – so that will help.”

  “A lot,” said Stuart.

  He looked at Nicola. “Do you think we should?”

  “I see no reason why not,” said Nicola. ‘It’s only for a month and it could be a wonderful treat for him.”

  “O
f course, he’s likely to discover that Glasgow is much the same as anywhere else,” said Stuart.

  “But it isn’t,” said Nicola. ‘You know that, and I know it too, Stuart. Glasgow is not Edinburgh.”

  “He’s had his inoculations, though,” said Stuart. He paused. “Shall we ask Bertie?”

  “Yes. Will you do it?”

  “Right away.”

  He finished his wine and then left the kitchen and knocked at Bertie’s half-open door. As he entered the bedroom, Bertie looked up from his book.

  “What are you reading, Bertie?” asked Stuart as he sat down on the bed.

  Bertie showed his father the cover of his book. The Lighthouse Stevensons. “It’s about the people who built all the lighthouses,” he said. ‘They were all called Mr Stevenson, and they built all our lighthouses, Daddy. That’s what they did.”

  “Very interesting,” said Stuart. “I suppose if you find you can do one thing rather well, you should carry on doing it.”

  Bertie agreed. “They built a lighthouse called the Bell Rock Lighthouse, Daddy. In the sea off Fife. It was jolly dangerous because it was just on a rock and the sea came up and covered what they’d built every day. They had to wait for low tide before they could start again.”

  “They were very skilful,” said Stuart. “And do you know, Bertie, that Robert Louis Stevenson was a member of that family? He wrote books rather than build lighthouses.”