A Promise of Ankles

by Alexander McCall Smith

  He reflected on the vagaries of fate. It would be a great loss to palaeontology if Homo Watsoniensis, as he now thought of the skull, were to be altogether lost. If only we had taken a photograph, he said to himself; if only we had insisted on delivering the skull in one of those security vans used for carrying money to and from the bank. If only…There was no point in berating himself, or Dr Colquohoun for that matter, thought Angus. What is lost on the 23 bus stays on the 23 bus…so to speak. And there he stopped himself. The skull might stay under a seat for some time – at least until the bus received a thorough cleaning and it was discovered. If that were to be the case, then there might be plenty of time still to retrieve it. This led him to speculate as to whether Dr Colquohoun had been rigorous enough in his enquiries of the transport office. It would not be enough, Angus thought, simply to ask if a Neanderthal skull had been handed in: one would surely have to be more proactive, getting on as many 23 buses as possible and conducting a thorough search of the spaces under the seats. It might be difficult to explain to people what one was doing in conducting such a search, and there would be plenty of room for misunderstanding, but one could brazen it out. Should he do it? he wondered. Perhaps he could take Cyril, who would move from row of seats to row of seats, sniffing like one of those sniffer dogs the customs authorities employed at airports. Such dogs were looking for drugs, of course, but could presumably be trained to sniff out other things. Hypocrisy, for example. Angus imagined a very specialised dog at Edinburgh Airport, moving amongst the passengers, sniffing out hypocrites, or subversives of one stripe or another, doubters of our current orthodoxies perhaps…There were so many possibilities. Involuntarily – for he did not feel like smiling – he smiled.

  Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna mistook the smile for encouragement. “My feelings too,” she said. “Pleasure on seeing an old friend is all the greater when it is unexpected. Saint Augustine of Hippo tells us that friendship…”

  Angus did not allow her to finish. “Ah,” he said. “Saint Augustine of Hippo. Of course, of course.”

  And with that, he tried to sidestep Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna.

  But he did not succeed. “You may be interested to hear,” she said, her voice rising to forfend any evasive tactic on Angus’s part, “that we are to have a most interesting meeting at the Galleria Nazionale Scozzese d’Arte.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Angus. “I’m in a bit of a rush.”

  “Aren’t we all?” said Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “We rush through life, our busyness rendering us unaware of the beauty of the world about us. We never pause, nor stop to take stock of who we are and where we are going.”

  “I was actually going back to our flat,” said Angus.

  Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiore di Montagna smiled sweetly. “We are all on a journey home,” she said, adding, “one way or another.”

  65

  Man Bitten by a Snake

  There was no escape for Angus Lordie as Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna began to explain to him about the agenda she had received for the meeting she would be attending later that day. The trustees of the Scottish National Gallery, amongst whose number she now counted herself, were concerned with the larger issues affecting Scotland’s national collection. These included requests for the loan of paintings to other galleries, issues of conservation, outreach initiatives, and so on: on all of these the trustees might be called to guide the curatorial staff in their task of bringing art to the public. Sister Maria-Fiore’s qualifications for this role were not immediately apparent, but the success that she had enjoyed since she first burst on Scotland’s social scene had carried her to this, and other heights, unchallenged. There were few photographs in the social columns of Scottish Field or Edinburgh Life that did not feature the seemingly ubiquitous Italian nun: there she was at the release of a new single malt from Ardnamurchan Distillery, her nose buried appreciatively in a whisky glass; there she was at the Annual Dance of the Scottish Motor Trade Association, dancing the Gay Gordons with prominent motor trade figures; there she was at Publishing Scotland’s Annual Reception, engaged in earnest conversation with Val McDermid and Ian Rankin. She was everywhere! It was no surprise, then, to anybody that a small announcement should appear in the Scotsman to the effect that Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, an acknowledged authority on the Sienese School, should have been appointed a trustee of the Scottish National Gallery. To call her an authority was generous – in the extreme – as her only publication had been a minor note, written in the brief period she spent as a postgraduate student and published in the Rivista d’Arte, on the influence of Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the later work of Domenico Beccafumi, a subject on which nobody else had written anything before and indeed nothing had been written subsequently. But publication is not everything, and those who have never expressed a view on a subject may sometimes enjoy a reputation based on what it is thought they might know, and in the case of Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, what she might lack in knowledge she certainly made up for in enthusiasm. And of course her facility with aphorisms, unrivalled in all Scotland, gave her remarks an additional gravitas that all agreed added to the weight – and the sonority – of the Board of Trustees’ published minutes.

  Now she said to Angus, “The trustees will be called in to pronounce on warnings this afternoon. Should our paintings – or some of them – be accompanied by a public warning?”

  Angus frowned. “A warning? About what?”

  “A warning that the more emotionally sensitive members of the public might be distressed by what they see.”

  Angus, in spite of himself and his desire to get back to his flat, was intrigued. “Do you mean that there’ll be notices?” he asked. “Like those Government health warnings? That sort of thing?”

  Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, pleased to have engaged his attention, nodded gravely. “That is what some people are proposing. We have had several concerned members of the public making the same point. There have been letters in the Scotsman too. That is why we are to discuss the matter at the trustees’ meeting.”

  Angus rolled his eyes. “I can hardly believe this. I really can’t.” He had heard about the ban on boiled sweets being thrown to children from the pantomime stage – on the grounds that somebody might be hurt – but this was a new and shocking instance of that overly cautious mindset.

  Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna gave more details. “It has all arisen over a painting we borrowed from the National Gallery in London,” she said. “We lent them one of our Poussin Sacraments and they lent us their Landscape with a Man killed by a Snake. I suspect you know the painting.”

  Angus did. He liked Poussin, in spite of the neoclassical coldness, and had spent two full hours some years ago while on a visit to London, standing in front of that particular painting, reflecting on the vague sense of menace it conveyed.

  “It’s a very powerful painting,” said Sister Maria-Fiore. “There is a whole book devoted to it, you know – Professor Clark’s Sight of Death.”

  Angus nodded. “I don’t know that book.” He paused before continuing. “But there are so many books I don’t know, I suppose.”

  The comment had come out unplanned, and he had not thought much about it before he spoke. But it seemed that a conversation with the aphoristically inclined Italian nun produced just such reflections. There were so many books; there was so little time.

  Sister Maria-Fiore absorbed this, and Angus thought that he had probably prompted another aphorism. But she returned to her theme. “It has been suggested that we identify our most disturbing paintings and put a warning sign in front of them. A red triangle, I believe. Or we could simply have a large notice outside the gallery warning people that some of our paintings might upset them.” She paused. “I believe universities have to do this now. They have to warn their students if they are going to be ask
ed to read anything upsetting.”

  Angus sighed. What could one do, he thought, but sigh? He looked at his watch. They could talk for hours, he imagined, about intellectual freedom, and maturity, and tolerance, and related topics, while all the time the darkness closed in, but he had to get back to Domenica.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, “but I must get back to my flat. Nothing to do with Poussin, but we have had our own disturbing news.”

  Sister Maria-Fiore looked anxious. “I’m very sorry to hear that. We like to hear things that are unexpected; we do not like things that are not expected, and…”

  Angus cut short the aphorism. “Yes, yes. My dog, Cyril, found an old skull, you see – a potentially interesting one – and now it has, alas, been lost.”

  Sister Maria-Fiore frowned. “How funny,” she said. “Because I was on the 23 bus yesterday, I think it was, and I found something that looked a bit like a skull. It couldn’t have been, though. Not on a bus.”

  Angus froze. “And?”

  “Oh, I threw it in our kitchen bin,” said Sister Maria-Fiore. “It was muddy and messy. It was the best place for it, in my view, Mr Lordie.” She paused and then continued: “It’s probably still there, come to think of it.” There was a further pause. “What we dispose of we do not always dispose of, Mr Lordie.”

  66

  Doon the Watter

  Nicola liked the look of Mrs Campbell. And it seemed to her that Bertie and Ranald Braveheart Macpherson thought the same as they were ushered into the sitting room of the house in Bearsden.

  “They’re very excited,” Nicola told the teacher as Mrs Campbell’s husband showed the boys round the house. “Ranald was a bit too excited, in fact. He was sick in the car, I’m afraid. He talked about wanting to go back to Edinburgh, but Bertie seems to have settled him and he’s perked up a bit.”

  Mrs Campbell looked sympathetic. “They’re very young to be away from home,” she said. “But the fact that there are two of them should make all the difference.”

  Nicola agreed. “Yes, and Bertie is terribly happy to be in Glasgow. He’s talked about nothing else over the last few weeks.”

  “Dear wee soul,” mused Mrs Campbell.

  “Glasgow is a sort of promised land for him,” Nicola continued. “The background is a bit complex, I’m afraid. I’m his grandmother on his father’s side. The mother…” She paused. How could one describe Irene in her full enormity?

  “Pushy?” prompted Mrs Campbell.

  Nicola nodded. “I’m afraid so. Although pushy doesn’t quite do it justice. She’s pushy on an ocean-going scale.”

  Mrs Campbell laughed. “Edinburgh is full of pushy mothers. It’s very strange – travel a few miles west, and the pushiness disappears. We don’t have that sort of thing in Glasgow at all.”

  “You’re very fortunate,” said Nicola.

  “We can be a bit boisterous,” went on Mrs Campbell, “but we’re not pretentious. Unlike Edinburgh.”

  Nicola’s smile faded. “Not everyone in Edinburgh…” she began.

  Mrs Campbell flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry, that was a bit tactless of me. I don’t really know Edinburgh. I went there once, but didn’t stay long, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, there you are,” said Nicola. “I’ve brought you some pies, by the way. We visited a pie factory on our way here.”

  She handed Mrs Campbell the packet of Scotch pies that she had been given in the factory. The teacher looked at the label. “Inclusive Pies? Oh, I love their pies. My absolute favourite. And Will’s too. He likes nothing more than a Scotch pie and these people make the very best in Glasgow.”

  This pleased Nicola greatly, and she was still smiling when Will Campbell brought the boys back from their conducted tour of their new temporary home. He had shown them, too, the workshop at the back of the house, where he made and restored cellos. He offered to start them off on a woodwork project while they were staying – and Bertie and Ranald had eagerly accepted. If he could not be an apprentice pie-maker in Glasgow when he turned sixteen, Bertie thought, then he might become a woodworker instead. For his part, Ranald’s life ambition was rarely disclosed, although he did occasionally mention it to Bertie. He hoped to be a soldier in a Highland regiment and to lead his men against the English at some point.

  After that, Nicola thought it best to go, as a prolonged leave-taking might bring on a recurrence, she feared, of Ranald’s incipient homesickness. Her departure, though, was a cheerful one, with the two boys standing at the window and waving to her as she got into her beige estate car and began the journey back to Edinburgh.

  Mrs Campbell helped the boys unpack their clothes and place them in the drawers that she had cleared for them in the guest room. Then she revealed what was planned for the following day, a Sunday.

  “Have you heard about the Waverley?” she asked. “It’s a paddle steamer. A very famous one.”

  Bertie had. Ranald Braveheart Macpherson had not – which did not surprise Bertie, as he had found that Ranald knew very little about anything. “Do you mind not knowing anything?” he had once asked his friend, and Ranald had replied, “Not really, Bertie. I might know a bit more when I’m a bit older. Who knows?”

  They went to bed early, as excitement had taken its toll and they were both exhausted. With the light in their room turned out, they went over the events of the day, reliving every detail of the visit to the pie factory and the drive to Bearsden. Ranald Braveheart Macpherson was still slightly nervous, but Bertie reassured him that it was highly unlikely that Mr and Mrs Campbell, in spite of their name, were directly descended from the Campbells at Glencoe whose standards of hospitality fell so short of what was expected.

  They made an early start the following morning, and by ten o’clock they had embarked with the Campbells on the Waverley. The ancient paddle steamer drew away from the quay at Greenock, bound for the Isle of Arran; on deck, Bertie and Ranald watched as they slipped out into the Clyde Estuary, the giant paddle wheels drawing them smoothly across the glassy surface of the water. Bertie’s heart was full. He was in Glasgow – or close enough – doing something that he knew was an old Glasgow tradition – going doon the watter. He had dreamed of this moment and now, so improbably, it had come true.

  Will Campbell bought them fish and chips from the café, and they ate these on deck. There was a large party of young Glaswegians, a boys’ club, it seemed, and Bertie and Ranald stood shyly by as these boys started to sing Ye cannae shove your granny aff a bus: Bertie had heard of the song before, but had never had the chance to sing it in its correct cultural context. One of the boys in the group smiled at him and introduced himself. “They call me Wee Lard,” the boy said, grinning in a friendly fashion.

  Unknown to Bertie, this was the son of Lard O’Connor ( RIP), whom Bertie and his father had met before.

  “You’re no’ frae Glasgow, are you?” said Wee Lard.

  Bertie shook his head. “No, Edinburgh.”

  Wee Lard shrugged. “There’s some things you cannae help,” he said, and offered Bertie a swig from his can of Irn-Bru, which Bertie accepted.

  It was perfect. The sun was out; the river was sparkling; the air was warm. Arran was soon before them, a green hill in a blue sea. Bertie had waited for this for so long. For years he had endured a regime from which freedom and light had been excluded. Now that was over, and in his heart was a chorus of delight, like a swelling of exalting birdsong. No boy was ever happier.

  67

  Recovery

  Matthew and Elspeth had made it clear that they would be perfectly happy to look after the Duke of Johannesburg during the weeks that followed his release from enforced Gaelic immersion.

  “There’s no hurry for your uncle to go back to Single Malt House,” Matthew reassured James. “We like having him here – we really do.”

  James looke
d at Matthew with the look of one who wants to know whether the person to whom he is speaking means what he says. “You’re not just saying that, are you?” he asked.

  Matthew laughed. “I promise you, James – I am not just saying that. Well, I am saying it, I suppose, but I am not saying it just because he’s your uncle and just because he happens to be a duke.”

  “But he isn’t a real duke,” said James. “The Government promised his grandfather, I think it was, that he could be a duke in return for twenty-five thousand pounds.”

  “That was a lot of money in those days,” said Matthew.

  “And then the Government took the twenty-five thousand pounds – or the political party behind the Government did – and they never actually made him a duke.”

  Matthew looked grave. “I call that fraud,” he said. “And yet it happens. Or happened. I don’t think it could happen today.” He stopped. He was not quite sure of his ground there.

  “And so he thinks he’s entitled – or almost entitled – to call himself the Duke of Johannesburg,” James continued. “Secretly, though, he’s worried that the Lord Lyon and his people will catch him. He saw the Lord Lyon the other day in the supermarket in Morningside and he almost fainted. I was with him at the time. It was in the frozen products section and he had to stick his head into one of those big refrigerated displays so as not to be recognised.”

  Matthew tried not to laugh. “Uncomfortable,” he said.

  “Yes,” James went on. “And then he spotted Adam Bruce – he’s Marchmont Herald – in the street and he had to run round a corner in order to get away. He’s really worried that they’ll get him.”