The Bertie Project

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “You mean I dinnae ken my own mind?” retorted Big Lou. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, Lou.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, would you? You’d find some fancy words for it.”

  It had not been an entirely satisfactory conversation, and it had left her vaguely anxious that bureaucracy could somehow prevent her from the obvious next step. She had grown to love Finlay, and for her that had been a revelation. Of course she had loved people before this: she had loved her parents and other members of her family; she had loved one or two of the boyfriends in whom she had placed trust and hope. None of those boyfriends had proved worthy of that love, it transpired, but of course that might change. Yet what she felt for Finlay was very different from what she had experienced previously; there was a tenderness in her feeling for him, a cherishing that was quite unlike anything else she had known before. And she realised that what she was feeling was the love that a parent feels for a child—something that she had not had the opportunity to feel before.

  She had been uncertain at first as to whether that love was reciprocated, insofar as a child can return these things. There was little time for anything to be said. Finlay was now seven and had all the physical energy and enthusiasm that makes small dynamos of seven-year-old boys.

  And yet, in the midst of all this activity, there were quiet moments, and it was during these that Finlay made the little gestures that told her that she need not worry about his feelings for her—that he loved her, in his way, as intensely as she loved him. Sometimes, as she was reading him his bedtime story, he would climb out of his bed to sit on her lap, nestling his head against her and taking her hand in his. His little hand felt warm and dry, and it squeezed hers gently, almost making Lou stumble over the words of the story, so moved was she.

  “You won’t go away,” he whispered one evening. “You won’t go away, will you, Lou?”

  “Of course I won’t,” she said. “I’ll never go away.”

  He looked up at her. “And you won’t die, will you, Lou?”

  “Ach, away with you. Why would I die? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me.”

  She felt the pressure of his hand. “I’m glad about that,” he said.

  And when, as occasionally happened, a nightmare had awoken him, she would lie down on the bed beside him, his head cradled in her arm, and sing him back to sleep. He loved Coulter’s Candy, which had been sung to her as a child. Ally bally, ally bally bee, Sitting on your mammy’s knee, Greetin’ fur a wee bawbee, Tae buy some Coulter’s Candy…

  The words made Lou sad. Living’s awfie hard the noo, Faither’s signing on the broo…

  She thought of what his life would have been in the past and how different Scotland now was. It was not perfect—far from it—as few, if any, countries can be said to be perfect. But, she wondered, who changed it? Who made it better—what effort, what sacrifice had gone into that? People like Keir Hardie, who had seen what was wrong and had striven, against all the odds, in the cause of justice. And she thought about that as she lay there in the darkness with the young child beside her breathing in and out now with the regularity that comes when sleep creeps up on you and leads you away to another place.

  The Case for Matron

  At half past ten Matthew’s assistant, Pat, came in to Big Lou’s café. She was carrying a sheaf of papers and explained that she had to check the proofs of a catalogue for an exhibition.

  “James Cowie,” said Pat. “You’ll know all about him.”

  Big Lou nodded. “Hospitalfield,” she said. “That’s where he taught. It’s not far from our farm.”

  “Do you like his work?” asked Pat, as Lou prepared her coffee.

  “Oh, he could draw,” said Lou. “Those pictures of young people—his students, I think.”

  “They’re lovely,” agreed Pat.

  Pat retreated to a table to correct her proofs, and Lou returned to her cleaning.

  “We’re gey quiet the day,” Lou said from behind the counter.

  “That happens,” said Pat from the other side of the room. “The other day we had one person come into the gallery all day. Just one. And I think she was just killing time.”

  The door opened. A man had made his way down the steps unnoticed, and now he was on the threshold, looking about the café as if uncertain whether to enter.

  “You can come in,” Lou said. “We’re open.”

  The man smiled. “I wasn’t sure. I remember this place as a bookshop a few years ago.”

  “Well, that’s what it was,” said Big Lou.

  The man looked about him, taking in the new arrangements. “I bought Douglas Young’s Braid of Thistles here. It was a lovely book with…”

  “With illustrations by George Bain. Celtic art.”

  The man looked surprised—and pleased. “I wouldn’t think that anybody would know it,” he said.

  “Well, I do,” said Lou. “I bought his entire stock when I took this over. I took all the books down the hill to my flat. There were six copies of that book—they must have bought a job lot. I’ve still got them.”

  The man’s face lit up. “Would you sell me one? I’d like to give it to somebody.”

  “If you want,” said Big Lou. “They’re just sitting on my shelf.”

  “Or even two,” said the man. “I could take two off you.”

  “All right.”

  “Two pounds each.”

  The man protested. “That’s far too little. Ten pounds would be more like it.”

  Big Lou shook her head. “I said two.”

  He did not argue, but looked at her with a new admiration.

  Pat had been distracted from her proofs and was staring at the man. He half-turned and smiled at her; she looked away, embarrassed by being caught staring.

  “Could you do me a latte?” said the man. “Skimmed milk, if possible.”

  “Skimmed milk, it is,” said Lou. “Your weight or your heart?”

  “Both,” said the man. “I happen to be a doctor, and I’m always telling people to cut out fats. I thought I should practise what I preach—at least occasionally.”

  Big Lou glanced at the newcomer. He was, she thought, a few years younger than she was—about mid-thirties, and he had a reassuring, gentle face. It was a good face for a doctor to have, she thought.

  “So you’re a doctor,” she said. “Not a poet.”

  He laughed. “I like poetry,” he said.

  “MacDiarmid came down here,” said Lou. “He fell down those steps.”

  “Whisky?” asked the man.

  “I don’t think so. The whisky made no difference to him. I think it was the stairs themselves.” She took a large plastic bottle of milk out of the fridge. “So where do you work?” she asked as she poured the skimmed milk into a heating jug.

  “The Infirmary,” he said. He hesitated, and then added, “My name’s Hugh.”

  “I’m Big Lou,” said Big Lou. “And that’s Pat over there.”

  Hugh turned round and nodded to Pat.

  “May I ask what sort of doctor you are?” said Big Lou.

  “Vascular surgery,” said Hugh. “Circulation problems. I get the smokers and the diabetics.”

  “I’ve never had any time for tobacco,” said Lou. “You may as well stick your head up the lum.”

  Hugh laughed. “You’re right. In fact, if anybody were ever thinking of taking up smoking, I’d say: come and see my ward. If ever there was an advertisement for the dangers of smoking, it’s that.”

  Big Lou turned a wheel at the side of the coffeemaker to produce a satisfying hiss of steam that was directed into the jug of milk. “Oh yes?”

  “I have to amputate legs,” said Hugh. “Smoking can lead to vascular disease, you see. I have a man in at the moment who lost one leg two years ago and now he’s losing the other. He didn’t stop smoking in the interim…couldn’t, rather.”

  “It’s a grippy drug,” said Lou.

&n
bsp; “You can say that again, Big…er…”

  “Big Lou,” said Lou. “That’s what everyone calls me.”

  She passed the cup of coffee to him.

  As he took it, he said, “Do you mind my asking where you’re from?”

  Big Lou told him. He seemed interested; he had an uncle who farmed near Forfar. He gave the name, and she knew it. The farmer’s wife was a cousin of her mother’s half-brother’s cousin.

  “There you are,” said Hugh. “We’re all related, aren’t we?”

  He began to drink his coffee at the counter rather than going to a table. They talked. Big Lou told him about her experience working in the Granite Nursing Home. He listened attentively.

  He asked for another cup of coffee, and as Big Lou prepared it, Hugh mentioned that he was engaged in research. “It’s got nothing to do with vascular surgery,” he said. “Or, maybe it’s indirectly concerned with it. It’s really to do with how we run our hospitals.”

  “That could do with some improvement,” said Big Lou.

  Hugh nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right. I fear we’ve lost sight of a very basic principle.”

  “Which is?”

  “A ship requires a captain,” said Hugh. “All human institutions need leadership.”

  “Aye,” said Big Lou. “You can’t sail a ship by committee.”

  “Or by manager,” said Hugh. “Tell me—at the Granite Nursing Home up in Aberdeen—was there a matron?”

  “Yes,” said Lou. “Matron Russell. She was from Elgin. She ran things very well. We were all a bit feart of her.”

  “Of course you were,” said Hugh. “And of course she ran things well; Matron always did.”

  “So…”

  “But we’ve abolished Matron,” said Hugh. “Hospitals don’t have matrons any more—certainly not matrons of the traditional sort.”

  “We should bring Matron back,” Big Lou remarked.

  “Of course we should,” agreed Hugh.

  Pat looked up from her table. Matron?

  I Want to Eat You Up!

  Bruce Anderson was in love, and it was for the first time, at least it was the first time he had been in love with somebody else. Up to this point in his life—and Bruce was now twenty-seven—the person he had most admired was himself, which of course is nothing unusual in a narcissist. This infatuation with self had been shown in an unduly high regard for mirrors, or any reflective surfaces, in front of which he could never resist preening; in prolonged sessions in the gym, in which he assiduously cultivated even the most obscure muscle groups; and in the application each morning of a carefully calculated amount of clove-scented hair gel into his well-groomed en brosse hairstyle.

  Of course others had been in love with him, and this had been going on ever since Bruce had reached the age of fourteen. That was when his dark good looks had first begun to interest the girls at Morrison’s Academy, the school he had attended in Crieff. He had soon come to take this interest for granted, and had allowed a series of teenage hearts to be broken over the years that followed. Female adulation seemed to him to be only natural—something that he neither encouraged nor discouraged; it was just there, following him around like an attendant micro-climate. It was to be taken advantage of, of course, which meant that Bruce inspired intense envy in most of his schoolfellows, whose success with girls was either less assured or, in some cases, non-existent.

  Bruce wore his success lightly. “Yes, I suppose girls do like me,” he said. “They can’t help themselves. It’s just the way they are.” And then he would turn to the boy who had broached the subject with him, and say, “Never mind, girls are over-rated, you know. You’ll find out it’s not much to get excited about.” And then he added, “When your time comes, whenever that may be.”

  That, of course, hardly made matters easier, and by the time that Bruce left school at eighteen he was thoroughly unpopular with the other boys. He did not notice this, though, as it seemed to Bruce that there was nothing wrong with him—how could there be? That fatal question is one that all narcissists ask and all answer in exactly the same way.

  During the years that followed, Bruce had enjoyed a series of affairs, including an engagement. That came to nothing, when his wealthy fiancée realised in time that Bruce’s interest might have been financial rather than romantic—not that the break-up bothered Bruce, who was soon involved with somebody else, the latest in a progression of young women who simply did not see that any relationship with Narcissus must involve three, rather than two parties: the two principals and the reflection in that fatal pool.

  But then, for some reason connected with the changes that can occur in a young man’s personality in his twenties—a well-known issue in developmental psychology—Bruce’s narcissism diminished, and this meant that he developed a greater capacity to see others not just as adjuncts to himself, but as people in their own right, with emotions and interests that needed recognition and tending. The change was dramatic—where there had been selfishness there was concern for others; where young women had been judged simply by their attractiveness, there developed an interest in what they thought. And it was against the background of this maturing and enlargement of personality that Bruce met Clare Hodding, a young Australian who had decided to spend six months working in Scotland and who happened to wander into the Cumberland Bar with her friend Penny one Tuesday evening, to find Bruce there with a friend from his days as a surveyor. The chemistry, and indeed the electricity, were both immediate, and that evening as he sat over the dinner table in the Café St. Honoré with Clare—Penny and Bruce’s friend having gone to a club in the Cowgate—Bruce realised that his interest in the young woman on the other side of the table was of an intensity and a nature that he had never before experienced.

  They saw one another the following day, and that evening Clare made him dinner in the flat she was sharing with another young woman, a New Zealand nurse. Bruce took her flowers, the first time he had done this, and was surprised by her reaction. Rather than find a vase and enthuse, Clare tossed them onto a table.

  “You need to put them in water,” said Bruce.

  Clare looked carelessly at the flowers. “They’re nice colours,” she said.

  “They totally need water,” said Bruce.

  “Whatever,” said Clare, but did nothing.

  Later that evening, Bruce raised the question of the flowers’ welfare. “They’ll be dead by tomorrow morning.”

  Clare frowned. “Oh yes, those flowers. Well, they don’t last long, do they?”

  “You could make them last longer if you put them in a vase.”

  “I don’t think we’ve got a vase. This flat’s hopeless. We haven’t even got one of those thingies—you know, for crushing garlic.”

  “Or a jug. You could use a jug, you know.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. We might have a jug—I don’t know.”

  Bruce had not expected this indifference to his gesture, but it did not affect his enthusiasm. He was overawed by Clare’s sheer physical presence—by her stature—she was almost as tall as he was; by her classic profile—the line of her brow and her nose might have distinguished a sculpture by Praxiteles; and by the air of pent-up energy that accompanied even her slightest movement. He knew that the open-air life-style pursued in Australia could produce a healthy, outdoor appearance, but he had never seen it in quite so striking a form. It fascinated him, and he felt himself being drawn towards Clare in an inexorable helpless way. And he surrendered.

  They lay together on the sofa of the darkened sitting room once her flatmate had considerately retired to her room.

  “Tell me about yourself,” said Bruce as he ran his fingers dreamily through her hair. “I feel I don’t really know you.”

  “Well, you don’t,” said Clare.

  “Tell me then.”

  “What? The whole story?”

  “Yup. The whole story. From the beginning, or close enough.”

  “Where I was born? That sort of th
ing?”

  “Yes. That sort of thing.”

  She was silent for a while. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because…well, because I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  “My God!” exclaimed Clare. “Do you realise what you’ve just said?”

  “Oh, I know what I’ve said.”

  Clare touched Bruce’s lips with the tip of a finger. “You’re so amazingly cute,” she said.

  Only a few months earlier, Bruce would have replied, “I know.” But not this time.

  “I want to eat you up!” said Clare, opening her mouth and then closing it with a snap. “But since you asked me to tell you my story, I will.”

  At Presbyterian Ladies’

  Clare was a compelling storyteller, even if she skated over her early years.

  “Not much to say about the first eighteen years,” she said. “Never is, I think.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Bruce. “You read a biography and they usually spend quite a lot of time going on about childhood.” As he spoke, Bruce realised that he could not remember ever having read a biography, but he felt that did not detract from his point.

  Clare looked at him. Their heads were close together on a large sofa cushion. She moved her head slightly so that she could touch the tip of his nose with her tongue, which she now did.

  “So what was the last biography you read?”

  He drew back slightly, but she pursued him and licked the tip of his nose again.

  “And I’m telling the story, Brucey!” she continued. “So you just listen. OK?”

  He nodded. It was not an unpleasant sensation having the tip of his nose licked and he tried to remember whether anybody had ever done that to him before, except the family dog in Crieff, when he was a boy. That dog, Gavin, had licked everybody’s face—nose, lips, chin—whenever he had the chance.

  Clare continued. “Anyway, as I was saying, not much to say about that—other than that I grew up in Western Australia. Been there, Brucey?”

  “Nope.”