The World According to Bertie

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘Not at all,’ countered Irene. ‘You can dislike the way a person smells without disliking them, in their essence.’ She paused. ‘And anyway, Bertie, I really don’t think that this conversation is getting us anywhere. We were really meant to be talking about Dr Fairbairn. I was giving you an answer to the question that you asked about stopping your psychotherapy. And the answer, Bertie, is that you must keep up with it until Dr Fairbairn tells us that there’s no longer any need for you to see him. He has not done that yet.’

  Bertie looked down at his shoes, thinking of how the answer was always no. Well, if his mother wanted to talk about Dr Fairbairn, then there was something that had been preying on his mind.

  ‘Mummy,’ he began. ‘Don’t you think that Ulysses looks a lot like Dr Fairbairn? Haven’t you noticed?’

  Irene was quite still. ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘What do you mean by that, Bertie?’

  ‘I mean that Ulysses has the same sort of face as Dr Fairbairn. You know how they both look. This bit here . . .’ He gestured to his forehead.

  Irene laughed. ‘But everybody has a forehead, Bertie! And I suspect if you compared Ulysses’ forehead with lots of other people’s, then you would reach the same conclusion.’

  ‘And his ears,’ went on Bertie. ‘Dr Fairbairn’s ears go like that– and so do Ulysses’.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Irene abruptly.

  ‘Do you think that Dr Fairbairn could be Ulysses’ daddy?’ asked Bertie.

  He waited for his mother to respond. It had just occurred to Bertie that if Ulysses were to be Dr Fairbairn’s son, then that could mean that he would go and live with him, and Bertie would no longer have the inconvenience of having a smaller brother in the house. He was not sure how Ulysses could be the psychotherapist’s son, but it was, he assumed, possible. Bertie had only the haziest idea of how babies came about, but he did know that it was something to do with adults having conversation with one another. His mother and Dr Fairbairn had certainly talked to one another enough– enough to result in a baby, Bertie thought.

  Irene was looking at her fingernails. ‘Bertie,’ she said. ‘There are some questions we never ask, and that is one of them. You never ask if somebody is a baby’s real daddy! That’s very rude indeed! It’s the person whom the baby calls Daddy who is the daddy. We just have to accept that, even if sometimes we wonder whether it’s not true. And of course it’s not true in this case – I mean, it’s not true that there’s another daddy. Daddy is Ulysses’ daddy. And that’s that.’

  Bertie listened attentively. He wondered if there was a chance that Irene was not his real mother, and he would have loved to have asked about that, but this was not the right time, Bertie sensed.

  27. It’s Never Rude to Say Things to a Doctor

  Now, sitting in Dr Fairbairn’s waiting room, Bertie paged though an old issue of Scottish Field. His mother was closeted in the consulting room with the psychotherapist, and Bertie knew that they were discussing him, as they always did at the beginning of one of his sessions. He did not like this, but he knew that there was nothing he could do about it. It was hard enough to tackle his mother by herself; when she teamed up with Dr Fairbairn, it seemed to Bertie that he was up against impossible odds.

  Bertie liked reading Scottish Field, and his regular encounters with the magazine helped to make the visits to Dr Fairbairn at least bearable. He wondered if it would be possible to take the magazine in with him to read during the psychotherapy session itself, as it seemed to him that Dr Fairbairn was quite content to do all the talking and it would make no difference if he was reading at the time. But he decided that this request would have little hope of being met; adults were so difficult over things like that.

  He turned to the back of the magazine. After looking at the advertisements for fishing jackets and Aga cookers, which he liked, he turned to the social pages, which were his particular favourite. There were photographs there of people all over Scotland going to parties and events, and in every photograph everybody seemed to be smiling. Bertie had not been to many children’s parties, but at those to which he had been there had always been one or two people who burst into tears over something or other. It seemed that this did not happen at grown-ups’ parties, where there was just all this smiling. Bertie thought that this might have something to do with the fact that many of the people in the photographs were holding glasses of wine and were therefore probably drunk. If you were drunk, he had heard, you smiled and laughed.

  He examined the photographs of a party which had been held at a very couthie place called Ramsay Garden. Somebody who lived there, it said, was giving drinks to his friends, who were all standing around laughing. That’s nice, thought Bertie. One or two of the friends looked a bit drunk, in Bertie’s view, but at least they were still standing, which was also nice. And there was a photograph of a man playing the kind-looking host’s piano. His hands were raised over the keyboard and he was smiling at the camera, which Bertie thought was very clever, as it was hard to get your fingers on the right notes if you were not looking. Underneath the photograph there was a line which said: Eric von Ibler accompanies the singing, while David Todd turns the pages. Bertie wondered what the guests had been singing. He had once walked with his father past a pub where everybody was singing ‘Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice’, which was a very strange song, thought Bertie. Was that what they were singing at the Ramsay Garden party? he wondered. Perhaps.

  Bertie sighed, and turned the page. There was a lot of fun being had in Scotland, mostly by grown-ups, and he wondered if he would ever be able to join in. He looked at the new spread of photographs and his eye was caught by some familiar faces. Yes, there was Mr Roddy Martine, whom Bertie had seen in a previous copy of the magazine, months ago. Mr Martine was very lucky, thought Bertie. All these invitations! And this was a party to launch his book about Rosslyn Chapel, and there was a photograph of Mr Charlie Maclean, balancing a glass of whisky on his nose. Mr Charlie Maclean entertains the guests, the caption read, while Mr Bryan Johnston and Mr Humphrey Holmes look on. That was very clever, thought Bertie. They must have had such fun at that party.

  ‘Bertie?’

  He looked up from Scottish Field and all the colour, all the warmth of the world of those pages seemed to drain away. Now he was back in monochrome. Dr Fairbairn.

  Irene came from behind Dr Fairbairn and took a seat in the waiting room. Ulysses was strapped to her front in his tartan sling. She glanced with disapproval at Scottish Field and picked up, instead, a copy of The Economist.

  ‘Dr Fairbairn’s ready to see you now, Bertie,’ she said. ‘Just half an hour today.’

  Bertie went into the consulting room and sat in his usual seat. Outside, he could see the tops of the trees in Queen Street Gardens. They were moving in the breeze. It would be a good place to fly a kite, he thought; if he had one, which he did not.

  ‘Now, Bertie,’ said Dr Fairbairn. ‘You’ve had a very big change in your life, haven’t you? Your younger brother. Wee Ulysses. That’s a big change.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bertie. Ulysses had brought many changes, especially a lot of mess and noise.

  ‘Having a new brother or sister is a major event in our lives, Bertie,’ said Dr Fairbairn. ‘And we must express our feelings about it.’

  Bertie said nothing. He was staring at Dr Fairbairn’s forehead. Just above his eyebrows, on either side, there was a sort of bump, or ridge. And it was just like the bump he had seen on Ulysses’ brow, whatever his mother said. Other people did not have that, Bertie was sure of that – just Dr Fairbairn and Ulysses.

  ‘Yes,’ Dr Fairbairn went on. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me what you’re thinking about Ulysses. Then we can look at these feelings. We can talk about them. We can get them out in the open.’

  Bertie thought for a moment. Was this really what Dr Fairbairn wanted? ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘You won’t think I’m being rude?’

  Dr Fairbairn laughed. ‘Being rude? My goodness me, no, Bertie
. It’s not rude to articulate these feelings to a therapist!’

  Bertie took a deep breath. The leaves outside the window were moving more energetically now. A kite would fly so well out there; so high. ‘Am I allowed to?’ he asked. ‘Mummy said it was rude . . .’

  ‘Of course you’re allowed to, Bertie! Remember that I’m a sort of doctor. It’s never rude to say things to a doctor. Doctors have heard hundreds and hundreds of rude things in their job. That’s what doctors are for. They’re there to tell rude things to. You can’t shock a doctor, Bertie!’

  Bertie looked out of the window again. Very well.

  ‘Are you really Ulysses’ daddy, Dr Fairbairn?’ he asked.

  28. Lectures on the Act of Union

  Big Lou’s customers could be divided into two groups. During the earlier part of the morning, between eight and ten, there were always the same twenty or so people who came in for a morning coffee on the way to work. These were people whom Big Lou described as her ‘hard workers’, in contrast to those who came in after ten – Matthew and Angus and the like – whose day was only just starting when the hard workers had already put in an hour or two at the office.

  Coming from Arbroath, as she did, and from an agricultural background, Big Lou knew all about hard work. Indeed, unremitting labour had been Big Lou’s lot from childhood. It had been natural for her to help as a child on the farm, dealing with lambs that needed attention – a pleasant job which she enjoyed – or helping to muck out the byre – not such a pleasant job, but one which she had always performed with good grace. And then there had been kitchen work, which again she had been raised to, and scrubbing floors, and dusting shelves, and carrying trays of tea to bed-bound elderly relatives. Big Lou had done it all.

  ‘You don’t know you’re born,’ she once said to Matthew.

  Matthew smiled. ‘I’m not sure how to interpret that remark, Lou,’ he replied. ‘At one level – the literal – it’s patently absurd. Of course I know I’m born. I’m aware of my existence. But if you’re suggesting . . .’

  ‘You ken fine what I’m suggesting,’ interjected Big Lou. ‘I’m suggesting you haven’t got a clue.’

  Matthew smiled again. ‘About what, Lou? You know, you really shouldn’t be so opaque.’

  ‘I mean that you don’t know what hard work’s all about.’ Big Lou spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a particularly slow child.

  ‘Ah,’ said Matthew. ‘Now your meaning becomes clearer, Lou. We’re on to that one again. Well, you’re the one who needs a bit of a reality check. Work patterns have changed, Lou. Or they’ve changed in countries like this. We don’t make things any more, you may have noticed. Things are made in China. So we’re doing different sorts of work. It’s all changed. Different work patterns.’

  Big Lou looked at him coolly. ‘China?’

  ‘Yes. Everything – or virtually everything. Take a look at the label – it’ll tell you. Made in China. Clothes. Shoes too now. All the electronic thingamybobs. Everything. Except for cars, which are made by the Japanese and occasionally by the Germans. That’s it.’

  Big Lou moved her polishing cloth across the bar. ‘A second industrial revolution. Just like the first. All the plant, all the equipment is set up in one country and that’s where everything’s made.’ She paused. ‘And us? What’s left for us to do?’

  ‘We’ll design things,’ said Matthew. ‘We’ll produce the intellectual property. That’s the theory, anyway.’

  Big Lou looked thoughtful. ‘But can’t they do that just as well in the East? In India, for example?’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘They have to leave something for us to do.’

  ‘Do they?’

  Big Lou waited for an answer to her question, but none was forthcoming. So she decided to ask another one. ‘Matthew, what do you think a fool’s paradise looks like?’

  Matthew looked about him. Then he turned to Lou. ‘Let’s change the subject, Lou. Who’s your new man?’

  Lou stopped polishing for a moment. She stared at Matthew. ‘New man?’

  ‘Come on, Lou,’ said Matthew. ‘You know how news gets around. I’ve heard that you’ve got a new man. Robert? Angus told me. That’s his name, isn’t it?’

  Big Lou hesitated for a moment. Then she resumed her polishing. ‘My affairs are my business, Matthew.’

  Matthew smiled. ‘So you’re not denying that there’s somebody?’

  ‘There might be.’

  ‘In other words, there is.’

  Big Lou said nothing. She had been embarrassed by the public way in which her breakup with Eddie had happened; she felt humiliated by that. And if anything similar were to happen with Robert, she did not want people to know about it. Nobody likes to be seen to be rejected, and Big Lou was no exception to that rule.

  Matthew lifted his coffee cup and drained it. ‘I hope it works out this time, Lou,’ he said. ‘You deserve it.’

  She raised her eyes and looked at him. He meant it, she decided. ‘Thank you, Matthew. He’s a nice man. I’ll tell him to come in one morning so that you can meet him.’

  ‘What does he do?’ asked Matthew.

  ‘Ceilings,’ said Lou. ‘Robert does ceilings. You know, when you want to replace cornicing, you need moulds. Robert does that. And he makes new cornices. He’s quite an artist.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Matthew. This was better, he thought, than Eddie, with his Rootsie-Tootsie Club and his teenage girls.

  ‘Yes,’ Big Lou went on. ‘He’s very good at that. Architects use him. Historic Scotland. People like that. But his real passion is history. That’s how I met him. I went to a lecture at the museum and I found myself sitting next to him. That’s how it happened. It was a lecture by Paul Scott on the Act of Union. Robert was there.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Matthew. He knew this sounded trite, but he could not think of anything else to say. And it was nice, he thought, to picture Big Lou going to a lecture on the Act of Union and finding a man. There were undoubtedly many women who went to lectures at the museum and did not find a man.

  Then Matthew thought of something else to say. He was fond of Big Lou; an almost brotherly affection, he felt, and brothers should on occasion sound a warning note. ‘You’ll be careful, won’t you, Lou?’ he said quietly. ‘There are some men who . . . Well, I don’t want to remind you of Eddie, Lou, but remember what happened there. I don’t want your heart to be broken again, Lou.’

  She reached out and put a hand on Matthew’s forearm. They had never touched before; this was the first time. ‘I’ll be careful,’ she said. ‘And thank you for saying that.’

  Matthew lifted up his cup. It was completely empty, without even any froth around the rim to lick off. He looked at the bottom of the cup, where there was a small mark and some printing. China, it said.

  ‘Look,’ he said to Big Lou. ‘See.’

  Lou took the cup from Matthew and looked at its base. ‘But that’s what it is,’ she said.

  29. A Jacobite

  That evening, Matthew went to the Cumberland Bar. He was due to meet Pat at eight and had promised to take her somewhere exciting for dinner. That promise was beginning to worry him – not because he was unwilling to take her out; rather it was the difficulty of choosing somewhere which she would consider exciting. In one interpretation, exciting was synonymous with plush and expensive; in which case they could go to the Witchery or even Prestonfield House. But that, he thought, was not what Pat had in mind. An exciting restaurant for her probably meant a place where both the décor and the people were unusual, the sort of place where celebrities went. But where were these places, and were there any celebrities in Edinburgh anyway? And if there were, then who were they? The Lord Provost? Sir Timothy Clifford? Ian Rankin? Possibly. But where did these people go for dinner? Ian Rankin went to the Oxford Bar, of course, but you wouldn’t get much to eat there. And the Lord Provost had her own dining room in the City Chambers. She probably had dinner there, looking out over the top of Princes Stree
t, reading council minutes, wondering which streets could be dug up next.

  Angus Lordie was in the bar, sitting morosely at his table, the place at his feet where Cyril normally sat deserted now. Matthew joined him.

  ‘Where’s your young friend?’ Angus asked.

  ‘She’s got a name,’ said Matthew. ‘Pat.’

  ‘That’s the one. Where is she?’

  Matthew took a sip of his beer. ‘I’m meeting her later on. We’re going out for dinner.’

  Angus nodded at this information. He did not seem particularly interested, and indeed it was very uninteresting information, Matthew thought. That’s my trouble, he said to himself – I’m not exciting.

  ‘I haven’t decided where to take her yet,’ said Matthew. He looked at Angus quizzically. ‘Tell me, Angus, do you know any exciting restaurants?’

  Angus shook his head. ‘Exciting restaurants? Not me, I’m afraid. I never go out for a meal, except for lunch at the Scottish Arts Club. Of course, I had a meal down in Canonmills once, but that place closed. And there’s a nice Italian place round the corner, but the proprietor went back to Italy. Lucca, I think.’ He paused. ‘Has that been any help?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Matthew. ‘Although I suppose it closes off certain possibilities.’

  ‘Mind you,’ said Angus, ‘there used to be some exciting restaurants in Edinburgh. There was the Armenian Restaurant, of course, which used to be down in that old steamie opposite the Academy. You won’t remember it, but I used to go there from time to time. Then he moved up to that old place near Holyrood. He may still be there – I don’t know. Very exotic place that – exciting too, if the proprietor got on to the subject of Armenian history.’

  Angus looked down at Cyril’s empty place. It was at this very table that, some time ago, he had been reunited with Cyril after he had escaped his captors. He looked up at the door through which Cyril had been led by his rescuer, the man who worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland. If only he would come back through that door again, with Cyril on a lead; idle thought, impossible thought; the state was a much more efficient kidnapper of dogs, and Cyril would be firmly under lock and key, conditions that would require a Houdini Terrier – if there was such a breed – to enable escape.