The World According to Bertie

by Alexander McCall Smith

  He looked up. ‘Why not make her dinner at your place? Candlelight. A nice bottle of something. That’s what I would do if . . .’ He broke off, his attention suddenly attracted by something he had seen on the other side of the room. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That chap over there,’ said Angus, inclining his head to the far side of the bar. ‘That one, with the grey jacket. Yes, him. You know who that is?’

  Matthew looked at the person indicated by Angus. He was a man somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, neatly dressed, with dark hair. He was engaged in conversation with a couple of other men seated at his table. One of them was leaning forward to listen to him, while the other sat back and looked up at the ceiling, as if weighing up what was being said.

  Matthew turned back to Angus. ‘Never seen him,’ he said. ‘Who is he?’

  Angus leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘That, Matthew my friend, is Rabbie Cromach – Big Lou’s new friend. That’s who he is!’

  Matthew turned back to stare at the man. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, that’s interesting.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Angus. ‘But what’s more interesting is the company he’s in.’

  Matthew’s heart sank. It seemed that Big Lou was destined to choose unsuitable men – men who bordered on the criminal. Was she doing it again? He hardly dared ask. ‘Bad company?’ he said finally.

  Angus smiled. ‘Depends on your view of a number of things,’ he said. ‘The Act of Settlement for one thing. The Hanoverians. General Wade. The list could go on.’

  ‘I’m not with you,’ said Matthew.

  Angus leaned forward again. ‘Sorry to be obscure, but you’ll soon see what I mean. That man directly opposite Rabbie – the one with the blue jacket – him, yes him. He’s an eighty-four-horsepower fruitcake, if I may mix my metaphors. Always writing to the papers. Got chucked out of the public gallery at the General Assembly a few years ago and out of the Scottish Parliament too. Shouting his heid off about Hanoverian usurpers. Get my drift?’

  Matthew looked in fascination. ‘Jacobites?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Angus. ‘Those two – I forget the other one’s name, but he’s in it up to here – those two are well-known Jacobites – the real McCoy. They actually believe in the whole thing. King over the Water toasts and all that.’

  Matthew looked at the three men in fascination. It struck him as odd that people could harbour a historical grudge so long – to the point of disturbing the succession to the throne. But then, the whole story was such a romantic one that people just forgot what the Stuarts, or many of them, were actually like. Of course they thought that the Hanoverians were German – and they were right.

  Through Matthew’s mind there suddenly ran a snatch of song, half-remembered, but strangely familiar. ‘Noo a big prince cam to Edinburgh-toon / And he was just a wee bit German lairdie / For a far better man than ever he was / Lay oot in the heather wi’ his tartan plaidie!’

  One could get caught up in sentiments like that. Perhaps it was not as ridiculous as it seemed.

  Angus now patted Matthew on the forearm. ‘Matthew,’ he said. ‘I want to tell you a story. About those characters. Interested?’

  30. A Circular City

  Matthew was interested. Angus Lordie’s views on the world were often rather quirky – off-centre, in an unexpected way – but he had an extraordinary knowledge of things that were out of the experience of most people. This came in part from his unconventional background, and in part from his interest in what he termed ‘things behind things’.

  On another occasion, when they had been talking to one another in the Cumberland Bar, Matthew had asked him: ‘And what exactly do you mean by “things behind things”?’ To which Angus had replied: ‘It’s all about what people really mean. Most people, you see, act on two levels – the public, and the private. They have a public life which anybody can see, and then they have a private life, which is what really counts. So take politicians, for instance; they all say more or less the same thing – utter the same slogans about improving services and so on – but what really counts is the private understandings they have with one another, with their backers. So things are not necessarily what they seem to be on the surface. You have to look at the networks.’

  He had expanded. ‘And this city is a good example. It’s full of understandings, connections, networks. Some of these are fairly open. Everybody knows who’s in which political party and who their friends will be. So when a public job comes up, the rhetoric will be about who’s best for the post and so on. But we all know that that is just rhetoric. What really counts is who knows the people in power. Which shouldn’t surprise anybody, I suppose. That’s how most places are run, isn’t it? We like our friends; we trust them; we reward them.

  ‘But if you think that it’s all that open, then you need to think again. It’s the connections beneath the surface that can be really important. If you go to some grand function or other, what do you find? I’ll tell you, Matthew: everybody there knows one another, except you! Isn’t that interesting? When I was on the Artists’ Benevolent Committee, I would be thrown a few scraps of invitations to some of these official parties – receptions and so on – and what do you think I found? Everybody who came in the door immediately went off and chatted with somebody or other. Nobody stood around and looked spare. They all knew one another.

  ‘Now, I’m not one of these people who imagine conspiracies, Matthew, but I’m not blind. And I’m also quite interested in what makes things tick, and so I had to ask myself: how did they all know one another? And what do you think the reason is?’

  Matthew looked vague. He was thinking of how many people he knew, and he had decided that it was not very many. He was intrigued, though, and he wondered if Angus knew of some secret cabal. Was his father involved? he asked himself. His father seemed to know an awful lot of people, and Matthew had always assumed that this was because he was a Watsonian, and had played rugby. But was there something more to it than that? He looked at Angus. ‘Are there . . . are there circles?’

  For a moment, Angus appeared puzzled by the question. Then he leaned forward and whispered: ‘Yes. There are circles.’ And with that he had made a circular movement with a finger.

  Matthew was not sure how to take this. So he simply repeated: ‘Circles.’

  Angus nodded gravely. ‘Lots of them.’

  ‘But what proof do you have?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘Look at the architecture,’ said Angus. ‘And I don’t just mean Rosslyn Chapel, although that’s very interesting. Look at Moray Place. Start walking at one point and carry on, and where do you end up? Where you started! It’s a circle, you see.

  ‘And then there’s Muirfield Golf Course, where the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers has its seat. What happens if you start on the first tee? You walk all over the place, but you end up more or less where you started – back at the clubhouse. Circular.’

  ‘So what does all this mean?’ asked Matthew.

  ‘I would have thought it’s pretty obvious,’ replied Angus. ‘This is a city which is built on the circular. So if you want to understand it, you have to get into that circular frame of mind. And that frame of mind is everywhere. Look at an Eightsome Reel. How do people arrange themselves? In a circle. And that’s a metaphor, Matthew, for the whole process. You get in a circle, and you work from there. You refer to others in the same circle. You don’t think outside the circle.’

  ‘You mean outside the box,’ Matthew corrected him.

  ‘No, I said circle,’ insisted Angus. ‘And that’s what I mean.’

  And then Angus had become silent. Matthew wanted him to say more, but he had not, and he had been left with the uncomfortable conclusion that Angus was either slightly mad or . . . and this was a distinct possibility, slightly circular. But the conversation had remained with him, and now, sitting again in the Cumberland Bar, again with Angus, he had reason to recollect it as they looked across the room at th
e small circle of men at the other table . . . circle . . .

  ‘That,’ said Angus quietly, ‘is a Jacobite circle. The one in the blue jacket is called Michael somebody-or-other and he’s the one I’ve met before. I was in a pub over the other side of town, the Captain’s Bar, in South College Street, near the university. It’s a funny wee place, very narrow, with a bunch of crabbit regulars and a smattering of students. Not the sort of place one would have gone in the old days if one objected to being kippered in smoke. I was there with an old friend from art college days who liked to drink there. Anyway, there we were when in came that fellow over there, Michael, and another couple of people – a lang-nebbit woman wearing a sort of Paisley shawl and a man in a brown tweed coat. Jimmy, my friend from art college, knew the woman in the shawl, and so we ended up standing next to one another and a conversation started. It was pleasant enough, I suppose, and we bought each other a round of drinks. Then Michael looked at his watch and said that they had to go, but that we were welcome to go along with them if we had nothing better to do. Jimmy said: “I suppose you’re off to one of your meetings.” And Michael laughed and said that they were, but that we would be welcome too. There would be something to eat, they said, and since we were both feeling hungry, we agreed to go.

  ‘And that,’ said Angus, ‘is how I became aware of that particular circle of Jacobites, and their strange interest in things Stuart. Would you like to hear about what they get up to? Will you believe me if I tell you?’

  Matthew nodded. ‘I would like to hear, and yes, I will believe you. You don’t embroider the truth do you, Angus?’

  Angus smiled. ‘It depends,’ he said.

  31. Edinburgh Clubs

  ‘We went off with these three,’ said Angus. ‘Michael, the woman in the shawl and the man in the brown tweed coat. A motley crew, I must admit.

  ‘I asked Jimmy what sort of meeting we were heading for, but he didn’t answer directly. “Edinburgh’s full of all sorts of clubs,” was all he said. Which was true, of course. We all know that Edinburgh’s riddled with these things, and always has been. Back in the eighteenth century, there were scores of them. The Rankenian Club, for example – Hume was a member of that. That was intellectually respectable, of course, but some of the clubs were pretty much the opposite of that. You’ve heard of the Dirty Club, perhaps, where no member was allowed to appear in clean linen. Or the Odd Fellows, where the members wrote their names upside down. And there was even something called the Sweating Club, the members of which would enjoy themselves in a tavern and then rush out to chase whomsoever they came across and tear his wig off, if he was wearing one. The idea was to make the poor victim sweat. Very strange.

  ‘Burns belonged to a club, you know. He joined the Crochallan Fencibles, as poor Robert Fergusson had joined the Cape Club before him. He so enjoyed that – Fergusson did – and his life was to be so brief. I still weep, you know, when I see his grave down in the Canongate Kirkyard. He could have been as great a poet as Burns, don’t you think? Burns certainly did.

  ‘Speaking of the eighteenth century, there were some clubs which would never have survived into Victorian Scotland because of the onset of prudery. There’s the famous Beggar’s Benison club, which started in Fife, of all places – not a place we immediately associate with licentiousness. I really can’t say too much about that club, Matthew; decency prevents my describing their rituals, but initiation into the membership was really shocking (if one is shocked by things like that). What is it about men in groups that makes them do that sort of thing, Matthew? Of course they felt that London was trying to take away all the fun – the English had imposed a new monarchy, and a Union to boot. What was there left for Scotland to do but to turn to the older, phallic gods?

  ‘So there have always been these clubs, and of course old habits die hard. There are still bags of these clubs in Edinburgh, but nobody ever talks about them. And why do you think that is, Matthew? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because there are too many people who want to stop us having fun. That’s the reason. They’ve always been with us. And if it’s a group of males having fun together, then look out!

  ‘So the Edinburgh clubs went more or less underground. How many people, for instance, know about the Monks of St Giles?’

  Matthew looked blank. ‘I don’t.’

  Angus lowered his voice. ‘The Monks of St Giles is a club. It still exists – still meets. They give themselves Latin names and they meet and compose poetry. They even have a clubhouse, but I’m not going to tell you where it is. Some very influential people are members. And it sounds terrific fun, since they wear robes, but there’d be such a fuss if word got out. Can you imagine the prying, humourless journalists who would love to have a go at them? I can. Composing poetry in private! Not the sort of thing we want in an inclusive Scotland, where everybody will have to be able to read everybody else’s poetry!

  ‘Have you seen the Archers? That’s another club. They’ve got a clubhouse too. Over near the Meadows. They call it their Hall, which is rather a nice name for a clubhouse. They’re frightfully grand, and I’d like to know how you become a member. Can you apply? If not, why not? But we shouldn’t really ask that sort of question. Why can’t these people get on with their private fantasies without being taken to task for being elitist or whatever the charge would be? Or for not having female monks, or whatever? Women are fully entitled to their secret societies, Matthew, and have them, in this very city. Have you heard of the Sisters of Portia, which is for women lawyers? Virtually all the women lawyers in Edinburgh belong to that, but they don’t let on, and they certainly wouldn’t let men have a men-only legal club. Can you imagine the fuss? Of course, some of them say that men used to have a male-only club called the Law Society of Scotland, but I don’t think that’s funny, Matthew. Do you? The Sisters of Portia are every bit as fishy as the Freemasons, if you ask me. They give one another a professional leg-up and they close ranks at the drop of the hat. Or the Red Garter, which is a club that meets every month in the Balmoral Hotel. That’s for women in politics, except for Conservatives, who aren’t allowed. And most of the women politicians are in it, but nobody lets on, and they even deny it exists if you ask.

  ‘I haven’t mentioned the most secretive one of all. That’s a strictly women’s club called the Ravelston Dykes. They meet every other week in Ravelston. But let’s not even think of them, Matthew. They’re fully entitled to exist and have a bit of fun. If only they’d extend us the same courtesy.

  ‘And then there’s another society which is said to have survived from the eighteenth century and which meets by candlelight on Wednesday evenings. The thing about that one, Matthew, is that it doesn’t actually exist! Every so often, people make a fuss about it, but the truth of the matter is that it’s entirely fictional! But I’m not concerned with apocryphal clubs like that one; I want to tell you about the club that we ended up going to that night. And it was far from apocryphal!’

  Matthew looked encouragingly at Angus. He enjoyed listening to these strange accounts of Edinburgh institutions, but he was keen for Angus to get on to the point of the story. What sort of club was it that he and his friend were taken to that night? Was it a reincarnation of the Beggar’s Benison? Surely not something so lewd as that. Edinburgh, after all, was a respectable city, and whatever the eighteenth century had been like, the twenty-first was certainly quite different.

  He looked at Angus. Such an unreconstructed man, he thought; it’s surprising that he hasn’t been taken to task, or even fined, for the things he says.

  32. Relative Warmth for the Ice Man

  Angus continued the story of his meeting with Big Lou’s friend and his friends in the Captain’s Bar.

  ‘As we went out into the night,’ he said, ‘the woman in the Paisley shawl introduced herself to me and we walked along together. She was called Heather McDowall, she told me, and she was something or other in the Health Board – an administrator, I think. She then explained that she had a Gaelic name
as well, and she pointed out that I could call her Mhic dhu ghaill, if I wished.

  ‘We were walking along South College Street when she said this. The others were slightly ahead, engaged in conversation of their own, while la McDowall and I trailed a bit behind. It had rained, and the stone setts paving the road glistened in the street-lights. I felt exhilarated by the operatic beauty of our surroundings: the dark bulk of the Old College to our left, the high, rather dingy tenement to our right. At any moment, I thought, a window might open in the tenement above and a basso profondo lean out and break into song. That might happen in Naples, I suppose, but not Edinburgh; still, one might dream.

  ‘La McDowall then launched into an explanation of the name McDowall and her ancestry. Have you noticed how these people are often obsessed with their ancestry? What does it matter? We’re most of us cousins in Scotland, if you go far enough back, and if you go even further back, don’t we all come from five ur-women in Western Europe somewhere? Isn’t that what Professor Sykes says in his book?

  ‘Talking of Professor Sykes, do you know that I met him, Matthew? No, you don’t. Well, I did. I happened to be friendly with a fellow of All Souls in Oxford. Wonderful place, that. Free lunch and dinner for life – the best job there is. Anyway, this friend of mine is an economic historian down there – Scottish historians, you may have noticed, have taken over from Scottish missionaries in carrying the light to those parts. And we’ve got some jolly good historians, Matthew – Ted Cowan, Hew Strachan, Sandy Fenton, with his old ploughs and historic brose, Rosalind Marshall, who’s just written this book about Mary’s female pals, Hugh Cheape, who knows all about old bagpipes and suchlike, and any number of others. Anyway, I knew this chap when he was so-high, running around Perthshire in funny breeks like Wee Eck’s. He invited me down for a feast, as they call it, and I decided to go out of curiosity. I was put up in a guest room in All Souls itself – no bathroom for miles, of course, and an ancient retainer who brought in a jug of water and said something which I just couldn’t make out. Some strange English dialect; you know how they mutilate the language down there.