The World According to Bertie

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘There are quite a lot of people like that,’ said Dilly.

  They were both silent for a while. The sun came in through a high window, slanting. There was the smell of olive oil, of freshly baked bread; there was the murmur of conversation at a nearby table. For a brief moment, Domenica closed her eyes and imagined a parallel Scotland, one of kindness and courtesy, where the vulgarity of our age had no place, other than a shameful one. Was it wrong to dream of such a thing? Or was it just ‘uncool’?

  95. At Last

  Matthew knew that he was moving too quickly, but he was like a man driving a car down a very steep hill; there were brakes, of course, but the car itself wanted to go faster and faster. He knew that what he should do with Elspeth Harmony was to get to know her better and then, if he was still sure that she was the right person, he could suggest whatever it was that he wanted to suggest. And what he wanted to suggest was marriage – just that. Matthew was now over twenty-eight. In fact, he was twenty-nine and would be thirty on his next birthday. Thirty!

  People, or some people, would begin to look at him with something approaching pity. He would begin to get better insurance rates and he could start going on those over-thirty holidays that he had seen advertised. The advertisements, of course, did not say anything about a top age limit – all they said was that the holidays were for those over thirty, and that meant, he realised, that he might find himself on holiday with people of forty or even fifty!

  No, he would have to do something about finding somebody, and that is exactly what he had done. He had not looked for Elspeth – she had just turned up, on his doorstep, or the doorstep of his gallery, and they had immediately taken to one another. And now all he wanted to do was to make sure that she would stay with him and that she would move into India Street. They would become a couple – a couple! – and they would build up a bank of memories, of things they had done together, places they had been. They would travel. They would go to Barbados, to the Seychelles, to India. They would take photographs of one another riding camels and sitting on a houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala while the sun went down and birds flocked to the trees. They would lie on a beach in Thailand, on Ko Samui, and listen to the waves. All this lay ahead, and Matthew wanted it to start as soon as possible.

  His visit to Elspeth Harmony’s flat had gone well enough. She had been distraught over her suspension from the school, but he had succeeded in getting her to see the positive side of this.

  ‘Look on it as a career change,’ he said. ‘Lots of people have them. And everybody says that it’s a good thing.’

  She thought about this for a moment. ‘But I haven’t got another career to go to,’ she said. ‘And do you think anyone will give a job to somebody who’s been fired? Do you think that?’

  ‘Not fired,’ said Matthew. ‘You can resign before they fire you. You can resign right now.’

  ‘But everybody will know that I’ve only resigned because I was about to get fired,’ she pointed out. ‘You know what this town’s like. Everybody knows everybody else.’

  Matthew decided that it was time to be more direct. ‘So what if they know?’ he said. ‘I know, and I’m still going to offer you a job.’

  She stared at him in surprise.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You can have a job in my gallery. Straight away. You can start tomorrow, if you like.’ He paused. ‘Not that you’d have to do any work. Not real work. All you’d have to do is look after the gallery sometimes – when I go to auctions or to meet a client. Things like that.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything about art,’ she protested. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Matthew was about to say: ‘And nor do I,’ but did not. Instead, he said: ‘That doesn’t matter. You can learn as you go along. You can read Duncan Macmillan’s book on Scottish art. There’s lots of information there. And you’ll pick it up. But you really don’t need to bother.’

  Elspeth laughed. ‘This sounds like a most peculiar job,’ she said. ‘I have no qualifications for it, and I won’t have to do much work. Will it be paid? Or will it be one of these jobs where you have to pay yourself to do it?’

  ‘It’ll be paid,’ said Matthew eagerly. ‘And the pay is really, really good.’

  She hesitated. She did not want to ask what the salary was, but this was such a peculiar situation that she might as well. ‘How much?’ she inquired.

  Matthew shrugged; he had not thought about the salary. ‘Oh, about . . .’ He waved a hand in the air. ‘About sixty thousand a year.’

  Elspeth said nothing for a moment. Then, her voice quiet: ‘I really don’t think we should talk about this any more,’ she said. ‘It’s very kind of you, but . . .’

  Matthew felt a surge of panic. I’m going to lose her, he thought. I’ve mishandled this. She thinks that I’m trying to . . . to buy her!

  He knew that he had to act, or he would have a lifetime to regret not acting. ‘Elspeth,’ he said earnestly. ‘I may as well tell you that the job . . . Well, you can have the job of course, if you want it, but what I’m really talking about is something quite different. I want to ask you something, and I want you to know that whatever I’ve said up until now doesn’t count for anything. But what I’m about to say to you now, well, I really do mean it. I want to ask you if you will marry me. That’s all. I know that we hardly know one another, I know that, but I feel that you and I are . . . well, I just think that it feels right. It feels so right that I want you to know everything that I’m thinking, and it would be dishonest to pretend that I’m not thinking this. I want you to marry me. Please. Please. I really mean it.’

  She said nothing for a few moments, but she was thinking, quickly. Nobody had ever asked Elspeth Harmony to marry him before. And she wanted to get married. She wanted to have a husband and children of her own. She liked Matthew; she liked him a great deal. Liking can become love. In fact, it had just done precisely that. Right then. She loved him.

  ‘I’ll marry you,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ But then she thought: I should check up on one thing first.

  ‘Would you want a family?’ she asked. ‘Children?’

  ‘Hundreds,’ said Matthew. ‘Or at least four or five.’

  ‘But we probably wouldn’t be able to afford that many,’ she said, smiling at his enthusiasm.

  Matthew watched her as she spoke. Perhaps he should tell her. He did not want to tell her before she had said yes, but now he felt that he could.

  96. The Porsche Experience

  On the day that Matthew proposed – successfully – to Elspeth Harmony, Bruce went to see a motor dealer. The dealer knew Bruce’s future father-in-law and had received a call from him several days earlier on the subject of Bruce’s car; instructions were given, and the dealer in due course telephoned Bruce to arrange the appointment.

  For Bruce, this was the first result of the agreement he had reached with Graeme Donald following their meeting over dinner in Julia’s flat. Bruce had been surprised by the directness with which the older man had spoken. There had been no beating about the bush, no tactful references to vague possibilities: it had all been spelled out in the most unambiguous terms. Graeme Donald would see to it that his daughter’s husband would be well looked after.

  There would be an engagement, followed by a wedding, and once that was over, then the real benefits would begin to flow. Nothing could be simpler.

  The car, which went with the soon-to-be-assumed directorship of the holding company (that would be put into effect after the wedding), would be an earnest of things to come, and, besides, with Bruce shortly assuming operational responsibility for the wine bar in George Street, transport would be necessary. So the call to the dealer was made.

  The dealer, who operated from a small showroom in Morningside, was of course a Freemason, and was a member of the same lodge as Graeme.

  ‘Julia’s young man is not in the craft yet,’ said Graeme. ‘But that will be arranged soon enough. I think he’s sound enough.’

&n
bsp; As it happened, the dealer was not listening when Graeme said this, with the result that when Bruce arrived at his garage, he gave him a warm and prolonged handshake, in the course of which, using his thumb, he firmly pressed Bruce’s middle knuckle. At the same time, the dealer kept his heels together and the toes of his shoes out, thus forming an angle of exactly ninety degrees with his feet. This is what is known as being on the square and is a sure sign of masonic status.

  When Bruce felt his knuckles being pressed in this peculiar fashion, he misunderstood the signal. Of course these chaps go for me, he thought. Quite understandable, but he would have to give a signal that he played for the other team.

  ‘My girlfriend couldn’t come with me,’ said Bruce, repeating, for emphasis, ‘girlfriend.’

  The dealer smiled. ‘We’re better off without them,’ he said, meaning, of course, that in his view the choosing of cars was really a male matter, best done by men.

  They moved on to the cars. ‘I have four Porsches in stock,’ said the dealer. ‘All of them low mileage. Would you like to take a look?’

  Bruce nodded, and was shown over to the first of the Porsches, a silver model, a low-slung, sneaky-looking car.

  ‘Great cars,’ said Bruce.

  ‘They go from nought to sixty like that,’ said the dealer, snapping his fingers. ‘This one here is a 911 Turbo.’ He patted the top of the car. ‘You’ll be wondering about the difference between it and the GT3? A few facts and figures?’

  ‘Great,’ said Bruce, bending down to look in the window.

  ‘Maximum torque (Nm) at rpm in the Turbo is 620 Nm (with overboot to 680 Nm),’ the dealer began. He paused, while Bruce absorbed this information. ‘Whereas, with the GT3– and that red car over there, that’s a GT3– the max torque is 405 Nm. Also,’ and here he raised a finger, ‘also, there’s a different compression ratio. 9.0:1 in the Turbo, and 12.0:1 in the GT3. Mind you, there’s a bottom line.’

  ‘There always is,’ said Bruce.

  ‘Yes,’ said the dealer. ‘The bottom line is this: the maximum speed in each case is 193 mph. Tops. That’s the max.’

  Bruce looked thoughtful. ‘Not bad,’ he said.

  The dealer nodded. ‘Dr Porsche is working on pushing that up a bit, but for the time being, 193 mph it is.’

  Bruce opened the door of the silver car and slid into the driver’s seat. He held the leather-covered steering wheel and gazed at the array of instruments. This was very good. At 193 miles per hour, it would take him how long to reach Glasgow from Edinburgh? That was about three miles a minute, which meant that one would divide forty by three, to get just over thirteen. So he could reach Glasgow in fourteen minutes!

  Bruce looked up at the dealer, who was standing by the door, looking down on him, smiling. ‘Could we take this for a test drive?’ he asked.

  The dealer nodded. ‘Of course. If you hold on a moment, I’ll get the key.’

  Bruce moved his hands gently up and down the steering wheel, and then felt the gear lever. The head of the lever was covered with leather and silver, with a little Porsche symbol on the top. The dealer came back, lowered himself into the passenger seat and passed the keys over to Bruce. ‘It’s all yours,’ he said.

  Bruce switched on the engine and listened appreciatively to the throaty roar which resulted. ‘You can get that sound as a ring-tone for your mobile phone,’ said the dealer. ‘That’s what I have on my own phone.’

  ‘Great,’ said Bruce.

  ‘All right,’ said the dealer. ‘Let’s take her out.’

  The silver car slipped out onto the road outside the showroom. Bruce felt the power of the engine as he pressed down on the accelerator, a strong, throbbing feeling, as if there were something live within the machine, some great, stirring creature. He pressed the accelerator down further, and the roar, and the power, grew.

  They soon found themselves up in the Braids, where the comparatively empty roads allowed Bruce to increase his speed. This was heady, intoxicating.

  ‘Feel the G-forces!’ said Bruce, giving the engine its head for a few seconds.

  ‘Serious,’ said the dealer. ‘Really serious G-forces.’

  They turned round, the car engine making a satisfactory growl even at idling speed. Then they drove back to the showroom.

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Bruce. ‘That’s the one.’

  The salesman looked awkward, and Bruce frowned. Had he already sold that model – in which case, what was the point of letting him take the vehicle out for a test drive?

  ‘Well, actually,’ the dealer began, ‘your father-in-law, if I may call him that, has already chosen something for you.’

  Bruce looked puzzled. ‘Chosen?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the dealer. ‘You’re to get a GT3, I’m afraid. The red one over there.’

  Bruce bit his lip. ‘Then why let me drive the Turbo?’

  The dealer smiled. ‘I wanted you to have the best Porsche experience you could,’ he said. ‘And that’s with the Turbo. But the GT3 is still a great car.’

  Bruce turned away. It had suddenly occurred to him that he was walking into something for which he might not have bargained. Trapped, he thought; I’m trapped. But was it better, he wondered, to be trapped with a Porsche or not trapped without a Porsche?

  The former, he decided.

  97. Do we Have to Love our Neighbour?

  Domenica Macdonald looked at her watch. Five o’clock in the afternoon. As Lorca observed, she thought. At that terrible five in the afternoon. A las cinco de la tarde. It was five in the after-noon by all the clocks, said Lorca. And five sounded so sinister, so final (in spite of the existence of six o’clock). Three-thirty had no such associations. Somehow, it did not seem quite so sombre, so tragic, to say: it was at three-thirty in the afternoon. Ah, that terrible three-thirty in the afternoon! Three o’clock seemed somehow more innocent, less brooding, than five, as Rupert Brooke sensed when he referred to the church clock standing at ten to three. Nothing ominous happened at ten to three, as opposed to five minutes to midnight (a dreadful, worrying time) or, of course, five in the afternoon.

  She looked out of her window, onto Scotland Street, where the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen. It was a fine evening, something for which she was grateful, as she had chosen it for the dinner party she had long been planning to mark her safe return from the Malacca Straits, back to Edinburgh, into the bosom of the New Town and those who made up her circle of friends. She remembered how, before she had left for Malaysia, she had been joined in this very room by those self-same friends. She remembered how Angus had made a speech, as he always did on such occasions, and how his speech – which was quite touching – had modulated into a poem about small places, as she recalled. The poem had said something about being grateful for the small scale, for the local, for the minor things that gave meaning to life. And Angus was right: these things were being forgotten in the headlong rush into globalisation, which drained identity out of life, rendered it distant, impersonal. Thank heavens, thought Domenica, for the Royal Bank of Scotland, which still had people round the corner to whom one could speak on the telephone, unlike others, who put one through to India, or Sri Lanka, or even Wales. That was a good object lesson for the rest: the Royal Bank of Scotland was a global bank, but they still knew how important it was to remain rooted. That made Domenica proud. People made a big fuss about sporting heroes – some of whom were pretty ghastly, she thought – but nobody seemed to make a fuss of bankers. And yet they did great things and made piles of money. The big challenge, though, was to get them to share it . . . and also to make sure that they were nice to people with overdrafts.

  Domenica herself had no overdraft, but she suspected that virtually everybody else had one. An overdraft was a rite of passage, in a sense; one went from pocket-money as a child straight into the world of overdraft as a student. And many people remained there, never graduating to the really adult phase when their bank account was in credit. Anthropology had paid little attentio
n to this, she reflected. There were plenty of studies on debt bondage patterns elsewhere, but few, if any, on such bondage in urban, Western societies. In some countries, one might be reduced to virtual slavery, saddled with debts incurred by one’s grandfather, and labouring endlessly just to pay the interest. But here, for many, the sentence was not all that dissimilar, even if the debt was not inherited.

  She thought about her friends and wondered how many of them lived on an overdraft. Angus Lordie, she thought, was one. His finances were a closed book to her; she knew that he received commissions for portraits, but these were sporadic, and she doubted if he made a great deal from them. Angus occasionally painted opulent people, and charged accordingly, but his strong democratic instincts, so deeply rooted in the Scottish psyche, also inclined him to paint those whose pockets were not so deep, indeed were shallow, or had large holes in them; these people he painted for nothing, or next to nothing. Which was wonderful, thought Domenica, and meant that the future record of what Scottish people looked like would be a far more balanced one than the record we had from the past, when artists painted only the wealthy. So we know what rich faces looked like in those days, but we have little idea of what the features of the indigent were like. No; that, she decided, was nonsense, but it had been an interesting thought.

  Yet how did Angus survive? Of course he had relatively few outgoings, as he appeared to eat very little, probably rather less than that dog of his. And his studio was really rather cold most of the time, which suggested that he did not have large gas bills. So perhaps he was all right after all, and she need not worry. Of course it was tempting to speculate on the personal finances of others – what greater pleasure is there than to see somebody else’s bank statement, a guilty pleasure of course, and a furtive one, but tremen-dously interesting? But it was not a healthy thing to do, and Domenica decided that if she saw Angus Lordie’s bank statement lying around, she would fold it up and return it to him, without looking. Or perhaps without looking a great deal.