Love Over Scotland 4ss-3

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mrs Choo waved a hand in the air. “There’s very little danger of that,” she said. “Nobody has been arrested so far.”

  Domenica changed tack. “But do you approve?” she asked.

  “Do you think that piracy is right?”

  The question did not appear to embarrass Mrs Choo. “I’m not entirely happy about it,” she said. “After all, I come from a very law-abiding family. My father was the headmaster of a school. And my mother’s people were a well-known mercantile family from Kuala Lumpur. But it’s not as if Choo is involved in anything too serious. Just a little piracy.”

  Domenica decided that she would not press the matter at this stage. But she would return to it in future, she thought. There 220 Mrs Choo’s Tale

  must be substantial dissonance of beliefs there; it would be fascinating to investigate that. There was, though, one question that she wanted to get out of the way now, and so she asked Mrs Choo about the Belgian anthropologist. Had she known him, and how had he died?

  She asked the question and then sat back in her chair, awaiting the answer. But for a time there was none. Mrs Choo seemed to freeze at the mention of the Belgian. She had been sitting back in her chair before Domenica asked it; now she sat bolt upright, her hands folded primly at her waist. It was not body language which suggested readiness to talk.

  There was silence for a good few moments before Mrs Choo eventually spoke. “That man,” she said coldly, “went back to Belgium. He went back to where all those other Belgians live.

  That is what happened to him. More tea?”

  Domenica, an astute woman, even in unfamiliar social circumstances, guessed that the conversation was an end. It had been a mistake to stray into matters of controversy so quickly, she thought. People did not appreciate that, she reminded herself.

  They liked subtlety. They liked discretion. They liked the circumlocutory question, not the brutal, direct one. So she immediately made a superficial remark about the attractive colour of the orchids on the veranda. Did Mrs Choo know that one could buy such orchids in Edinburgh? They were imported, she believed, from Thailand and Malaysia.

  “They are very attractive flowers,” said Mrs Choo, warming a bit. “I am glad that people in Scotland like orchids.”

  “Oh, they do,” said Domenica. “They are always talking about them.”

  Mrs Choo looked surprised. “I’m astonished,” she said.

  “Always talking about orchids? Even the vulgar people?”

  Domenica smiled. It was such a strange expression, but she knew exactly what Mrs Choo meant. “Maybe not them,” she conceded.

  71. A Formic Discovery

  Domenica spent a further hour or so drinking green tea and talking to Mrs Choo. She did not wish to overstay her welcome, but it very soon became apparent to her that her hostess had very little to do. In fact she said as much at one point, when she referred to the heaviness with which time hung on her hands now that her children were at school. But apart from the occasional self-pitying remark, she was a light-hearted companion who made Domenica feel appreciably better about her situation.

  And her situation, of course, was that of having been the victim of a rather uncomfortable scorpion sting.

  At the end of the hour, though, the swelling on the tip of Domenica’s left foot had diminished considerably, and the stinging pain which had followed upon the initial encounter with the scorpion had all but disappeared. When she rose to leave, she found that it was perfectly possible to put her full weight on her left foot without feeling much discomfort, and her walk back to her own house was a proper walk rather than a hirple.

  Ling was waiting for her on the veranda, seated on the planter’s chair, a paperback book on his lap. Domenica did not see him until she had mounted the steps, and she gave a start when he rose to his feet to greet her.

  “You frightened me,” she said, “sitting there in the shadows.”

  “I’m very sorry,” he said. “I saw you go across to Mrs Choo’s house, and so I thought that I would just wait for you.” He paused, and looked at her foot. “You were limping. I was worried that you had hurt yourself.”

  Domenica explained about the scorpion, and Ling bared his feet in sympathy and shared discomfort. “If you see another scorpion,” he said, “you must ring this bell. You see, I have brought you a bell.”

  He fished into the pocket of the tunic top he was wearing and extracted a small brass bell. As he gave it to Domenica, he shook it and a penetrating, surprisingly loud sound rang out.

  “If I hear that sound,” he said, “then I shall come running over from my place.”

  222 A Formic Discovery

  Domenica thanked him and took the bell. “I shall only use it in a dire emergency,” she said. “Only then.”

  Ling nodded. “If the Belgian had had a bell . . . “ He tailed off, as if he had suddenly remembered that this was a subject that was not to be talked about. But Domenica had heard.

  “This Belgian,” she said quickly. “The anthropologist. Mrs Choo said to me . . .”

  She did not have the chance to finish the sentence. “Now then,”

  said Ling firmly, “we have much to do. Or rather, you have much to do.” He looked about him. “Do you wish me to interpret?”

  Domenica shrugged. “Well, I’ll need to meet people,” she said. “I’ve only spoken to Mrs Choo so far, and that was just a general conversation.”

  “Mrs Choo is not always accurate,” said Ling, his voice lowered, as if Mrs Choo herself might hear. “She means well, but she is not an accurate person.”

  Domenica said nothing. If one was using an interpreter in an anthropological study, it was important that the translation be scrupulously correct. There was nothing worse than an interpreter who had his or her own view of what was what, and this, she feared, might be the case with Ling.

  “It’s very kind of you to be concerned about accuracy,” she said gently. “But the important thing for me is that I hear exactly what people say. It doesn’t matter if you think that they are wrong about something. I can work that out later. All I want to hear is what they say.”

  Ling frowned. “But what if they’re telling lies?” he asked.

  “What if I know that what they are saying is just wrong? I cannot stand by and let people deceive you.”

  For a moment Domenica said nothing. This was going to be difficult, she feared, and a measure of tact was required. “Well, how about this, Ling?” she said. “You can tell me exactly what somebody says. Then, afterwards, you can tell me what you think they should have said. In that way we can keep the two things separate.”

  Ling smiled. “That is a very good idea,” he said. “You can hear what the vulgar people say first; then you can get the truth from me.”

  Preparations for Paris 223

  Domenica nodded enthusiastically. But she had noted, again, the use of the term “vulgar people”, the expression used by Mrs Choo earlier, when they had discussed orchids. This was obviously a literal translation from the local Chinese dialect. Unless, of course, Ling thought that the people of the village were truly vulgar. That was always a possibility.

  “Tell me, Ling,” she said. “What do you think of these local people?”

  “I despise them, of course,” he said evenly, as if that were the only possible answer. “Why do you ask?”

  Domenica left it at that. She had talked enough that morning, and she told Ling that she would like to take a small walk around the village, just by herself, to get her bearings. He left her then, and after a refreshing drink of fruit juice, she set off for a stroll round the periphery of the village. After a while, she came to a path, and she followed this, assuming that it would lead to the sea.

  Halfway down the path there was a small clearing off to one side, and in this clearing there was a large, solitary tree. Domenica hesitated. It was very still, and she felt vaguely uneasy, as if she were somewhere she should not be. She looked about her. On either side of her, the jungle ros
e, a high green wall, lush and impenetrable. One could not see far into that, she thought, and if one could, what would one see? She turned, and stared at the tree in its clearing. She had noticed something under it – a marker of some sort – and she went to investigate. It was a grave, a simple, untended grave, at the head of which a small board had been placed on a stake and fixed into the ground.

  She bent to read the inscription on the wooden board. HERE

  LIES AN ANT, it said.

  72. Preparations for Paris

  “My goodness, Bertie!” said Irene. “Your little diary is very full these days. Let’s think of what we have. In fact, let’s play a little 224 Preparations for Paris

  game. Mummy will list the things you have to do in Italian, and you can translate. How about that?”

  Bertie, sitting at the kitchen table in the Pollock flat in Scotland Street, his legs not quite reaching the floor yet, sighed.

  “If you want to, Mummy.”

  “Allora,” said Irene. “In primo luogo: Tutti insieme appassionatamente! ”

  Bertie looked puzzled. “Cosa? ” he asked.

  Irene smiled, and repeated herself carefully. “Si, Bertie: Tutti insieme appassionatamente! Do you know what that means? Tutti

  – we know that word, don’t we, Bertie? Tutti frutti! You know what that means.”

  “All fruits,” said Bertie.

  “Bravo! Allora, if tutti means all, what about insieme? A nice little word that, Bertie. Very useful. No? Well, it means together, doesn’t it, Bertie? You should have known that by now. But no matter. So . . .”

  “All together passionately,” said Bertie. “What’s that got to do with me, Mummy?”

  Irene raised a finger. “Well, Bertie,” she said, “that’s what The Sound of Music is called in Italian. Yes! That’s what they call it.

  Isn’t that interesting? But let’s move on to the second thing.”

  Bertie was silent. He was thinking of the problems that lay ahead with the school production of The Sound of Music, in which he was to play Captain von Trapp. The fact that he had been chosen for this role was bound to lead to conflict with Tofu –

  he was sure of that – and Bertie had no desire for conflict, particularly with a friend. Tofu was not much of a friend, but he was all that Bertie had.

  “In secondo luogo,” said Irene brightly. “In secondo luogo, we have L’Orchestra degli adolescenti di Edimburgo. And we know what that is, don’t we, Bertie?”

  Bertie did, and the thought of playing in the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra filled him with even more dread than did the prospect of being in The Sound of Music. They had already had one or two rehearsals, which Bertie had attended with some reluctance. Now it was almost time to go to France on the much-

  Preparations for Paris 225

  vaunted Parisian tour, and it seemed to him that there was no way out for him. He could try to feign illness, of course, but he very much doubted whether he would get away with that. So it looked as if he would have to go, in spite of being at least seven years younger than everybody else.

  There was one consolation, though – the fact that his mother would not be coming after all. That prospect had truly appalled him, but had been eventually ruled out after the committee running the orchestra had refused point-blank to make an exception to their no-parents rule.

  “It’s not that we have any objection to parents per se,” the chairman of the committee had told Irene. “It’s just that it’s difficult enough doing the logistics for the children themselves. If we have to start making arrangements for the parents too, then it would become a nightmare.”

  Irene had begun to protest. “But in my case . . .”

  “And there’s another thing,” persisted the chairman, raising his voice. “If we allowed one parent to come, we’d have to allow all the others. And that would inhibit some of the children. We’ve found that they play better if they don’t have parents breathing down their necks. It brings them out of themselves a bit.”

  226 Preparations for Paris

  Irene glared at the chairman. “Are you suggesting that I would actually inhibit Bertie?”

  The chairman made a calming gesture. “Perish the thought!

  Naturally, this doesn’t apply to you, Mrs Pollock. You wouldn’t inhibit Bertie. But not every parent is as reasonable as you clearly are. You’d be surprised at some of the people I meet in this job.

  You really would. I meet some really pushy people, you know.

  Mothers who just won’t let go, particularly of their sons.”

  The chairman looked at Irene as he spoke. He wondered what degree of insight she had into her behaviour. Probably none, he thought. These people smother their sons, poor boys, and then, the first opportunity the sons have, they distance themselves. It was rather sad, really. One boy who had been in the orchestra had actually emigrated to Australia to get away from his mother under the Australian government’s Son Protection Scheme. And then she went to live there too.

  Reluctantly, Irene had accepted that she would not be able to travel with Bertie. However, she had a list of things for Bertie to be reminded to do, and she asked the chairman to write these down and pass them on to one of the women who would be looking after the teenagers. There were instructions about Bertie’s clothing, about his diet, and about the need for him to be given time to work on his Italian exercises.

  “Bertie also does yoga,” she went on. “It would be helpful if he were to be given a mat to do his yoga on. But please remind him to do it.”

  There were other things on the list, and these were all duly noted. Poor boy, thought the chairman, but did not say that.

  Instead, he said: “What a lucky little boy Bertie must be – to have all these things in his life.”

  “Thank you,” said Irene. “My husband and I . . . well, we call it the Bertie Project.”

  The chairman said nothing. He had looked out of the window, where a bird had landed on a branch of the elm tree near his window. Birds are such an obvious metaphor for freedom, he thought.

  And so now Irene had packed Bertie’s case for him, neatly At the Airport 227

  folding and tucking in a spare pair of dungarees and an adequate supply of socks. It was a strange feeling for her, sending Bertie off to Paris like this, and she had more than one pang of doubt as to whether the whole thing was a good idea. But then she told herself that the people in charge of the orchestra would be experienced in looking after children on such trips, and that if they could look after teenagers, who were notoriously unruly and difficult, then looking after a compliant little boy such as Bertie would be simplicity itself. So she became reconciled to Bertie’s imminent departure, as did Bertie himself. Paris, he thought, would just have to be endured, and three days would go quickly enough. And it would, after all, be three days without his mother. That was something.

  73. At the Airport

  By the time he arrived at Edinburgh Airport, Bertie’s view of his impending trip to Paris had changed almost completely.

  Dread had been replaced by anticipation and the excited questioning of his father, who had driven his son out to the airport in their newly-recovered Volvo, the precise status of which remained an awkward issue. That it was not their original car was now beyond doubt, but Stuart felt – and in this he was backed up by Irene – that they now had some sort of prescrip-tive right to it. It was not as if they had acquired anything new; they had started with one Volvo and still had only one.

  Somewhere in between, presumably as a result of the helpful intervention of Mr Lard O’Connor, of Glasgow, the precise identity of the car had changed, but this still left them with only one car. Somebody else must have theirs, and so the overall number of cars in circulation had not changed. It was a rough calculation, but a just one nonetheless.

  Stuart parked the car, taking careful note of which section it was in. Then, carrying the small brown suitcase that Irene had packed for Bertie, he accompanied his son into the terminal.
r />   228 At the Airport

  “Look, Daddy,” shouted Bertie, pointing to the tail of a plane that could just be made out peeking over a covered walkway.

  “Look, that must be my plane.”

  “Perhaps,” said Stuart, looking down at his son. This was Bertie’s first flight; could he remember his own first time in the air? It was a remarkable moment for most people, a moment when the laws of gravity are for the first time ostensibly flouted, and for him this had been in Fife, he thought, during a brief time as an air cadet. He had been fifteen and had been taken, along with several other boys, on a flight from Leuchars. He had not thought about that for a long time, but now it came back to him. How young the world was in those days, how fresh.

  They had been told that the members of the orchestra would all congregate just inside the terminal so that they might check in together. And there they were, all milling about near the foot of the escalator. Bertie spotted them first and tugged at his father’s sleeve. Everybody was so tall, so grown-up, and this made his heart sink. Nobody was in dungarees, of course, except him.

  Stuart would have wished to have remained with the group until they had gone through security, but he sensed that it would be important for Bertie that he should not.

  “Well, that’s it, Bertie,” he said, passing the suitcase over.

  “That’s you all set up. I’ll let you get on with it now.”

  Bertie looked up at his father. “You’re not staying, Daddy?”

  “Well, I think you can look after yourself,” said Stuart. “So I’ll just say goodbye.”

  He wanted to pick this little boy up and hug him. But he could not do that, not with all these teenagers around, and so he put out his hand and Bertie took it in his.

  “Good-bye, Bertie,” he said. “Good luck in Paris, son!”

  Bertie shook hands solemnly with his father and then Stuart turned round and walked off. He did not look back.

  Left with the others, Bertie stood in silence. He imagined that people would be staring at him, but he soon realised that nobody was paying him any attention and he relaxed. One of the flautists, a girl of about sixteen, glanced at him at one point and smiled. Bertie smiled back. Then she said something to her At the Airport 229