Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “I use the word punch in a loose sense,” retorted Antonia. “Any violence done to an old building is a sort of punch, I find.”

  Domenica gasped. “Violence?”

  Antonia smiled sweetly. “Not personal violence, of course. But battering these lovely old buildings is an act of violence—in a sense.”

  Domenica was not going to let her get away with that. “Nobody battered any lovely old building,” she said, trying to sound as firm as she could. “The whole process was actually rather gentle. There was a man with a hammer—admittedly quite a large one—but he wielded it with real consideration for the rest of the structure. He didn’t want anything to fall down.”

  Antonia shrugged. “Oh well, be that as it may, this is where you effected entry.”

  Domenica struggled to remain polite. “Effected entry? My goodness, Antonia, you make us sound like burglars. Burglars effect entry, as you put it.”

  Angus, who was standing behind the women, caught his breath. This was dangerous territory, as he remembered very well how he had effected entry into Antonia’s flat one day when she was out. He had done so with the full connivance of Domenica in order to retrieve the blue Spode cup that she was sure Antonia had stolen from her kitchen. The cup had been retrieved, with Angus narrowly evading detection, and they had thought themselves justified, only to discover, much later, that their own blue Spode cup had all the time been lurking in Domenica’s kitchen. Mentioning effecting entry like this was surely to risk the resurrection of an event that was best forgotten. And he was right. His heart sank as Antonia spoke.

  “Effecting entry?” she said. “Yes, you’re absolutely right, Domenica. Burglars do effect entry. It’s funny that you should say that because I’ve often thought that I myself must have been the victim of effected entry.”

  Domenica said nothing; she glanced at Angus, who had now turned pale.

  “You see,” said Antonia, turning to Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, “although Edinburgh is not a place with a very high crime rate, there are some offences that are more common in a place like this, given the widespread ownership of objets de vertu.” She paused. “There are many people, for instance, who have collections of china. Or at least have some cherished china, even if they don’t have a very large collection. I think, for instance, of those who own blue Spode.”

  “What is this blue Spode?” enquired Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna.

  Angus opened his mouth to answer, but Antonia preceded him.

  “Blue Spode is a very beautiful sort of English china,” she said. “Like many things English, it is understated. English china can often be very quiet, very unassuming, but very beautiful nonetheless.”

  “And Scotch china?” asked Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “What is that like?”

  Antonia raised a finger. “Not Scotch, dear Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. Da noi, diciamo Scottish. We say Scottish not Scotch.”

  Angus saw his opportunity. “Excuse me, Antonia, but I’d be tempted to argue that point.”

  Antonia turned to him and fixed him with a discouraging stare. “Well,” she said. “You may argue all you wish, Angus, but what I’ve told dear Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna is absolutely correct. It’s Scottish, not Scotch. We may as well help her to be correct and to avoid solecism. We wouldn’t want her to be jeered at in the streets of Edinburgh for saying Scotch rather than Scottish, would we?” She then answered her own question. “We would not, I think.”

  Angus raised a finger in an admonitory way. “Show me,” he challenged. “You just show me where it says you can’t use a word that was completely acceptable for heaven knows how many years. Burns used it. He used the word Scotchman. It was perfectly acceptable until people suddenly decided that they wanted to be refined. That’s when they started saying Scottish or using the word Scots as an adjective.”

  “Usage changes,” said Antonia. “You don’t expect me to start calling my book The Lives of the Scotch Saints, do you?”

  “I’d see nothing wrong in that. You have Scotch egg and Scotch mist. And what about Scotch whisky? If you can use the adjective with these, then why can’t you use it elsewhere? I’ve got no time, Antonia, for this fussy, refined insistence on Scottish.”

  Antonia shook her head. “I suggest we leave the topic,” she said. “I would not want Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna to conclude that we stand about arguing about the correct use of adjectives.”

  Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna made a conciliatory gesture. “These are very interesting questions,” she said. “The Lord has undoubtedly put them before us in order to test us. There can be no doubt of that.”

  “I suggest we get everybody established in their rooms,” said Domenica, relieved that the awkward moment involving the blue Spode cup seemed to have passed. But her relief was premature; their way led through Antonia’s old kitchen, and it was here that Antonia stopped and turned to Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. “This used to be my kitchen,” she explained. “I spent so many happy hours sitting at my table—which used to be over there, but appears to have been moved. I used to sit there drinking tea …” she paused, “from my favourite blue Spode cup. That’s where I sat—right over there—with my cup—the blue Spode one—on the table before me.”

  Domenica looked out of the window. “Memories!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it wonderful to have memories of precious moments like that? However, one doesn’t want to become too nostalgic. One has to look forward rather than back, I find.”

  “Of course,” said Antonia. “Of course I agree with you on that. I am very forward-looking myself, but that doesn’t mean that one cannot privately regret those things that are lost … those things that are taken from you in this life.”

  She waited while her words took effect. Then she continued. “However, so much for that. Water under the bridge.”

  Domenica glowered.

  53. Unexpected Turbulence

  The great plane lumbered into the air above Glasgow, the folds of Renfrewshire, the twisting ribbon of the Clyde, the distant Campsie hills—all visible to Irene Pollock from her comfortable business class window seat. Irene looked down on the scene below her until a cliff of white cloud embraced them and the world of greens and browns became one of murky white. Then, quite suddenly, as in a paysage moralisé, where effort or forbearance is repaid in better surroundings, they broke free of the cotton wool and levelled off in a world of brilliant clarity. In this higher world, the sunlight glinted off the aircraft wing, filled the vault of the sky, made the clouds a field of gold. Irene felt the warmth upon her face and closed her eyes. She was off to Dubai, of all places! She, who had never been out of Europe, with the exception of a short trip to New York in her student days, was bound for the Gulf of Arabia, no less; a place of burning landscapes, of shimmering mirages, of glittering, artificial cities. And all this because she had created a simple slogan for the Dubai Tourist Authority …

  She ran over the words in her mind: “So much sand—so close at hand.” Yes, perhaps it was rather clever, and certainly it was streets ahead of the slogans that had won second and third places. These had been awarded respectively to an entrant who had coined “On the gulf you’ll find there’s golf!” and to the inventor of “Dubai, de best buy!”

  Irene thought that both of these were really rather weak. In her view they showed the deleterious effect of modern tourism, in which what should otherwise be an exotic and culturally distinctive destination was re-interpreted in terms of contemporary western consumerist preoccupations. What sort of person went to play golf in the United Arab Emirates? Presumably such people were ignorant of and indifferent to the rich and ancient cultures of the Gulf. Presumably they were unaware of the price paid in ecological terms to make the desert bloom sufficiently to provide grass for a golf course. And after they had played their golf, these people would go shopping for things they did not really need. How shallow, she thought; how a
ppalling.

  She looked about her in the cabin and tried to work out whether her fellow passengers were people of this stripe. She decided they were, and she felt her nose wrinkle involuntarily. But she would not let herself become depressed by the silliness of humanity. She, at least, was above all that and could afford to be generous to these lesser people with their more limited horizons.

  As the plane settled into its flight path and the captain switched off the seat belt sign, the cabin staff moved quietly along the rows of seats, offering passengers drinks and small bowls of heated nuts. Irene ordered a gin and tonic. Five days of freedom, she thought; five days of not having to worry about getting Bertie to school or dealing with Ulysses, who was, when all was said and done, a rather demanding baby. What a contrast, she thought. To be sitting at thirty thousand feet or whatever it was, drinking a gin and tonic, was a form of freedom to which she could easily become accustomed.

  The gin and tonic was followed by lunch, which was served, in the business class section, on china plates deftly laid on starched linen. Irene chose smoked salmon roulade followed by lamb cutlets, mashed potatoes, and peas. With this she drank a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and a glass of Medoc. Then it was time for petit-fours and coffee … which was poured at exactly the moment that an unexpected pocket of turbulence threw the plane bucking and shuddering about the sky.

  Irene, along with a number of other passengers, gave an involuntary gasp. In her case, though, the gasp was the louder and the more justified by virtue of the fact that an entire pot of airline coffee, down to the last drop—fortunately rather lukewarm at the time—was spilled over her.

  The plane corrected itself, and the sound of crashing china faded from the galley.

  “Oh my goodness,” exclaimed the attendant out of whose hands the coffee pot had jumped. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Irene stared at the extensive brown stains that now covered her outfit from head to toe. “I’m soaked,” she said. “Soaked.”

  The attendant began to dab a damp cloth at Irene’s coffee-sodden clothing. “Oh no,” she said. “This is just awful. Poor you!”

  Irene struggled to continue. “I can’t …” she began. “How can I …”

  The attendant reassured her. “I’ve got a spare uniform in my bag. You could change into that. It would make me feel much better.”

  “A uniform?”

  “Yes,” said the attendant. “You’re more or less my size, I think. And our uniform is rather smart—this nice long skirt and so on. You’ll be perfectly comfortable.”

  Irene looked down at the light-coloured trouser suit she had been wearing. The wet cloth was sticking to her uncomfortably. “Well,” she said. “I suppose it would enable me to get out of this.”

  “Exactly,” said the attendant. “Come with me and we’ll get you all changed.”

  Irene rose to her feet, attracting several sympathetic looks as she did so. Then, accompanying the attendant, she made her way forward to the galley area. Another attendant appeared and solicitously helped her to take off her top, revealing below a blouse covered in dark brown coffee stains that had spread out, like continents on a map.

  She went into the washroom and took off her ruined clothes, taking from the attendant the items of uniform she passed through to her. After a few minutes, with her old clothes in a sodden heap on the floor, she glanced at herself in the mirror. She looked to all intents and purposes like an Emirates cabin attendant.

  “There you are,” said the attendant. “That’s much better. I felt so bad when you were covered in coffee.”

  Irene admitted that she felt much more comfortable and was even able to crack a joke. “I hope you’re not going to ask me to serve drinks,” she said.

  The attendant laughed. “Good,” she said. “And thank heavens it happened to such a nice person as you. Others could have been very nasty about this, you know.”

  54. Misunderstandings at Altitude

  Now clad in a borrowed Emirates cabin attendant’s uniform, her own coffee-soaked clothes neatly bundled into a plastic bag and stored in the luggage bin above her head, Irene sat back to enjoy the rest of the flight. She had brought several books with her, but she was not in the mood for reading anything serious, and so spent her time looking through the selection of magazines that the airline made available for perusal by its business class passengers. She also dozed a bit, lulled into somnolence by the steady drone of the jet engines and the comfortable temperature of the cabin. Waking up, she decided to get up and replace the magazine she had been reading with something else. She rose to her feet, adjusted the long brown skirt that was part of the uniform of the female cabin attendants, and made her way to the back of the cabin, where the magazine rack was located.

  It was while she was choosing a new magazine that Irene was tapped on the shoulder. Turning round, she was confronted with a rather harassed-looking woman who had made her way up from the economy class section.

  “Excuse me,” said the woman. “Could you come and give me a hand?”

  For a moment Irene wondered why this woman should have approached her, and then she remembered what she was wearing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not …”

  She had been intending to explain that, although she was wearing a crew uniform, she was a passenger, but the woman cut her short. “Look,” she said. “I really need you to help me. I pressed the button some time ago and nobody came.”

  “But I’m …”

  Again the woman stopped her. “I’m not interested in excuses,” she said. “It’s your job to help people.”

  Irene sighed. “Very well,” she said. “What’s the problem?”

  “Come with me,” said the woman, leading Irene back into the economy class cabin. Irene looked about her; this part of the aeroplane was less luxuriously appointed than her own cabin, and there seemed to be rather more people. How did they all fit in, she wondered? How many were there in a row? She started to count, but was distracted by the woman’s tugging at her sleeve. “We’re over there. That’s my husband, and those are the kids.”

  A few rows away, a mild-looking man in a beige cardigan and tobacco-coloured trousers was holding a baby—of no more than a few months’ age—on his lap. Next to him was a child who looked as if he were three or four, and then another child, of six or seven, who was herself holding another baby.

  “They’re twins,” said the woman. “The little ones, that is.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “They both need changing,” said the woman. “But Ed’s got to look after the four-year-old because he panics on planes and you can’t leave him. In fact, if either of us leaves for more than a moment or two, he goes bananas, and we can’t have that.”

  Irene frowned. “Do you want me to babysit?” she asked. “If you need to go to the bathroom, I could, I suppose.”

  “No,” said the woman. “Could you go and change the babies—one at a time? Take Willie first and then little Gordon.”

  Irene caught her breath. “Me?” she said. “Change your children?”

  The woman looked surprised at the note of indignation that had crept into Irene’s voice. “Yes. Why not? It’s your job to look after people, isn’t it? Well, we need to be looked after.”

  Irene smiled. “I really need to explain something,” she said. “I may be wearing …”

  She was not allowed to finish. The woman had stepped forward, lifted up one of the babies, and was now pushing it into Irene’s unwilling arms. “There,” she said. “That one’s Willie.”

  Finding herself holding the infant, Irene could hardly drop him. She looked at him; he had a small, wizened face that was flushed and angry. He stared back at her. He did not smell fresh.

  “Here’s his nappy,” said the woman. “Put the old one in this bag and then please dispose of it.”

  “Excuse me,” protested Irene. “I have no intention of changing this wretched child.”

  The woman stared at her in astonishment. “Wr
etched child? Did you call my baby a wretched child?”

  A middle-aged woman sitting nearby confirmed that this was so. “Yes,” she said. “I heard her. I heard her say exactly that. Shocking, if you ask me.”

  Irene spun round at this intervention. “Mind your own business, you stupid old …”

  “Did you hear that?” shouted the object of Irene’s insult. “Did you hear what she said?”

  A number of other passengers sitting nearby nodded their heads. “Send for the captain,” said one.

  Irene tried to give the baby back to his mother, but failed to do so, as the mother had now folded her arms defiantly, holding her ground. The baby himself glared at Irene with growing animosity, his little face puckering in outrage. Then he was copiously sick, mostly over the front of Irene’s uniform.

  “Look what you’ve done,” complained the mother. “Here, give him back to me. You’re useless, you know, just useless.”

  Irene thrust the baby into the mother’s arms and then turned on her heels and stormed back to her seat. There she tried to wipe the mess off the front of her tunic—succeeding to an extent, but not completely. She felt her face glowing with anger. How dare that woman assume that she should change her wretched baby—and it was wretched—a most ugly and unattractive infant altogether. She closed her eyes. This trip was proving to be something of a disaster. First, Ulysses had been sick over her at the airport; then she had had coffee spilled all over her; and now this ghastly economy class baby had been sick over her too. It was very unfair. This was her one opportunity to travel somewhere in comfort and style, and she had been humiliated and insulted.

  She took a deep breath. She would control herself. She would not allow these ridiculous setbacks to spoil the essential fact that she was about to rub shoulders with the literati—the real, international literati, at the Emirates Literary Festival. Ultimately that was what counted; that was what made it possible to bear all sorts of humiliations. She felt much better with this thought. It put things in perspective, which is how things should always be viewed, no matter what temporary irritations may occur.