Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “That’s all right,” said Bertie. “We can cope. We can buy some pizzas. Maybe twenty or thirty, and put them in the freezer. Ulysses will eat them too.”

  “All right, Bertie,” said Stuart. “We’ll buy some pizzas. Mind you, you won’t be needing them for a little while. You’re going off to cub scout camp in Ardnamurchan. I’ve spoken to Akela and it’s all fixed up. You’re going later this afternoon.”

  Bertie spent the rest of the journey in a state of unconcealed joy. When they got off the bus on Dundas Street, he ran all the way along Cumberland Street, having promised his father to wait for him at the Dundonald Street end. And once Stuart had caught up with him, he then ran the remaining distance to their front door and was waiting for Stuart when he arrived.

  Bertie’s packing was accomplished quickly, and for the remaining two hours before it was time to go off to the hall at Holy Corner from which they would be leaving, he sat on a chair by the door, watching the slow movement of the clock’s hands. At last it was time to go, and Stuart, bringing Ulysses in his pushchair, led Bertie off to the bus stop.

  When they reached the hall, there was already a small crowd of parents and children contributing to a rising buzz of conversation. Bertie quickly found his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, who was sporting a heavy rucksack that was distinctly too large for him. Ranald, who had notoriously spindly legs—the object of many critical remarks by Olive and Pansy—was clearly very proud of this rucksack, even though it threatened to topple him at any moment.

  “I’ve got a whole lot of new gear,” said Ranald to Bertie. “I’ve got a folding shovel, a groundsheet, a GPS, and a set of matching aluminium mess-tins. I’ll let you look at my stuff if you like, Bertie, although I may not be able to let you use it much.”

  “Thanks, Ranald,” said Bertie, looking about him to see who else had arrived.

  Tofu was there, listening glumly to his father, who was lecturing him severely, and there were Olive and Pansy too. Olive, seeing Bertie, came over to speak to him and his father.

  “You mustn’t worry about Bertie, Mr. Pollock,” she said to Stuart. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “I don’t need …” began Bertie, only to be cut short by Olive.

  “He can put his tent right next to the tent that Pansy and I are going to share,” she continued. “That way, we’ll be able to reassure him if he gets nervous, which he probably will do.”

  “That’s kind, Olive,” said Stuart. “I’m sure that Bertie will be able to look after himself.”

  “I’m not so sure, Mr. Pollock,” she said. “But we shall see. Have you signed the form yet?”

  Stuart frowned. “Is there a form to sign?”

  “Oh yes,” said Olive. “It’s a form that says you won’t blame the cub scout movement if Bertie gets killed on this trip. It’s a good idea to sign it, Mr. Pollock—just in case anything goes wrong.”

  Stuart smiled. “That’s a bit alarmist, Olive, don’t you think? This will be a very safe trip, I should think.”

  “Well, you never know,” said Olive. “Boys can do some stupid things.”

  Stuart winked at Bertie. “I’m sure Olive’s only joking, Bertie.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Olive. Now she turned to Bertie. “And Bertie, I’m really sorry to hear about what happened to your mummy.”

  Bertie looked puzzled. “She went to Dubai,” he said. “She’s in the desert.”

  Olive smiled knowingly. “My father showed me the Evening News, Bertie. It says that she’s been seized by some desert sheik and is being held prisoner in a harem. That’s what it says, Bertie. I could have cut out the article for you. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  Bertie looked up at his father.

  Stuart groaned. “Don’t worry about it, Bertie,” he said. “The papers often get it wrong. They love to sensationalise.”

  67. Ardnamurchan

  That evening, in the soft light of summer, William Hunter’s beige and brown private coach conveyed twenty-seven members of Bertie’s cub scout pack across the high wastes of Rannoch Moor and down towards Glencoe. To their left, Buachaille Etive Mhor, the great shepherd at the mouth of Glen Etive, towered watchfully; to their right, beyond the Kings House Hotel, the slopes of mountains that were now, at their peak, topped by a wraith of wispy cloud.

  “Now, boys and girls,” announced Rosemary Gold, Akela of the pack, “we are about to enter Glencoe, which is a very important historical place.” She paused, wondering how to explain to the children one of the most notorious dinner parties in Scottish history. “It witnessed a very sad event, I’m sorry to say.”

  “I know all about that,” volunteered Tofu. “The Campbells fell upon the Macdonalds and cut their throats. Just after they’d had their tea together. There was blood all over the place.”

  Olive turned and stared at Tofu in disgust. “You’d better watch out, Tofu. The Campbells will get you one day.”

  There were titters of laughter.

  “That’s not very helpful, Olive,” said Akela. “We must put such things behind us.”

  “Then why are we having a referendum?” asked Ranald Braveheart Macpherson.

  “The referendum has nothing to do with Glencoe,” said Akela. “Nothing at all, as far as I can see.”

  The discussion moved on to less fraught terrain. Akela pointed out the sweeping fields of boulders, remnants of the passage of glaciers, and drew attention to the gullies carved into the mountainsides by the action of water. Then, as the road levelled out and they left Glencoe village behind them, they saw their first sea loch, Loch Leven, spanned, in the distance, by the Ballachulish bridge.

  An hour or so later, having negotiated the crossing of Loch Linnhe on the Corran ferry, the coach drew up at the field near Glenborrodale upon which they were to pitch their tents. Several helpers had come with the children, and they supervised the erection of rows of small green tents, each pitched carefully on a waterproof rectangular groundsheet.

  Bertie found himself sharing a tent with Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, while Tofu and Larch shared next door. Beyond that, pitched as far away from Tofu and Larch as they could manage, was the tent occupied by Olive and Pansy—a tent that was very soon enhanced by the addition of several cushions that Pansy had brought with her, along with a scented candle, and a box of McVitie’s finest Edinburgh shortbread.

  The tents erected, an evening meal was served around a large cooking fire made by the adults—sausages, baked beans, and large squares of fried bread.

  Bertie sat on the ground with Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, his paper plate of food before him, his heart filled with pleasure at the prospect of the two days of camping ahead. Ranald had already checked their GPS position, marked it on the map, and taken a compass bearing on the tower of Glenborrodale Castle, tucked away in the trees behind them.

  “This is very good fun, Ranald,” said Bertie.

  Ranald nodded, but Bertie could tell that he was anxious about something. “Do you think it gets really dark here?” he asked.

  Bertie shrugged. “Same as Edinburgh, or maybe not quite so dark,” he said. “My dad told me that in places this far north it’s often quite light even at midnight.”

  Ranald looked relieved. “Because we haven’t got any lights in our tent, Bertie.”

  “No,” said Bertie. “But we won’t need them, Ranald. We’ll be quite safe.”

  Ranald Braveheart Macpherson looked unconvinced. “What about Campbells?” he whispered. “What if there are some Campbells round here?” He looked in the direction of a clump of bushes at the edge of the field—perfectly adequate cover for Campbells.

  Bertie sought to reassure him. “They won’t bother us,” he said. “Campbells stay in at night—most of the time.”

  After supper, there was a quick game of rounders before it was time for everybody to go to bed. Bertie and Ranald Braveheart Macpherson slipped into their sleeping bags and lay down on the groundsheet that formed the floor of their tent. Bertie sai
d goodnight to Ranald and lay quite still, his eyes closed, waiting for sleep to come. But he soon became aware of a chattering sound from Ranald’s side of the tent.

  “Is that noise your teeth?” he asked in the semi-darkness.

  “I think so,” said Ranald, his voice small and nervous. “They’re making a funny sound.”

  “Are you frightened?” asked Bertie.

  There was a short silence before Ranald replied. “A little bit,” he said. “The Campbells …”

  “You shouldn’t be frightened of Campbells,” said Bertie. “You really shouldn’t, Ranald.”

  “I know,” stuttered Ranald. “But my teeth seem to be frightened. Do your teeth get frightened sometimes, Bertie?”

  Bertie said that he was not sure. Then he said, “Roll over to this side of the tent, Ranald. You’ll be safe over here.”

  Gratefully, Ranald rolled in his sleeping bag so that he was lying just a few inches away from Bertie. Bertie reached out and placed a protective arm over his friend’s shoulder. Slowly, the sound of chattering teeth became fainter, and then stopped altogether.

  “Better now?” asked Bertie.

  “Yes,” whispered Ranald. “I’m sorry that I’m not all that brave, Bertie. I’m really sorry.”

  “You don’t have to say you’re sorry,” said Bertie. “Everyone gets frightened now and then. You don’t have to be ashamed, Ranald.”

  Bertie closed his eyes. Underneath his arm, he felt the slow up and down movement of Ranald’s chest as he breathed in and out. He would leave his arm where it was until Ranald was safely asleep, and then he would move it. It gave him a warm feeling to be protecting his friend from whatever it was that frightened him—whether it was Campbells, or the dark, or things that had no name. And it was not surprising, perhaps, that he should feel it—this little boy who felt things so deeply; for we all feel that about our friends; we all feel that about those around whom we might put an arm. We all feel that about the darkness into which we go with others and about the very understandable fears that can be so easily dispelled, put to flight, by a simple gesture of the human arm, at once so easy and yet so hard to make.

  68. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Joy and Delight in Morningside

  Dr. Macgregor and Anichka did not stay long in the Canny Man’s. Even so, the ten minutes or so that they spent in the bar seemed an eternity to Pat. The conversation was awkward, and her father steadfastly avoided her eye. Anichka, who spoke in a high-pitched rather nasal voice, prevented anybody else from saying very much, and Pat found herself cringing whenever the Czech woman spoke. At length, finishing the last of his drink with evident relief, Dr. Macgregor looked at his watch and declared that their dinner reservation required them to leave.

  “It is a very expensive restaurant,” said Anichka. “Maybe eighty pounds a head. Ninety sometimes.”

  Pat glanced at her father, who again looked away. “No, it’s not cheap,” he muttered. “But it’s very good.”

  Pat looked at Anichka. “Well,” she said, “it’s always nice to be taken out to dinner, isn’t it? And not to have to pay.”

  Anichka’s eyes narrowed. Pat had not intended to insult her, but somehow the remark had slipped out.

  Michael touched Pat’s arm gently. “I think we should go too.”

  Pat was not sure where they were meant to be going, but nodded her assent. “Yes, it’s late.”

  “Bedtime?” said Anichka, looking at Michael.

  Pat caught her breath. How dare she?

  Michael blushed. He tried to make light of the remark. “I never go to bed before midnight,” he said.

  Pat looked again at her father. How could he tolerate this crude … this vulgar woman? Yes, she decided, vulgar was the word. People did not use it very much any more because it sounded elitist, or even snobbish. But there were people who were just … well, just vulgar, pure and simple. There was no other word for it.

  For a moment Dr. Macgregor seemed unwilling to catch his daughter’s eye, but then he looked up, and their gaze met. He knows, thought Pat; he knows what she’s like. But then if he knew, why did he continue to spend time in her company? Or was it simply physical? She did not like to think of that; what child imagines his parents to have an interest in such matters? But he was human, of course, like the rest of us.

  They let Dr. Macgregor and Anichka leave first. There were awkward farewells; then, as the door banged shut, Pat turned to Michael. “My father …”

  He shook his head. He was smiling. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  She was relieved. He understood; of course he would—he was so nice himself that he was bound to understand. “He’s such a kind man, and I wish you hadn’t met him with that …”

  He reached out and placed a finger gently across her lips, in a gesture that was one of both silence and comfort.

  “You needn’t explain,” he said. “Sometimes one’s parents get things wrong. My father had a very strong West Highland accent. When I was young I remember being embarrassed by the way he spoke. We lived in Stirling, you see, and nobody spoke like that there. The other boys used to say things like ‘Your dad’s a real feuchter.’ I hated it.”

  “I like a Highland accent.”

  “So do I. Now. But not when I was twelve, or whatever it was. At that age you want your parents to talk exactly the same as everybody else.”

  She looked up at the display behind the bar: bottles of whisky with obscure names; malts with labels she had never seen before. She imagined what he had been like when he was twelve.

  “Thinking of something?” he asked.

  She laughed. “Yes.”

  “What?”

  She hesitated before answering. She felt that she could tell him; there was something about him that encouraged confidence. Curiously, since she had just met him, she felt the sort of trust that one normally feels with an old friend.

  “I was thinking about you, actually.”

  “Me? Well, that’s nice to know.”

  “I was wondering what you were like when you were twelve.”

  He smiled at her. “I can show you a photograph, if you like. I had a brace on my teeth.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. I was embarrassed about that too. In fact, come to think of it, I was embarrassed about just about everything.”

  “And now?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.” He paused. “And you?”

  “At that age? I was embarrassed too. I remember being embarrassed by the furniture in our house. Other girls had houses with modern furniture—ours was ancient and the chairs had threads hanging down from them where the cat had sharpened its claws. I was embarrassed by the cat.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s awful for everybody at that age. I sometimes think how great it would be if you could take a pill at the age of fourteen, say, and then wake up when you were seventeen. The worst teenage years would be over and you would have been spared all the indignities that went with them. Bad skin. The embarrassment we’ve been talking about. Awkwardness. Anxiety that people aren’t going to like you because you’re not cool enough. Everything.”

  “Fourteen to seventeen?”

  “I was thinking of boys,” he said. “Those are the really bad years for boys. Then, suddenly you’re through it all. Eighteen is actually quite exciting.”

  “And it gets better, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  He had been looking at her when he replied, and she felt a momentary thrill that perhaps he meant that it got better because one met people, and in particular because he had met her.

  Now he was smiling again. “Oh well,” he said. “We should go.”

  “Yes,” she said, without knowing where they were meant to be going. He had said nothing about dinner: was he going to take her to a restaurant?

  He rose to his feet holding out a hand towards her. “My place is just round the corner. Maxwell Street. I wondered if you …”
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br />   She busied herself with her coat.

  “… if you wanted to have dinner there. I can cook, you know.”

  “Yes, I’d love that.”

  He went out first, and she followed him. Outside, the evening sun bathed the buildings behind them in warm light, bringing out, through the grey of the stone’s discoloration, the original colour of honey. A woman walked past them carrying her bags of purchases from the supermarket further up Morningside Road. A young girl on the other side of the road, walking beside her mother, holding her hand, suddenly skipped, as if for sudden, unexpected joy. Pat thought: and so could I.

  69. Pythagoras’s Trousers

  His flat was on the top floor of a tenement block. The stair was typical of buildings of that sort, with that slight smell of dust and something else that it was always rather difficult to pinpoint—did stone have a smell? Chalk did, if you put it under your nose—a chalky smell. Sometimes, of course, a common stair trapped cooking smells, and you could tell what was on your neighbour’s menu as you walked past their door: curry, perhaps, or something fried; the sweet smell of steak under the grill. Sometimes you would hear them, too: the sound of laughter, or voices raised in anger; the sound of children shouting or crying—the background noise of communal life.

  He fiddled with the key in the lock, which was stiff, and then pushed open the door. “My place,” he said. “It’s a mess. Sorry about that.”

  It was not a large flat, and as she stood in the hallway Pat realised that it consisted of only two rooms and a bathroom. Through an open door off the hallway she could see into a living room beyond; it was light, a benefit of being on the top floor. “It’s not a mess at all,” she said. “It seems very nice.” She peered through the door. “May I?”

  “Of course. Go right in.”

  The living room turned out to be a bed-sitting room; there was a bed at the other end of the room, under the window. It was one of those beds done up as a sofa, a brightly coloured spread across it and a couple of cushions in place of a pillow.