The Revolving Door of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “Tell me about it, Hettie,” she said.

  Hettie frowned. “It’s a sad story, Lou,” she said. “In fact, it makes me want to cry, you know. It makes me want to cry buckets.”

  22. Scotland’s Shameful Diet

  So Hettie told her sad story—and Big Lou listened.

  “You see,” she began, “you see the Scots diet, Lou?”

  Big Lou nodded. “Aye, Hettie, I think I know which way this is going.”

  Hettie looked out of the window as she spoke. There was not much to see, as the steps that descended sharply from the street—those steps down which the poet Hugh MacDiarmid had once fallen—blocked out everything but a view of the lower legs of passersby. And at that moment, as if a visual aid ordered to illustrate the point that Hettie intended to make, a pair of generously proportioned legs, threatening to burst the seams of the cloth that contained them, walked past.

  Both Lou and Hettie sensed the synchronicity, but made no comment. “I never judge those legs,” Big Lou had once said to Angus. “I see every sort of leg in Scotland walk past during the day, Angus, but I draw no conclusions.”

  Hettie continued. “You see, Lou, we used to have a pretty good diet in Scotland. Used to have. And I’m not talking here about a few years ago—even fifty years ago—I’m talking about way back. I’m talking about the days when people still lived in the country and Glasgow and Edinburgh were tiny wee places. Those days.”

  “Before the Industrial Revolution?” prompted Lou.

  “Yes,” said Hettie. “Before that.”

  “But times were hard, weren’t they? If you were a Highlander, for instance, scratching away at your wee bittie of land, trying to grow something with all that rain and hummocks and whatnot—it wasn’t easy.”

  Hettie accepted this. “Yes, there were bad times, but the diet that most people had in the country was reasonably good. There were oats—so you had your porridge—and there was a bit of kale and so on. And you could catch fish if there was a river or loch nearby, or the sea, of course. There were plenty of mackerel in the sea.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Folk went hungry, of course,” Hettie conceded, “but by and large what they had was healthy. There was no rubbish, Lou. And very little sugar, although they loved making preserves out of the fruit they grew. They were all right.”

  “Oatmeal was the thing,” mused Lou. “Oatmeal, oatmeal, oatmeal.”

  A great deal of Big Lou’s extensive, if unstructured, reading stuck. Now she remembered Carlyle’s remark about Macaulay. “An honest, good sort of fellow, made out of oatmeal.” She looked at Hettie, and smiled; she thought the same thing might be said of Hettie’s brothers—and of so many people she had been brought up with in Angus. They were made out of oatmeal. And Scotland was still populated by oatmeal people, she thought. Fondly. They were still there.

  Hettie agreed about oatmeal. “It made us,” she said, a note of sadness in her voice.

  But Lou’s thoughts had moved on to the injustices of diet. In the story of food, she reflected, all the wrongs of Scotland’s past were displayed. You needed land to grow food—even to support your tiny domestic kailyard—but there had always been avaricious eyes on land. “Some folk,” she said, “ate very well, didn’t they? The gentry. Prosperous farmers.”

  Big Lou remembered Marian McNeil’s book on Scottish breakfasts and the surprising information it contained about the breakfast table in more prosperous houses. Claret was a popular item on that table—and quaffed with enthusiasm, as was whisky and Jamaica rum. For breakfast. And to accompany these unlikely breakfast drinks—how different from today’s orange juice, thought Lou—there was mutton and sheep’s heid, haggis, ham, cheeses of various descriptions, bannocks, venison pie, pastries…the list seemed endless.

  “But the ordinary folk didn’t do too badly,” said Hettie. “As long as they were prepared to grow their vegetables—which some of them didn’t seem all that interested in. And as long as they could take a wee bit of fish and game. Meat was available.”

  “But not always very much,” observed Lou. “You’ve heard of a tattie and a pass? That was when there was only enough meat for the faither. So the bairns had to content themselves with passing the tattie over the top of the stew to get a bit of a whiff of it.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Talking about how life had been in the country made Lou sad; that had been her world, and its echoes were still there, no matter how things appeared to have changed.

  “And then,” said Hettie after a while. “And then, when folk went off to live in the towns, they lost all that. All that good food that had been there for the taking was no longer available. They had to content themselves with potatoes and a bit of this and that: watered-down milk, bread made from adulterated flour. A poor, poor diet.”

  “It’s a miracle they survived,” said Lou.

  “Yes, a major miracle. Of course, many of them didn’t. People didn’t last very long because there were all sorts of illnesses that went with living in a tenement in Glasgow or Edinburgh. You had a good range of infections to choose from and you also had rickets. Think of what rickets did.”

  Lou had recently seen an old photograph of children playing in a Glasgow street in the early years of the twentieth century. The children all seemed so small for their ages—stunted by poverty—and not a few had the characteristic bandy legs that rickets brought to those it affected.

  She mentioned this to Hettie, who nodded sadly. “Vitamin D deficiency,” she said. “They never saw the sun because it was blotted out by the smoke. So their bodies couldn’t…” She did not finish. She shrugged.

  “Well, at least they got rid of rickets,” said Lou. “At least that happened.”

  “Yes, but what happened when we had more money to spend on food? What did we do? We spent it on the wrong stuff. On sugary things. On fried things. And so now obesity has replaced rickets.”

  “You’d think we’d learn,” said Lou.

  “No,” said Hettie. “I’m not sure if I think that, Lou. You know that our Glasgow diet is the worst in the developed world, Lou. You know that?”

  “Aye, I’ve heard that.”

  “And yet,” said Hettie with a smile, “we still say Here’s tae us, wha’s like us?”

  Lou did not complete the well-known toast: it was inappropriate in the circumstances, she thought.

  “So what are you going to do, Hettie?” she asked.

  Hettie misunderstood her question. “Well,” she said. “I thought I’d come and stay with you, if you don’t mind, Lou.”

  23. A Tram Goes Past

  Bertie felt a considerable civic pride as he spoke to his grandmother on the way in from the airport.

  “We have trams now, Granny,” he said. “Nobody goes in them, but it’s nice to have them, I think.”

  “Nobody goes in them, Bertie?” asked Nicola. “Surely somebody does…”

  From behind the wheel of the aged Volvo-substitute, Stuart confirmed what Bertie had said. “Bertie’s right,” he said. “Trams were a wonderful idea, but the whole project went wrong somewhere along the line—or all along the line, perhaps.”

  “The lines don’t go where anybody wants to go,” said Bertie. “They go from a place where nobody lives to another place where nobody lives. And they only go in one direction—and back, of course.” He paused. “Look, there’s one over there.”

  Nicola watched the comfortable-looking white tram pass by.

  “You see,” said Bertie. ‘There was only the driver. That’s all.”

  “How very strange,” said Nicola. “That would never have happened in the old days.”

  “Ah,” said Stuart. “The old days. What a blissful time it must have been.”

  “You may mock if you must, Stuart,” snapped Nicola. “But I can assure you in the old days Edinburgh would never have done anything quite as stupid as that. Our City Fathers may have been a crusty old bunch but they knew how to control the purse strings.
”

  “Mummy says we should call them City Parents,” said Bertie.

  Nicola rolled her eyes, but only very slightly, and in such a way as not to be seen by Bertie.

  “Your Mummy is so…so attentive to what people say,” she muttered.

  “She says you’re very old-fashioned,” Bertie continued brightly. “She says that you’re probably a fascist.” He paused. “A crypto-fascist. Is that true, Granny? Are you really a crypto-fascist, like Mummy says?”

  Stuart gasped, and the car swerved slightly. “Bertie, I don’t think Mummy ever said that…”

  “Oh yes she did,” protested Bertie. “She said that Granny probably wore black underwear, like all fascists wear. That was what she said, Daddy. She said it over the phone to one of her Melanie Klein Reading Group people. I heard her; I promise you.”

  Nicola laughed. “Oh, I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding, Stuart. Don’t worry about it. Probably a joke. Just as I was joking when I called her a self-righteous cow once. Nothing serious—and least said, soonest mended.”

  But now there were other things to think about. They had taken a circuitous route onto Lothian Road and would shortly be in Charlotte Square. Towering above them, caught in the sunlight, was the towering shape of the Castle, its ramparts incised against a cloudless sky. “Such a sight,” muttered Nicola. “Such a heart-stopping sight.”

  “I went to the Castle once,” said Bertie. “I could take you there, Granny. We could go and see the Stone of Scone. It’s up there, you know. The English pinched it from us and sat on it for years and years. Somebody pinched it back once, but they found it and took it away again. But they gave it back eventually.”

  “As well they should,” said Nicola. “Nothing is to be gained by hanging on to stolen property. The English should know that.”

  “But a Scotsman pinched those Marbles from the Greeks, didn’t he?” asked Bertie.

  “Oh well,” said Nicola. “The Turks would have destroyed them if Lord Elgin hadn’t come to the rescue, Bertie. They were grinding them up to sell as mortar. He rescued them—and that’s quite different from pinching. We can all feel very grateful towards Lord Elgin. He was a very distinguished Bruce, moreover, and when Bruce blood flows in your veins you are well placed to do heroic things.”

  “I don’t think the Greeks think that,” said Bertie. “Tofu says the Greeks want them back.”

  Nicola laughed. “Just as the Germans want their money back from the Greeks,” she said lightly. “It’s such a complicated world, Bertie!”

  They were now in Charlotte Square. “That’s where the First Minister lives,” said Bertie, pointing to an impressive Georgian house. “They have lots of parties there. Just for important people, but everybody else is allowed to stand outside and watch the important people go in.”

  Again Nicola laughed. (Nicola, the Granny, that is…)

  Ulysses now made his presence known, chuckling contentedly from his car seat.

  “Ulysses can’t really talk yet,” said Bertie. “He can think, though. You can tell when he’s thinking—his face goes all red.”

  “He’s a bonnie wee boy,” said Nicola.

  “He’s quite smelly, most of the time,” said Bertie. “And he vomits a lot, especially when he sees Mummy. And makes really rude noises when Mummy tries to talk to him.” He paused, and looked admiringly at his father. “Daddy said he was so looking forward to your coming from Portugal, as he won’t have to change Ulysses anymore.”

  “I did not,” spluttered Stuart. “Bertie, you mustn’t say things…”

  “It’s quite all right,” said Nicola, reassuringly. “I understand you, and I understand men in general. Even entirely reconstructed men have issues with changing babies. I quite understand. And if the younger generation can’t keep us alive to change babies, then what can they keep us alive for?”

  Bertie now saw a familiar building on Queen Street and pointed it out to his grandmother. “That’s where I go for psychotherapy,” he said. “I go every Saturday morning. Ulysses hasn’t started yet, but Mummy says he will—once he learns how to talk. It’s difficult to do Free Association if you can’t talk.”

  Nicola glanced at Stuart. “I see,” she said. “I shouldn’t have thought you needed psychotherapy, Bertie.”

  Bertie was electrified by this remark. “Did you hear that, Daddy? Granny says I don’t need psychotherapy. She said it herself. Can you phone them up and cancel?”

  “Your mother,” began Stuart…

  Nicola did not let him finish. “Stuart, how can you possibly go along with that claptrap? Bertie is an entirely well-adjusted little boy. If ever anybody didn’t need psychotherapy, it’s him.”

  “Irene made it clear,” began Stuart. “She said that…”

  Again he did not finish “Oh, phooey!” exclaimed Nicola.

  It was a moment of shattering discovery for Bertie. Here was somebody—his grandmother no less—who dared to say phooey about his mother. It was astonishing; it was liberating; it was as if the heavens had opened and Themis herself, guarantor of justice and good order, had made some divine pronouncement from a throne set on high. Phooey announced Themis; and all the hills and lochs, all the glens and moors and high places of Scotland echoed her judgement so that none could claim not to have heard it. Phooey!

  24. Drummond Place Issues

  Into Drummond Place swept the anodyne grey station wagon in which the Pollock family (sans Irene) travelled with Stuart’s mother, Nicola Tavares de Lumiares (née McCullough) freshly arrived from Portugal and ready to assume day-to-day responsibility for her grandsons Bertie and Ulysses.

  “Drummond Place!” she exclaimed. “Oh Edinburgh, dearest Edinburgh! Slow down, Stuart, so that I can luxuriate in all of this. Drummond Place and there, if I’m not mistaken, is Dundonald Street. That flat on the corner was lived in by Nigel McIsaac and his wife, Mary. He was a very accomplished artist, you know, and I used to visit them when we came in from the Borders. We had lunch there and we talked about every subject under the sun. We did, you know. They had a great talent for friendship.”

  “I can imagine,” said Stuart, complying with the request to slow down.

  “And round the corner,” went on Nicola, “just round there is the flat that Sydney Goodsir Smith lived in. And Compton Mackenzie was further along that side of the square. He was a remarkable man—my father knew him, you know. They used to play chess together sometimes. And he was the President of the Siamese Cat Club: he was a very major figure in Siamese cat circles, word has it. He married his housekeeper, Chrissie McSween, and then, after she died, he married her sister, which was so considerate of him.”

  Bertie joined in. “He wrote a book about whisky, Granny,” he said.

  Nicola turned to smile at Bertie. “Of course he did, Bertie. It was called Whisky Galore, wasn’t it?”

  “I think so,” said Bertie. “I haven’t read it myself, but Mr. Lordie likes it. He says it’s far better than the rubbish people write these days.”

  “Hah!” said Nicola. “It was a very good story. Those people on that island were very pleased to find all that whisky, I imagine.”

  “There are a lot of people over there waiting for things to wash up on their shores,” said Stuart. “Government grants, mainly.”

  Nicola laughed, and changed the subject. “Civil servants shouldn’t make jokes like that,” she said, smiling. She looked appreciatively out of the car window at the Drummond Place gardens. “I do love all that greenery. Those great towering trees.”

  “A source of great contention at present,” said Stuart. “There’s an issue about access. Some people are allowed to take their dogs in there, and others not. I think it’s something to do with the positioning of your windows. And some dogs are not allowed in at all because they’re the wrong breed.”

  Nicola gave a whoop of delight. “Oh, how priceless! So Edinburgh hasn’t changed all that much has it? Such delicious pettiness.”

  They had now rea
ched Scotland Street itself, and Stuart was keeping an eye out for a parking place. Fortunately one materialised, and he was able to nose the Volvo-substitute into it before another driver, who had also spotted it, was able to stake his claim. Once parked, Bertie helped his grandmother with her suitcases while Stuart extracted Ulysses from his car seat and wiped the small trail of vomit from the front of his jersey.

  They made slow progress upstairs. Bertie insisted on managing one of the suitcases himself, and bumped it up step by step, pausing every so often to regain his strength.

  “You’re doing so well, Bertie,” said Nicola. “You must be a very strong boy.”

  Bertie beamed with pleasure. Nobody had called him strong before, and his liking for his grandmother was increasing by the minute. Not only had she derided his mother’s view that he needed psychotherapy, but now she was calling him strong. His mother had never commented on his strength; modern boys, she had once said to him, are indifferent to strength.

  Bertie had listened patiently, but in his heart he knew that his mother was wrong. Boys did worry about strength, for the simple reason that if you were not concerned about strength you would be certain to be hit by somebody far stronger than you—somebody like Larch, a boy in Bertie’s class who had already been referred for anger management classes. He had gone to these classes and returned to give them a glowing recommendation. “You don’t have to do what they tell you,” he said triumphantly. “You just have to think not whenever they say anything. That way you learn how to be really angry.”

  Tofu was much the same. Although he was less violent than Larch, Tofu still had a mature understanding of the advantages conferred by strength. “You don’t have to hit people, Larch,” he had said scornfully. “You can just threaten to hit them. That’s much more effective. That way you save your energy, see.”