The Revolving Door of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Domenica, who was unusually sensitive to the moods of others, felt his unease. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “There are bound to be people you know.”

  “There aren’t,” Angus replied. “There isn’t a single soul here. Not one.”

  Her reply was brisk. “Nonsense, Angus. Look over there. There’s Richard Neville-Towle, the conductor. See, over there. You know him. And there’s James Holloway. And there’s…” As she ran her eye round the room she recognised and identified guest after guest. Tam Dalyell. David Steel. Edward and Maryla Green. Duncan Macmillan. She reeled off the names, and as she did so, Angus’s nervousness lifted like morning mist off a field.

  “Oh well,” he said. “We’ll find somebody to talk to after all. What about a drink?”

  “You go and find somebody,” said Domenica. “I’ll get us each a glass of wine.”

  Encouraged, Angus began to make his way through the throng that had developed at the door. On the other side of the room, from the windows facing north, a view of the city revealed itself: spiky rooftops, stone crenellations, angled expanses of dark grey slate, all touched with gold by the evening sun. His artist’s eye caught the view and made him stop for a moment where he was, halfway across the room, and stare at what he saw. And for a moment he felt a strong sense of delight in belonging to this place, this city that vouchsafed to those who lived there, and to those who came in pilgrimage, sudden visions of such exquisite fragile beauty that the heart might feel it must stop. And it was his; it was his place, his home, and these people about him were no longer strangers but were bound to him in a brotherhood of place, sharers in the mystery celebrated there, right there, in the City Chambers on that summer evening.

  Domenica returned with the glasses of wine.

  “I bumped into the Lord Provost,” she said. “I thanked him for the invitation.”

  “Good.”

  She gave him a sideways glance. “Are you all right?”

  He turned to her, raising his glass half in toast to her, half to take a sip of wine. “I had an extraordinary experience,” he said.

  She frowned. “Right now? Here?”

  He nodded. “I was walking over towards the window and my eye caught the view.”

  She glanced towards the window. “Edinburgh.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But it was more than that. It was more than just a view of the city from up here. It was…How shall I put it? I felt as if I was being filled with something. I felt an extraordinary current pass through me.”

  He looked at her, embarrassed by what he had just said. But there was nothing mocking in her expression. “A mystical experience,” she said.

  “I don’t know…”

  She brushed aside his diffidence. “But of course it was, Angus. It was a moment of mystical insight.”

  “I’m not sure…”

  “It can happen at any time,” she went on. “We can be anywhere—out in the street, at home, climbing Ben Lawers, anywhere…and suddenly it comes to us, a sense of being at one with the world. Or it can be a sense of suddenly feeling a current of life that simply fills us with delight or warmth or…It can be anything, really.”

  He took another sip of his wine. Had he felt that? Had he suddenly felt at one with the world?

  He felt prosaic once more. If he had indeed experienced a feeling of unity with the world, then the feeling had not lasted. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “You know that Auden had just such an experience? He uses it in his poem A Summer Night, but he described it later, in prose. It was when he was teaching at a school. He went to sit outside with a small group of colleagues, under the night sky, and suddenly he felt just what I think you felt a few moments ago. He had what amounted to a vision of agape, that pure disinterested love of one’s fellow man that so many of us would love to find, but never do. And he said that the glow of this stayed with him for some days. Imagine that, Angus, you’re sitting in a deckchair under the night sky and you suddenly realise that you love humanity. Imagine that.”

  He could. Now he could.

  “Those lovely lines,” said Domenica. “Those lines he wrote in that poem about those whom he loved lying down to rest.” She paused. “Why are people so unkind to one another, Angus?”

  He looked into his glass. “Because they don’t open themselves to the feelings that banish unkindness. Because when a vision of agape comes to their door they keep it closed.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Exactly.”

  She might have said more, but was interrupted by the arrival at their side of a fellow guest.

  “Duke of Johannesburg,” he said with a smile. Then turning to Angus he said, “You remember me, perhaps. Or perhaps not; it’s so easy to forget that although we’re at the centre of our own world we are often only on the periphery of the world of others.”

  47. A Cocktail Party in Moray Place Gardens

  On the same evening that the Lord Provost was holding his party in the City Chambers, in another part of Edinburgh—Moray Place—a gathering of a very different nature was taking place. This was the summer cocktail party of the Association of Scottish Nudists, an event that was keenly anticipated by the members, even if the gathering was a clothed one. If the Association had its way, it would have opted to make it a naturist function—one in which no clothes were worn—but the committee that ran the gardens had, after some swithering, ruled that clothes should be worn because of complaints received from neighbouring streets. At the last occasion on which normal nudist rules had applied, a small group of jeering onlookers—described by one neighbour as “thoroughly undesirable types” and by another as “the keelies of the town”—had arrived to shout ribald and unflattering comments at the members of the Association. This had brought people to their windows, and one or two of the residents, who had not previously witnessed any of the Association’s functions, had been unprepared for what they saw.

  For the most part the members simply wore the clothes they would wear to any normal cocktail party, although one or two of the women wore shifts made of diaphanous voile that, in the right conditions, favoured translucence over opacity. Some of the men, moved by the same spirit of compromise, wore Bermuda shorts that exposed at least their knees and several inches below that until the long blue hose that complemented Bermuda shorts so well took over. But in spite of these nods in the direction of the flesh, the gathering was in no way different from any group of people meeting to discuss common interests and to share a glass of wine on a fine summer evening.

  This was the first summer party to be held after the restructuring of the Association and the election of a new committee. The new chairman and secretary had made much of the changeover and had insisted on a complete revision of the order of proceedings and the menu of canapés. The wider membership, pleased at the ousting of the self-perpetuating Edinburgh clique that had run the Association since the nineteen-thirties, was pleased at this symbolic reordering. “Even the cocktail party needed change,” a new committee member said. “This is all so much better, isn’t it?”

  That was not the view of the ousted Edinburgh committee. Its members had seen no need for change, and felt insulted that their careful stewardship of the Association should now be portrayed as a selfish hanging on to power.

  “They’re not the most sophisticated people in the world,” said one Edinburgh member. “Their horizons are distinctly limited, you know. I happened to mention the other day that the World Naturist Federation would be having its meeting in Croatia this year and one of them—one of these backwoodsmen—thought that Croatia was in the Caribbean.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. And when something was said about the new Ring Cycle being done at Santa Fe—that new nudist version—one of them thought that the Ring Cycle was a bicycle race! Can you imagine that? A sort of Tour de France sans pantalons, so to speak.”

  “Hah! What a bunch of ignorami!”

  “Yes indeed. But that’s what we’re
up against.”

  There were other complaints voiced—privately at least—by the Edinburgh membership. One of these was the argument over the Association’s name; the new committee had indicated that it was in favour of a name change at some point, although the precise nature of that name change had yet to be decided. The suggestion of Nudism Scotland had been briefly raised, but had not met with wide enough approval. More popular, though, had been the suggestion that the Association should be known as the Scottish Association of Nudists rather than the Association of Scottish Nudists, and this change had duly been set in motion.

  “There is a difference,” said one of the proponents of change. “The current name—the Association of Scottish Nudists—implies that the members are all Scots. That, I think, is too exclusive. There are members who are not Scottish by background but who live in Scotland and may wish to participate in the movement while here. If we call ourselves the Scottish Association of Nudists that means that we are a Scotland-based association of people who are nudists, but who may be of a different nationality. There could well be French nudists, say, in a Scottish Association of Nudists; they are not Scots—because they are French—but they are still members of an association that is Scottish in its domicile and outlook.”

  “There they go again,” said the former secretary. “A perfectly good name sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.”

  This remark, delivered with a sigh of acceptance, was made at the cocktail party, as the former secretary and the former chairman gathered together a small huddle of Edinburgh members to share regrets over what had happened. When the former chairman finished his first glass of Cava, he felt emboldened to reveal the plan that he and the former secretary had already discussed privately.

  “We need to keep this absolutely under wraps,” he said. “But the time has come to act, and I need to let you in on the secret.”

  The huddle became tighter. One of its members cast an eye over his shoulder to make sure that no members of the new committee were approaching or were within earshot. “The coast’s clear,” he said.

  “Right,” said the former chairman. “This is the plan. Aberdeen is the key.”

  They looked at him blankly.

  “In what respect?” asked one, a thin, rather mousy-looking woman from Silverknowes.

  “At present there are very few members from Aberdeen,” began the former chairman. “Barely more than ten.”

  “I think it’s twelve,” said the former secretary. “That’s counting Huntly and Inverurie.”

  “Very few,” said the former chairman. “But we could change that. We could try to swell the membership from Aberdeenshire. We could make it fifty or sixty—maybe even one hundred.”

  This brought looks of incredulity. “I doubt it,” said a man who in his ordinary life was a senior fund manager.

  The former chairman turned to smile at him. “But I think you’re wrong, Jock,” he said. “And I suggest we put it to the test. There’s one of the Aberdeen members over there. I’m going to ask him to join us and we can put something to him.”

  He moved away to intercept the Aberdeen member, who was on his way to the drinks table.

  “Could we have a word with you, William,” he said. “Just a little idea we have.”

  48. The Dastardly Plot is Revealed

  “Well, William, how are things up in Aberdeen?” asked the former chairman. “In the movement, that is?”

  William Macdonald, the chairman of the Aberdeen branch, was a thickset man with a fresh, ruddy complexion. It was a face that seemed to have been buffeted by winds of the North Sea and in its directness of expression and equanimity it was one that inspired trust. It was the ideal face for the plan that the former chairman had in mind, provided that…the former chairman stopped to think. What he proposed to do was not exactly dishonest—at least in his view; it was more of a defensive move designed to rectify an entirely unjustifiable capture of power by a calculating and ruthless faction. They had been prepared to use extreme methods to secure their goal; he and his allies in Edinburgh were fully entitled, he thought, to use similar methods to fight back. The only question was this: would Aberdeen see things in the same way as Edinburgh?

  The former chairman was something of a psychologist. Years ago, as an undergraduate at the University of St. Andrews, he had included psychology in his studies for his MA degree. Since then he had maintained a dilettante’s interest in the subject, fancying his ability to see through both clients and competitors in his small private-client legal practice.

  He felt that he understood Aberdeen, which was not the same as Edinburgh or Glasgow, or indeed any other Scottish city. Aberdeen was canny. Aberdeen did not believe in showiness or waste. Aberdeen was modest in the conduct of business. Aberdeen did not waste words. Aberdeen was good at engineering, farming, and sheer hard work. Aberdeen, in short, was everything that Scotland used to be.

  Now, in his conversation with William Macdonald, his shrewd understanding of Aberdeen came into play.

  “Jist tchyaving awa,” said William in answer to the former chairman’s questions. “It’s been waar.”

  This was what the former chairman had expected and wanted, as this gave him his cue.

  “Well, I’ve had an idea, William, about how we can deal with a little problem that’s cropped up in the Association. This business of the takeover…”

  “I wisnae afa pleased wi that,” said William. “Glasgow chiels are afa ill to deal wi.”

  The former chairman smiled—he could not have chosen better words himself.

  “Yes,” he said. “Showy bunch.”

  “We’re nae impressed wi that in Aiberdeen.”

  “No, of course not. So perhaps you might like to join me in a little plan to…to get rid of them.”

  “Aye, fairly that,” said William.

  “Good, all that’s required is that we expand the membership a bit…well, a great deal, actually, and then in the background we set up a new Association—one with the old name that they’re so casually about to abandon.” He paused. “You with me?”

  “Aye, am I.”

  “Then,” continued the former chairman, “once we have our new members enrolled in the current association we call an extraordinary meeting—at a time that might be difficult for our Weegie friends…”

  “When they’ve all gone doon the watter, or something like that,” said one of the others, to general laughter.

  “A meeting sounds afa dear,” said William.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll pay,” said the former chairman quickly before resuming his explanation. “Well, we call that meeting and we unseat the current committee and we put the old one back in—with you on that, of course, William, representing the fine city of Aberdeen, and then…” He paused for effect. “And then we sell the property in Moray Place to the new association we’d set up—it will use the old name, of course. Then we all resign and transfer our allegiance to the Association of Scottish Nudists—our old name, of course. We’ll let the Glasgow crowd and their pals in the Scottish Association of Nudists keep the flat in Ainslie Place and a bit of the money, but we’ll have the major asset, namely, the Moray Place premises. We’ll sell the basement and use the proceeds to fund the Association. We’ll be home and dry.”

  William considered this. “Div ye ken foo y’ere gan tae get aa these members?” he asked.

  The former chairman smiled as he revealed his master stroke. “We’ll advertise three years of free membership, only up north,” he said. “No Aberdonian will be able to resist an offer like that—even if they have no intention of practising nudism.”

  William agreed. “Mercy, aye, they’d like that fine even if they aye haud on tae their claes!” Then he added, “I’ll put a small ad in the P&J.”

  “Which of course we’ll pay for,” said the former chairman.

  The matter was settled there and then.

  “It’s going to work,” whispered the former chairman to the former secreta
ry. “I was worried that he’d get on his moral high horse about it, but no sign of that.”

  “They’re very pragmatic up there,” said the former secretary.

  “I do so love pragmatism,” said the former chairman.

  With the plot settled, they went their separate ways. The party was now in full swing, with a small jazz band striking up in one of the corners of the gardens and the Association’s numerous bottles of Cava being circulated by the students hired to act as waiting staff. These students, who earned a bit of pin money working for a catering firm, were used to serving at various Edinburgh functions, but never before at a party of the Association of Scottish Nudists. Two of them, a young man and a young woman, both nineteen, took a short break from their waiting duties (they were allowed the occasional ten minutes to get their breath back) and did so behind some bushes at the edge of the gardens.

  “Do you realise who these people are?” said the girl. “Would you have believed it?”

  “I know,” said the boy. “Seriously weird.”

  They were both silent for a few moments. Then the boy said, “Should we pretend we’re members? Prance around. Just for a few minutes? Right here?”

  Time seemed to stand still. A shaft of sunlight, filtered through the green of an overhanging branch of a tree, fell upon the boy’s face, and upon the girl’s forearm. Somewhere in a rhododendron bush a thrush burst into song, but briefly.