The Revolving Door of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The girl smiled. “I don’t think we’ve got time. And we might be caught before we had time to get our clothes back on.”

  “Yes,” said the boy, with regret. In fact he would have a lifetime to regret this—as we all have a lifetime to regret that which we would have wished to do but did not do.

  49. Macbeth and Proportional Representation

  Bertie’s grandmother had arranged that the promised purchase of his kilt should take place on a Saturday morning, as that would mean that Stuart could look after Ulysses while she and Bertie went to a kilt-maker on the High Street. Ulysses could have accompanied them in his pushchair, but Nicola understood that for Bertie this was a very significant trip and he would feel much more important were he to make it in her company alone. From her point of view, she was looking forward to the opportunity to get away from Ulysses for a short time, not that she disliked her younger grandson—well, when she came to think about it, she was not overly fond of him. He could not help his tendency to bring up his food, of course; nor could he be blamed for his prolonged attacks of wind; it was just that there was a limit to the amount of time and energy one had and Ulysses somehow succeeded in using up much of that. Nicola did not complain about grandparental responsibilities—and indeed handled them rather well—but if given the chance to spend some time other than in the company of Ulysses she tended to take it.

  Bertie’s excitement over the expedition meant that he had got himself out of bed, had helped himself to breakfast, dressed, brushed his teeth and done his morning music practice by half past six. It was at that point that he took it upon himself to take his grandmother a cup of tea in her bedroom.

  “My goodness,” said Nicola, as she emerged from sleep. “Is that a cup of tea I see before me?”

  “Macbeth asked whether it was a dagger,” said Bertie. “It might have been better for him—and for Scotland—had it been a cup of tea.”

  Nicola sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. She had not yet become used to just how advanced Bertie was, and she was still astonished when he made this sort of pronouncement.

  “Have you read Macbeth?” she asked, as he handed her the teacup.

  “Yes,” said Bertie. “Mummy got it for me out of the library, and I read it all.”

  “Do you study Shakespeare at school?” asked Nicola, as she took a sip of her tea.

  “No,” said Bertie. “I do it by myself. Most of the people I know can’t read yet. Tofu certainly can’t. He says reading’s rubbish.”

  “That’s not true at all,” said Nicola. “Tofu’s going to grow up very ignorant, I fear.”

  “He’s already ignorant,” said Bertie.

  “So it would seem,” said Nicola. “And he does have a very unusual name, doesn’t he? Do you know any other boys called Tofu?”

  Bertie shook his head. “Not at Steiner’s,” he said. “We’ve got a Sirius in my class. There’s a girl called Quinoa in one of the senior classes. She lives in Stockbridge. Quinoa’s a sort of grain, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Nicola. “But do you know why Tofu’s called Tofu?”

  “His dad is a very famous vegan,” said Bertie. “He’s written a book about nuts and he’s converted his car to run on olive oil. Sometimes you can see him parked outside Valvona & Crolla filling the car up with olive oil.”

  “Very strange,” said Nicola. “But back to Macbeth, Bertie, what did you think of it? Did you enjoy it?”

  Bertie nodded. “I felt sorry for Macbeth,” he said. “I think that Lady Macbeth made him kill King Duncan.”

  Nicola agreed. “She was a very manipulative woman, a bit like…” She stopped herself in time. She had almost said like Mummy, which would have been a tactless thing to say. But it is absolutely true, she thought; Irene is Lady Macbeth. Stuart had married Lady Macbeth.

  “You know, Bertie,” she went on, “Macbeth was probably quite a good king in real life. We’re told that Scotland prospered under him. It was still a dangerous place, though. There was a lot of rivalry between the different factions—that’s always been a big problem in Scotland. We fight with one another.” She paused, thinking of the discourtesy that marred Scottish politics. “We do not have a particularly edifying political culture, Bertie, but at least we don’t use claymores any more.”

  “Ranald’s daddy went to a re-creation of the Battle of Bannockburn last year,” said Bertie. “He said that there were people dressed up in armour. They had swords and lances too. He said that he didn’t think they had proportional representation in those days, Granny.”

  “No indeed,” said Nicola. “Now, Bertie, it’s far too early to set off for the kilt-maker. They don’t open until nine, you see. So I suggest that you sit quietly and read while I get up and get myself organised.”

  There was a small bedroom chair in Nicola’s room and Bertie sat himself down on that. The book that Nicola had been reading lay on the floor beside the chair, and Bertie picked this up, examined the title and began to read.

  “This is very sad,” he said after a while.

  “What’s sad, Bertie?” asked Nicola, from behind her make-up mirror.

  Bertie held up the book: Jean Findlay’s biography of Charles Scott Moncrieff. “Mr. Scott Moncrieff went off to war in France and then he became sick and died. That’s very sad.”

  “Well, he managed to do quite a lot in between going off to war and dying,” said Nicola. “He translated Proust into English, for instance.”

  Bertie laid down the book. “Who’s Proust?”

  “Proust was a French writer,” said Nicola. “He wrote about…well, he wrote about a lot of things. He paid great attention to the small details of life.”

  “Did he write about pirates?” asked Bertie.

  Nicola smiled. “No, I don’t think Proust wrote about pirates. He wrote about cakes, though—Madeleine cakes.” She remembered something else. “He may not have written about pirates, but he did write about boats sometimes. He said something about steamships, as I recall.”

  Bertie’s attention was engaged. “I like steamships a lot,” he said. “Did Mr. Proust like them?”

  “No,” said Nicola. “He said that steamships insulted the dignity of distance.”

  “That’s a very odd thing to say,” said Bertie. Then he changed the subject. “Do you like martinis, Granny?”

  Nicola looked sideways at her grandson. She did like martinis, but what had possessed him to ask?

  It was as if Bertie had intercepted her unexpressed question. “Because Mummy says you have a weakness for them. She says that you probably have them for breakfast—but I’ve never seen you eating martinis for breakfast.”

  “You don’t eat martinis, Bertie,” said Nicola indulgently. “You drink them.”

  “Then you do have them for breakfast,” said Bertie, quite politely. “I’ve seen you.”

  50. On the Way to the Kilt-Maker

  They walked to the kilt-maker’s shop, which was in a small close off the High Street. Their route took them up Dublin Street, where Bertie explained to his grandmother about the importance of not stepping on cracks in the pavement.

  Nicola laughed. “I remember that so well,” she said. “When I was your age, Bertie, we used to think that bears would get you if you trod on a crack. I remember really believing that, you know.”

  “There are no bears, Granny. I don’t think you need to worry.”

  “Oh. I’m not worried, Bertie.”

  Bertie frowned. “But you should still be careful not to step on a crack.”

  “But if there are no bears,” said Nicola, “then why should you be careful?”

  “Because stepping on a crack harms the immune system,” answered Bertie.

  Nicola looked at him with astonishment. He had been quite serious. Where on earth did her grandson, this remarkable little boy, get ideas like that—and the words to express them?

  “Mind you,” continued Bertie, “sometimes you can’t help stepping on the cracks in Edinburgh. There are s
o many, you see. The Government has run out of money, I think. They’ve kept saying there’s lots and lots of money, but I think when they went to look in the safe there wasn’t very much. None, in fact.”

  Nicola smiled. “How interesting. Did Daddy tell you that?”

  Bertie nodded.

  “Well, well!” said Nicola. “What an interesting insight to get.”

  They reached the top of Dublin Street. “This is where Queen Street starts,” said Bertie. “I used to go to psychotherapy down at the other end. I used to have a psychotherapist called Dr. Fairbairn. He’s the one who looks like Ulysses—or rather, Ulysses looks just like him.”

  “Even more interesting,” muttered Nicola. “Did Mummy like Dr. Fairbairn, Bertie?”

  “Oh yes,” replied Bertie. “She used to talk to him for ages while I sat in the waiting room. Sometimes when I went for my psychotherapy Mummy used up all the appointment and I only had five minutes at the end. I didn’t mind.”

  “What was this Dr. Fairbairn like, Bertie? Did you like him?”

  Bertie was slow to answer. “I liked him a bit,” he said at last. “Not very much—just a bit. He was mad, you know, and everybody says it’s not your fault if you’re mad. So I didn’t blame him for being mad.”

  “Why do you think he was mad, Bertie?”

  “Because he had very strange eyes,” said Bertie. “Just like Ulysses’ eyes, actually. And also because he said very peculiar things. I think that was why the Government knew he was mad—they’d heard some of the things he said and they decided to send him to Carstairs. I think they had a room ready for him there. He said that he was going to Aberdeen, but I think he was really going to Carstairs.”

  Nicola was having difficulty keeping a straight face. “And tell me, Bertie, have you mentioned to anybody that Ulysses looks like Dr. Fairbairn? What does Mummy think about that, I wonder?”

  “Oh, I told Mummy,” said Bertie.

  Nicola waited.

  “I told her a long time ago.”

  Nicola hardly dared ask. “And what did Mummy say? Was she pleased?”

  Bertie hesitated. “I…I don’t think so.”

  “What did she say?”

  “At first she said nothing. So I told her again and that’s when she started screaming at me.”

  “She screamed?”

  “Yes, she was jolly cross. She told me to keep quiet.” He paused. “I think it’s because she didn’t like the thought of Ulysses looking like anybody. I can’t see why anybody should mind that, can you, Granny?”

  “That depends,” said Nicola. “Sometimes people can be a bit sensitive about these things. And what about Daddy? Did you tell Daddy?”

  “Yes,” said Bertie. “Daddy just became very quiet. He didn’t scream at me or anything. He just stopped talking for a while.”

  “It might have been a surprise for him,” said Nicola. “These things can take people by surprise.”

  They crossed Queen Street and continued their journey. Both were silent now—Bertie because he was thinking of the kilt that awaited him, and Nicola because she was pondering what Bertie had just said. It was glaringly obvious: that woman had been having an affair with the psychotherapist. And Stuart—poor Stuart—had obviously come to hear of it through Bertie and had either decided to condone it or had simply suffered in silence—which had always been his response to trying circumstances.

  The knowledge that Irene had been seeing somebody else made it easier for Nicola. She would not interfere in the marriage—not directly—but she owed it to her son to persuade him to look after himself. She would sit down and talk to him. She would encourage him to consider his future. “It’s patently obvious to me,” she would say, “that you are happier without her. Look at you: you needed to put on a bit of weight, and you’ve done that. Your skin tone is better. You’re smiling more. Why, may I ask? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? She’s the problem, Stuart—it’s so clear to me, it really is.”

  She allowed herself some time to contemplate this scene and this imagined conversation, and then she realised that they were already on the North Bridge, looking up at the old offices of The Scotsman and the craggy skyline of the Old Town tenements.

  “Have they made the kilt specially for me?” Bertie asked, his voice filled with pride.

  “Yes,” said Nicola. “I gave them your height, told them which tartan you wore, and they’ve done the rest. Ancient Pollock, I believe. It’s very like the Maxwell tartan because I think Pollocks and Maxwells were all mixed up together.”

  “And our clan symbol is a pig, I think.”

  Nicola corrected him. “Actually, it’s a boar, Bertie. A boar sounds a bit better than a pig.”

  “I bet they were brave,” said Bertie. “All those old Pollocks—I bet they were brave.”

  “Oh, they were,” agreed Nicola. And she thought: no ancient Pollock, no scion of an early Pollock, would have tolerated Irene for more than a couple of days. Those hairy early Scotsmen would not have put up with being lectured about Melanie Klein. And none of their hairy sons—and she imagined that all early Scots were somewhat hairy—would have allowed themselves to be sent off to yoga lessons and psychotherapy. Oh Scotland, she thought, what has become of you?

  51. More about Fersie MacPherson

  Proudly clad in Ancient Pollock tartan, Bertie made his way back down Dublin Street with his grandmother, the folds of his new kilt swinging with all the jauntiness of its seven-year-old owner. Both had enjoyed the outing—Bertie because his long-held wish to own a kilt had been fulfilled; Nicola because she had seen the expression of unqualified delight on her grandson’s face as the kilt had been extracted from its wrapping of tissue paper and handed over to him, to be donned immediately, adjusted by the kilt-maker, and then given the final nod of approval. Nicola had asked about a boy’s sporran, but had been told that these would not be coming into stock for a few weeks yet.

  “We shall notify you immediately we get them,” said the kilt-maker. “But in the meantime, I’d suggest just wearing it without a sporran. Anything goes these days, you know. People wear kilts with boots, for instance, and lots of people forget about the sgian dubh.” He sighed. “To such a pass have things come…”

  “That’s the little knife people tuck into their stockings,” Nicola explained.

  Bertie’s eyes widened as he saw his chance. “Couldn’t I wear a Swiss Army knife instead, Granny? I don’t mind.”

  The kilt-maker exchanged glances with Nicola, and smiled. “I’m afraid not, young man,” he said. “But when you’re a bit older, come back and we’ll fix you up with a real sgian dubh.”

  At length they left the shop with Bertie’s dungarees neatly wrapped up in a brown paper parcel and tied up with string. “We could leave the dungarees here in the shop,” he suggested. “Then we could pick them up some other time.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Nicola. “Mummy might wonder where they are.” And she thought: I can just imagine it: ‘Where, may I ask, are Bertie’s secondary dungarees?’ What a cow that woman is.

  “But she’d never know,” said Bertie. “She’s going to be away for years, I think. She really likes it in the desert.”

  Nicola thought: Oh, if only! But that Bedouin sheikh in his desert fastness is not going to be able to tolerate her for much longer; poor man, who can blame him? And there’s one thing you can be quite certain of—sheikhs, for all their undoubted talents, are not exactly new men.

  The kilt-maker raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s a complicated story,” Nicola explained. “The mother is…” She leaned forward to whisper something to the kilt-maker. “Actually, the poor woman’s in a harem somewhere on the Persian Gulf. Terribly sad, but there we are—we soldier on.” She did not mention the fact that Irene appeared to be enjoying herself and had started a harem book club in which the latest novels (reviewed in The Guardian) were discussed with great interest by the members.

  The kilt-maker looked shocked. “Poor w
ee fellow,” he said. “How’s he bearing up?”

  “Oh, actually he rather likes the situation,” said Nicola. “As I said, it’s a complicated story.”

  Now, as they approached Scotland Street, Bertie’s heart was close to bursting. Remembering the story his grandmother had begun for him, the story of Fersie MacPherson, the Scottish Person, he asked, “Do you think that Fersie MacPherson had a kilt like this when he was my age, Granny?”

  Nicola assured him that he did. “Fersie MacPherson had tartan nappies when he was a baby,” she said. “Ancient MacPherson tartan. Then, when he was a bit older, maybe one and a half, he got his first kilt. They went into Oban to buy it and he never took it off until he was three, and got his next kilt.”

  “Except in the bath,” said Bertie.

  “Of course. Mind you, he played a lot outside when he was very small. He was mostly washed by the rain. There’s a lot of rain over there in Lochaber and they would just put Fersie outside to get him clean. It toughened him up too.”

  “He was jolly strong, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. He started to toss the caber when he was only five, Bertie—a couple of years younger than you. He threw his first telephone pole then. Everybody was astonished. He tossed it at least five feet. It was amazing. There was an article about it in the Oban Times.”

  “I bet he had a Swiss Army penknife,” muttered Bertie.

  Nicola did not reply to that. “Remember that he was a kind boy, Bertie. Very strong people are usually kind. It’s only the weaklings who are unkind to other people.”

  “I know that,” said Bertie. “I’ll try to be kind too, Granny—now that I have a kilt.”

  Nicola looked down at the little boy walking beside her. She wanted to lift him up and hug him. She wanted him to stay like this forever. She wanted him to have the fun he had been missing, to get some enjoyment out of life, to set out on any one of the glorious paths that lay before him before, one by one, life closed them off.

  They reached Number 44 and Nicola opened the door to the stair. Bertie began to bound up, as he usually did, but stopped halfway up to see who was coming downstairs towards them. There was a snuffling sound and then a familiar bark as Cyril, accompanied by his owner, Angus Lordie, came into view.