Bertie Plays the Blues by Alexander McCall Smith
Matthew explained to Lesley Kerr about the bargain he had struck with Bruce. She was sympathetic and made no comment on the one-sidedness of the arrangement. “I shall put in the offer as instructed,” she said. “Now, you should stop worrying about it, Matthew. You’re doing the right thing. Just leave everything to me.”
When he left the offices and stepped out into Rutland Square, Matthew tried to put Lesley’s advice into practice. I shall not think about Bruce, he said to himself, somewhat grimly, and through metaphorically gritted teeth. But the thought of Bruce, smiling with self-satisfaction at the advantageous deal he had struck, did not leave Matthew easily, and remained with him all the way through Charlotte Square and down the steep inclines of Glenfinlas Street. By the time he reached the flat in Moray Place, though, the cloud that was Bruce seemed to have lifted. And his spirits were to rise even further when Elspeth suggested that they take the triplets into the garden for a picnic.
“It’s such a gorgeous day,” she said. “We mustn’t waste it.”
Matthew could not contain himself. “And I have wonderful news for you,” he said. “We’re returning to India Street. I’ve bought the flat back.”
She leant forward and kissed him. “You clever man,” she whispered. “You’re a worker of miracles!”
Matthew blushed. I am not clever, he thought. I am not a worker of miracles – not proper ones. I’m something of a failure, really, but … but I’m a fortunate man, leading a fortunate life. I have a loving wife; I have three sons, even if I occasionally find difficulty in remembering which is which; I have a job that I love doing; I live in a city that is exquisitely beautiful. The list of his blessings was long indeed, and he knew it.
The picnic was prepared by Elspeth and Anna jointly. Once again, Anna proved herself to be invaluable: buttering slices of bread with extraordinary speed and the cheerful energy that she brought to all her work. She had been busy baking too, and there were homemade Danish pastries, stuffed with slices of apple and small clusters of marzipan-surrounded raisins. There were small mussel and monkfish pies, with pastry decorations in the shape of anchors – a speciality, Anna explained, of a remote, entirely fish-eating corner of Denmark.
At the end of their lawn, a discreet wicker gate gave access to the communal Lord Moray’s Pleasure Gardens. These gardens tumbled down the cliff to the Water of Leith far below. Carefully raked paths criss-crossed the gardens, and gave access to various small terraces. It was on one of these terraces that the blanket was set down and the picnic hamper opened. The tiny boys, well wrapped against the breezes that could sweep up from Stockbridge even on a warm day, were placed in three small baby chairs – miniature deck chairs, almost, that could be bounced up and down if the occupant became bored or began to girn.
“If you want to go for a walk,” said Anna, as she sat down on the rug, “please do so. I shall look after the boys.”
Matthew and Elspeth took her up on the offer, strolling off along one of the paths, arm in arm. Matthew felt a deep contentment: the pleasure one feels in going back to something that one knows one loves and should never have left in the first place. He had been happy in India Street, and he would be happy once again. It did not matter that he had been obliged to pay so much for the privilege of returning. What was money anyway? Nothing, compared with the happiness that comes from being with the right person – and she was at his side now – and in the right place – as he would be once they returned to India Street. You could die at any moment – even here in Lord Moray’s Pleasure Gardens – and you would not be able to take a penny with you – not one. Why not spend it, if you were fortunate enough to have it, on the things that you loved? Or the things that other people might love?
They returned from their walk. Anna had moved to a nearby bench and was sitting with her back to them. They noticed that Tobermory – or was it Rognvald? – was seated on her knee and that she was talking to him.
“Many English verbs are irregular,” she said to him.
“Extremely irregular,” replied Tobermory. “It will be a long time before I can speak my native language, I think.”
Matthew and Elspeth looked on with complete astonishment. Then Anna half-turned and, seeing them, smiled. “I didn’t tell you that I’m a ventriloquist,” she said. “I come from the best-known family of ventriloquists in Denmark. I was practising with Tobermory.”
They sat down on the rug. Anna, abandoning her position on the bench, came back to join them, with Tobermory. The little boy was silent now.
They began the picnic. The Danish pastries were delicious, the fish pies equally so. The sun came out.
78. Domenica Devastated and Then Undevastated
Domenica Macdonald made her way slowly down the stair at 44 Scotland Street. Usually she did not linger, as she had never liked the smell of the stairway – a rather dusty smell – the smell of stone, if stone had a smell. But on this occasion she was deep in thought, and somehow speed of gait and thought seemed incompatible. A slow, deliberative walk aided deep reflection, and she needed to reflect very deeply indeed.
Here I am, she thought … And then she asked herself: how often do we start our thoughts with the expression Here I am …? Those three words were a powerful prelude to self-mockery – Here I am at my age (or my weight, or in my position, or dressed like this) doing this, of all things – or to a form of clear-eyed self-analysis – Here I am about to do something that will have profound implications (change my life, ruin everything, start a new chapter, etc.).
Here I am, she thought, a woman of a certain age who has agreed to marry a man I have known for years, a neighbour, more or less, a good, kind man, even if he has his little ways – and what man, anywhere, does not? – although admittedly some men have more little ways than others; here I am, then, having experienced one of those sudden visions sent by Venus, and having fallen, like a giddy schoolgirl, for a man from my past who wanders in and discloses that he has a yacht in the west of Scotland and wants me to go sailing with him! And instead of laughing or making one of those vague promises to think about it – as one accepts invitations that one will never be able to take up – instead of doing that I say that I would love to come, and mean it. You stupid, stupid woman! You false, foolish, ridiculous, absurd, venal, fickle … She ran out of adjectives and had to stop. One can only berate oneself for so much time before one’s vocabulary of reproach fails, and hers had.
By the time she reached the front door, her mind was made up. Now walking up Scotland Street with a sense of purpose – having abandoned the gait of one sunk in thought – she began to make her way to Angus Lordie’s studio in Drummond Place. She pressed the bell at the bottom of the stair, the bell under which a small brass plate announced Mr. Lordie (Portrait Painter). There was an intercom linked to a lock, but Angus never used it, complaining that it never got very good reception of Radio 3; she ignored it too and simply pushed the defective outer door open.
Angus, hearing the buzzer, had opened the inner door by the time she reached his landing. He smiled at her, and gestured for her to come in.
“I’m feeding Cyril,” he said. “Do come in. You can watch.”
She entered. There was the smell of turpentine that always seemed to hang in the air in Angus’s flat; there was the smell of the dog meal that Angus fed Cyril, an earthy smell like the smell of … what was it? she wondered. The smell of the potato barn on her uncle’s farm in East Lothian. She had played in it as a child, and had startled a great rat that had bared its teeth at her and sent her screaming back to the farmhouse, where her mother had said, “There is no rat, Domenica.” But there was a rat, and mothers and all the authorities put together could not deny that there was a rat, and still was.
“Angus,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”
He laid Cyril’s bowl on the floor and Cyril, looking up, gave one of his smiles.
“Yes,” said Angus, not looking at her. “I know what you’re going to say. You don’t have to tell me.?
She was momentarily taken aback. Had he suspected something? Was it that obvious? She felt the shame and embarrassment of one whose most private thoughts are exposed.
“I don’t think you know what I was going to say.”
He moved away, so that he was standing in front of his kitchen window, looking out. On the table, his copy of The Scotsman, opened to the letters page, his notebook, a half-empty bottle of milk, his cracked china teapot. She thought of Lear’s tragic, lonely figure, the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò, who had lived on the coast of Coromandel and who had had possessions just like this: two old chairs, and half a candle, one old jug without a handle … A nonsense rhyme, but like so much of Lear, so poignantly true about human suffering.
“I know very well what you’re going to tell me, Domenica. And please, please don’t worry about it. I’m not blaming you for one moment – not one moment. You cannot make people do things.”
She was puzzled. “You cannot make people do what?”
“You can’t make people love you. You can hope that they will; you can will it; you can delude yourself into thinking that they do. But you’ll always know that there’s nothing that you – or the other person – can do about it. So …”
She waited for him to continue. Below her, she heard Cyril wolfing down his food, a gobbling, slurping sound.
“So nothing,” she said. “Angus, I haven’t come here to lie to you. I’ve come here to say that I had a moment – and it really was just a moment – when an old passion was rekindled. But it was absurd, and it only lasted for a very short while. Barely a day. I’ve come to my senses. You are the one I love. You really are.”
He was silent.
“It would be best if we didn’t marry,” he said. “I don’t want to hold you to it.”
“Then I shall be devastated,” said Domenica.
He turned round. “Deforested?”
“What?”
“I thought you said you’d be deforested.”
She laughed. “No! Devastated. I’d be devastated.”
He laughed too, and Cyril, having finished his dog food, padded over to Domenica and licked her ankles. It was a gesture of acceptance and affection that was not lost on either of them.
“Look,” said Angus.
“Yes,” said Domenica, reaching down to pat Cyril’s head.
Angus looked at his watch. “Let’s go and have coffee at Big Lou’s,” he said.
“And make our plans,” she said.
He did not contradict her.
79. Wedding Plans
The date of the wedding was soon fixed, as was the place, and the officiant. There then remained only the matter of the music, and since neither Angus nor Domenica would have described themselves as particularly expert in that area, this was left entirely to Peter Backhouse, an old friend of both of them, who had agreed to play the organ. “Wedding music is very straightforward,” said Peter. “You want to play something calm while the guests are sitting there waiting – you do not want them getting excited. Then something fairly dramatic when the bride enters – that is, undoubtedly, the most theatrical moment – and finally, when all is said and done, you want something triumphant.”
“Exactly what I had in mind,” said Angus. “Act one, act two, act three.”
They had two weeks to get ready. Some of this was taken up with the mundane issue of arranging for the merging of two households. Fortunately, Angus had little by way of furniture, kitchen equipment, or linen, and so Domenica would have to make no change in that respect. The possible sale of his flat in Drummond Place had been quietly and tactfully dropped; he would keep that as a studio, and Domenica would remain in her flat in Scotland Street, which would become the matrimonial home. The vexed issue of Antonia’s flat was also neatly resolved by Lesley Kerr’s suggestion that Antonia should be persuaded to let it. Domenica had written to her accordingly and had suggested that the rental be paid over to Sister Anne-Marie’s mission to sailors in the west of Scotland. Antonia readily agreed to this, as she had long admired Sister Anne-Marie’s work and was greatly supportive of it. As far as the gift of the Cadell was concerned, she could not be shifted. “You are to have that painting, Angus. There are so few chances we have to bring happiness in this life that we must not lose those that present themselves. You do love it, do you not?”
Angus could truthfully say that he did. “I shall so enjoy having it,” he said. “I shall look at it every day and think of you.” He did not mention that, when he looked at it each day, he would also think of the four hundred thousand pounds he was forgoing by not selling it. But we all have unworthy thoughts (some of us, it must be accepted, rather more than others).
The guest list was, as in the case of all weddings, a complicated matter. Both Angus and Domenica had a large number of friends, and the initial list came to eleven hundred people. “Is it necessary to invite the entire Scottish Arts Club?” asked Domenica. “I’m sure that they are most agreeable people, Angus, but the entire membership?”
There was radical pruning of that part of the list. “And the Duke of Johannesburg?” Domenica asked, looking further down the list. “And who are these? East Lothian, West Lothian, and Midlothian?”
“They are his sons,” said Angus. “Very charming boys.”
There were more hard decisions to make. “I’m not having her,” said Domenica, pointing to one well-known name on the list. “You choose between having her at the wedding, Angus, or having me.”
He hesitated, but only for a moment. “I have very little choice,” he said.
“None,” said Domenica.
“And what about her downstairs?” said Angus. “That awful woman – wee Bertie’s mother?”
“Needs must,” said Domenica. “And anyway, I get the distinct impression that she’s changed. She greeted me very politely on the stair the other day and didn’t immediately start lecturing me about some pet issue of hers. And Bertie looked a bit happier too. Do you think she might have seen the error of her ways?”
Angus thought for a moment. “I like to believe that people are capable of change,” he said. “But I wonder if I delude myself. I wonder if people really do change their fundamental disposition.”
Domenica sighed. “I fear that not many do. The die, I’m afraid, is cast very early.”
“But you don’t think it’s impossible?”
“No, it’s not impossible. Look at Antonia. Look at what she used to be – a rather calculating man-eater. And what is she now? A nun, or about to become a nun. What more of a change can one imagine?”
Angus looked out of the window. “Do you think she’s happy?”
“Certainly,” said Domenica. “Look at her letters. And you know something, Angus? It is undoubtedly the case that the practice of the virtues makes one happier. We’ve somewhat lost sight of that essential truth, now that we, as a society, admire selfishness and vanity so much. Look at this so-called celebrity culture. Look at what it’s doing to the minds of our children. Did you see that item in the press about the survey of the career ambitions of contemporary children? You know what most of them say they want to be? Celebrities! Can you credit it? Where are all those little boys who wanted to be firemen and pilots and circus strongmen and the like? Or the girls who wanted to be nurses? Where are they?”
“Perhaps we’re just getting away from stereotypes,” ventured Angus. “Perhaps the boys want to be nurses now and the girls pilots.”
“Possibly,” said Domenica.
“And as for little Bertie, do you think he’ll survive that mother of his?”
“Of course he will,” said Domenica. “Bertie will be fine. That little boy has a heart, and a head, in the right place. He represents goodness, I think. He represents innocence, and innocence has taken such a profound battering in our times. We have mocked it. We have sullied it. We have put it in intensive care, and frankly, I don’t see how it can survive. And yet here and there one sees flickers of its light – just flickers. And so we
Angus was silent as he thought about this. Domenica was undoubtedly right, as she was about so many things. And as he reflected upon this, he thought of his good fortune in having found somebody like her, prepared to take on somebody like him, and a dog like Cyril thrown in for good measure. The shoulders of women were broad indeed, and none broader, he felt, than this amusing, entertaining, and observant woman who had agreed to marry him and, in so doing, had agreed to reduce the sum total of this world’s loneliness by a minute, but to him, inestimably important measure.
80. Finale
On the evening before the wedding, Domenica and Angus held a dinner party in Scotland Street. It was a largish affair by the standards of Domenica’s dinner parties, but by creating two tables, one in the kitchen and one in the drawing room, they were able to fit everybody in.
“People will have their first course at one table and then the guests will change round and have their second course at the other table,” Domenica announced to Angus. “That will ensure that everybody gets the chance to speak to everybody else. Or to at least to look at them, if they have nothing to say.”
“A good idea,” said Angus. But then, after a moment, he added, “Hold on, Domenica. If they all change tables, then they’ll be with the same people all over again. In a different place, of course, and that might be important, but it will be the same dramatis personae.”