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  Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over eighty books on a wide array of subjects. For many years he was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and served on national and international bioethics bodies. Then in 1999 he achieved global recognition for his award-winning series The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and thereafter has devoted his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and Corduroy Mansions series. His books have been translated into forty-five languages. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Elizabeth, a doctor.

  Praise for the 44 Scotland Street novels:

  ‘Perfect escapist fiction’

  The Times

  ‘Simple, elegantly written and gently insightful’

  Good Book Guide

  ‘A joyous, charming portrait of city life and human foibles, which moves beyond its setting to deal with deep moral issues and love, desire and friendship’

  Sunday Express

  ‘Does for Edinburgh what Armistead Maupin did for San Francisco: seeks to capture the city’s rhythms by focusing on a small, emblematic corner … A light-hearted, genial soap opera’

  Financial Times Magazine

  Also by Alexander McCall Smith

  THE NO.1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIES

  The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

  Tears of the Giraffe

  Morality for Beautiful Girls

  The Kalahari Typing School for Men

  The Full Cupboard of Life

  In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

  Blue Shoes and Happiness

  The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

  The Miracle at Speedy Motors

  Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

  The Double Comfort Safari Club

  The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party

  The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection

  THE ISABEL DALHOUSIE NOVELS

  The Sunday Philosophy Club

  Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

  The Right Attitude to Rain

  The Careful Use of Compliments

  The Comfort of Saturdays

  The Lost Art of Gratitude

  The Charming Quirks of Others

  The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

  THE 44 SCOTLAND STREET SERIES

  44 Scotland Street

  Espresso Tales

  Love Over Scotland

  The World According to Bertie

  The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

  The Importance of Being Seven

  THE CORDUROY MANSIONS SERIES

  Corduroy Mansions

  The Dog Who Came in from the Cold

  A Conspiracy of Friends

  THE VON IGELFELD ENTERTAINMENTS

  The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom

  Unusual Uses for Olive Oil

  La’s Orchestra Saves the World

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-1-405-51123-0

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Alexander McCall Smith

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Iain McIntosh

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Also by Alexander McCall Smith

  Copyright

  1. The Question of Birth Order

  2. The Naming of Boys

  3. Sons of Auchtermuchty

  4. Where, Then, Shall We Live?

  5. A Request from Italy

  6. Paysage Moralisé

  7. An Interest in Fire

  8. The Holy Grail

  9. Remember to Expand

  10. A Distressed Oatmeal Sweater

  11. Flowers and Submarines

  12. The Ceilings of Edinburgh

  13. Facility and Circumvention

  14. Senior Moments

  15. Some Novelists

  16. Matthew Speaks Out of Turn

  17. A Letter from Arbroath

  18. Measuring Up

  19. The Privacy, or Otherwise, of Postcards

  20. The Presence of the Sun

  21. An Evening with the Triplets

  22. Sheer Exhaustion

  23. Help Needed

  24. Stuart and Irene Discuss Freemasonry

  25. The People Out There

  26. Ranald Braveheart Macpherson’s Revelation

  27. Dinner with Dr Macgregor

  28. Innocence Before Freud

  29. The Home Life of Ranald Braveheart Macpherson

  30. Angus Lordie and Cyril Visit Moray Place

  31. Forgiveness

  32. Matching Scots

  33. The Meaning of EI

  34. A Miracle Wrought by Nature

  35. The Benefits of Brotherhood

  36. Stuart is Initiated

  37. We Meet the Duke of Johannesburg

  38. On the Machair

  39. The Landscape of Dreams

  40. Kenyan Matters

  41. I Am Come from Copenhagen

  42. Anna Takes Command

  43. Bertie Takes the Fifth

  44. B.O.A.C.

  45. The Male Menopause

  46. Lives of Purpose

  47. A Letter from Italy

  48. The Scottish Male Psyche Laid Bare

  49. On Being in the Right Place

  50. A Trip to Glasgow is Planned

  51. Domenica’s Visitor

  52. What About You?

  53. On Teak, and Boyfriends etc.

  54. Domenica Comes Clean

  55. An Invitation to the Crieff Hydro

  56. Thoughts of Bruce: Bruce Thoughts

  57. Anna Receives a Shock in Moray Place

  58. The Great Highland Midge

  59. Edinburgh’s Bone-deep Modesty

  60. For Sale – Again

  61. In the Cumberland Bar

  62. The Use of Nominees

  63. Solastalgia Explained

  64. A Prospect of Glasgow

  65. The Girl Within

  66. Oh, Promised Land of Glasgow!

  67. By Waverley Station I Sat Down And …

  68. On the Shoulders of Another

  69. Queen Street Station

  70. Mains of Mochle

  71. The Pros and Cons of Rare-breed Pigs

  72. Edinburgh for Phobics

  73. A Venetian Interior

  74. Unhappiness Revealed

  75. Bertie Plays the Blues

  76. The Oleaginous Bruce

  77. Danish Pastries in the Pleasure Gardens

  78. Domenica Devastated and Then Undevastated

  79. Wedding Plans

  80. Finale

  This book is for

  Mary Davidson

  1. The Question of Birth Order

  Elspeth Harmony’s triplets arrived in the order that was to dog them for the rest of their lives: first, second and third. They could not do otherwise, of course, but this was to determine so much for the three boys: emotional development, confidence, academic achievement, marriage, and ultimately – with that extraordinary synchronicity that nature can sometimes muster – the leaving of this world. Had the hospital not noted their order of appearance, and recorded it on the tiny bracelets fixed round the ankle of each by a nurse, then it would have been chance, rather than seniority, that governed how they f
ared in relation to one another. But these bracelets were put on, and the die, so to speak, was cast.

  Matthew had some inkling about the significance of birth order within a family. As an only child, he had no sibling with whom to develop rivalries and other passions, but he knew so many who did. One friend, the youngest of five boys, had once opened up to him in a maudlin moment in the Cumberland Bar. “They’ve never taken me seriously,” he said. “Never. And everything I had at home – everything – was fifth hand. Fifth hand clothes, shoes, handkerchiefs – the lot.”

  Matthew thought about this for a moment. “Fourth,” he said.

  His friend, absorbed in self-pity, had said, rather peevishly, “Fourth? Fourth what?”

  “Hand,” said Matthew. “It’s been through four hands by the time it reaches the fifth child. Therefore – fourth hand.”

  Self-pity does not appreciate pedantry. “Fifth,” said Matthew’s friend. “Five owners – fifth hand.”

  Matthew had stuck to his guns. “No. It depends on the number of hands it has been through. And something that’s second hand has been through two sets of hands: the original owner’s and the new owner’s.”

  “That means you have to count the fifth owner too,” said the friend. “My clothes were fifth hand. Five owners, including me.”

  Matthew had lost the point. “You’re probably right. But anyway …”

  “Well, it was awful, I can tell you. And it’s carried on all my life. Do you know my oldest brother? You’ve met him, haven’t you? He still treats me as if I’m six. He expresses surprise if he phones and my wife says I’m in the pub. He thinks I’m not old enough. He still thinks that.”

  “It could be worse,” said Matthew. “You could have no siblings – like me. Nobody to compete with. Nobody to think you’re too young. Nobody to dilute parental attention.”

  He was determined, of course, that he and Elspeth should make as few mistakes as possible in bringing up their triplets. A whole library of books had been purchased – each claiming to be the definitive guide to the raising of infants and young children. They had gone to a special talk put on for the parents of twins – prospective multiples had been the term used – and had listened intently to the advice that one should seek to achieve a balance between economy of scale and recognition of individuality.

  “Your twin is a person, and not just a twin,” said the lecturer. “I call this the paradox of the shared self. We are all ourselves, but we are, at the same time, something other than an isolated self. We are a social self – a self defined by those with whom we live; a self that has imposed upon it a number of roles – the role of sibling, the role of child, the role of lover, the role of employee and so on. The self has so many facets.”

  This required further thought. More immediate were the various questions raised by those attending, among them that of the effect on the child himself or herself of being a twin or, as the questioner somewhat untactfully put it, worse. This led to a discussion of the usual behavioural issues, and, significantly, to the issue of birth order.

  “The experience of the multiple is different from other children,” explained the lecturer. “The twin or triplet does not have to deal with existing rights – unless there are already older brothers and sisters. So there will not be a brother or sister who can do things better, who has an established position in the family: the playing field is level in that sense. Unless, of course, you tell the children who is oldest. And, frankly, I don’t recommend that. Why create any sense of entitlement?”

  “My father was a twin,” whispered Elspeth. “He knew that he was younger than his brother. By a couple of minutes, apparently.”

  “Why did they tell him?” asked Matthew.

  “They must have told them when they were very young. He said that he always knew.”

  “We won’t tell,” said Matthew. “We don’t want to create any sense of entitlement, do we?”

  “No.”

  They might not have wanted to, and yet they did. Five years later, in the face of persistent questioning, the parental position on birth order began to change and the official position that all three boys had been born at exactly the same time began to change. Yes, it was conceded, one had arrived first, but they claimed that they had forgotten who it was. That satisfied curiosity for a year or two, but the questions returned, and with the same determination as Mr Tam Dalyell had shown in trying to winkle admissions out of Mrs Thatcher on the sinking of the Belgrano, the boys managed to find out who was the oldest and who was the youngest. And so the fateful work was done, and the lottery of birth began to make its effects felt.

  The first to be born was Rognvald, named after the Norse founder of the Earldom of Orkney, Matthew being Orcadian on his grandmother’s side. The tiny baby, so small to be burdened with so great a name, was taken from his mother’s arms, swaddled in a cloth, and given to his father, who wept with pride, with joy, as he looked down into the puckered little face. “Rognvald,” he muttered. “Hello, my darling.”

  So moved was Matthew by this encounter that he quite forgot that Elspeth, still in the travails of labour, had two more babies to bring into the world. Matthew wanted to play with Rognvald, and had he brought with him to the hospital a Hornby Dublo train set – as some excessively keen fathers have been known to do – he would no doubt have set it up there and then and introduced his son to the pleasure of model railways. But all too soon, the nurse who had handed him Rognvald asked for him back. “You’ve got another one now,” she said. “Look.”

  Matthew spent a moment placing the nurse’s accent. It had a touch of the Hebrides to it – Stornoway, perhaps. He said, “Where are you from?”

  She said, “Mull. Tobermory.”

  He was filled with gratitude. “We’ll call the next one Tobermory,” said Matthew. “As a thank you.”

  2. The Naming of Boys

  Tobermory’s tiny lungs, once filled with air, lost no time in expelling it in the form of a cry of protest. If birth – our first eviction – is a deeply unsettling trauma, and we are told by those who claim to remember it that it is, then this child was not going to let the experience go unremarked upon. Red with rage, he vented his anger as Matthew cradled him. “Hush, Tobermory,” the new father crooned. “Hush, hush.”

  On her pillow of pain, already exhausted by the effort of giving birth to two boys, Elspeth half-turned her head. “Tobermory?”

  “Just a working title,” said Matthew, above the sound of Tobermory’s screams. “It suits him, don’t you think?”

  Elspeth nodded wearily. They had agreed in advance upon the name Rognvald, and had more or less decided on Angus and Fergus for the others, but Elspeth, being wary of having children who rhymed, was less enthusiastic about these last two names. Tobermory sounded rather attractive to her; she had been there once, on a boat from Oban, and had loved the brightly painted line of houses that followed the curve of the bay. Why were Scottish buildings grey, when they could be pink, blue, ochre? Moray Place, where they lived, could be transformed if only they would paint it that pink that one finds in houses in Suffolk, or the warm sienna of one or two buildings in East Lothian.

  “Tobermory,” she muttered. “Yes, I rather like that.”

  She returned to the task at hand, and a few minutes later gave birth to Fergus, who was markedly more silent than Tobermory, at whom he appeared to look reproachfully, as if censuring him for creating such a fuss.

  The family of five was now complete. Matthew stayed in the hospital for a further hour, comforting Elspeth, who had become a bit weepy. Then, blowing a proud kiss to his three sons, he went back to the flat in Moray Place that the couple had moved into on the sale of their first matrimonial home in India Street. Once back, Matthew made his telephone calls – to his father, to Elspeth’s mother in Comrie, and to a list of more distant relatives whom he had promised to keep informed.

  Then there were friends to contact, including Big Lou, who had been touchingly concerned over Elspeth
’s condition during her pregnancy.

  “You’re going to have to be really strong, Matthew,” she warned. “It’s not an easy thing for a lass to have triplets. You have to be there for her.”

  You have to be there for her. Matthew had not expected that expression from Big Lou, whose turn of phrase reflected rural Angus rather than the psychobabble-speaking hills of California.

  “I’ll be there for her, Lou,” he said, following her lead. “In whatever space she’s in, I’ll be there.”

  “Good,” said Lou. “She’ll be fair trachled with three bairns. You too. You’ll be trachled, Matthew. It’s a sair fecht.”

  “Aye,” said Matthew, lapsing into Scots. “I ken. I’ll hae my haunds fu.”

  But now there was no word of caution from Big Lou. “They’re all right, are they, Matthew?” she said over the telephone.

  He assured her that they were, and she let out a whoop of delight. This show of spontaneous shared joy moved Matthew deeply. That another person should feel joy for him, should be proud when he felt proud, should share his heady, intoxicating elation, struck him as remarkable. Most people, he suspected, did not want others to be happy, not deep down. However we pretended otherwise, we resented the success of our friends; not that we did not want them to meet with success at all – it’s just that we did not want them to be markedly more successful than we were. Matthew remembered reading somewhere that somebody had written – waspishly, but truly – every time a friend succeeds, I die a little. Gore Vidal: yes, he had said it. The problem, though, with witty people, thought Matthew, was working out whether they meant what they said.

  And it was the same with money. If somebody knew you had money – and Matthew had, when all was said and done, slightly more than four million pounds, transferred to him by his father – if a friend knew that sort of thing, then his face would cloud over, just for a moment, as the emotion of envy registered itself. We do not want our friends to be poor, but by and large we prefer them to be slightly poorer than we are – just a fraction.

  Big Lou meant what she said. She was delighted that Elspeth and the triplets were well; she was thrilled that Matthew was so happy; she was, moreover, very pleased that the population of Scotland had gone up by three at a time when demographic trends pointed the other way.