44 Scotland Street Read online

  This is for Lucinda Mackay

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Preface

  1. Stuff Happens

  2. A Room with a Smell

  3. We See a Bit More of Bruce

  4. Fathers and Sons

  5. Attributions and Provenances

  6. Bruce Takes a Look at a Place

  7. A Full Survey

  8. Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs

  9. SP

  10. The Road from Arbroath

  11. The Origins of Love and Hate

  12. Chanterelles Trouvées

  13. You Must Remember This / A Kiss Is Just a Kiss

  14. The Smell of Cloves

  15. 560 SEC

  16. Irrational Beliefs and the Mind of the Child

  17. An Educational Exchange

  18. The Works of Melanie Klein

  19. A Modest Gift

  20. The Boys Discuss Art

  21. A Daughter’s Dance Card

  22. Bruce Comes Under Consideration

  23. Goings-on in London

  24. Unwelcome Thoughts

  25. Dinner with Domenica

  26. A Room, a Photograph, Love and Memory

  27. The Electricity Factory

  28. Thomas Is Electrocuted

  29. Friendship

  30. Things Happen at the Gallery

  31. The Lothian and Borders Police Art Squad

  32. Akrasia: The Essential Problem

  33. Peploe?

  34. On the Way to the Floatarium

  35. Latte Interrupta

  36. Bertie in Disgrace

  37. At the Floatarium

  38. Mother/Daughter Issues

  39. The Facts of Life

  40. In Nets of Golden Wires

  41. Your Cupboard or Mine?

  42. Gallery Matters

  43. The Sort of People You See in Edinburgh Wine Bars

  44. Tales of Tulliallan

  45. More Tulliallan Tales

  46. Humiliation and Embarrassment

  47. Irene and Stuart: A Breakfast Conversazione

  48. Plans for the Conservative Ball

  49. Tombola Gifts

  50. Bruce Prepares for the Ball

  51. Velvety Shoes

  52. Silk Organza

  53. Bruce Fantasises

  54. Supporting Walls

  55. Discovered

  56. At the Braid Hills Hotel

  57. The Duke of Plaza-Toro

  58. Catch 22

  59. The Dashing White Sergeant

  60. The Tombola

  61. Bertie Begins Therapy

  62. The Rucksack of Guilt

  63. Irene Converses with Dr Hugo Fairbairn

  64. Post-analysis Analysis

  65. A Meeting in Valvona and Crolla

  66. Mr Dalyell’s Question

  67. Playing with Electricity

  68. Boucle d’Or

  69. The Turning to Dust of Human Beauty

  70. An Evening with Bruce

  71. At the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

  72. Angus Lordie’s Difficult Task

  73. A Dissident Free Presbyterian Fatwa

  74. A Man’s Dressing-gown

  75. News of a Loss

  76. Remembrance of Things Past

  77. Into Deep Morningside

  78. Steps with Soul

  79. A Meeting on the Stair

  80. Male Uncertainty, Existential Doubts, New Men etc

  81. Morningside Ladies

  82. On the Way to Mr Rankin’s

  83. But of Course

  84. An Invitation

  85. In the Cumberland Bar

  86. On the Subject of Dogs

  87. The Onion Memory

  88. Big Lou Receives a Phone Call

  89. Big Lou Goes to Dinner

  90. Poetry of the Tang Dynasty

  91. God Looks Down on Belgium

  92. In Scotland Street Tunnel

  93. A Further Tunnel – and a Brief Conversation

  About Aesthetics

  94. An Interesting Discovery

  95. Mr Guy Peploe Makes an Appearance

  96. Mr Peploe Sees Something Interesting

  97. More about Bertie

  98. Irene and Dr Fairbairn Converse

  99. Bruce Takes a Bath, and Thinks

  100. Bruce Expounds

  101. Pat and Bruce: An Exchange

  102. Paternal Diagnosis

  103. And Then

  104. The Place We Are Going To

  105. Bertie’s Friend

  106. Lunch at the Café St. Honoré

  107. Confidences

  108. Action Is Taken

  109. A Most Remarkable and Important Discovery

  110. Gain, Loss, Friendship, Love

  About the Author

  Also by Alexander McCall Smith

  Praise for 44 Scotland Street

  Copyright Page

  Preface

  Most books start with an idea in the author’s head. This book started with a conversation that I had in California, at a party held by the novelist, Amy Tan, whose generosity to me has been remarkable. At this party I found myself talking to Armistead Maupin, the author of Tales of the City. Maupin had revived the idea of the serialised novel with his extremely popular serial in The San Francisco Chronicle. When I returned to Scotland, I was asked by The Herald to write an article about my Californian trip. In this article I mentioned my conversation with Maupin, and remarked what a pity it was that newspapers no longer ran serialised novels. This tradition, of course, had been very important in the nineteenth century, with the works of Dickens being perhaps the best known examples of serialised fiction. But there were others, of course, including Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which nearly landed its author in prison.

  My article was read by editorial staff on The Scotsman, who decided to accept the challenge which I had unwittingly put down. I was invited for lunch by Iain Martin, who was then editor of the paper. With him at the table were David Robinson, the books editor of the paper, Charlotte Ross, who edited features, and Jan Rutherford, my press agent. Iain looked at me and said: “You’re on.” At that stage I had not really thought out the implications of writing a novel in daily instalments; this was a considerable departure from the weekly or monthly approach which had been adopted by previous serial novelists. However, such was the air of optimism at the lunch that I agreed.

  The experience proved to be both hugely enjoyable and very instructive. The structure of a daily serial has to be different from that of a normal novel. One has to have at least one development in each instalment and end with a sense that something more may happen. One also has to understand that the readership is a newspaper readership which has its own very special characteristics.

  The real challenge in writing a novel that is to be serialised in this particular way – that is, in relatively small segments – is to keep the momentum of the narrative going without becoming too staccato in tone. The author must engage a reader whose senses are being assailed from all directions – from other things on the same and neighbouring page, from things that are happening about him or her while the paper is being read. Above all, a serial novel must be entertaining. This does not mean that one cannot deal with serious topics, or make appeal to the finer emotions of the reader, but one has to keep a light touch.

  When the serial started to run, I had a number of sections already completed. As the months went by, however, I had fewer and fewer pages in hand, and towards the end I was only three episodes ahead of publication. This was very different, then, from merely taking an existing manuscript and chopping it up into sections. The book was written while it was being published
. An obvious consequence of this was that I could not go back and make changes – it was too late to do that.

  What I have tried to do in 44 Scotland Street is to say something about life in Edinburgh which will strike readers as being recognisably about this extraordinary city and yet at the same time be a bit of light-hearted fiction. I think that one can write about amusing subjects and still remain within the realm of serious fiction. It is in observing the minor ways of people that one can still see very clearly the moral dilemmas of our time. One task of fiction is to remind us of the virtues – of love and forgiveness, for example – and these can be portrayed just as well in an ongoing story of everyday life as they can on a more ambitious and more leisurely canvas.

  I enjoyed creating these characters, all of whom reflect human types I have encountered and known while living in Edinburgh. It is only one slice of life in this town – but it is a slice which can be entertaining. Some of the people in this book are real, and appear under their own names. My fellow writer, Ian Rankin, for example, appears as himself. He said to me, though, that I had painted him as being far too well-behaved and that he would never have acted so well in real life. I replied to him that his self-effacing comment only proved my original proposition. Then there are some who appear as themselves, but have no speaking part. That great and good man, Tam Dalyell, does that. We see him, but we do not hear what he says. We also see mention of another two admirable and much-liked public figures, Malcolm Rifkind and Lord James Douglas Hamilton, who flit across the page but who, like Mr Dalyell, remain silent. Perhaps all three of them could be given a speaking part in a future volume – if they agree, of course.

  I enjoyed writing this so much that I could not bear to say goodbye to the characters. So that most generous paper, The Scotsman, agreed to a second volume, which is still going strong, day after day, even as I write this introduction to volume one. In the somewhat demanding task of writing both of these volumes, I have been sustained by the readers of the paper, who urged me on and provided me with a wealth of suggestions and comments. I feel immensely privileged to have been able to sustain a long fictional conversation with these readers. One reader in particular, Florence Christie, wrote to me regularly, sometimes every few days, with remarks on what was happening in 44 Scotland Street. That correspondence was a delight to me and helped me along greatly in the lonely task of writing. I also had most helpful conversations with Dilly Emslie, James Holloway and Mary McIsaac. Many others – alas, too numerous to mention – have written to me or spoken to me about the development of characters and plot. To all of these I am most indebted. And, of course, throughout the whole exercise I had the unstinting daily support of Iain Martin and David Robinson of The Scotsman. I was also much encouraged by Alistair Clark and William Lyons of the same newspaper.

  But the most important collaboration of all has been with the illustrator of this book, Iain McIntosh. Iain and I have worked together for many years. Each year for the last twenty years or so I have written a story at the end of the year which has been printed for private circulation by Charlie Maclean and illustrated by Iain. Iain then illustrated my three novels in the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series. His humour and his kindness shine out of his illustrations. He is the modern John Kay, and Edinburgh is fortunate to have him to record its face and its foibles.

  Alexander McCall Smith, January 2005

  1. Stuff Happens

  Pat stood before the door at the bottom of the stair, reading the names underneath the buttons. Syme, Macdonald, Pollock, and then the name she was looking for: Anderson. That would be Bruce Anderson, the surveyor, the person to whom she had spoken on the telephone. He was the one who collected the rent, he said, and paid the bills. He was the one who had said that she could come and take a look at the place and see whether she wanted to live there.

  “And we’ll take a look at you,” he had added. “If you don’t mind.”

  So now, she thought, she would be under inspection, assessed for suitability for a shared flat, weighed up to see whether she was likely to play music too loudly or have friends who would damage the furniture. Or, she supposed, whether she would jar on anybody’s nerves.

  She pressed the bell and waited. After a few moments something buzzed and she pushed open the large black door with its numerals, 44, its lion’s head knocker, and its tarnished brass plate above the handle. The door was somewhat shabby, needing a coat of paint to cover the places where the paintwork had been scratched or chipped away. Well, this was Scotland Street, not Moray Place or Doune Terrace; not even Drummond Place, the handsome square from which Scotland Street descended in a steep slope. This street was on the edge of the Bohemian part of the Edinburgh New Town, the part where lawyers and accountants were outnumbered – just – by others.

  She climbed up four flights of stairs to reach the top landing. Two flats led off this, one with a dark green door and no nameplate in sight, and another, painted blue, with a piece of paper on which three names had been written in large lettering. As she stepped onto the landing, the blue door was opened and she found herself face-to-face with a tall young man, probably three or four years older than herself, his dark hair en brosse and wearing a rugby jersey. Triple Crown, she read. Next year. And after that, in parenthesis, the word: Maybe.

  “I’m Bruce,” he said. “And I take it you’re Pat.”

  He smiled at her, and gestured for her to come into the flat.

  “I like the street,” she said. “I like this part of town.”

  He nodded. “So do I. I lived up in Marchmont until a year ago and now I’m over here. It’s central. It’s quiet. Marchmont got a bit too studenty.”

  She followed him into a living room, a large room with a black marble fireplace on one side and a rickety bookcase against the facing wall.

  “This is the sitting room,” he said. “It’s nothing great, but it gets the sun.”

  She glanced at the sofa, which was covered with a faded chintzy material stained in one or two places with spills of tea or coffee. It was typical of the sofas which one found in shared flats as a student; sofas that had been battered and humiliated, slept on by drunken and sober friends alike, and which would, on cleaning, disgorge copious sums in change, and ballpoint pens, and other bits and pieces dropped from generations of pockets.

  She looked at Bruce. He was good-looking in a way which one might describe as … well, how might one describe it? Fresh-faced? Open? Of course, the rugby shirt gave it away: he was the sort that one saw by the hundred, by the thousand, streaming out of Murrayfield after a rugby international. Wholesome was the word which her mother would have used, and which Pat would have derided. But it was a useful word when it came to describe Bruce. Wholesome.

  Bruce was returning her gaze. Twenty, he thought. Quite expensively dressed. Tanned in a way which suggested outside pursuits. Average height. Attractive enough, in a rather willowy way. Not my type (this last conclusion, with a slight tinge of regret).

  “What do you do?” he asked. Occasions like this, he thought, were times for bluntness. One might as well find out as much as one could before deciding to take her, and it was he who would have to make the decision because Ian and Sarah were off travelling for a few months and they were relying on him to find someone.

  Pat looked up at the cornice. “I’m on a gap year,” she said, and added, because truth required it after all: “It’s my second gap year, actually.”

  Bruce stared at her, and then burst out laughing. “Your second gap year?”

  Pat nodded. She felt miserable. Everybody said that. Everybody said that because they had no idea of what had happened.

  “My first one was a disaster,” she said. “So I started again.”

  Bruce picked up a matchbox and rattled it absent-mindedly.

  “What went wrong?” he asked.

  “Do you mind if I don’t tell you? Or just not yet.”

  He shrugged. “Stuff happens,” he said. “It really does.”

&nbs
p; After her meeting with Bruce, Pat returned to her parents’ house on the south side of Edinburgh. She found her father in his study, a disorganised room stacked with back copies of the Journal of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She told him of the meeting with Bruce.

  “It didn’t last long,” she said. “I had expected a whole lot of them. But there was only him. The others were away somewhere or other.”

  Her father raised an eyebrow. In his day, young people had shared flats with others of the same sex. There were some mixed flats, of course, but these were regarded as being a bit – how should one put it? – adventurous. He had shared a flat in Argyle Place, in the shadow of the Sick Kids’ Hospital, with three other male medical students. They had lived there for years, right up to the time of graduation, and even after that one of them had kept it on while he was doing his houseman’s year. Girlfriends had come for weekends now and then, but that had been the exception. Now, men and women lived together in total innocence (sometimes) as if in Eden.

  “It’s not just him?” he asked. “There are others?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Or at least I think so. There were four rooms. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worrying.”

  “You are.”

  He pursed his lips. “You could always stay at home, you know. We wouldn’t interfere.”

  She looked at him, and he shook his head. “No,” he went on. “I understand. You have to lead your own life. We know that. That’s what gap years are for.”

  “Exactly,” said Pat. “A gap year is …”

  She faltered. She was not at all sure what a gap year was really for, and this was her second. Was it a time in which to grow up? Was it an expensive indulgence, a rite de passage for the offspring of wealthy parents? In many cases, she thought, it was an expensive holiday: a spell in South America imposing yourself on a puzzled community somewhere, teaching them English and painting the local school. There were all sorts of organisations that arranged these things. There might even be one called Paint Aid, for all she knew – an organisation which went out and painted places that looked in need of a coat of paint. She herself had painted half a school in Ecuador before somebody stole the remaining supplies of paint and they had been obliged to stop.