A Time of Love and Tartan by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Scouting for Boys, etc.

Friendships between children often result in friendships between sets of parents. Conversations between waiting parents at the school gate do more than provide information on what is happening in the world of the school – and the latest gossip, of course – they may lead to exchanges of e-mail addresses, invitations to dinner, games of bridge, and the negotiation of numerous playdates for the children themselves. Or they may encourage animosities and feuds.

It was not at the school gate that Irene had come to know the mother of Bertie’s friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson. Bertie and Ranald were at different schools – Ranald at Watson’s and Bertie at the Steiner School, but they were both in the Morningside Cub Scout pack that met at Holy Corner in Bruntsfield. It was while they were waiting to collect their sons after the cub scout meeting that Ishbel Constance Macpherson first met Irene. The meeting was not a success by any standards, and both women conceived a perfect dislike for one another – a dislike that subsequent acquaintance merely served to intensify.

“I met an extremely ghastly woman this evening,” Ishbel told her husband. “You should have heard her.”

“Loud?”

“No, it wasn’t the volume, it was the whole attitude. It’s difficult to describe, but she was the sort of person one just couldn’t help disagreeing with – whatever she said. You just wanted to disagree.”

“Oh dear. Difficult.”

“And her son, little Bertie . . . ”

“Oh, he’s marvellous,” said Ranald’s father. “I’ve met him. Very earnest. Very polite.”

“That’s him,” said Ishbel. “He has to put up with this train crash of a mother. He deserves a medal.”

These cold relations had not been improved by a famous telephone call between the two mothers, in which salvos had been fired from Scotland Street across the rooftops of the Old Town to Church Hill, and then returned with interest. But although they were barely speaking to one another, both were compelled by their sons’ friendship to negotiate times to drop off and collect their offspring from the other’s house on those occasions when the two boys met.

So, when Ishbel came that day to drop Ranald off for a play session with Bertie, she rang the Pollock doorbell somewhat gingerly, as if prepared to receive from it a reproach, or even a minor electric shock.

Irene knew who it was at the door and was determined to wait as long as possible before she answered.

“I think that might be Ranald Braveheart Macpherson at the door, Mummy,” said Bertie.

“Ah,” said Irene, “you think, Bertie, but do you know that it’s Ranald at the door? How can you be certain?”

Bertie looked puzzled. “Because it’s three o’clock, Mummy, and that’s the time that Ranald said he’d arrive.”

“No, Bertie,” said Irene. “One should not act on mere surmise – I’ve often told you that, n’est-ce pas?”

Bertie looked down at the floor. “I can’t remember, Mummy. But I . . . ”

Irene interrupted him. “That person at the door, Bertie, might be an unsolicited caller.

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