44 Scotland St
VOLUME 14 CHAPTER 31 IRENE REVERSED
It had been Stuart’s suggestion that Nicola should abandon her flat in Northumberland Street and move into Scotland Street permanently – or at least for the foreseeable future. The arrangement that had been in place since Irene left for Aberdeen had been working well enough – Nicola looked after the children, often staying overnight if Stuart had to work late or wanted to go out, but it would be easier all round, he thought, if she moved in altogether.
“I know you like your own space, Mother,” he said. “But we could clear out Irene’s study and install you in there. It’s probably the best room in the flat – with its view of Drummond Place Garden. It’s very light.” He smiled. “If one can possibly keep one’s mother in south-facing circumstances one should do so.”
Nicola had received the proposal with interest. Irene’s study? Cleared out? This was a delicious prospect, not only because of the attractions of the room itself – and she did prefer a room with a southern aspect – but for what this would represent in terms of victory over her daughter-in-law. She had done her best to like Irene – she really had; it was her Christian duty to like her – but years ago her patience had been exhausted and she had decided that Irene was simply not possible. That was a powerful term when applied to people: not possible. A person who was not possible was different from a person who was impossible. Being impossible involved having various behavioural quirks that made you difficult company; whereas being not possible implied that there was simply no chance of an ordinary human relationship, ever. To be not possible was to be beyond reach; a person who was not possible simply would not understand what the prob - lem was.
Over the years, Nicola had bitten her tongue. She had put up with Irene’s lectures, with her knee-jerk contradiction of any opinion she – Nicola – expressed; she had done her best to forgive her bonedeep condescension; she had turned a deaf ear to her recited catalogue of instances of male insensitivity, many of them imaginary or at least blown out of all proportion. And as each fresh Irene story came to light, Nicola had struggled to conceal her mirth or, in some cases, horror. She had heard from Domenica, who had heard from Angus, who had heard from Matthew, who had been told by Big Lou, who had had it from Stuart himself, that when Irene travelled to a Melanie Klein Conference in Milan, flying by way of Amsterdam, she had asked the KLM captain why he was flying the plane. The captain, cap under arm, had strolled down the aisle in mid-flight to greet the passengers and had chanced to enquire of Irene as to whether she was being well looked-after. Irene had taken the opportunity to ask him why men seemed to be in cockpit while women were in the galley.
“Doesn’t that strike you as wrong?” she demanded.
The pilot had done his best. There were many female pilots, he assured her, and they had a better safety record than men on the whole. That had not pacified Irene, who had then pointed out the visible cabin crew and announced that they were all female whereas there appeared to be three men in the nose of the plane.
The pilot had been tactful, but was still treated to a dressingdown. Eventually, he asked her whether she would like to fly the plane herself, and had returned to the controls.
There were many other instances of Irene’s insufferable behaviour, including, of course, her hijacking of the production of Waiting for Godot, put on by Bertie’s Primary Three class. That was just the tip of a bulky ice - berg: Nicola had listened to accounts of episode after episode of Irene’s posturing, of her virtue-signalling on a positively semaphoric scale, and of her interdiction of any newspaper other than the Guardian appearing in the flat. Stuart actually enjoyed the Guardian, a good newspaper by any standards, but he also rather liked the Financial Times – especially the Saturday edition – The Scotsman, the Herald and the New York Times, that he read online. He thought it only reasonable to read more than one paper, so as to get a balanced view of the issues of the day, but in that open-minded stance he found himself at odds with his wife.
“I will not have the bourgeois press in the flat,” she said. “Sorry, Stuart, but there are limits.”
“But is The Scotsman bourgeois?” asked Stuart mildly. “I thought they were open to a wide range of opinion.”
“There’s such a thing as repressive tolerance,” Irene retorted. “I would have thought that even you knew that, Stuart.”
Even you is a wounding phrase at the best of times, but when said slowly, allowing for the full measure of its connotations of disparagement to sink in, it may have a devastating effect on amourpropre.
Nicola, hearing of the newspaper ban, had gone out of her way to defy it. When she knew that Irene would be coming down from Aberdeen for one of her visits, she made a point of leaving other newspapers lying around, even placing two copies of severely interdicted newspapers, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph,
on the hall table, where Irene could not miss them. Irene had taken them and thrown them out of the window into the street below, unfortunately at precisely the time that the local community police officer was making his way to begin his shift at Gayfield Police Station round the corner. Noting the source of the litter, the policeman had knocked on the door of the flat and produced the gathered-up pages as evidence of the littering offence. Irene had been fined, much to the delight of Nicola and her friends to whom she told the story. Great was their pleasure on hearing the tale: “You must be as terrible in her sight as an army and all its banners!” one remarked. “Oh, joyous, happy prospect!”
“Such a pity it was one of those ticketed fines,” Nicola observed. “It would have been so entertaining to be at the Sheriff Court and see her answer for her crimes. I would have issued invitations – edged in black – to attend her trial. What a pity!”
But here was an irresistible consolation prize indeed: the chance to pack Irene’s books and papers into boxes, and then take over what she called her space. If challenged, she would stand up to Irene and say, “Sorry, it’s my space now. You’ve got a space up in Aberdeen, haven’t you?”
What a delight that would be! And she would take down all of Irene’s pictures, too, and put in their place the polar oppo - site of what had been there. Nicola did not like fox-hunting, which she saw as an organised celebration of cruelty, but in view of Irene’s previous history as a prominent saboteur of the Fife Hunt – the meetings of which she was happy to travel some distance to in order to pour invective on the huntsmen – in view of that she was prepared to hang a sporting picture on the wall, in exactly the spot where Irene’s portrait of Gramsci had been. So it was that Taking the stirrup cup together: the Fife Hunt prepares for a day out, a sentimental and idealised Edwardian lithograph, found a home on that wall. Nicola did not like the picture at all, and would not have chosen for company any of those portrayed in it, but, in the circumstances, she derived great pleasure from its presence. After all, she thought, one could put up with any amount of aesthetic discomfort when the prospect of revenge was so delicious as to be positively exquisite.
‘After all, Nicola reasoned, one could put up with any amount of aesthetic discomfort when the prospect of revenge was so delicious as to be positively exquisite’
© 2020 Alexander Mccall Smith Available in book form as A Promise of Ankles from November (Polygon, £16.99). The Peppermint Tea Chronicles the 13th in the 44 Scotland Street series is now available in paperback, price £8.99.