Scotland Street Volume 18, Chapter 29: Book learning makes your heid sore

By Alexander McCall Smith

Published 13th Mar 2025, 07:00 GMT

“It’s important,” as Irene once observed to Hugo Fairbairn, “that one has more than one dimension to one’s life. I feel so sorry for people who have just one plane on which their life is experienced, Hugissimo – don’t you?”

Professor Fairbairn, as he was more normally addressed, struggled to ignore the soubriquet. He was irritated by people who played with the names of their friends; Irene insisted on doing this with his own name – what was wrong with Hugo, after all? And why did he have to be promoted – with clear irony – by a superlative form that was normally the metonymous preserve of military dictators?

There was a presumption, in his mind, that anybody who called himself Generalissimo belonged in the DSM-5, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used by psychiatrists everywhere to identify and classify the various unhappiness of their patients. A generalissimo would almost certainly fit the criteria for one of the personality disorders – possibly of the narcissistic variety.

“Not Hugissimo, carissimo,” he muttered.

Irene affected surprise. “But I mean that as a compliment,” she insisted. “Still, if people don’t like an affectionate name, one should not persist.”

“Just call me Hugo. That’s enough.”

“Well, Hugo,” said Irene, “the point I was trying to make is that we can have more than one identity. People talk about wearing more than one hat. And I think that’s something to which we should all aspire. Life is far richer if one is multi-faceted.”

Hugo looked away. One Irene was quite enough, he thought. He was fond of her and they were … well, he should be honest with himself and admit it: they were lovers – or had been, until they had drifted apart emotionally. Now she had found that fisherman and had entered what he considered to be her DH Lawrentian phase, it was all different.

He was actually rather relieved: Irene was intense, and if the fisherman distracted her, then that made his own position easier. He would continue to see her in order to supervise her research, but he would no longer feel so involved with her. It was a pleasant form of bachelorhood, he decided, and he would make the most of it.

Irene’s fisherman was the skipper of the fishing boat, the Aberdeen Belle, that had rescued her from the sea off Aberdeen Beach after she had been swept out by an unexpectedly strong current. Fortunately, she had been spotted, and hauled out of the water and onto the deck by Graham, the skipper, and his shipmate, Doddie. They had taken her back to their home port, where she had been given dry clothing by Graham’s mother, the matriarch of a sprawling Peterhead family.

Irene found that she fitted in rather well, and was particularly appreciated for her hitherto unused ability to fillet fish. Within a short time, she found herself irresistibly attracted to Graham, and he, in his way, felt the same way about Irene.

Chance, they both felt, had brought them together, and there was a point at which one should simply allow the tides of fate to lead them where they would. Besides, Irene had always wanted a strong, silent man, and Graham, who usually only spoke when spoken to, and who was known to be able to lift two large boxes of fish without turning a hair, satisfied both of these criteria.

Rather to her surprise, Irene found herself intrigued by the wider family with which was becoming involved. Firstly, there was Graham’s mother, Ellie Mackie, née Scroggie. Ellie had long been campaigning, sometimes unsubtly, for Graham to find a partner, and Irene, it seemed to her, was a gift from heaven, or at least from the sea. Any woman would have done for her son – so desperate was Ellie to see him settled – but to have one from Edinburgh, with all the cachet that involved, and one who was so good at filleting fish … well, that amounted to a clear overflowing of the cup.

Ellie herself had never been to Edinburgh, although she had visited Perth and Dundee, and had, as a young woman, spent four months in Glasgow, staying with a distant relative. She had seen pictures of Edinburgh, though, and had thought it a fine place that one day she might visit if she had the time. “The thing about Edinburgh,” her aged aunt had once told her, “is that it gives Scotland a bit of tone. There are other places that let the side down a bit, but Edinburgh more than makes up for it. Folk take one look at Edinburgh, Ellie, and they start watching their manners. You can see it – you just have to look around, and it’s there.”

Irene’s arrival was welcomed by the other members of the family, who took their cue from Ellie. Next door was Wally Scroggie, who was the younger brother of Ellie, who was married to Mollie, who was the mother of Doddie, who worked with Graham on the boat. Doddie’s father, Robbie, had gone off some years earlier with Ellie’s cousin, Maggie, leaving Doddie, and his brother, Laurie, with Mollie.

Wally Scroggie was pleased that Graham had found somebody like Irene. “I never thought you’d find a woman like that, Graham,” he said to his brother. “All that book learning makes your heid sore.”

Not everyone was pleased with Irene’s arrival on their bucolic scene. Doddie and Laurie were sceptical. “That woman’s trouble,” Doddie hinted to Wally. “Why’s she not in Edinburgh? There has to be a reason. Did they get rid of her? Send her up here?”

Wally told him not to be so suspicious. “You’re right about being wary of Edinburgh folk, Doddie, but you have to give her a chance. Ellie likes her, and so does Mollie. Are you suggesting they cannae judge fit like she is?”