Scotland Street Volume 18, Chapter 42: Off to Morningside

It was about this time that Bertie was vouchsafed one of the most remarkable adventures yet of his short and entirely blameless life. It was not that nothing had ever happened to him – it had. There had been that extraordinary episode when he had gone on that school orchestral trip to Paris when, through a failure on the part of the conductor to count the children correctly, he had been left behind in France. That had worked out well, of course, as he had busked in the streets, been befriended by a group of students from the Sorbonne, and participated con brio in a seminar on deconstruction. Then, while boating off the shores of Argyll, he had been swept out to sea, briefly, landing on the Cairns of Coll, from which he was eventually rescued. He had also been lost, again for a brief period, in the Pentland Hills – on two occasions, once when a thick mist, a haar, had descended and he and his father had ended up in a remote farmhouse, and on another when, at a school camp, he had been unfortunate enough to be part of a group led by Olive that became lost in the hills as a result of incompetent map-reading. For most seven-year-olds, that would be enough – even more than enough to whet any appetite they had for adventure, and to persuade them to follow a generally risk-averse path, but Bertie had taken all this in his stride. There was, it seemed, a divinity that hedged small boys who were open to unusual and challenging experiences.

44 Scotland Street

This began with an invitation from Bertie’s friend, Ranald, to a Friday-night sleepover in the Macpherson house in Albert Terrace, on the south-facing slopes of Morningside, a well-set suburb on the other side of town from Scotland Street. Bertie had passed the invitation on to his grandmother, Nicola, who, having consulted Stuart, gave her approval. She liked Ranald, and was pleased that Bertie at long last had a friend who might protect him from Olive and her gang of co-conspirators. Nicola had seen through Olive on their first meeting, and had correctly assessed her as being every bit as bad, in an apprenticed sort of way, as Irene herself. In Nicola’s view, the more time Bertie spent with Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, the better, as there seemed to be nothing objectionable about him – unlike that dreadful Tofu, the thuggish Larch, or the unpredictable Socrates Dunbar, who only recently had made his unwelcome appearance on the edge of Bertie’s school circle.

“I have spoken to Daddy,” Nicola said, “and he has agreed that you can go and have the sleepover at the Macphersons’ house.”

Bertie beamed with pleasure. “Thank you so much, Granny,” he said. “And will it be all right if I stay over there until six o’clock on Saturday evening? Ranald says that his Daddy will bring me back on the 23 bus.”

Nicola had said that this was perfectly all right. “I’ll pack your small rucksack for you, Bertie. I’ll put in your pyjamas and your toothbrush. You must promise me you’ll clean your teeth. And there’ll be spare socks too.”

“And my compass, Granny,” Bertie said.

“I doubt if you’ll need that, Bertie,” Nicola said with a smile. “We all know where Morningside is. But if you feel more comfortable with it, by all means take it.”

“There’s a boy at school who got lost,” said Bertie. “He ended up in Leith and they had to rescue him. I’m not making this up, Granny. If he’d had a compass, it might never have happened.”

Nicola had suppressed a smile. Bertie was such a wonderful mixture, she thought. On the one hand there was the little boy with his extraordinary ability to read – and understand – books well beyond the comprehension of the average seven-year-old. On the other was the innocent, with his enthusiasm for all the impedimenta of boyhood: compasses, Swiss Army penknives, football cards, jars of tadpoles – Bertie had a Junior Darwin kit – and so on. The mixture was such an odd one, but it seemed to her to be just right for her remarkable grandson. If only there was some miraculous way of preserving him just as he was, of keeping him seven, which was just the right age for him.

With his rucksack duly packed with items necessary and unnecessary, Bertie was delivered to Albert Terrace by Nicola that Friday evening. She did not linger, as she noticed through the front window that a Scottish country dancing gathering appeared to be taking place inside. Ranald’s mother greeted her warmly and invited her to help make up an eightsome for the next reel, but Nicola explained that she had to get back to help Stuart with Ulysses’ bedtime.

Ranald escorted Bertie to his room, one wall of which was dominated by a large picture of Robert the Bruce surrounded by exuberant Highlanders.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun tomorrow, Bertie,” Ranald said. “My Daddy has to go to a meeting at a big hotel in town and he says we can come with him. I think they’re planning an uprising. My Mummy’s going to her support group meeting and so we can’t stay here. But we’ll have lots of fun in town.”

“That’s good, Ranald,” said Bertie.

“The hotel is that big one at the end of Princes Street,” Ranald explained. “It’s called the Balmoral.”

“I’ve seen it,” said Bertie.

“And we can go off to the hamburger stall in Princes Street Gardens,” Ranald continued. “My Daddy won’t notice.”

“I like hamburgers,” said Bertie. “My Mummy used to stop me eating them, but now that she’s gone to Aberdeen, I’m allowed to. And pies too. My granny has a pie factory in Glasgow and we get heaps of pies from them.”

Ranald nodded. “Your life’s much better, isn’t it, Bertie?” he said. “I bet lots of people in Edinburgh are really pleased that your Mummy’s gone to Aberdeen.”

Bertie said nothing.

“They really hate your Mummy,” said Ranald. “My Mummy does, anyway. She says that your Mummy is a witch. I didn’t say that, Bertie – I’m just telling you what my Mummy said. She said that if were in the seventeenth century they would have burned her at the stake. She said that she was sorry things had changed. That’s what I heard her say, Bertie – I’m just telling you.” Ranald paused. “She calls your Mummy Lady Macbeth, Bertie.”

“She isn’t Lady Macbeth,” Bertie muttered. “It’s jolly unkind of people to say things like that.”

“Oh, I think so too,” said Ranald. “I’m just telling you what other people say. And anyway, let’s go and play outside. My Daddy’s made a swing. We can try that.” He paused, and then said, “Don’t worry too much about your Mummy, Bertie. I’m sure she’s not half as bad as everybody says she is.”

Bertie smiled at his friend. Ranald was so kind – and he felt grateful that he had him as his friend.

© Alexander McCall Smith, 2025. Bertie’s Theory of Ice Cream will be published by Polygon in August, price £17.99. The author welcomes comment from readers and can be contacted at [email protected]