The Importance of Being Seven
Alexander McCall Smith
is the author of over sixty books on a wide array of subjects. For many years he was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and served on national and international bioethics bodies. Then in 1999 he achieved global recognition for his award-winning series The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and thereafter has devoted his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and Corduroy Mansions series. His books have been translated into forty-five languages. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Elizabeth, a doctor.
Praise for the 44 Scotland Street novels:
‘Perfect escapist fiction’
The Times
‘Simple, elegantly written and gently insightful’
Good Book Guide
‘A joyous, charming portrait of city life and human foibles, which moves beyond its setting to deal with deep moral issues and love, desire and friendship’
Sunday Express
‘Does for Edinburgh what Armistead Maupin did for San Francisco: seeks to capture the city’s rhythms by focusing on a small, emblematic corner… A light-hearted, genial soap opera’
Financial Times Magazine
T
HE
N
O
.1 L
ADIES
’ D
ETECTIVE
A
GENCY
S
ERIES
The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
The Miracle at Speedy Motors
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
The Double Comfort Safari Club
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
T
HE
S
UNDAY
P
HILOSOPHY
C
LUB
S
ERIES
The Sunday Philosophy Club
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
The Right Attitude to Rain
The Careful Use of Compliments
The Comfort of Saturdays
The Lost Art of Gratitude
The Charming Quirks of Others
T
HE
44 S
COTLAND
S
TREET
S
ERIES
44 Scotland Street
Espresso Tales
Love Over Scotland
The World According to Bertie
The Unbearable Lightness of Scones
T
HE
C
ORDUROY
M
ANSIONS
S
ERIES
Corduroy Mansions
The Dog Who Came in from the Cold
The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom
La’s Orchestra Saves the World
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-11887-8
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public
domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 Alexander McCall Smith
Illustrations © Iain McIntosh 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
Also by Alexander McCall Smith
4. Auden and Burns, and Bertie
5. Pre-Natal Classroom – for Babies
8. Domenica Has Coffee With Dilly
10. The Return of Pat Macgregor
18. Ten Years with the Pygmies
19. The Question of Cosmetic Surgery
20. The Aphrodite of Dundas Street
21. Impressionists and Post-Impressionists
24. Some Sophisticated Colours
25. 100 Things for a Boy to Do: Part 1
26. 100 Things for a Boy to Do: Part 2
32. Dramatic, Life-Enhancing News
35. Édouard Vuillard and the Interior Vision
39. Which World Am I Living In?
43. A Scotsman, His Life and Marriage
59. Regret on Corstorphine Road
61. Big Lou on Art and Fashion
73. The Possibilities of Florence
This book is for
James Naughtie
I started writing the 44 Scotland Street series without any idea that it would turn into something of a saga. Now here we are six volumes later, returning to the world of that motley collection of people who live in the Edinburgh New Town and whose lives I have recorded in daily episodes in the
Scotsman
newspaper. I am very pleased to be back among these characters, and do not intend this to be my last visit to them. Domenica Macdonald, Angus Lordie and all the others have somehow become part of my world, just as I believe they have become part of the world of quite a number of readers in many countries. That, incidentally, gives me the greatest possible pleasure – the knowledge that we are all linked by our friendship with a group of fictional people. What a pleasant club of which to be a member!
I am often asked at events whether I have a favourite fictional character. I find that a difficult question to answer, but it is certainly the case that Bertie, the six-year-old boy in these novels, is somebody for whom I have particular affection. It will not have escaped the attention of readers that Bertie started as a five-year-old five volumes ago and has not really progressed very far. In fact, Bertie is still awaiting his seventh birthday, although it does not actually happen in this book. Why has time stood still for Bertie? The main reason for this, I think, is that Bertie at six is absolutely perfect, and I have no wish for him to grow up. He is at that wonderful stage where he understands the world, but not quite; when his mother is still in complete control of his life; when he has yet to learn how to lie and dissemble, or indeed to be cruel, in the way in which adults seem to find so easy. His world is an attractive one – a sort of Eden – from which we know we are excluded by the loss of our own innocence.
I have lost count of the number of times I have met people on my book tours who say to me that Bertie is a special character for them. This happens throughout the world. Earlier this year I was in India, at the Jaipur Literary Festival, and I met numerous Bertie fans there. The same was true in Australia, Singapore, Dubai and
Hong Kong – places that I went to after my Indian trip. The question I was asked most frequently in each of these places was the same: when will things get better for Bertie? And in each of these places there was a great groundswell of support for this poor little boy, egging him on, wishing him freedom from the regime of improvement planned for him by his mother, Irene, and siding with him against the dreadful Olive and the appalling Tofu. I wish I could have said that things were soon to change, but, alas, that would have been untruthful. Bertie’s situation is as difficult as ever; his is a hearth from which freedom seems for ever excluded. And that, alas, is true for so many of us. How many of us are really free of our past, of the things we have to do that we do not want to do, of the furniture of our life that is never really in quite the right place? Perhaps that is why Bertie is so popular. He reminds us of a yearning that many of us instinctively recognise within ourselves: the yearning to be seven –
really
seven.
I have dedicated this book to one of our greatest broadcasters, James Naughtie. James is a central pillar of the national conversation that we have with each other in Britain. I can imagine him engaging with any of the characters in this book – interviewing Angus Lordie, perhaps, on some artistic project, talking to Domenica Macdonald about her latest anthropological essay, or simply chatting to Big Lou about Arbroath and her years in Aberdeen. But he could also talk to Bertie, I think, and Bertie would be comforted by the conversation. James would make Bertie
feel
seven, even if he is still six, and that, I think, is a great art. Thank you, James, for everything you have done for me, for the cause of rational debate, and for the millions of people to whom you have brought enlightenment, amusement and comfort.
Alexander McCall Smith
Edinburgh, 2010