Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

that’s a very old one. The leerie was the lamplighter, Bertie. We don’t have lamplighters any more, and yet there you are still using that rhyme in the playground. Isn’t that interesting, Bertie? It shows the persistence of these things.”
    Bertie nodded. “Here’s another one, Mummy,” he said.
    “There was an old man called Michael Finigin
    He grew whiskers on his chinigin
    The wind came up and blew them inigin
    Poor old Michael Finigin, begin igin.”
    Irene clapped her hands in delight. “Oh yes, Bertie! I remember that. And there’s more!
    There was an old man called Michael Finigin
    Climbed a tree and hurt his shin igin
    Tore off several yards of skin igin
    Poor old Michael Finigin, begin igin.”
    Bertie frowned. “Poor Michael Finigin,” he said. “Nothing went right for him, did it, Mummy?”
    “No,” said Irene. “A lot of these things are very cruel, Bertie? People laugh at cruelty, don’t they? We think that we don’t, but we do. Just listen to the jokes that people tell one another. They’re all about misfortune of one sort or another. And people seem to find misfortune funny.”
    “And it wasn’t funny for Michael Finigin,” observed Bertie.
    “No,” said Irene. “There are lots of people for whom it’s not funny. Not funny at all.”
    They had now reached the end of London Street and were not far from the East New Town Nursery School, where Bertie had once been enrolled. Irene had said nothing about the nursery school on this trip, hoping that Bertie had forgotten all about the trauma of his earlier suspension. But she noticed now that he was looking nervously in the direction of the school, and she feared that painful memories were rising in his mind.
    “You used to go to nursery school there, Bertie,” she said. “A long time ago. But we don’t have to think about that any more. We’ve moved on.”
    Bertie looked down the road that led to the nursery school. He had been happy there, and he could never understand why they had suspended him. That woman, Miss MacFadzean, had encouraged them to express themselves, and that was all he had been doing. It was really rather unfair. He looked at his mother, and reached for her hand. Poor Mummy! he thought. She has such strange ideas in her head, but she really means well, in a funny sort of way. And here she was getting excited about a few peculiar old rhymes that he had seen in Iona and Peter Opie’s book
The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
. Bertie had found a copy in the house and had read it from cover to cover. There was so much in it. It was a pity all of that had been forgotten–such a pity! Perhaps he would try to teach some of them to Olive, and she could pass them on to the other girls. There was no point trying to teach Tofu any folklore–no point at all.

20. Truth and Truth-Telling in Gayfield Square
    At Gayfield Square Police Station, Irene and Bertie were greeted by a policeman, who smiled warmly at Bertie. “Lost your bicycle, son?” the policeman asked. Bertie looked at the policeman blankly. “I don’t have a bicycle,” he said. “I wish I had a bicycle, but I don’t. Mummy won’t let me…”
    “The officer is just being playful, Bertie,” Irene interrupted. “It’s his idea of a joke, you see.”
    The policeman looked at Irene sharply. “And what can we do for you, Madam?” he asked coldly.
    “I’ve come to report the theft of a car,” said Irene.
    “I see,” said the policeman. “And are we sure it’s been stolen? It hasn’t been towed, has it?”
    Irene gave a start. Towed? It had not occurred to her that the car might have been legitimately removed. What sort of line was there on the road at that point? Was it residents’ parking? It was residents’ parking, surely…
    “I don’t think it will have been towed,” she said. “It was parked in Scotland Street, where we always park it. Now it’s gone.”
    The policeman nodded. “The most surprising cars get towed, you know.