The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

same thing every day – can’t complain – and it was true. It was not in her nature to complain; she simply could not. Not once had she complained during the years when she had looked after her aged uncle, or when she worked as a care assistant in the Granite Nursing Home in Aberdeen. She came from a place where people did not complain, where it was understood – quite correctly – that moaning and groaning only made things worse. There was no word for self-pity in the language of the north-east of Scotland – the nearest being a word which is defined in the Scots dictionaries as being ‘a term used to express self-reproach on paying too much for something’.
    Angus Lordie noticed that there was a book lying open behind the counter. Big Lou was a voracious reader and, having bought the remaining stock of the bookshop that had previously occupied thecoffee shop premises, she was slowly working her way through every volume. She had started with philosophy, with Hume, whom she had read with pleasure and a feeling of growing agreement. From there she had moved on to topography –
The Glens of Aberdeenshire
– and social history – Iain Thornber’s edition of
Morvern: A Highland Parish
– and now, it appeared, had arrived at memoirs.
Ten Years with the Pygmies of Ruanda-Urundi
, he read, upside down.
    ‘Interesting,’ said Angus. ‘Pygmies?’
    Big Lou glanced at the book as she finished preparing Matthew’s coffee. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Pygmies.’

19. The Question of Cosmetic Surgery
     
    ‘Are we allowed to call them pygmies these days?’ asked Angus. ‘Or are they something else? Forest people?’
    Big Lou glared at him. ‘If they’re called forest people now,’ she said, ‘it must be for a good reason.’
    ‘Political correctness,’ said Angus. ‘That’s the reason.’
    Big Lou made a dismissive sound. Attacks on political correctness, in her view, were often made by those who had never suffered insult or known what it was like to be at the bottom of the heap. Not that she approved of the wilder excesses of the movement – the Stalinist prohibitions on simple human expression and feelings – but she applauded the increased sensitivity that had grown around the vulnerabilities of others. She was pleased that people were no longer left out because they were different; or made to think the less of themselves because of what they were. She fixed Angus with a stare. ‘Maybe they had good reason not to want to be called pygmies,’ she said. ‘You’ve never had to worry about that sort of thing, have you? You don’t know what it’s like to be called something belittling.’
    ‘But they are little,’ said Angus, looking to Matthew for support. ‘You don’t belittle the little by calling them little. What should we call them? Big?’
    Big Lou shot Matthew a discouraging glance. ‘They’re not little in their own eyes. Not as far as they’re concerned.’
    ‘Does it matter?’ asked Matthew. ‘Does it really matter whether you’re short, like a pyg … like a forest person, or whether you’re tall? Does it matter?’
    ‘No,’ said Big Lou. ‘It doesn’t.’ She passed Angus his cup of coffee and looked at him challengingly.
    ‘Actually, Lou,’ said Angus, taking the coffee over to Matthew’s table. ‘Actually it matters quite a lot to some people. We had a very short man in the Scottish Arts Club once, and it made him very unhappy. If he had been granted one wish – one wish – I know what it would have been. To be taller. Poor chap. He used to paint pictures of very tall people. All his figurative studies were of tall people.’
    ‘How sad,’ said Matthew.
    ‘Yes, it was,’ said Angus. ‘It must be very sad to have to go through life wanting to be something that you can’t be. To be gay when you want to be straight, for instance. That can’t be easy.’
    Matthew frowned. ‘Except that most people who are gay are actually quite comfortable with their identity. These