And finally, this book is entirely true, or almost. There really is a Scotland Street in Edinburgh, even if it does not quite reach 44. Bertie exists – I have seen him, and his mother, on numerous occasions, just as Cyril, and Angus Lordie, and all the rest can be observed if one walks the streets of the Edinburgh New Town and looks about one. This all happened, and continues to happen, perhaps.
Alexander McCall Smith
1. Love, Marriage and Other Surprises
The wedding took place underneath the Castle, beneath that towering, formidable rock, in a quiet church that was reached from King’s Stables Road. Matthew and Elspeth Harmony had made their way there together, in a marked departure from the normal routine in which the groom arrives first, to be followed by the bride, but only after a carefully timed delay, enough to make the more anxious members of her family look furtively at their watches – and wonder.
Customs exist to be departed from, declared Matthew. He had pointedly declined to have a stag party with his friends but had nonetheless asked to be included in the hen party that had been organised for Elspeth.
“Stag parties are dreadful,” he pronounced. “Everybody has too much to drink and the groom is subjected to all sorts of insults. Left without his trousers by the side of the canal and so on. I’ve seen it.”
“Not always,” said Elspeth. “But it’s up to you, Matthew.”
She was pleased that he was revealing himself not to be the type to enjoy a raucous male-only party. But this did not mean that Matthew should be allowed to come to her hen party, which was to consist of a dinner at Howie’s restaurant in Bruntsfield, a sober do by comparison with the Bacchanalian scenes which some groups of young women seemed to go in for.