The Scottish Gentleperson's Literary and Smoking Union
a short story
What - you may well ask - on God’s good earth is, ‘The Scottish Gentleperson's Literary and Smoking Union’? This, it would perhaps seem, would be a not unreasonable question to ask - but, only if you were entirely ignorant. For, anyone with a strong personal sense of there being a right way to go about the business of being at the top of one’s personal form will sooner or later meet and interface with one of our members; even if this probably incognito. There are particular peculiarities by which these societatists stand out from the general day-to-day person you would pass on a normal day as you walked your regular constitutional in Princes Street, Buchanan Street, Union Terrace Gardens, or Albert Square.
Allow me to elucidate - but, first, a word to the wise. I am not saying that I have any certain knowledge of the clientele, nor am I confessing that I have ever met or been one. For, the penalties would be dire if this were so. The malefactor would instantly find themself debarred not only from certain private premises and unique, irreplaceable merchantries, but, far, far worse, they would be exiled from the life of one of the most unique and nigh-perfect societies that it has ever been the wit of humankind to bring into existence.
That being clear, allow me to introduce you to an imaginary (in name, at least) member of this society. You would instantly, once you know the general pattern of their lives, recognise one. They would likely be shod in immaculately clean, for example, lightweight Italian black patent leather shoes, tied (of course) with hand-cut leather laces; or, perhaps, brown brogues. The typical gentleman would also be regularly seen to wear a tailored three-piece suit, perhaps in a traditional Harris Tweed, with a gentleman’s pocket watch on a silver (never gold) chain across the breast of this vest (never say, ‘waistcoat’; that is in the society’s rules disteinctly ultra vires). An Oxford shirt, in white, with pearled buttons, and a society tie (never a bowtie - see ‘waistcoat’ above). And topped off with such as a trilby in demure black or brown.
Naturally, a gentlewoman of the society would be dressed as, perhaps, a woman of quiet elegance in the early twentieth century. For ‘we are what we wear’ would be an apt aphorism for the visible decorum of the society. Personal presentation is a forerunner of practice, and the need to be what we seem to be, both inwardly and outwardly, would be a working principle of membership of the society.
However, it would be an error of some degree to apportion age, gender or race to such people. For I have perhaps met around two dozen clear candidates, in Asia, Europe and the Americas, from their twenties to their eighties, English, Spanish or Hindi speakers. It is a strange fact that elegance, and the inner traits which are necessary for the society, are so rarely found in the same person that, on your seeing one of these rare people almost ensures, in my humble opinion, that they are society members.
How many of these might there be in, say, England? I would estimate in the region of two score; forty. In Canada?, probably around a dozen; twelve. Worldwide?, no more than several hundred. But, I have allowed myself to digress too far into this cul-de-sac; for manners, actions and purposes maketh the man (or woman.) If this were only to be a revelation of a club of the elegantly dressed with impeccable manners, it would only describe a club of people of shallow mannerisms. No; there would have to be a definite existence of such a society in our time and space - one that we would actually find ourselves walking past, but one that operates organically and purposefully.
It might help if I were to outline a fictional - I think it is - example. The hint lies in the name: The Scottish Gentleperson's Literary and Smoking Union. The typical member would also be noticeable by their, now rare, tendency to not only look and act as an exemplary person, but would also be a smoker of the Virginia Weed, tobacco. Look back into recent history, and those who acted and dressed in such manner were aficionados of, in the case of gentlemen, pipe smoking. Cigar use was, to be polite, vulgar. The regular female member would, perhaps smoke a mild tobacco-cigarette. In addition, a palette for fine spirits or wines would be widely practised. A typical society example would be - to pull a name out of a fedora - Christopher Morley, esq.; a bookseller near the Mound in Edinburgh, with a stock of around 85,000 tomes, spread across a top-floor double-flat in the Old Town.
When walking down the Lawnmarket your eye could easily miss the old burnished brass sign, just eight inches by five, with the text, “Christopher Morley - procurer, retailer and purchaser of fine literature. All languages.” Below there is a porcelain bell-pull; pull it and there is a distant sound of a bronze bell. A voice will say, “Come on up!”, and you then pass into the close, up the narrow and ill-lit spiral staircase, past several private flats owned by such as minor BBC television presenters (none of whom know of the bookshop or its wonders to be found immediately above them for they never pass up beyond their own insignificant front door), until you pick up the smell of old books which leads you on into this welcoming world.
Nearly everyone who comes here does so by word of mouth. I cannot imagine any other way that this cavern of biblopolis could ever be found. There is usually no sign of the proprietor, but there is a notice indicating in which rooms various books may be found. And I do mean ‘may’, for as the old adage goes: the book you are looking for is right beside the book you are currently looking at. The typical browser would set aside, say, a morning, and spend the hours ‘doing’ a room. For the books that we want to read are never the ones we should read. Mr Morley’s system reflects this; and uses his comprehensive knowledge of his stock and customers to enact trade.
The shop runs on trust. If a reader is impoverished, she may spend as long as she wishes reading the books; comfortable, if rather aged, armchairs are provided, together with a lamp and table. Mysteriously, a crystal glass of liquid amber from a far-flung highland distillery would appear, just to help the reader relax. On occasion, an unscrupulous reader may steal a book; this is a singular mistake. For on their next visit, the bell-pull will not be answered; and a small note will be found stuck into between the brass plaque and the ancient stonework: “guardini furibus” (‘thieves, beware’). Inside the cover of their book the thief will find a small note such as: “this book costs thirteen pounds and fifty pence - either pay at the door as you exit, or pay by transfer at The Royal Bank of Scotland in the Royal Mile.” On payment, the bell-pull will later be found to now work, and the sorry event forgotten, and forgiven.
To err is human, and to forgive is frankly human too. When the day is closing, at a time which changes day to day, a resounding baritone, that of Mr Morley, will announce, “time, ladies and gentlemen, please!”, the lights will flash on and off several times, and, ten minutes later he will walk the shop, and bid the customers good-night, seeing them each and all to the shop door. Which is then locked - with a dangerously large rusted iron key - bolted and shuttered, as befits a portal that once was used by Thomas Carlyle in his early student days.
He then goes from room to room, retrieving whisky glasses, marking books open at a table with a ribbon - to allow the reader to return and continue from where they left off, returns each book to its proper shelfage, turning the lights off room by room, until he reaches the inner door to the upper-flat. Retrieving a key secured onto his vest pocket, he opens the door, and joins the other society members who now await him in his generously-proportioned - for an eighteenth century tenement - flat. The clouds of smoke, gentle conversation, and a warm welcome to his home, which each day he will share with friends, many of whom are yet strangers.
How these men and women are recruited is, to me, yet a mystery. Indeed, one wonders whether they are of our common mortal stock; such is their code and practice. Are they a strain of homo sapiens which has long existed, knowledgeable above the ken of ordinary run-of-the-mill folk? I have recently made it my task in life to find out how and why they function, even to the point of frequenting their regular haunts. But, as surely as I consider myself to be entirely visible to them, they are merely happy to share their company. Perhaps - in within another half-century - I might, I hope I might, be invited into their inner sanctam where privacy becomes a welcoming hand-grasp of invited fellowship.
But, why would I now be outing their existence so publicly? Would not this ensure my debarment from such an exclusive society? I think not, for that would be just the kind of thing to be expected of lesser institutions such as freemasons or gentlemen’s clubs. These exist only to better the good lives of their members. But - and here I remain shocked - they seem only to exist in order to quietly, but determinedly, act as an aid to certain individuals whose stock in life has run unseemly low.
I was first aware of this when a friend of mine - I will call him, Professor Albert Schtudmeyer (which is not his name, and any resemblance between him and other Schtudmeyers is, I assure you, merely a figment of your wild imagination) had run into significant difficulties. He was, at heart, a good man; but good men rarely see their metaphysical ethics interlink with the real-world ethos of worldly power. He had risen to become a leading thinker and actor in international peace studies. He was, in short, targeted, skinned, cooked, and hung out to dry by certain very bad men.
As a friend, I was deeply upset, and spoke out openly. However, a visit from an operator of an agency of the United Nations (or so he claimed), had visited me at my office and warned me off. Perhaps his leaving on my private desk a single handgun cartridge was a tad melodramatic, but the point was made. And I, with a career and family expectations, was sadly more aware of the dangers of persisting and the very low likelihood of the truth coming out to ensure justice.
Albert found himself homeless and begging in a near-derelict town centre, so typical of our post-industrial cities. One day, a remarkably smart-dressed gentleman stopped before him. Albert looked up at him, expecting a pound coin to be tossed down, assuaging the conscience of this elegant citizen. But, the man spoke,
“May I join you?”, he asked.
Albert offered him a tiny nod, mouth agape. The man sat beside him, undoubtedly wetting and marking his elegant tartan trews. He pulled out a pipe, asking,
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No”, Albert replied. Still staring at the man, with the rain falling steadily upon them. People walked on past, glad to avoid noticing the ragged beggar. The smoker lit up his already-filled pipe, puffing acrid clouds as he sat, staring ahead.
“If I am right, you would be the once-famous Albert Schtudmeyer, late of the University of Edinburgh?”
Albert said nothing, but he looked away, nodding.
“I expect you miss the days of your own pipe smoking, standing on your balcony at the Old College.” He puffed on. “I would. You know, I have read all your papers, and the unpublished draft of your long-awaited book on the corporate deep state’s black operations in the world of international justice and finance.”
Albert turned to him, “Who are you? What is this to you and me? Have you come here only to ridicule and finish me off?”
The man smiled, “No. Just to offer you a position in the University of St Petersburg. Yours is a brain too well-trained to be lost to the world, and we reckon that within the next five years you will be, if supported and encouraged to act freely, at the forefront of those thinkers who will be able to help us reorder this, to be frank, mess and corruption.”
He stood up, offering Albert his hand, and led him into the tobacconist whose awning was sheltering them from the worst of the rain. He bought Albert a pipe, his favourite tobacco blend, a flint lighter and a leather pouch; all the well-brought-up smoker desires.
“This is the guarantee of my bond” said the man. “For I know precisely who you are, even as you sit in a street gutter, unkempt and disarrayed.”
Albert phoned me three months after this event. He was now re-established in academia, supported by the funds and access to the wherewithal he required to further his once-terminated career. Shortly after this call I was emailed the details of a return flight to meet him at his new university office. We spent several hours talking openly about this extremely strange turn of events, then about his research in progress.
“The strangest thing is that, since I am working from this country my enemies lack the arm-stretch to reach me here. If I had been restored to a position nearer home they might well have returned to destroy me again. But, here I am, it appears, safe from further harm, able to continue my important work.”
As we parted the next day, just before I entered into the waiting taxi, he said,
“Ah, yes; I almost forgot. The day before you arrived I got a letter. In it was a business card, and a note that said I should hand the card to you when we meet. It seems you might need it yourself too, one day. I hope not soon!” He laughed; a man restored to life. The card was blank on the back, and on the front it said, in plain type,
The Scottish Gentleperson's Literary and Smoking Union
And, below this was written in a careful cursive hand,
Christopher Morley
procurer, retailer and purchaser of fine literature
The Lawnmarket, Edinburgh