44 Scotland Street: Socks bought by somebody else Volume 9, Episode 6 Title: Socks bought by somebody else Dr MacGregor served them coffee in the drawing room, using the chipped cylindrical coffee cups - coffee cans as he called them - that had belonged to an aunt of his wife's. These might have ended up in Perthshire, he thought, but his wife had taken little from the house, out of awkwardness or guilt, or perhaps because the cottage in Perthshire was not the place for such dreary china. He had been in that kitchen once, and had seen that everything was bright and modern: a red fridge, a framed Hockney print, retro mugs that said Keep Calm and Carry On; there was no place for fuddy-duddy Wedgwood there, he thought, and no place for him either. Sometimes, he reflected, a spouse or partner simply becomes aesthetically unsuitable and has to be scrapped. That happened to women, of course, when their husbands began to notice the effect of gravity and the years, the sagging, the desiccation, the wrinkling, and started to pay attention, as men did, to younger women. He, of course, would not have cared about such things, and would have adhered, as his lawyer had put it, but she had decided otherwise, and, well, he could understand why. But then there had been that article in the copy of Gentleman's Quarterly that he had read in the dentist's waiting room, and it had occurred to him that he might be able to do something about himself and have the makeover the magazine suggested. "Nobody is beyond the help of a looks-and-style-assessment," the article advised. Everybody can be helped to get the woman he deserves. This wording had intrigued him. Did we deserve emotional or sexual satisfaction? Was that now something that we were somehow owed by some external dispenser of such things, some Cupid or Eros, the god of mortal doting envisaged by Auden in his Bucolics? Was that what people now expected? Over her full coffee can - and the coffee's cold, she thought; poor Daddy - Pat looked at her father and noticed, now that he was sitting down and had crossed his legs, that he was wearing striped socks. He had never worn anything but black socks before, even on holiday in Spain when she, as a teenager, had experienced burning, mortifying embarrassment at her father's holiday garb that had included those black socks. This settled the matter: something had happened. At what age did men have their mid-life crisis? And did it matter all that much? There were presumably many men who had their mid-life crisis quietly and with such consideration that nobody, not even their wives, noticed it - the Grange must be full of such people, she felt. Of course there were those who had vivid and disruptive mid-life crises, and who behaved, as a result, like Italian prime ministers. Some men, perhaps, even had fatal mid-life crises: she imagined those obituaries that stated the cause of death - these would say, discreetly, Died, of a sudden and unexpected mid-life crisis ... Dr MacGregor looked at his watch, and she noticed. It's late and I must get back to the flat. That essay ... He nodded. I'll walk you back. No need, Daddy. It's not really dark yet. He glanced out of the window. The Scottish summer made the sky still light, even at this hour. No, I'd like the walk anyway. In your new socks, she thought. "Those socks," she said. They're very nice. Bright. Where did you buy them? He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came, and she realised, in a moment of insight, that when somebody can't say where their socks come from then that can only mean one thing: somebody else had bought them. "I find it really difficult to get good socks," she said quickly. I found a mohair pair the other day. He seemed relieved not to have to answer her question. "Mohair," he said, rising from his chair. Thank heavens for mohair. Where would we be without it, I wonder. Where indeed? They left the house and made their way to the Marchmont street on which Pat lived. At the front door of her common stair, Pat said goodbye to her father, kissing him on the cheek. After-shave? Cologne? "You're wearing ..." She stopped herself. She was going to say "You're wearing something" but then she realised that she should not; she did not want to embarrass her father. And so she said, "You're wearing nice socks." He smiled, and nodded. Maybe I should look for some mohair socks - like you. He turned away with a wave and she went up to her flat. Once in, she made her way to the sitting room window that overlooked the street. From there she looked down and saw her father walk back along the way they had come, only to stop suddenly, look over his shoulder, and then turn in the opposite direction. Pat acted impulsively. On sober reflection she would never have entertained the thought of following her father, but at that moment it seemed to her to be the only thing to do. She went out into the street. Dr MacGregor was now some distance away, walking fairly quickly, and had arrived at the end of Spottiswoode Road. When he turned that corner, Pat accelerated her pace, although she was careful to keep sufficiently far away from him so that if he turned and looked back he might not spot her. They reached the Meadows, and Pat watched from the cover of the trees as Dr MacGregor began to walk down one of the transverse paths that led down towards Tollcross. Then, satisfied that he would not be able to see her, she continued to follow him. In Brougham Place, he lingered briefly outside the window of a still-open grocery store but did not enter it. Pat watched as he went further down the road. There were more people about now - a group of students heading to a party, a man walking a couple of elderly dogs, a few couples coming out of restaurants - and she felt more confident about not being seen. And if the worst came to the worst and she was spotted, then here she could at least claim to be going off to meet a friend in one of the nearby bars, having decided that the essay would not progress that night. Then she stopped. Dr MacGregor had paused outside a doorway in a tenement of flats. Then he pressed a button on an intercom, leant forward to announce himself, and disappeared inside.