Cities are about friendship. They are about intricate and elaborate networks of friendship. Here is Angus Lordie, addressing his friends at a party in Scotland Street, at the end of one of the novels, when he feels he has to say something about how he feels about Edinburgh.

edinburgh

Dear friends, we are the inhabitants

Of a city which can be loved, as any place may be,

In so many different and particular ways;

But who amongst us can predict

For which reasons, and along which fault lines,

Will the heart of each of us

Be broken? I cannot, for I am moved

By so many different and unexpected things: by our sky,

Which at each moment may change its mood at whim

With clouds in such a hurry to be somewhere else;

By our lingering haars, by our eccentric skyline,

All crags and spires and angular promises,

By the way we feel in Scotland, yes, simply that;

These are things that break my heart

In a way for which I am never quite prepared—

The surprises of a love affair that lasts a lifetime.

But what breaks the heart the most, I think,

Is the knowledge that what we have

We all must lose; I don’t much care for denial,

But if pressed to say goodbye, that final word

On which even the strongest can stumble,

I am not above pretending

That the party continues elsewhere,

With a guest list that’s mostly the same,

And every bit as satisfactory;

That what we think are ends are really adjournments,

An entr’acte, an interval, not real goodbyes;

And perhaps they are, dear friends, perhaps they are.