He was about to put the magazine down when his eye caught an article that he had missed on first perusal. It was all about a boy of fourteen who was planning to sail from Scotland to Iceland, single-handed. Bertie looked at the photographs. The boy, who did not appear much older than twelve, was pictured standing on the deck of a gaff-rigged cutter of not much more than twenty feet. The sails were stiff in the breeze and there was wind in the boy’s hair. He was holding on to the boat’s tiller with one hand and waving with the other.
Bertie read the text of the article aloud, following the lines with his index finger. “Angus McLetchie (14) is planning to be the youngest single-handed sailor ever to navigate his way between Scotland and Iceland. This plucky pupil at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh has been sailing since he was five and is looking forward to the technical challenges of the passage …”
There was another photograph of Angus McLetchie, this time from much closer up. “ ‘We are not nervous about this trip,’ said Angus’s mother, Angela McLetchie (39). ‘Boys should be allowed to do what they want to do, as long as they take sensible precautions. Angus is very sensible,’ said his father, Hugh McLetchie (42).”
Five, thought Bertie. Five. He had been sailing since five. He looked out of the window. My life is passing me by, he said to himself. By the time Angus was my age he had been sailing for a year. Perhaps he had already sailed to Skye or to Ireland. Soon it will be too late for me and I will never have done any of those things.
He put the magazine down and sat for a moment deep in thought. The school fair was his big chance to make some money, and if he made some money, then he could go somewhere. He could buy a ticket to Glasgow, perhaps, or even to Dunstaffnage, where this boy Angus McLetchie kept his boat. He could meet him and ask him if he had room on the boat for him, as a member of the crew. He could hold the tiller for Angus while he trimmed the sails or cooked sausages in the galley down below. Or Bertie could cook the sausages himself while Angus steered, because he presumably knew the way to Iceland.
When the time came for him to go in to talk to Dr. St. Clair, Bertie mentioned that he had heard there was a boy of fourteen planning to sail to Iceland by himself. Dr. St. Clair looked at Bertie sceptically. “Oh yes, Bertie?” he said. “All by himself?”
“Yes,” said Bertie.
“And would you like to do that, Bertie?” asked the psychotherapist.
Bertie nodded.
Dr. St. Clair scribbled a note on his pad. Fantasies of escape, he wrote. But why Iceland?
50. A Fiscally Responsible Boy
For some reason unknown to Bertie, his mother was in an unusually good mood as they returned from the psychotherapy session with Dr. St. Clair. Bertie liked his mother to be happy, or at least to be less concerned about things than she usually was. In his opinion she worried far too much about matters that really were none of her business, and that if only she could stop thinking about Melanie Klein and what Melanie Klein might have made of a situation then she would be much more content. It seemed to him that his mother was somehow angry with the world, which she wanted to be fundamentally different from the way it was. Would one not be happier if one accepted that there were a very large number of people who not only thought differently from oneself, but also did things of which one strongly disapproved?
Bertie had reached a similar conclusion about dogs. By observing Cyril he had decided that there were certain matters that dogs would do well to accept rather than to rail against. There was, for instance, the question of sticks: most dogs seemed to believe that sticks were in the wrong place in this world, and simply could not resist the temptation to pick them up in their mouths and deposit them elsewhere. Or, curiously enough, if one threw a stick, a dog would normally rush after it, pick it up, and bring it back to where it had been before. That, of course, rather disproved the theory, unless one took the view that the dog was not content to leave the stick in its new setting and wanted to put it elsewhere, that elsewhere just happening to be the place where the stick had started in the first place.
More pressingly, perhaps, dogs needed to accept that cats existed, and to leave them be. Yet there were very few dogs – none, in fact, thought Bertie – who were prepared to take a philosophical, accepting attitude towards any cats they encountered. Rather than attempt to chase cats, Bertie felt, dogs would do better to ignore them, in much the same way as a cat will ignore a dog whom it knows to be securely attached to a leash. Dogs, by contrast, would pant and strain to get at the cat and waste a lot of energy in the process, rather than doing something better with their time …
But what was that? Bertie had puzzled over what there was for dogs actually to do, and had decided that there was nothing. Perhaps it was the same with his mother. Perhaps Irene’s problem was that she had very little to occupy herself with, other than to look after Ulysses and to tell Bertie what to do. Looking after Ulysses was not easy, Bertie conceded, as he was always being sick over things and that inevitably involved a lot of washing and cleaning.
“Try not to be sick over Mummy quite so much,” Bertie had whispered to his small brother one day. “I know it may be hard, but Mummy doesn’t really mean it most of the time. Just pretend that you can’t hear her.”
Ulysses looked up at Bertie with mute, adoring eyes. The tiny child loved his brother; he loved him so much; he was perfect in his eyes.
“You don’t understand me, do you?” Bertie continued, tickling the baby under his chin. “You don’t speak English yet, I suppose.”
Ulysses let out a small chuckle, followed immediately by a small burp. He reached for one of the buttons on Bertie’s shirt, but Bertie gently pushed the tiny hand away.
“Try not to be sick so much,” Bertie whispered. “Try and be kind to Mummy. You’ll be eighteen one of these days. Try to remember that.”
Now, as they walked back from psychotherapy, with Irene in a good mood, Bertie decided to raise again the subject of the school fair. This time, there was what seemed like a firm commitment by Irene to allow Bertie to take part. “But what are you going to spend the money you earn on?” she asked. “I don’t want you spending it on unhealthy sweets.”
“Of course not,” said Bertie, who had been hoping to spend it on chocolate. “I’ll save it, Mummy, I promise I will.”
Irene smiled at him benevolently. “Mummy’s little fiscally responsible boy!” she teased.
Bertie was not sure about the implications of all that, but he had been listening to the news on the radio and had realised that there was a problem with the government spending more money than it had. His father, who seemed particularly interested in these matters, had told him about that and had shaken his head in a most foreboding way. “Future generations will have to pay for all this,” Stuart had said. “That’s the problem, Bertie.”
Bertie had looked at Ulysses. As far as he was concerned, Ulysses was a future generation, and so this really meant that Ulysses would be shouldering a large burden. He was not really sure how his little brother would cope with that, and he rather feared that he might be copiously sick – all over everything – once he discovered how deeply he was in debt. But there would be time enough to worry about such matters in due course – not now.
A much more pressing concern than the national debt was the issue of what he would sell on his table at the fair. When the question arose a few days later, on the Friday before the fair, which was to be on Saturday afternoon, Irene repeated her suggestion about making carrot-men and indeed showed Bertie a bag of carrots she had bought for that express purpose. Bertie realised he was trapped. He was very eager to participate in the fair, but he had the gravest doubts as to whether anybody would want to buy such carrot-men as he made.
“Of course they’ll want to buy them,” enthused Irene. “You just listen to me: your carrot-men will go like hot cakes.”
“But couldn’t we sell actual hot cakes then, Mummy?” he asked.
“No, Bertie, carissimo,” said Irene. “S
ugar is poison.”
“But I see lots of people eating sweet things,” protested Bertie. “And they don’t die. If it was poison, they’d all be dead.”
Irene smiled. “Mummy doesn’t mean poison like that,” said Irene. “There are gentler poisons – things that are not good for the system, which actually do poison it, that aren’t exactly cyanide or belladonna, Bertie. Capisci?”
Bertie sighed. It was no good arguing – it was going to be a case of carrot-men or nothing. Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, with whom he was sharing the table, had announced that he would be selling tablet that his mother was proposing to make, using what Ranald described as “loads and loads of condensed milk.” Perhaps there would be enough for Bertie to sell some as well, or, if there was not, there was always the possibility of a profit-sharing agreement between them.
“I’m going to make loads of money, Bertie,” Ranald had crowed. “And it’s all going to be tax-free, you know!”
51. Like Tiny Carrot-Lepers
It was with some trepidation that Bertie made his way to the school that Saturday afternoon. He travelled on the 23 bus with his mother and Ulysses, his baby brother being dressed in his sailor outfit, the cap of which, instead of sitting at a jaunty angle, as the designer undoubtedly intended, had fallen over his brow, with the result that his vision was more or less entirely obscured. There was also a vague smell about him that Bertie hoped would not get any worse; he could not imagine any embarrassment greater than having to help his mother change Ulysses at school; although the entire day was in fact becoming quite embarrassing, irrespective of any contribution made by Ulysses. There was his own outfit to be taken into account – the crushed-strawberry dungarees that his mother had insisted he wear when he knew – he was sure of it – that all the other boys would be wearing jeans. Tofu, in particular, had a pair of black jeans with four zips that he would be certain to wear, and equally certain to make reference to while staring pointedly at Bertie’s outfit.
“There’s still quite a lot of wear in these,” Irene had said, as she helped Bertie into the offending garment. “They were a very good buy, Bertie. They’ve done you for almost two years now. Waste not, want not.”
“They’re getting a bit small, though,” said Bertie. “I think maybe we should throw them away now, Mummy. Or we could give them to some boy who hasn’t got many clothes. I’m sure he’d like them.” He was not sure, actually; in fact, if anything, he was convinced that there would be no boy in Scotland, or indeed elsewhere, who would thank anybody for the gift of this item of clothing.
“That’s a very generous thought, Bertie,” said Irene. “But don’t worry: I think I’ll be able to let them out a bit so that you get a bit more wear out of them. Then we can keep them for Ulysses, for when he gets bigger.”
Bertie glanced at his tiny brother. It was a glance of sympathy; the sort of glance that those despairing souls, seen by Dante on his melancholy journey, might have given one another as they contemplated their hopeless durance.
“Yes,” continued Irene. “It will be very nice for Ulysses to have your clothes, Bertie. And your toys, too, when you’re finished with them.”
“That’s all right,” mumbled Bertie. He paused. “Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if you were able to cut these down for him right now? If you made the legs shorter then he could wear them straightaway. I bet he’d like that, Mummy.”
Irene laughed. “I don’t think Ulysses cares what he wears,” she said. “Not at this stage. He’s still so young, Bertie. He doesn’t really care.”
Bertie knew that this was true. As far as he could make out, Ulysses had absolutely no idea of what was going on. He had shown his younger brother a map of Scotland only the other day and had pointed to where they were, but all that Ulysses had done was to attempt to eat the map. If you didn’t even know what country you were in, thought Bertie, then what else did you not know?
But now they were on their way and the whole ordeal of the school fair lay ahead. It could have been different, of course. It could have been a treat, had Bertie been allowed to make what he wanted to make – tablet – rather than to have to make those ridiculous carrot-men that his mother was so keen on. They had made twenty-four of these, and they were all laid out in a baking tray that Irene had covered with foil and Bertie was now carrying. The carrot-men had rapidly become soggy, for some reason, and had lost the firmness of trunk and limb with which they had started. Some of them, in fact, had mislaid their facial features as well – the tiny pieces of clove that had served as their eyes, and the slivers of red pepper that had been their lips. Disfigured now, like tiny carrot-lepers, they slumped in their tray staring up – if they still had their cloves – at their ceiling of foil.
As the bus turned the corner at the Royal Scottish Academy and began its lumbering journey up the Mound, Bertie looked down Princes Street, at the fluttering flags on the flagpoles, at the blue Saltires, at the white flags with Edinburgh’s castle symbol; at the people walking along the pavement; at the normal life that seemed to be going on outside his world. He imagined a carrot-man walking along the street, enjoying the sunshine, raising his hat to passersby, strolling without a care in the world, blissfully unaware that carrot-men were made to be eaten …
They arrived at the school. There was a good crowd there already, and one of the senior pupils, who had a reputation as a juggler, was entertaining a group of admiring parents with his dexterity. There was a small table set up at the entrance to the school, where two sixteen-year-old girls from the senior part of the school were taking entrance money. Bertie recognised these girls, who had often smiled at him in a friendly way, but he was not sure of their names.
“Is that your little brother, Bertie?” asked one of the girls. “He’s really sweet, isn’t he? Look at his ears.”
Bertie was about to say something about how Ulysses’ ears looked very like Dr. Fairbairn’s, but was silenced by a glance from his mother.
“I’m glad to see so many people, girls,” said Irene. “Come on now, Bertie, you must get to your table. I think I see Ranald’s mother, which means that Ranald must be here.”
“What are you selling, Bertie?” asked one of the girls. “Are there cakes in that tray?”
“Carrot-men,” answered Irene, on Bertie’s behalf. “Bertie spent a lot of time making them.”
“Carrot-men?” said the girl. “What do you do with carrot-men?”
“You eat them, stupid,” said the other girl.
“And they’re very tasty,” said Irene. “Come along now, Bertie. Goodbye, girls.”
They went into the hall where the tables had been laid out. There was already a fair number of people milling about, peering at and poking the offerings that the children had placed before them. Bertie found Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, who had already displayed his wares on his half of the table – four plates of delicious-looking tablet. Several people had bought some even at this stage, and Ranald excitedly showed Bertie the money he had taken. “And there’s going to be heaps more, Bertie,” said Ranald. “I think I’m going to make over twenty pounds.”
52. The Tragedy of the Carrot-Men
The school fair now in full and noisy swing, Irene had left Bertie to his own devices and was inspecting a table loaded with house-plants. For his part, Bertie was busy taking the foil off the top of his baking tray, exposing the carrot-men to Ranald’s scrutiny.
“They’re very nice,” said Ranald after a moment’s hesitation.
“Thanks,” said Bertie.
“But do you think anybody’s going to buy them?” continued Ranald. From the tone of his voice it was clear what his own view of that possibility was.
“You never know,” said Bertie. “There may be some healthy people here. You never know.”
Bertie looked around him, to see what was being offered at the other tables. There were Olive and Pansy, standing behind their table, which was laden with small brightly coloured notebooks. They seemed to be attracting a
lot of interest, as there were at least five or six people examining the books. And there, one table away from them, was Tofu, who had a large pile of what looked like CDs on the table in front of him. Again, he appeared to be doing a roaring trade, but found the time, nonetheless, to give Bertie a wave – a triumphant wave, it seemed to Bertie.
Noticing Bertie, Olive left the table under Pansy’s care for a moment as she came over to talk.
“So, Bertie,” she said. “What have we here?” She peered at the contents of the tray and then looked at Bertie. “Oh, Bertie,” she said. “That’s so sad. No, it’s tragic, Bertie, really tragic.”
Bertie looked away. “You don’t have to eat them if you don’t like them,” he said.
“No, I won’t,” said Olive. She smiled. “Have you seen what Tofu’s doing?”
Bertie shook his head.
Olive leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He’s selling pirate CDs. I’m not making it up, Bertie. And some of them are stolen, Pansy says. I’m going to tell one of the teachers when they come to buy our notebooks. I’m going to tell them to go and phone the police to come and get him. It’ll be his own fault. Tofu’s been asking for this for a long time.”
It had not taken long for the school hall to fill with people. Most of them were parents, accompanying their children. The children separated from the adults as soon as was decently possible: all children are thoroughly embarrassed by their parents, who are invariably too tall, too short, too dowdy, too badly dressed, too effusive, too out-of-touch, too poignant, too dim, too reactionary, or too posturingly progressive for any sensible child to bear. Olive, for example, never spoke of her parents at all, and almost went so far as to deny having any. She referred to the family’s neat bungalow in the Braids as “this place I’ve got in the Braids,” and when asked about her father, who was very much in evidence and a conscientious and hard-working breadwinner, she simply said “Yes, there’s somebody.” It was true that her mother was acknowledged, but usually with a sigh and the comment “Let’s talk about something else.”