The boy, who looked barely thirteen, glanced at Irene as she made towards the bar, and then turned to face Bertie. “Is that your mother?” he asked.
Bertie shook his head. “No,” he said. And then added, for emphasis: “No, she’s nothing to do with me.”
“Who is she then?” asked the boy.
“She’s just somebody I met on the bus,” he said. “I talked to her and then she followed me in.”
The boy looked surprised. “You have to be careful about talking to strangers,” he said. “Haven’t you been told that?”
Bertie nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s just that I felt sorry for her.” He racked his brains for a credible story, and then continued: “She’s just been let out of a lunatic asylum, you see. They let them out every Saturday, and she had nobody to talk to her. So I did.”
“Oh,” said the boy. “Do you think she’s dangerous?”
“Not really,” said Bertie. “Or maybe just a little bit. But she’s very strange, you know. She’s pretending to be my mother, I think.”
“Some grown-ups are really sad,” said the boy.
“Yes,” agreed Bertie. “It’s really sad.”
He looked at the boy. If he could make a friend here, then the ordeal of being the youngest person present, by far, would be lessened. And this boy, who had what looked like a trombone case with him, seemed to be friendly enough. “What’s your name?” Bertie asked.
The boy smiled. “I’m called Harry,” he said. “And you?”
Bertie swallowed. “I’m called Tom,” he said.
“But she called you Bertie,” said Harry. “That woman called you Bertie. I heard her.”
Bertie shook his head. “Yes,” he said. “It’s sad, isn’t it? I think she calls everybody Bertie. It’s her illness talking.”
Harry nodded. “Look,” he said. “If you need to get away from her, I can help you. We can go and hide in the toilet while she’s getting her coffee. I suppose she’ll go away after a while. How about it?”
Bertie looked towards the bar. He had never run away from his mother before, although he had once managed to get as far as Dundas Street. He did not wish to run away, having decided that he would sit his childhood out until that magical date when he turned eighteen, but the humiliation he had just suffered at the hands of his mother seemed to him now to justify a strong response. But he was not sure whether hiding with Harry would solve anything. What if Irene panicked when she found him missing and started to scream? Or what if she saw him going into the toilets and came in after him to drag him out? She was quite capable of doing that, he thought, and he imagined the scene if Irene went into the men’s room. He closed his eyes. He could not bear to think about it. “Too late,” muttered Harry rising to his feet. “Look out, here she comes. I’m taking off. See you!”
Irene, reaching the table, put down her cup of coffee and lowered herself into the chair beside her son. “It’s going to be very easy for you, Bertie,” she said. “I was talking to one of the other mummies at the bar, and she said that the conductor is a good friend of Lewis Morrison. So I’m sure that he’ll be kind to Mr Morrison’s pupils.”
“He may not know,” muttered Bertie.
“Of course he’ll know,” said Irene. “Naturally, I’m going to have a word with him beforehand. I’ll make sure that he knows just who you are.”
Bertie looked at the ground in despair. “Mummy,” he said. “Please take me home. That’s all I’m asking you. Please just take me home.”
Irene leaned forwards. “Later, Bertie, carissimo,” she said. “I’ll take you home after the audition. And that’s a promise.”
40. Bertie Plays the Blues
There were at least one hundred hopeful young musicians assembled in the hall for the orchestral audition. The young people ranged between the age of thirteen and eighteen, although there were one or two nineteen-year-olds and Bertie, of course, who was six. The teenagers had been instructed to sit in the first five rows of seats at the front and, in the case of those with large instruments, the cellists, bass players and bassoonists, in a cluster of seats to the side of the stage. The auditions were by section, and the aspirants were free to wander out of the hall until their section was called, as long as they kept their voices down and did not allow the door to bang shut when they left or came in.
To his horror, Bertie found that his mother insisted on sitting next to him in the fourth row. Nobody else’s parents sat anywhere near them, he noted. Most of the parents sat at the back with their friends, or had remained in the bar. But Irene insisted, and Bertie sank down in his seat, trying to persuade himself that not only was she not there, but that neither was he. He had remembered reading somewhere that the best way of dealing with unpleasant moments was to try to imagine that one was somewhere else altogether. So he closed his eyes and conjured up a picture of himself in Waverley Station, watching the trains coming in, his friend Tofu at his side. Tofu had a large bar of chocolate and was breaking off a piece and handing it to him. And he felt happy, curiously happy, to be there with his friend, just by themselves.
He felt a nudge in his ribs. “We’ll be next,” whispered Irene. “It’s woodwind next.”
“Shouldn’t I go on with the brass?” asked Bertie. “Maybe just after the trombones?”
“But you’re woodwind, Bertie,” said Irene reproachfully. “You know that the saxophone is technically woodwind.”
Bertie bit his lip. His mother’s insistence that he should audition even when there was no call for saxophones was perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of the entire experience. It was bad enough being six and trying to get into a teenage orchestra, but being six and a saxophonist, was even worse. Nobody else had brought a saxophone with them; everybody else, everyone, had a conventional orchestral instrument with them.
At a signal from a woman who was helping the conductor, a small knot of oboists made their way to the front of the hall.
“You get up now, Bertie,” said Irene. “Woodwind now.”
Bertie did nothing. His mother was giving him no alternative. He did not want to put his plan into effect, but she really left him with no choice.
“Come on,” said Irene, rising to her feet and pulling Bertie up by the straps of his pink dungarees. “I’ll come with you.”
“Please, Mummy,” pleaded Bertie. “Please…”
It was to no avail. Virtually frogmarched to the front, Bertie approached the conductor at his table.
“Tenor saxophone,” said Irene, pushing Bertie forward. “Bertie Pollock.”
The conductor looked up. “Saxophone?” he said. “Well, I’m afraid…”
“His sight-reading is excellent,” said Irene. “And he can transpose very well, too. He can easily go from B flat to E flat, so you can let him play the tenor horn part. I don’t see any tenor horns around. Bertie can fill that gap for you.”
“Well,” said the conductor. “It’s a different timbre, you know. I’m not sure that…”
“Or the euphonium part,” went on Irene. “I take it that you want a bit of slightly richer bass. I don’t see any tuba players. You don’t want to sound thin, do you?”
The conductor exchanged a glance with the woman beside him, who was smiling, lips pursed. Irene shot the woman a warning glance.
“He’s a bit young, isn’t he?” ventured the woman. “This is the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, after all. We’ve never had anybody that young…”
Irene’s eyes flashed. “That, if I may say so, is a somewhat unhelpful remark,” she said coldly. “Do you really want to stifle talent by discriminating against younger musicians?”
She waited for an answer, but none came. The conductor looked at the woman, as if seeking moral support. She shrugged.
“Oh, very well then,” said the conductor wearily. “Go up on stage, Bertie. And just play us this piece, the first fifteen bars, that’s all. Do you think you can manage?”
Bertie looked at the sheet of music. It was no
t all difficult. Grade five, he thought, or six perhaps; both of which examinations he had recently passed with distinction. It would be easy to play that piece. But no: he would now have to put his plan into operation. He would not play what was before him. Instead, he would play something quite different, something defiant. That would surely lead to his rejection; if one would not play what one was meant to play, then one should not be in an orchestra–that was obvious.
He mounted the stage and walked over to the music stand. He placed the sheet of music on the stand and hitched his saxophone onto its sling, at first ignoring the sea of faces in front of him. But then he saw that one or two were laughing. They were looking at him, and laughing at him; laughing at the fact that he had a saxophone, he thought; laughing at the fact that he was only six; laughing at the fact that he was wearing pink dungarees.
Bertie raised the mouthpiece to his lips and blew the first note. Closing his eyes, he continued and soon was well into a fine rendition of ‘As Time Goes By’ from Casablanca, the same piece that he practised so regularly directly below Pat’s bedroom in Scotland Street; a fine rendition, perhaps, but a disobedient one, and one which would be bound to irritate the conductor. When he came to the end of the piece, he lowered the saxophone and glanced quickly at his mother. She would be angry with him, he knew, but it would be better to face her anger than to be forced into a teenage orchestra.
The conductor was silent for a moment. Then, rising to his feet, he clapped his hands together.
“Brilliant!” he exclaimed loudly. “What a brilliant performance, young man! You’re in!”
41. Delta of George Street
“You clever little boy!” said Irene, as she bundled Bertie out of the Queen’s Hall and into the street outside. “It was rather a risky thing to do, of course, but, my goodness, didn’t it pay off!”
Bertie, his eyes downcast, said nothing. As far as he had been concerned, the audition had been a complete disaster. Not only was there that unfortunate episode in which his mother made that embarrassing comment within earshot of Harry, but then his playing and his deliberate disobedience had brought exactly the opposite result to that which he had intended. He was now a member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra and would be obliged to go with the other players to Paris, with his mother in attendance. It would be bearable–just–if he went by himself, but that was not to be. Nobody else would have their mother with them; and none of them, he was sure, would be forced to go to bed at seven o’clock. Nobody went to bed at seven in Paris, even French children. Les enfants stayed up late at night, he had heard, eating with the adults, sipping red wine, and discussing the latest books and films. French mothers were obviously not like his own; French boys did not do yoga.
Irene glanced down at him. “Are you all right, Bertie?” she asked. And then, answering her own question, she said: “Of course you are. You’re as thrilled as I am. I can tell.”
Bertie shook his head. “I don’t want to be in it,” he said. “I told you that a hundred times. You never listen, Mummy.”
“Of course I listen,” said Irene, pulling Bertie along. “I listen to you all the time, Bertie. Mummy is a listening mummy! It’s just that sometimes mummies have to take decisions for their boys if their boys are not quite old enough to know what’s good for them. You’ll thank me, Bertie. You just wait. You’ll thank me.”
Bertie was not sure that he would, but he knew that there was no point in arguing with his mother. He sighed, and looked at his watch. It was a Saturday, and that meant yoga in Stockbridge, in the course entitled Bendy Fun for Tots. If Bertie felt that he was too young to be a member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, then he felt that he was far too old to go to Bendy Fun for Tots. In that class, he seemed to be the oldest by far; the other member of the class nearest in age to him was a four-year-old boy called Sigi, whose mother was friendly with Irene and discussed Melanie Klein with her. The other children seemed to be much younger still and had to be helped into the yoga position because they were unable to stand yet.
Bertie wished that after the excitement of the audition his mother would forget about yoga, and his hopes were considerably raised when she suggested that they get off the bus at George Street so that she could go to the bookshop. Although he wanted only to go home, Bertie felt that a visit to the bookshop, which would distract his mother from yoga, was worthwhile, and he would, if necessary, prolong the expedition by offering advice on what books were available.
“What are you looking for, Mummy?” asked Bertie, once they reached the bookshop. “More Melanie Klein?”
Irene laughed. “Dear Bertie!” she said. “No, I have rather a lot by Melanie Klein, you know. I’m after something different. I feel in the mood for something to entertain me.”
Bertie stood on his tip-toes to look at the piles of books on a display table. “There are some nice books here, Mummy,” he said. “Look. That one looks exciting. How about that one?”
Irene looked to where Bertie’s small finger was pointing. “No dear,” she said. “Anaïs Nin. I think not, somehow.”
“But it looks like a nice book, Mummy,” said Bertie. “There’s a lady on the cover. Look.”
Irene smiled. “Believe me, Bertie, that’s not what I had in mind.”
Bertie looked at the other books. There were several Patrick O’Brian novels, with pictures of sailing ships, their cannons blasting away at each other. The ships had sail upon sail, all the way up their towering masts, and the tiny figures of men, and boys too, it seemed, scaled the rigging.
“Look,” said Bertie. “There’s a book by Mr O’Brian, Mummy. Daddy has read some of those. Should we get one for Daddy?”
Irene looked disdainfully at the naval tale. “Pure masculine fantasy,” she said. “Escape to sea, to a world without women. Rather sad, in a way.”
Bertie looked puzzled. He did not see anything wrong with escaping to sea to escape women. He wondered if they still took cabin boys in the Navy. If they did, then perhaps he could enlist and go off to sea from Leith. They would not let his mother come with them–the Navy was fussy about things like that–and she would have to wave to him from the shore. But the other sailors would not know that she was his mother, and they might think that she was just a strange woman who liked to wave to ships. So that would not be too embarrassing. And perhaps Tofu could come with him, as a cabin boy too, and they could climb the rigging together and keep a look-out for other ships, up there, high on the mast, almost in the clouds. It would feel like flying, he thought, almost like flying.
Irene looked at her watch. “Bertie, dear,” she began. And his spirits sank. Yoga. But no. “Bertie, dear,” she said. “You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen! Dr Fairbairn! I think I’ll just pop up and have a quick chat with him in the coffee room upstairs. Would you mind? You could maybe look at some of the books in the children’s section. They have a nice little chair through there.”
Bertie did not mind in the least. He had no desire to see his therapist. It was bad enough seeing him in his consulting rooms. She was welcome to him. But then he thought: what does she want to chat to him about? Could it be about the baby? Bertie had had a dream in which he saw his future baby brother clad in a romper suit made of the same blue linen as Dr Fairbairn’s jacket. It had been very strange, very disconcerting.
42. Empower Points
Pat had decided that she would have to do something about Wolf. It seemed to her that Wolf had far from broken off with Tessie, and this led to the conclusion that he envisaged having two girlfriends at the same time. Now, Pat knew that there were some men who liked the idea of such arrangements. On her ill-fated trip to Australia, she had read a novel in which an airline pilot had kept two wives, each in a different city. That was outrageous (although very clever), even if Bruce, to whom she had described the plot, had merely leered at her and said: “Lucky man.” That was typical of Bruce, of course, and she shuddered at the memory of her unlamented landlord.
And yet, in s
pite of her distaste for Lotharios such as Bruce, she found herself wondering–and she did feel rather guilty about it–what it would be like to have two boyfriends. Did she, as a woman, disapprove as much of that as she did of the idea that a man might have two girlfriends? It was an interesting thought. What if she were to have Wolf as her exciting boyfriend (a sort of mistress, so to speak; perhaps the masculine term was master, but surely not) and Matthew as her solid, dependable boyfriend? That’s exactly what men did when they kept a mistress, was it not? They had their wife, who was solid and dependable, and who kept the home going, and then they had a younger and more exciting woman tucked away in a flat somewhere, to be visited from time to time and indulged in expensive clothes and Belgian chocolates. Belgian chocolates had come to mind, but, she asked herself, did mistresses actually eat Belgian chocolates? It seemed likely that they did, sitting there on their pink sofas, in Moray Place perhaps. The image seemed somehow quite right, and she smiled at the thought.
She looked out of the window. She was sitting at her desk in the gallery, waiting for Matthew to return from his prolonged coffee-break at Big Lou’s, paging through the catalogue of an impending sale. Women, she thought, were generally the victims of masculine bad behaviour largely because men, for all that they affected to have absorbed the lessons of equality, had steadfastly refused to change their ways. Men wanted to be in control; to take the initiative; to determine the pace and circumstances of a relationship. Many women, of course, were perfectly content that this should be so, and quietly allowed men to assert themselves, or at least enjoy the appearance of being the dominant sex. But others were determined that men should not get away with this and battled to assert themselves. The word for this, Pat knew, was empowerment. Every time a man was cut down to size, a woman was empowered.