“No,” said Leonie. “Can you imagine it?”
Matthew bit his lip. “Plenty of sensitive men play rugby,” he said wildly. “Plenty.”
“Oh yes?” challenged Babs. “Name one.”
Matthew thought. He could not think of any sensitive men who played rugby–not a single one. “Oh well,” he said. “I don’t think we should speak about stereotypes. Men who work in the arts are just the same as anybody else. Some play rugby, some don’t.”
“None play rugby,” said Leonie. “I’m telling you.”
“Does it matter?” interrupted Pat. “Does anybody really care any more at all who plays rugby and who doesn’t?”
“Is rugby some sort of metaphor?” asked Babs.
Matthew shook his head. “It’s a game.”
“Which is not played frequently by sensitive men,” interjected Leonie.
There was a silence. Then: “Let’s not argue,” said Babs pleasantly. “It’s been such a nice evening and it would be a pity to ruin it with an argument, wouldn’t it? I suppose that I am a bit of a direct speaker. And I know that these days you can’t speak freely about anything. I’ll try to be a little bit more politically correct, I really will.”
“Good girl!” said Leonie, putting an arm around her friend’s shoulder.
They sat together for a few moments, with nobody saying anything. Then Matthew signalled to the waitress for the bill and the party began to break up.
“You don’t have to pay just because you’re a man,” said Babs. “Leo and I can pay our share.”
“Well….” Matthew began.
“But thanks anyway,” said Leonie hurriedly. “Thanks very much for the evening, Matthew.”
Afterwards, when Babs and Leonie had disappeared together in a taxi, Matthew and Pat walked over the road to the pub on the opposite side of the road. Sandy Bells Bar was known for its folk music, and as they made their way to the broad mahogany bar they saw a fiddler at the other end of the bar rise to his feet.
Matthew stopped where he stood. “Listen,” he said. “‘Lochaber No More’.”
The long, drawn-out passages of the heart-rending lament largely silenced the drinkers present. An elderly man, seated by the window, clutching a small glass of whisky in both hands, started to sway gently in time with the music. The fiddler, glancing up, saw him and smiled.
“I love that tune,” Matthew whispered to Pat. “It makes me so sad.”
Pat stole a glance at Matthew. It had been a confusing evening. She had not known how to take their fellow-guests over dinner; things were not as they seemed, she realised, but then, it still seemed a bit strange.
“Leonie and Babs,” she said quietly to Matthew. “Do you think that…”
“That they’re an item?” whispered Matthew. “No, I don’t. And anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
He looked at Pat, and suddenly, with complete clarity of understanding, he realised that he was in love with her and that he had to tell her that. He had not been in love with her half an hour ago. He had liked her then. He felt a bit jealous of her. But now he loved her. He simply loved her.
He moved very slightly towards Pat, who was standing a few inches away from him. Now they were touching one another, his right leg against hers. She did not move away. Emboldened, he reached out and took her hand in his, squeezing it gently. She returned the pressure. “Let’s sit down,” she said. “Over at the table. Over there. I want to talk to you, Matthew.”
Matthew followed Pat to the table. He felt that he had misjudged the situation, and now his fears were to be confirmed. She would tell him that she thought of him as a brother; he had heard that sort of thing before. Or, worse, she might say that she thought of him as an employer.
“Matthew,” she said. “We’re friends, aren’t we? No, don’t look so down-in-the-mouth. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” said Matthew, flatly. “We’re friends.”
“And friends can speak their minds to one another?”
Matthew sighed. “Yes, I suppose they can.”
Pat lowered her voice. “I feel very awkward about this,” she said. “But I think that I know you well enough to talk about it.”
Matthew said nothing. It was all so predictable.
Pat reached out and took his hand. “I’m rather keen on Babs,” she said.
Matthew remained quite immobile. He opened his mouth, and then closed it. His mouth felt dry.
“Only joking,” said Pat. “But the point is this, Matthew. I know that you want to find somebody. I know that you want to find a girlfriend. But you don’t seem to be able to do it, do you?”
Matthew looked down at his feet. He said nothing.
“Well, why don’t you let me help you?” said Pat quietly. “Let me help you find somebody.”
83. Mothercraft
With Bertie away in Paris, Irene felt at something of a loose end. She had enjoyed her recent visit to Dr Fairbairn, and they had agreed to meet again for coffee later that week. She felt slightly guilty about this, because she had not mentioned to Stuart that she was seeing the psychotherapist in this way, but on subsequent reflection she concluded that it was perfectly appropriate for the two of them to meet, on the grounds that Bertie almost always cropped up in their conversation. Her meetings with Dr Fairbairn could therefore be justified as directly related to the therapy that Bertie so clearly needed.
And Bertie really did need therapy–at least in his mother’s view. The original incident which triggered the first visit to Dr Fairbairn–Bertie’s setting fire to his father’s copy of The Guardian (while he was reading it)–had not been followed by any acts of quite so dramatic a nature. But even if that was so, it was obvious that Bertie was still puzzled by life and uncertain about himself and who he was. And there was also an outstanding question about his dreams. Bertie had vivid dreams, and it was not uncommon for Irene to go into his bedroom early in the morning and find Bertie lying in his little bed with a puzzled frown on his face. That, thought Irene, was an indication of a confusing or threatening dream.
If she could visit Dr Fairbairn, then there was at least something to take her mind off her situation. And that situation was this: she was pregnant, she had very little to do, and she found the behaviour of her husband increasingly irritating. The only salience in this otherwise dull existence was the Bertie Project, and for a large part of the day Bertie was away at school or, as now, in Paris.
But then there arose an interesting possibility. Irene’s first pregnancy had gone very smoothly and uneventfully. She had felt very little discomfort. There had been virtually no nausea and she had experienced no cravings of the sort that many women feel in pregnancy. So in her case there had been no furtive snacking on chocolate bars, nor gnawing on raw artichokes, nor anything of that sort. Irene had simply sailed through the whole process and, more or less exactly on the day predicted by her doctor, given birth to Bertie in the Simpson Maternity Unit.
Of course it had been an enhanced pregnancy. She had read of the importance of playing music to the baby in utero, and had placed headphones against her stomach each afternoon while resting and played Mozart through them. She was convinced that Bertie had responded, as he had kicked vigorously each time she turned up the volume of ‘Soave sia il vento’ from Così fan Tutte, and, indeed, after his birth whenever this piece of music was played a strange expression would come over Bertie’s face.
There were other enhancements. Irene had changed her diet during pregnancy and had embarked on courses of vitamin pills and nutritional supplements that would ensure good brain development. Although she had previously scorned what she had considered to be the old-wives’ tale that fish was good for the brain, she had been won round by recent scientific evidence to this precise effect and had consequently eaten a great deal of fish in the later months. There had also been an intensive beetroot programme in the final weeks before Bertie’s birth, and Stuart had remarked on the fact that Bertie as a very young baby had a
fairly strong beetroot complexion–a remark which had not been well received by Irene.
This second pregnancy was, if anything, less stressful than the first and Irene actually found herself rather bored by it. That was until she saw a notice in the local health centre advertising special birth and mothercraft classes at a hall in St Stephen Street. Had Irene been more fully occupied she would not have bothered with these, but in her current state she thought that it might be interesting to see what these classes entailed–not that she had anything to learn, of course, about bringing up children. Indeed, it was she who should be imparting knowledge in this area, not receiving it. But the barricades in this life are never in the right place, and so she duly enrolled in a class that was scheduled to run for six weeks, with meetings on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and on the evenings of the same days for those mothers-to-be who were still at work.
The classes were to be run by somebody called Nurse Forbes, and there was a picture of Nurse Forbes on the poster. Irene peered at her. She had a rather bovine face, Irene decided; the sort of face that one used to see in advertisements for butter. In fact, thought Irene, she looked a bit Dutch. The Dutch, she felt, had that rather milky look about them, as if they had eaten too many dairy products. And they probably had, she reflected.
Irene smiled. Poor Nurse Forbes! She probably had not the slightest idea who Melanie Klein was; for her, babies were a matter of bottles of milk and injections and nappy rash and all the rest. Hers would be a life filled with unguent creams and immunisations and breast-milk issues. Poor woman.
And then, shortly after she had seen the poster and studied the picture of Nurse Forbes, Irene had the chance to meet her. It happened after a routine check-up that Irene had with her doctor. This doctor for some reason did not appear to like Irene–a feeling which Irene decided was based on his fundamental insecurity and his inability to engage in a non-paternalistic way with an informed patient.
“I’d like you to have a chat with Nurse Forbes,” said the doctor. “If you don’t mind, that is. She runs a class, you know. Not that you would need a class, of course. Not in your case.”
“On the contrary,” said Irene coldly. “I have already decided to sign up for it.”
“In that case,” said the doctor, “you can see Nurse Forbes straightaway. She’s in the building. Speak to the receptionists first. I’m sure that the two of you will get on very well.”
Irene had not bothered about the receptionists. She had left the consulting room and walked down the corridor to the door marked Nurse Forbes. She had knocked on the door and, a moment later, a voice had called out: “Come in!”
It was a milky-sounding voice, Irene thought.
84. No More Nonsense, Nurse Knows Best
Nurse Forbes was a woman in her early forties. She had been brought up in Haddington, the youngest of three girls, all of whom became nurses. Her mother had been a nurse, as had her grandmother.
That she should become a nurse too had been accepted from the very beginning, and when the time came for her to leave Knox Academy, she had enrolled on a nursing course at Queen Margaret College in Clermiston. In due course she had graduated with distinction, as her two sisters had done. She completed her training in the Royal Infirmary and in that classic of Caledonian-Stalinist architecture, the Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion.
Marriage came next–to a man who worked as an accountant in a brewery–and then there had been public service: she had served for a short time on the Newington Community Council, and had been appointed by the Secretary of State to the Departmental Committee on Maternity Services and the Healthy Eating in Pregnancy Initiative. She was very good at her job.
Irene, of course, knew nothing of this distinguished career when she knocked on the door marked Nurse Forbes. There were so many people who seemed to work in the health centre that it was impossible for her to keep up with them all, and she had great difficulty in working out who was a receptionist, who was a doctor, and who was a nurse. It was most confusing–and irritating.
Nurse Forbes looked up from the report she was reading. Patients were normally announced by the receptionists and she was mildly surprised to see Irene in her doorway. Now, who was this woman? She seemed vaguely familiar, but then she saw so many people. Pregnant, obviously.
“You are Nurse Forbes, I take it,” said Irene.
Nurse Forbes smiled. “Yes, I am. Please come in. Did doctor send you?”
Irene winced. She did not like the doctor to be referred to simply as “doctor” it was so condescending to the patient, as if one were a child.
“Yes,” she said. “My doctor sent me.” There was a great deal of emphasis on the possessive.
Nurse Forbes invited Irene to sit down. This, she thought, is the typical patient for the area. Thinks she knows everything. Will condescend, if given the chance. But she knew how to deal with people like Irene.
“I’ll just take a few details,” said Nurse Forbes. “Then we can have a wee talk.”
Irene sat down. “I don’t have a great deal of time,” she said. “I was planning to come to those classes you’re running.”
“You’ll be very welcome,” said Nurse Forbes. But she would not. This sort of person tended to be disruptive, and sometimes she wondered why they came at all.
“The classes are quite well-subscribed. I think that people find them quite useful,” she said.
“I’m sure they are,” said Irene.
“But if there are any particular issues you’d like to raise with me privately,” said Nurse Forbes, “please do so now. Sometimes people have concerns that they don’t like to raise in front of others.”
Irene nodded. “There are,” she said. “I do have some questions…”
Nurse Forbes raised a hand. “But first we need to go over one or two things,” she said. “You know, diet issues. General health matters.”
“I have a very healthy diet,” said Irene. “You need have no worries on that score. And I take all the necessary supplements.”
Nurse Forbes looked up sharply. “Supplements?”
Irene smiled tolerantly. Nurses could not be expected to understand dietary issues. “Shark oil capsules. Slippery elm. Red raspberry. Wild yam,” she paused. Nurse Forbes was staring at her. Would she have to explain each of these?
“Why are you taking these…these substances?” Nurse Forbes asked.
Irene took a deep breath. It was going to be necessary to explain after all.
“As you may know,” she began, “modern foods are lacking in certain important constituents. This is a result of farming techniques which…”
“During pregnancy,” Nurse Forbes interrupted, her voice raised, “during pregnancy, mother should eat a healthy, balanced diet. She should not–and I repeat not–take non-medicinal supplements, herbal remedies and the like. These may be harmful to both mother and baby. And we do not want baby to be harmed, do we?”
Irene was silent. This would be risible, if it were not so insulting. Here was this…this bureaucrat, in her ridiculous uniform, telling me–me–what I should and should not take. And what did she know about slippery elm? Nothing. Nothing at all.
This woman, this ridiculous Nurse Forbes was the state. She was the local, immediate face of the state, presuming–yes presuming–to lecture me as if I were some sixteen-year-old first-time mother who subsisted on a diet of fish and chips. Absurd! They glared at one another.
For her part, Nurse Forbes thought: this woman thinks that she is superior to me, she really does. Nothing I say to her is going to make any difference. But I must be tolerant. There is no point in alienating people, even somebody like this. It’s tempting, but it’s just not professional. So, count to ten, and take it from there.
“Well, we can return to this issue some other time,” Nurse Forbes said quietly. “There is some literature I can pass on to you. But, in the meantime, have you discussed delivery matters with doctor?”
“I have reached a decision on that,
” Irene replied. “I would like a home delivery, of course. I would like my son, Bertie, to play a part in the delivery of his little brother or sister. I would like him to be the one to welcome the baby to the world.”
Nurse Forbes sat quite still. She spoke quietly, as if in shock. “You’re proposing that Bertie should actually…”
Irene laughed. “Oh, not by himself, of course! With the midwife. Bertie could help to bring the baby…”
“But I am the midwife,” said Nurse Forbes. “And I forbid it. Birth would be a very, very traumatic experience for a little boy. And, I’m sorry to have to say this, it would be completely inappropriate for a son to attend to his mother in this way. Any boy would be deeply, deeply embarrassed to do this. No, I forbid it.”
“Melanie Klein…”
“I don’t care who your MSP is. I forbid it!”
85. Poor Lou
Angus Lordie went with Cyril down the steps that led into Big Lou’s coffee house, the very steps down which the late Dr C.M. Grieve, or Hugh MacDiarmid, had tripped and fallen all those years ago when visiting what was then a bookshop. The steps were still perilous, and Angus had once almost fallen; now he was careful to avoid the place where the railings largely disappeared and the step which was cambered in the wrong direction. These snares negotiated, he pushed open the door of the coffee bar and entered the dimly-lit interior, Cyril walking obediently at his heels.
Big Lou was standing in her accustomed position behind the bar, a book open in front of her. She looked up as Angus came in and nodded in his direction. Angus greeted her and walked up to the bar with Cyril.
“I must say, Big Lou,” he began, “I must say that you’re looking more than usually attractive this morning.”