Espresso Tales

  Seated beside him, Olive watched Bertie’s fingers go to the shape in his pocket and move delicately over the folded card.

  “What’s that you’ve got?” she whispered.

  “What?” asked Bertie, guiltily moving his hand away.

  “That thing in there?” insisted Olive. “It’s something important, isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Bertie quickly. “It’s nothing.”

  “Yes it is,” said Olive. “You should tell me, you know. You shouldn’t keep secrets from your girlfriend.”

  Bertie turned to look at her in horror. “Girlfriend? Who says you’re my girlfriend?”

  “I do, for one,” said Olive, with the air of explaining something obvious to one who has been slow to realise it. “And ask any of the other girls. Ask Pansy. Ask Skye. They’ll tell you. All the girls know it. I’ve told them.”

  Bertie opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

  “So,” said Olive. “Tell me. What’s that in your pocket?”

  “I’m not your boyfriend,” Bertie muttered. “I like you, but I never asked you to be my girlfriend.”

  “It’s an invitation, isn’t it?” Olive whispered. “It’s an invitation to Tofu’s party. I bet that’s what it is.”

  Bertie decided that he might as well admit it. It was no business of Olive’s that he was going to Tofu’s party. In fact, it was no business of hers how he spent his time. Why did girls–and mothers–think that they could order boys around all the time?

  “So what if it’s an invitation?” Bertie said. “Tofu told me not to talk about it.”

  “Ha!” crowed Olive. “I knew that’s what it was. He invited me to his sixth birthday party last year. I refused. So did all the other girls he invited. He tried to get us to pay ten pounds to come. Did you know that? He tried to sell tickets to his own party.”

  Bertie said nothing, and Olive continued. “I heard that the party was pretty awful anyway,” she said. “Vegan parties are always very dull. You get sweetened bean sprouts and water. That’s all. Certainly not worth ten pounds.”

  Bertie felt that he had to defend his friend in the face of this onslaught. “We’re going bowling,” he said. “Merlin and Hiawatha are coming too.”

  “Merlin and Hiawatha!” exclaimed Olive. “What wimps! I’m glad I’m not going to that party. I suppose Merlin will wear that stupid rainbow-coloured coat of his and Hiawatha will wear those horrid jungle boots he keeps going on about. They’ll make him take those boots off, you know. They won’t allow boots like that in the bowling alley. And then people will smell his socks, which always stink the place out. Pansy says that she was ill–actually threw up–the first time Hiawatha removed his boots for gym. Boy, is it going to be a stinky party that one!”

  It was clear to Bertie that Olive was jealous. It was a pity that Tofu had not invited her, as if he had then she would have been less keen to run the party down. But Bertie was not going to let her destroy his pleasure in the invitation and so he deliberately turned his back on her and concentrated on the story that was being read out.

  “You’re in denial,” Olive whispered to him. “You know what happens to people in denial?”

  Bertie turned round. “What?” he said. “What happens to people in denial?”

  Olive looked at him in a superior way. She had clearly worried him and she was enjoying the power that this gave her. “They get lockjaw,” she said. “It’s well-known. They get lockjaw and they can’t open their mouth. The doctors have to knock their teeth out with a hammer to pour some soup in. That’s what happens.”

  Bertie looked at Olive contemptuously. “You’re the one who should get lockjaw,” he whispered. “That would stop you saying all these horrid things.”

  Olive stared at him. Her nostrils were flared and her eyes were wide with fury. Then she started to cry.

  Miss Harmony looked up from the story. “What is the trouble, Olive?” she said. “What’s wrong, dear?”

  “It’s this boy,” Olive sobbed, pointing at Bertie. “He says that he hopes that I get lockjaw.”

  “Bertie?” said Miss Harmony. “Did you say that you hope that Olive got lockjaw?”

  Bertie looked down at the floor. It was all so unfair. He had not started the conversation about lockjaw–it was all Olive’s fault, and now he was getting the blame.

  “I take it from your silence that it’s true,” said Miss Harmony, rising to her feet. “Now, Bertie, I’m very, very disappointed in you. It’s a terrible thing to say to somebody that you hope they get lockjaw. You know that, don’t you?”

  “What if you got lockjaw while you were kissing somebody?” interjected Tofu. “Would you get stuck to their lips?”

  Everybody laughed at this, and Tofu smirked with pleasure.

  “That’s not at all funny, Tofu, Liebling,” said Miss Harmony.

  “Then why did everybody laugh?” asked Tofu.

  64. Bertie’s Invitation Is Considered

  Irene Pollock was late in collecting Bertie from school that afternoon. She had been preparing for her Melanie Klein Reading Group, which would be meeting that evening, and she had become absorbed in a particularly fascinating account of the Kleinian attitude to the survival of the primitive. Irene was clear where she stood on this point: there was no doubt in her mind but that our primitive impulses remain with us throughout our life and that their influence cannot be overestimated. This view of human nature, as being envious and tormented, was in Irene’s view obviously borne out by the inner psychic drama which we all experience if only we stop to think about it. Irene thought that it was quite clear that we are all confronted by primitive urges–even in Edinburgh–and these primitive urges and fears make for a turbulent inner life, marked by all sorts of destructive phantasies).

  The topic for discussion at the reading group that evening was a problematic choice, suggested by one of the more reticent members of the group. Indeed, this member was probably a borderline-Kleinian, given her sympathy for the approach of Anna Freud, and Irene wondered whether this person might not be happier out of the reading group altogether. Her ambivalence, she felt, was eloquently demonstrated by the topic she had suggested for discussion: Was Melanie Klein a nice person?

  When Irene had first seen this topic she had expressed immediate doubt. What a naive question! Did she expect a genius of Melanie Klein’s stamp to be a simpering optimist? Did she expect benignity rather than creative turbulence?

  Of course she knew what sort of things would be said. She knew that somebody was bound to point to the facts of Melanie Klein’s life, which were hardly edifying (to the bourgeois optimist). Somebody would point out that Melanie Klein started out life in a dysfunctional family and that from this inauspicious start everything went in a fairly negative direction. Indeed, she suffered that most serious of setbacks for those who took their inspiration from Vienna: her own analyst died. And then, when it came time for Melanie herself to die, her daughter, Melitta, unreconciled to her mother because of differences of psychoanalytical interpretation between them, gave a lecture on the day of her mother’s funeral and chose to wear a flamboyant pair of red boots for the occasion!

  All of this would come out, of course, but Irene thought this was not the point. The real point was this: Melanie Klein was not a nice person because nobody’s nice. That was the very essence of the Kleinian view. Whatever exterior was presented to the world, underneath that we are all profoundly unpleasant, precisely because we are tormented by Kleinian urges.

  It was these complex thoughts that were in the forefront of Irene’s mind when she collected Bertie that afternoon and brought him back to Scotland Street. Bertie seemed silent on the 23 bus as they made their way home, and this silence continued as they walked back along Cumberland Street and round the corner into Drummond Place. Irene, however, still busy thinking about Kleinian matters, did not notice this and only became aware of the fact that something was on Bertie’s mind when he came to her in her study and presented
her with the crumpled piece of card that he had extracted from the pocket of his dungarees.

  “What’s this, Bertie?” said Irene, as she took the invitation from him.

  “I’ve been invited to a party,” Bertie said. “My friend, Tofu, has asked me.”

  Irene looked at the invitation. There was an expression of faint distaste on her face.

  “Tofu?”

  “Yes,” said Bertie. “He’s a boy in my class. You spoke to his daddy once. He’s the one who wrote that strange book. Do you remember him?”

  “Vaguely,” said Irene. “But what’s this about Fountainbridge and bowling? What’s that got to do with a birthday party?”

  “Tofu’s daddy will take us bowling,” said Bertie, a note of anxiety creeping into his voice. “It’ll be Merlin, Hiawatha, Tofu and me. He’s taking us bowling to celebrate Tofu’s birthday.” He paused, and then added: “It’s a treat, you see. Bowling’s fun.”

  “It may be considered fun by some,” said Irene sharply. “But I’m not sure whether hanging about bowling places is the sort of thing that six-year-old boys should be doing. We have no idea what sort of people will be there. Not very salubrious people, if you ask me. And people will be smoking, no doubt, and drinking too.”

  Bertie’s voice was small. “I won’t be drinking and smoking, Mummy. I promise. Nor will the other boys.”

  Irene thought for a moment. Then she shook her head. “Sorry, Bertie, but no. It’s for Saturday, I see, and that means that you would miss both Saturday yoga and your saxophone lesson with Lewis Morrison. You know that Mr Morrison is very impressed with your progress. You mustn’t miss your lessons.”

  “But Mr Morrison’s a kind man,” said Bertie. “He won’t mind if I have my lesson some other time.”

  “That’s not the point,” said Irene. “It’s a question of commitment–and priorities. If you start going off to these things every Saturday then you’ll end up missing far too much of the enriching things we’ve arranged for you. Surely you understand that, Bertie? Mummy’s not being unkind here. She’s thinking of you.”

  Bertie swallowed. Unknown to his mother, he was experiencing a Kleinian moment. He was imagining a bowling alley–probably the Fountainbridge one–with a set of skittles at the far end. And every skittle was painted to represent his mother! And Bertie, a large bowling ball in his small hand, was taking a run and letting go of the ball, and the ball rolled forward and was heading straight for the set of Irenes at the end of the alley and–BANG!–the ball knocked all the skittles over, every one of them, right out, into the Kleinian darkness.

  65. Stuart Intervenes

  When Stuart returned that evening from his office in the Scottish Executive (which Irene, provocatively, referred to as “the wee government”), he found Bertie in his bedroom, sitting at the end of his bed, greeting copiously. Dropping his briefcase, he rushed forward to his son and put an arm around the boy’s shoulder.

  An inquiry soon revealed the reason for Bertie’s state of distress.

  “I’ve been invited to a party,” Bertie sobbed. “It’s my friend Tofu’s party.”

  Stuart was puzzled. “But why cry over that?” he asked. “Surely that’s a nice thing–to be invited to a party?”

  “Mummy says I can’t go,” said Bertie. “She says that there’ll be smoking and drinking.”

  Stuart’s eyes widened. “At Tofu’s party? What age is this Tofu? Twenty-four?”

  Bertie shook his head. “He’s six at the moment,” he said. “But he’ll be seven soon.”

  “Then surely there won’t be any drinking and smoking,” he said. “Do you think that Mummy has got things mixed up?”

  Bertie thought for a moment. His mother certainly did have everything mixed up, in his view, but not necessarily in relation to the party. It was more a case of her Weltanschauung being mixed up (in Bertie’s view).

  “It’s going to be a bowling party, Daddy,” Bertie explained, his voice still thick with tears. “At a place called Fountainbridge. She says that there will be people there who will be drinking and smoking.”

  Stuart hugged his son. “And you want to go to it, Bertie?”

  Bertie nodded miserably. “Olive says that it won’t be any fun, but that’s just because she hasn’t been invited. She wants to spoil it for me.”

  Stuart reflected on this. He did not know Olive, but he thought the type sounded familiar. Some girls took pleasure in spoiling it for boys. He could remember that. And it continued…

  “I’ll speak to Mummy,” he said. “We’ll fix it up for you. I’m sure that Mummy’s just trying to be helpful, Bertie. Mummy loves you, you know, Bertie.” And he thought: she loves you too much, but he did not say that.

  He gave Bertie a final pat on the shoulder, rose to his feet and went through to the kitchen, where Irene was chopping vegetables.

  “Bertie’s in a state,” he said. “I’ve just been talking to him through there. Poor wee boy. He was crying his eyes out.”

  Irene looked up from her vegetables. “I had to put my foot down, I’m afraid,” she said. “I tried explaining things to him, but he wouldn’t listen. He’ll get over it.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Stuart quietly.

  “You don’t think what?” asked Irene.

  “I don’t think he’ll get over this sort of thing all that easily,” he said. “He had his heart set on going to that party, you know.”

  Irene put down her knife and looked Stuart in the eye. “You know what this so-called party consists of? Let me tell you. It’s not a sit down round the table and have cake party. Oh no. It’s a bowling alley, for God’s sake! Some tawdry, smoke-filled den down in Gorgie or wherever! That’s what it is.”

  “It’s a perfectly clean and respectable bowling place,” said Stuart. “I know it. I went to the opening of the whole complex, as it happens. The Minister was invited and a number of us went along.”

  “These places start off like that and then go downhill,” said Irene quickly. “But that’s not really the point. The point is that he would miss yoga and a saxophone lesson. He already missed yoga when you took him off on that jaunt to Glasgow.”

  Stuart struggled to control his anger. “That jaunt, as you call it, was the highlight of his little life. He loved it! He loved the train. He loved Glasgow. He loved the Burrell.”

  “And those dubious characters you bumped into?” asked Irene. “Oh yes, I heard all about that, you know. Bertie told me about Fatty O’Something, or whatever he was called.”

  “Lard O’Connor,” Stuart said. “What about him? He was very helpful. Just because he’s not middle-class…”

  Irene, eyes bright with anger, interrupted him. “Middle-class!” she screamed. “Who are you calling middle-class? Me? Is that it? Middle-class? Me?”

  “Calm down,” said Stuart. “Nobody would call you middle-class to your face.”

  He had not meant to add the words “to your face”, but they somehow came out.

  “Oh,” shouted Irene. “So that’s it. So you think I’m middle-class, do you? Well, that’s very nice, isn’t it? I spend all my time, all my energy, on raising Bertie to be an integrated citizen, to make sure that he understands all about inclusiveness, and has the right attitudes, and then you come along and describe the whole enterprise as middle-class. Thanks for your support, Stuart!”

  Stuart sighed. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s not have a blazing row over this. The whole point is this: you have to give Bertie a bit more space, a bit more room to be himself, to be a little boy. And one way of doing that is to allow him to have his own social life. So let’s allow him to go to this party. Let’s allow him to go bowling. He’ll have a whale of a time.”

  “No,” said Irene. “We must be consistent parents. We can’t say one thing one moment and another thing the next. Melanie Klein…”

  She did not finish. “He’s going,” said Stuart. “That’s it. He’s going. And I’m going to go and tell him that.”


  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Irene, turning back to her vegetables.

  She reached for a carrot and chopped it with her knife. Stuart could not help but think how symbolic this was. But the time had come to act, and he did. He remembered that conversation he had had with Bertie on the train, that moment when they had been so close and where he had vowed to be a better father. He would be that father, and he would be that father now. Not at some time in the future. Now.

  He moved to the kitchen door. Irene reached for another carrot and chopped it smartly with her knife.

  “Bertie,” shouted Stuart through the open door. “You can stop crying now. You’re going bowling, my boy. The party’s on!”

  66. Tofu’s Party

  Stuart dropped Bertie off at the bowling alley, delivering him into the care and control of Tofu’s father, Barnabas Miller.

  “Well, well!” said Barnabas. “This is going to be fun, isn’t it, Bertie? Have you ever bowled before? I’m sure you’ll be good at it.”

  “I hope so,” said Bertie. “Thank you for inviting me, Mr Miller.”

  “Tofu’s suggestion,” said Barnabas. “And my goodness, we’re going to have fun, aren’t we, Tofu?”

  “Yes, Daddy,” said Tofu.

  “And I’ve brought some nice things for you to eat,” said Barnabas, patting a bag slung over his shoulder.

  A few minutes later, Hiawatha and Merlin arrived and then the four boys, together with Barnabas, made their way through the large glass-fronted building towards the bowling alley.

  “Have you brought my presents?” Tofu asked his guests as they walked along.

  Bertie’s hand shot to his mouth. “Oh, Tofu, I’m very sorry. I meant to, but I forgot. I’ll try and give it to you at school next week.”

  “Me too,” said Hiawatha.

  “And me as well,” said Merlin. “And I’ll only be able to give you three pounds, Tofu. I haven’t got any more than that.”

  “You’d better not forget,” said Tofu crossly. “Or else…”