The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

  “You don’t really need a uniform,” Tofu said carelessly, eyeing Bertie’s attire. “Uniforms are silly.”

  “Then why are you wearing that cap?” Bertie asked. “It says cubs across the front, doesn’t it? That’s a uniform.”

  “Who cares?” said Tofu. “And what’s that thing round your neck?”

  “That’s the scarf,” said Bertie. “And this thing here is a toggle.”

  “Woggles are stupid,” said Tofu, peering at the small leather ring through which Bertie’s cub scarf had been threaded.

  “I don’t think so,” said Bertie, adding, “I’ve got another one, you know. My dad bought me two, just in case I should lose one.” He paused. “Would you like to borrow the other one, Tofu? Then we can make you a scarf out of a handkerchief.”

  “Yes,” said Tofu immediately. “Go and get it, Bertie.”

  Shortly afterwards, Stuart shepherded the two boys along Scotland Street to catch the 23 bus as it lumbered up Dundas Street. The boys’ pride in their uniforms was very evident, even if in Tofu’s case the uniform was eccentric and incomplete. And Stuart himself felt a certain flush of pride to be taking two boys off on such an expedition. When you are six, he thought, the world must be a grand place; and when you are thirty-six, as he was, it has shrunk so much; has become a place of worries and limitations and dismaying statistics. What was the point? What was the point of serving out the years, going to the office every morning and returning in the evening, and then going back into the office in the morning? Where was the enjoyment, the excitement in that?

  These thoughts passed through his mind as they waited for the bus to stop, and continued as it began to make its way up Dundas Street. By the time they reached Princes Street, though, Stuart’s chain of thought had moved on to broader topics: It was all very well to wonder where one was going personally, but where was the whole country going? He looked up at the Castle as the bus began its journey up the Mound. The Castle was a work of man, but it seemed to grow out of the very rock, to be an extension of this exposed part of Scotland’s spine. Above it the Union flag fluttered in the breeze; there were those who would change that, would hoist a different flag in its place, just as there were those who would defend the place of the current flag. How strange, thought Stuart, that we invest these symbols with such potency; how strange that people should be prepared to die for their flags, for territory that they might sometimes never even see. What really counts, he thought, is how we live – and yet that, perhaps, is why we care about flags.

  Stuart looked at Bertie, who sat, nose pressed to the window of the bus, pointing some sight out to Tofu. He assumed that this evening the boys would be inducted and make their promise. He had spoken to Bertie about that, and his son had listened carefully as he explained the elements of the promise.

  “You have to say, ‘I promise to do my best; to do my duty to God and the Queen,’” said Stuart.

  “I know,” said Bertie. “I’ve read about that, and I will do my best, Daddy. To God and the Queen. To both of them.”

  “That’s good, Bertie,” said Stuart. “And then there’s the cub scout law. That says that you must think of others first and do a good turn for somebody every day.”

  “I’ll try,” said Bertie. He was not sure what good deeds would be expected of him, but he supposed that it would be something to do with Ulysses. Ulysses seemed to require a great deal of attention, and there were always tasks that had to be performed to keep him happy.

  And now, as they reached Holy Corner and the bus stop at which they were to alight, Bertie felt a great wave of anxiety come over him. He would shortly have to make the first public promise of his life, the very first, and it would be based on a lie. The cub scouts were for those of eight and above and he was only six. He was about to enlist under false pretences and take an oath that he was not even entitled to take.

  As they approached the Episcopal church hall, Bertie tugged at his father’s sleeve.

  “What is it, Bertie?” enquired Stuart.

  “I don’t think I want to join after all,” Bertie whispered. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea any more.”

  Stuart bent down and put his arm about his son. “Come on, Bertie,” he said. “You’ll have tremendous fun.”

  “Yes, don’t be such a wimp,” said Tofu.

  Stuart scowled at Tofu. “Bertie is not a wimp, Tofu, if you don’t mind. And I won’t have such language.”

  Tofu was defensive. “I was only saying what other people say,” he protested.

  “And why should people call Bertie a wimp?” asked Stuart.

  “It’s not him, Mr. Pollock,” said Tofu politely. “It’s not him they call a wimp. It’s you.”

  54. Badge of Honour

  Bertie and Tofu arrived at the cubs at six o’clock. Rosemary Gold, the cub leader, the Akela, as she was known, introduced herself to Stuart and greeted the two boys warmly. Stuart withdrew, after saying goodbye to Bertie and promising to be back in an hour’s time.

  “And you are?” Akela said to Bertie once Stuart had gone.

  “Bertie Pollock.”

  Akela smiled encouragingly. “And how old are you, Bertie?”

  Bertie looked up at the ceiling. His heart was hammering within him and his mouth felt quite dry. He took a deep breath. “Well, at the moment I’m …” He was going to say eight, qualified by the formula he had prepared, but he did not have time to speak.

  “I’m eight,” said Tofu. “And Bertie’s in my class. He’s eight too. We’re both eight. Eight.”

  Akela smiled again. “Very well, I think I get the message. And you are …”

  “Tofu,” said Tofu. “T, O, F, U. It’s an Irish name.”

  Bertie looked at his friend. This was the first he had heard of this.

  “Irish? How interesting,” said Akela. “It’s not a name I’m familiar with. Are your parents Irish then?”

  Tofu nodded.

  Bertie was still staring at his friend. “You never said your dad …”

  “I don’t have to tell you everything,” Tofu whispered.

  “But your name isn’t Irish,” persisted Bertie. “You’re named after that stuff that vegetarians eat. That white stuff. You’ve got the same name as that white stuff.”

  “I’m not,” said Tofu. “It’s Irish. It means … it means chieftain in Irish.”

  “Well, boys,” said Akela. “If you go and sit over there, we’ll start once everyone has arrived. And there are still a few to turn up. Here’s somebody now. Another new member.”

  The two boys looked in the direction of the door.

  “It’s her,” hissed Tofu.

  Bertie groaned. “I didn’t tell her,” he whispered. “I promise you, Tofu. I didn’t tell her.”

  Olive came skipping across the room to where Akela was standing, followed by her mother, who, seeing Bertie, waved in friendly recognition. While Olive’s mother talked to Akela, Tofu and Bertie stared steadfastly at the floor.

  “She’s going to spoil it,” said Bertie miserably.

  “Why doesn’t she join the brownies?” Tofu asked. “She just wants to spoil our fun.” He paused. “I hate her. I really hope that she gets struck by lightning sometime. I really do.”

  Bertie’s eyes widened. He did not think that this sort of talk was compatible with the cub promise. “I don’t think that’s very kind, Tofu,” he said.

  “Not to kill her altogether,” relented Tofu. “But maybe enough just to fuse her to the ground.”

  Olive’s mother now left, and Akela summoned the two boys over to her side. “Olive tells me that you already know her,” she said. “It’s always better when people are friends at the beginning.”

  “She’s not my friend,” mumbled Tofu. “And why doesn’t she join the brownies?”

  “What was that, Tofu?” asked Akela.

  “Nothing,” said Tofu.

  “And Olive says that she’s been in the cubs before,” Akela went on. “Which is a good
thing, as we shall need to appoint some leaders. In the cubs we have somebody called a sixer. That person is the head cub of a six. You’ll all be in the red six, and Olive will be in charge.”

  This news was greeted with horrified silence by the two boys.

  “Well, that’s settled that,” said Akela. “Now I’ll administer the cub promise. This is a very solemn moment, boys and girls. So all stand in a line and put up your right hands like this. This is the special scout salute that Baden-Powell invented. No, Tofu, the fingers face inwards rather than the way you’re doing it. That’s right. Now I’ll say the words of the promise and you say them after me.”

  There was no heart in it, no conviction; not now that Olive was there and had, in the space of a few minutes, been promoted above their heads. Bertie had a strong sense of justice, and this was now mortally offended. Olive did not deserve to be a sixer; the experience she claimed was completely imaginary – he was sure that she had never been a cub before. And how could Akela be fooled by Olive’s false claims? Why did she not ask Olive exactly what her experience had been and get her to show some proof of it?

  Now, with the promise administered and everybody duly enrolled, Akela began to tell the cubs about badges. There were many badges they could get, she explained: collecting, swimming, history, model-making, cooking, music; whole vistas of achievement opened up.

  “I’d like to get my cooking badge, Akela,” said Olive. “And music too. And map-reading – I always read the maps in the car. I read the map all the way to Glasgow once, and back again.”

  “That’s not hard,” said Tofu. “There’s only one road to Glasgow and it has signs all the way along. It says Glasgow this way. You can’t go wrong.”

  “Well, I’m sure Olive read the map very nicely anyway,” said Akela. “And what badge do you boys want to get? Bertie, what about you?”

  Bertie looked up. “Mozart,” he said. “If you’ve got a Mozart badge, I could do that, Akela.”

  Olive laughed. “Oh, Bertie, they don’t have that sort of thing in the cubs. Why don’t you do a cooking badge with me? I could teach him how to cook, Akela. Then we both could do the badge together.”

  “That would be nice,” said Akela. “Would you like that, Bertie?”

  Bertie stared down at the floor. His hopes of the cubs were dashed beyond redemption now. He had wanted to learn how to do tracking and how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together. He wanted to learn how to use a penknife and how to use a wrist watch and the sun to find south. He wanted to learn all that, but instead he was going to be cooking with Olive. Is this really why Mr. Baden-Powell had invented scouting – so that boys could learn how to cook?

  “Well,” pressed Akela. “Olive has made you a very kind offer there, Bertie? Would you like to take her up on it?”

  Bertie stared at the floor. He felt the tears burning in his eyes, hot tears of regret over the ending of his hopes. Tofu, noticing his friend’s distress, turned to Olive. “You see what you’ve done,” he said. “You see!”

  Olive reacted with indignation. “It’s not my fault that Bertie’s homesick,” she said. “He’s only six, after all.”

  55. Profile of a Talented Talent-Spotter

  Bruce’s first photographic session with Nick McNair had been a resounding success. When the photographer had got the shots he wanted, he immediately downloaded them onto his studio computer and invited Bruce to look at the results.

  “You know what I’d say, Bruce,” he remarked, tapping at an image on the screen. “I’d say you’ve got it. There’s no other way of putting it. You’ve just got it.”

  Bruce leaned forward and stared at the image on the computer. This was one of the serious-looking poses, in which he was staring into the distance with a look of … well, how exactly would one describe his expression? One of determination? Confidence?

  “Well, I suppose it looks all right to me,” he said. “I hope that the people in the agency …”

  “The people in the agency are going to love you, Bruce,” interrupted Nick. “They can tell it when they see it.”

  Bruce shrugged. “Well, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

  “I know,” exclaimed Nick. “Oh boy, is your profile going to be raised! You’ll be on that poster in the airport. You know the one that greets you as you come down the steps at Edinburgh Airport? The one that says Welcome to Scotland? Well, it’s going to be you on that poster, Bruce. You – and underneath it’s going to say: The Face of Scotland. That’s the slogan. They’ve already approved that. Cost them two hundred thousand pounds.”

  Bruce whistled. “The poster? Two hundred thousand?”

  “No, not the poster,” said Nick. “The slogan. The poster cost …” He shrugged. “I don’t know what the poster cost. It’s the words that cost two hundred thousand. Some guy in one of the agencies invented them. That’s what a slogan costs these days. These things aren’t cheap.”

  “But two hundred thousand …”

  “Yeah, well that’s what quality costs, Bruce.”

  Bruce was thinking. “And my face? The image?”

  There was a change in Nick’s manner. Turning away from the screen, he faced Bruce. “We’ve got to talk about it,” he said. “I was going to raise the issue with you tomorrow. But we may as well talk about it right now.”

  “No time like the present,” said Bruce, suddenly wondering what was going to happen to the joint bank account he had set up with Julia. Would he have time tomorrow to draw something out of that – just his own money, of course – before she closed it down? She might be dim, he thought, but she had shown herself to be fairly astute when it suited her.

  Nick rose to his feet. “The thing is,” he said, “we’re in this together. I take the snaps, and you jut the chin. I have a lot of overheads, you know. This place. Getting the shots out to the agency. Lunch with creative directors, and so on. That mounts up.”

  And my overheads? Bruce felt like saying. Personal grooming. The gym. That mounts up too.

  “Some of the talent gets an agent,” said Nick. “Personally, I don’t like working with agents, and I’m not sure how useful they are to the talent themselves. Twenty per cent for the local market; thirty per cent for overseas. So on, so forth. It all mounts up. And what does the talent get in the end? Far less than he would have got if he’d negotiated the deal directly.”

  “So you think I don’t need an agent?” asked Bruce.

  “I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that agents are totally useless. It’s just that I think that you have to be careful – especially at the beginning.”

  Bruce nodded. It seemed to him that he was getting objective advice from Nick, and they had been at school together, after all. If there was anybody one could trust, then surely it would be somebody with whom one had been at school.

  “So what I suggest is this,” Nick went on. “I have a standard form agreement here in the studio. You could sign that right now. It’s a sort of release form and working agreement rolled into one. Pretty standard terms. Sign that now, so that when we get down to brass tacks with the agency tomorrow, everything will be in position.” He paused. “That’s what I’d do if I were you, Bruce.”

  Bruce stared at Nick. It was hard not to smile, but he managed to control himself. You must think I was born yesterday, he thought. You really must. “I don’t think so,” he said evenly. “I think maybe I should get an agent after all.” Then he added. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Nick. It’s not that at all.”

  Nick waved a hand in the air. “No, that’s fine. That’s absolutely fine. We can get you an agent tomorrow. No problem there. I know a good one.”

  “Great,” said Bruce. “What’s his name?”

  “David.”

  “David what?”

  Nick walked across the studio to pick up a lens hood that he had laid down on the floor. “McNair, actually. Same as me. He’s my brother, actually. He’s really good.”

  Bruce’s eyes wi
dened. “Your brother?”

  Nick shrugged. “Yup. You’ll like him.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going to have to scoot. When do you need to move into the flat?”

  Bruce explained that it would be most convenient if he could move in that evening. “I don’t want to go back to Howe Street,” he said. “If I go back there, even for one night, it’ll raise her hopes. I don’t want to do that.” He made a chopping movement with a hand. “It’s better to make a clean break, I think. Don’t you?”

  Nick agreed. He was for clean breaks too. And lucky ones. In fact, any sort of break suited him. “That’s fine then,” he said. “We can go round there now and I’ll show you the place. I have to go out a bit later, but you’re welcome to tag along, if you’ve got nothing better to do. I’m going for a drink and bite to eat with some friends.”

  “Suits me,” said Bruce.

  They left the studio and made their way to Nick’s car. Bruce noticed that it was a Porsche.

  “I had one of these,” he said. “But I got rid of it.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Noisy exhaust,” said Bruce.

  They set off for Leith. Bruce felt the leather of the seat below him; very good. And the model was a better one than his had been; more powerful, more expensive. Talent pays, he thought. Talent pays. There’s a slogan for you, he thought. And it cost nothing.

  56. A Bit of a Poser

  Nick McNair lived in a converted bonded warehouse in Leith. “Very bijou,” remarked Bruce as they walked across the car park at the back of the warehouse. “You forget that Edinburgh’s got places like this. London’s got all those new places along the river. All done up. But we’ve got this.”