Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers

  Dr. Macgregor was accompanied by a woman. He stopped when he saw his daughter, and turned round to say something to the woman but she did not seem to hear him. She gave him her coat and then looked up, directly into Pat’s startled gaze. Somebody else was coming in the door and Dr. Macgregor had no alternative but to take a step forward. Now he could hardly leave, and it was too late anyway.

  “Daddy?”

  He looked down at his shoes, like a schoolboy caught in the wrong place, doing something forbidden.

  58. A Mercenary Conversation

  “Well!” said Dr. Macgregor.

  He paused, and then, struggling to regain his composure, added: “Isn’t the Canny Man’s popular these days?” There was a further pause, and then, as if to fill the silence, he said, somewhat lamely: “It always has been, I suppose.”

  He glanced anxiously at the woman beside him, who was now staring at Pat with undisguised curiosity. “This is my daughter, Pat. And …” He looked at Michael.

  “Michael,” said Pat. “Michael, this is my father.” She hesitated. “And …”

  “Anichka,” said Dr. Macgregor.

  Michael reached across to shake hands with both of them. As he did so, Pat took the opportunity to look at Anichka. She noticed the low-cut red top. She noticed the curious brooch in the form of a diamante sailing ship, the rigging tiny filaments of silver. She noticed the hair, dyed blonde, but with its dark roots. She saw the handbag, which was of patent leather, with a flashy gold clasp.

  Anichka was looking at her with interest. “So you’re Pat,” she said. “The apple of your father’s eye.” She spoke heavily accented English, and she seemed proud of her use of the metaphor, glancing at Dr. Macgregor for approval.

  Pat felt herself blushing. “Oh, I don’t know …”

  “Yes, you are,” insisted Anichka.

  Dr. Macgregor’s embarrassment seemed to deepen. “Of course she is. But … well, I suppose you’ve got a drink already Pat, and … well, I suppose …”

  Anichka announced that she would like a gin and tonic. “With two lemons,” she added. “You know how I like it.”

  “Two slices,” muttered Dr. Macgregor. And then he tried to make a joke of it. “Not two whole lemons! Goodness no!”

  “Not whole lemons,” said Anichka gravely.

  Michael glanced at Pat.

  “I like your name,” said Pat. “Anichka’s unusual, isn’t it? It’s very nice.” It isn’t, she thought. I hate it.

  “Not in the Czech Republic,” said Anichka. “Many people are called Anichka in the Czech Republic. Many women, that is—not men.”

  “The Czech Republic?” said Pat. “So …”

  “That is where I am from,” said Anichka. “But now I live in Scotland.” She looked challengingly at Pat as she made this statement, as if her words were the declaration of some irredentist territorial claim.

  Pat said nothing. This was the woman who had bought her father those socks.

  Anichka turned to Michael, looking at him with frank appraisement. “You’re Pat’s boyfriend? Yes?”

  Pat stared down at the ground. She had seen sexual interest in Anichka’s eyes as she looked at Michael. It was unambiguous. The look. The look. You couldn’t mistake it.

  Michael smiled. “We’ve just met. Only today, actually.”

  Anichka stuck her tongue slightly out of her mouth; a tiny, red bud, wet, glistening. It was a gesture that Pat found hard to read. “Ah. Love at first sight! Very nice. People say that this does not happen, but it does. I think it does.”

  Pat did not dare look at Michael.

  “Maybe it does,” said Michael. “For some people. Not for everyone. But for some, yes, maybe.”

  Dr. Macgregor returned with a glass in each hand. Anichka took her gin and tonic and raised it to her lips. Pat noticed the tongue reappear.

  “I suppose we should sit down,” said Dr. Macgregor. “Unless we stand, of course. We could stand.” He looked about him hopelessly, with the air of one who was trapped.

  Pat was thinking about love at first sight. If that existed—which of course she was sure was the case—then presumably so did the converse: dislike at first sight. And she felt no doubt about that as she took another look at Anichka. Suddenly she felt sad. She loved her father, and now this woman, this ghastly woman with her obscene red tongue and her patent leather handbag and her … now this woman was going to take her father away from her and there would be no more dinners in the Grange, no more listening to his going on about Rob Roy, about how to grow tomatoes under cover, and about the British Journal of Psychiatry and … and all the things that fathers go on about and that daughters listen to patiently and think how boring while all the time they love everything their father says and all his beigeness and bad fashion sense and …

  Dr. Macgregor was attempting to engage Michael in conversation. “You’re a student, are you? The same course as Pat?”

  “No,” said Michael. “I make furniture.”

  Dr. Macgregor was interested. “What sort of thing?”

  “Tables. Chairs. Sometimes more complicated pieces. I did a desk a few months ago. I’m working on a rather special table right at the moment. It’s fairly …”

  “A table?” interjected Anichka. “How much does it cost, this table?”

  Michael frowned. “Well, there’s quite a bit of work in it. Something like that …”

  Anichka cut him short. “How much? In pounds.”

  Pat shot her a glance, but it went unnoticed.

  Michael’s tone was even. “It’s difficult to say. I haven’t decided yet. You have to bear in mind that if you charged per hour it could be too expensive for the client. So you often don’t work it out that way.”

  “No?” said Anichka. “So what do you do? How much?”

  “I really can’t say,” said Michael. “I just don’t know yet.”

  Anichka was not deterred. “But how much was the last table you made? How much did you charge for that?”

  Pat noticed with concern that Michael had reddened. “It’s difficult,” she said. “Some people don’t like to talk about what they charge. Artists don’t like that.”

  Michael looked at her with gratitude. “No, I suppose people like to think of the thing itself, and of what it means. That’s not the same as what it cost.”

  “But what did it cost?” asked Anichka. “The last table you sold—how much was that?”

  Michael sighed. “Nine hundred pounds,” he muttered. “There was quite a lot of work in it.”

  Anichka looked thoughtful. “Nine hundred?”

  “Yes.”

  Anichka took another sip of her drink. Pat found herself studying the other woman’s lips. There was a small piece of lemon on them; small, but noticeable. Then the tongue came out and licked it off.

  “And your workshop?” said Anichka.

  Michael answered patiently. “It’s near Greyfriars. You know where that is?”

  Anichka nodded. “I know.” She paused. “How much did it cost?”

  Michael stared at her blankly. “I rent it. I don’t own it.”

  “But if you had to buy it,” said Anichka, “how much would you have to pay?”

  Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”

  Anichka moved her head slightly to one side. It was not a nod, more a slight shift of vantage point. “Can I come and see it?” she asked.

  59. Thoughts at the Wallace Monument

  Bertie, having said goodbye to his mother at the airport, had enjoyed his visit to the Glaswegian pizzeria.

  “That was the best thing I’ve ever done,” he said to his father as they left the restaurant and made their way back to the car.

  Stuart, who was carrying Ulysses in his arms, looked down at his son. “Ever?” he asked. Could pizza be that important to a small boy?

  Bertie nodded. “I think so,” he said. “Although there was also that time we went fishing in the Pentlands. Do you remember that, Daddy? And
I almost caught a fish and we went to that farmhouse and there was that boy there called Andy. And he gave me a Swiss Army penknife.”

  “Yes,” said Stuart. “I remember.”

  “Which Mummy then took away from me,” continued Bertie. “Straightaway when I got home. Remember that?”

  Stuart nodded. “I think that Mummy felt that it was a bit dangerous,” he said.

  “Not if you use them carefully,” said Bertie. “I wouldn’t be like Tofu. Or Larch. He cut his finger off with his penknife. They took him to hospital, you know, and the finger as well. They put it in a packet, Larch said. Then they sewed it back on. But he says that he thinks they might have sewed on somebody else’s finger by mistake because that finger keeps wanting to play the piano, and Larch has never had piano lessons.”

  “A bit unlikely, Bertie,” said Stuart.

  They reached the car. Bertie helped Stuart to strap Ulysses into his child’s seat and they began the journey back to Edinburgh, taking a circuitous route that brought them within sight of Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument. Stuart pointed the monument out to Bertie, who nodded sagely. He had read about William Wallace.

  “Mr. Wallace was jolly brave, Daddy,” he said. “He saved Scotland, you know. You do know that, don’t you, Daddy?”

  Stuart smiled to himself. “I know that, Bertie. He believed very strongly in freedom, you see.”

  Bertie thought for a moment. He looked out of the car window at the Wallace Monument in the distance, towering and unlikely on its hill. “Should everybody be allowed to be free, Daddy?”

  Stuart did not reply immediately. But then he said, “I think so, Bertie. People feel very strongly about their freedom.”

  “They don’t like being told what to do?”

  “You could put it that way, Bertie. I suppose that William Wallace didn’t like the idea of the English telling him what to do.” As he replied, Stuart wondered what William Wallace would have made of Brussels. It was all very well getting irritated with England telling Scotland what to do, but what if the orders came from Brussels? William Wallace would not have liked that very much, he suspected.

  For his part, Bertie was considering what Stuart had said about William Wallace. A large truck passed them, speeding, its slipstream causing their car to swerve slightly. “But everyone’s got the right to be free? Everybody? Including boys?”

  Stuart hesitated. “Well, I suppose you would have to say that—within reason. Boys and girls can’t run their own lives entirely. They can do that when they’re grown up …”

  “When they’re eighteen?” interjected Bertie.

  “Yes, certainly when they’re eighteen. But these days …”

  “Yes?” said Bertie, eagerly.

  “These days, people are allowed to decide for themselves a bit earlier. Things have changed, you see.”

  Bertie was listening to this very carefully. “So people who aren’t eighteen yet can decide what they’d like to do? Is that what you’re saying, Daddy?”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “And if there was something that I really wanted to do, then I could decide to do it?”

  Stuart was cautious. “It depends, Bertie. It depends what it is.”

  Bertie had been waiting for his moment. It occurred to him that he would probably never have a better opportunity, now that his mother was in Dubai and they were still within sight—even if distantly—of the Wallace Monument and its message of freedom.

  “You know that tomorrow is my cub scout night?” he said.

  “I believe I do, Bertie,” said Stuart. “Do you still want to go?”

  “Yes,” said Bertie, hurriedly. “And we have to take the letters from our parents about going on the camp. Will you sign mine for me, Daddy? It’s going to be next weekend.”

  Stuart glanced at his son. “Did you speak to Mummy about it?”

  Bertie hesitated. He did not like lying, and never did. “Yes,” he said, his voice small and tentative.

  “And did she say no?” asked Stuart.

  Bertie hesitated again. Irene had not said no; she had said “Out of the question.” That was not “no.” It was a whole different set of words, thought Bertie.

  “She didn’t say no,” he said. It was true—absolutely true. The word “no” simply had not been used.

  “Well,” said Stuart. “I suppose that’ll be all right.”

  Bertie felt a sudden welling of joy within him. He had set his heart on going to the cub scout camp but had imagined, quite correctly, that his mother would never allow him to go. Now the whole wonderful prospect seemed to be within his grasp.

  The camp was going to be on Ardnamurchan, in Argyll. They would be staying in the grounds of a real castle, Glenborrodale Castle, and there would be sailing lessons and kayaking too. They would sleep in tents, and eat food cooked over an open fire. It was a vision of complete heaven for a seven-year-old boy.

  He counted the days. It was now a Sunday and departure for Ardnamurchan was scheduled to be the following Friday. His mother had gone to Dubai for five days—or so she had said—and that meant that she would be back on Friday—the very day that he was to leave. That was if you did not count today as one of her five days. If you did, then she would be back on Thursday, which would be in time to stop him going. Unless … An idea occurred to Bertie. It was a rather good idea, he thought, and he imagined that it would work, even if Irene were to return on Thursday. All it involved was putting a pillow under his bedclothes and hoping that she would think it was him. Bertie had read about that old trick and was surprised that it had worked. He would never be taken in by something so patently false, but mothers, he believed, were different.

  60. “There’s a bit of Aberdeen in everybody.”

  Irene managed to sleep very well that first night in Dubai even though her vivid dreams, with the geographical dislocation so common to the dream-world, seemed to be set firmly in Edinburgh, and in particular in Drummond Place Gardens. These gardens, which were at the top of Scotland Street, were a favourite haunt of Bertie’s, and indeed Bertie was present, although not prominently, in the dream she had shortly before she woke up in her room in the Grand International Hotel.

  In Irene’s dream, she found herself walking in the gardens, following a path through vegetation that was considerably thicker than the well-regulated shrubs that made up the flora of the real gardens. She was puzzled by this, and also by the noise that seemed to be coming from the far end of the gardens, from behind a towering yew hedge that had been allowed to grow almost to the point of obscuring the rival trees.

  Approaching this hedge, Irene found that there was a small opening cut into it, and this she was able to negotiate by dropping down to her hands and knees. As she made her way through the gap, she became aware of a cluster of people on the other side. There was her husband, Stuart, and there were Bertie and Ulysses, and there, rather surprisingly, were several members of her book group. When Irene emerged from the hedge, everybody turned, stared at her, and began to laugh, apparently at her clothing. Ulysses, who in the dream had grown into a boy of thirteen or fourteen, and was wearing a kilt and jacket, was laughing too, and Irene felt a particular pang that he, above all others, should find something amusing about her outfit.

  She approached her son. “You’re not to laugh,” she said. “I’m your mother. I love you. I love you very much. I always have.”

  Ulysses looked at her. She saw that his eyes were of a strange grey colour and that on his upper lip he had an incipient moustache. “I’m not laughing,” he said. “I’m crying.”

  “Why are you crying? What is there to cry about?”

  The boy looked at her accusingly. “What about my father?” he said quietly. “Why did he go to Aberdeen?”

  Irene looked about her. Stuart had been there, but now he seemed to have vanished. Instead, a small spotted dog had appeared, and was looking up at her with reproachful eyes. It was wearing a collar, and she bent forward to look at this.
A tin plate on the collar announced the dog’s name: Cyril Lordie. But it was not Cyril; Cyril had no spots. She reached out and rubbed the dog’s coat. The spots seemed to be made of an inky substance that rubbed off on her hands.

  Then the dog spoke and Irene was surprised to hear that he spoke with a Glasgow accent. “My real name is Truth,” he announced. “And I am not your dog.”

  She stood up. Ulysses had disappeared, and so had Bertie. Now Dr. Fairbairn emerged from the hedge and stood in front of her.

  “Remember me,” he said.

  “Why did you go to Aberdeen?” Irene asked.

  “Aberdeen came to me,” he replied. “There’s a bit of Aberdeen in everybody, you know, even you, Irene.”

  Dr. Fairbairn began to fade away.

  “Did you say remember me or remember me??” asked Irene. “There are two question marks, you know. It makes a difference.”

  Dr. Fairbairn smiled. “There are so many question marks,” he said. “Even in Aberdeen.”

  She awoke. Dr. Fairbairn. Aberdeen. That strange spotted dog whose name was Truth. And now, much more real than the world of that strange phantasmagoria, her room in the Grand International came into focus: the large television set with the glowing red spot at its base, the vulgar picture of an Arab dhow, the half-open wardrobe with its ghostly white bathrobes on their sandalwood hangers, the obedient coffee maker with its neat little kitchen of plastic-packed coffee and sugars—all the accoutrements of a modern hotel that could be anywhere. Only the Arab dhow gave a sense of place, but even that was redolent of an Arabia that was being pushed out onto the periphery by the creeping forest of high concrete ant-hills that was the modern city.

  After a long and lingering bath, Irene dressed herself in the only clothes she had—the now rather crumpled uniform of the Emirates cabin attendant. The hotel had promised that they would bring her suitcase up to her room first thing in the morning—if it were to be delivered—and there was still no sign of it. That did not surprise her, of course, as she had been told at the airport that it was on its way to South America, via Amsterdam. Even if it were to be located and apprehended as quickly as possible, surely it would still take a day or two to negotiate its way to Dubai. And that meant that she would simply have to buy a new set of clothes to see her through until she was reunited with her own clothing. She would claim that from somebody, she thought—perhaps from the travel insurance she had bought for the trip. She seemed to remember that it had said something about lost luggage, and that, she imagined, might be interpreted to cover not only luggage that was lost forever, but that which was lost for a few days.