The Bertie Project

  Clare acknowledged the compliment with a smile. “You’re really sweet,” she said. “I like your…” She searched her mind for a few seconds. His hair? She liked the en brosse hairstyle that Bruce affected; she liked running her fingers over it; it reminded her of a scrubbing brush. “I like your hair,” she said at last.

  Bruce touched his head. “People do.” He paused. “And do you like my hair gel? I buy it online, you know.”

  “It’s strange,” she said. “It reminds me of the dentist. The smell of the dentist’s.”

  “Hah!”

  “And I like your face,” Clare continued.

  “I like your face too,” responded Bruce.

  They each took a spoonful of muesli.

  “This muesli’s great,” said Bruce.

  “It’s got more fruit than the usual stuff. I like muesli that has lots of fruit.” She paused. “You know what I don’t like, Brucey?”

  “You tell me, honey-pants.”

  “I don’t like that muesli that’s really sweet—you know the stuff? It’s so sweet that it actually tastes sharp. And then you look at the amount of sugar it has in it and I swear it goes off the scale. Pounds of sugar—pounds of it. Added by the muesli people. And then they expect you to think it’s healthy, but actually it’s not. Who do they think they’re fooling?”

  “Pas moi,” said Bruce.

  “Is that Latin?” asked Clare.

  Bruce shook his head. Then he added, “I think it’s great that we like the same things.”

  There was a brief silence. Then Bruce continued, “When I’m with you, you know, I don’t want to be anywhere else. Strange, isn’t it?”

  “I’m cool with that,” said Clare. “I like it when you hold me. You know what I thought when you grabbed me that first time—remember, when we were in that pub and you came up behind me and grabbed me, and I thought, Hey, this guy’s like grabbing me! And then I thought, And I really like it! That’s what I thought, you know.”

  Bruce laughed. “I thought, Gee, this girl’s got what it takes. Those were my exact thoughts, you know. And then I thought, Search over.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “Yes,” said Bruce. “You see, I’d been looking for a long time for somebody like you, and I thought I’d never find her—and then, bang, you walk into my life, and I thought, Search over. True. I did. I thought that.”

  “I’m really happy for you, Bruce,” said Clare. “But…”

  He looked at her in alarm. “But what?”

  “Oh, but nothing important…Just but…but you know how it is when you meet somebody you really like?”

  Bruce was hesitant. “Yes?”

  “Well, you meet somebody you really like and you think He’s just perfect. That’s what you think, but then you realise that nobody’s absolutely perfect, and you work out why they’re not quite perfect.”

  Bruce put down his spoon. He was not sure what to expect, and he was concerned that he was not going to like whatever it was that Clare was going to say.

  “I never said I was perfect,” he said. “We all have some flaws…even me…I fully accept that there’ll be some things that I need to work on.” He could not help but grimace. Was it possible that he was not everything she wanted when it came to…

  “Oh, it’s not you in the sense of you,” said Clare. “It’s just that…well, this place…”

  They were in Clare’s kitchen, and Bruce cast an eye about it. As a surveyor he would have rated it in need of redecoration, but why should that have anything to do with him?

  “We could spend more time in my flat,” he said. “It’s much nicer than this.”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about the flat,” said Clare. “I’m talking about Edinburgh. About Scotland.”

  Bruce frowned. “What’s wrong with Edinburgh?”

  Clare smiled tolerantly. “It’s a bit…How shall I put it? Conventional.”

  Bruce was relieved that the fault was Edinburgh’s rather than his. “Oh, yes, it’s full of square people. Squaresville, Midlothian. Really square.”

  “And all this old stuff,” said Clare. “These old buildings. Museums and so on.”

  “Some people like that,” said Bruce.

  “Oh, I know, it’s more about being in touch with what’s going on. You see, I think people in Scotland get the message really late. They’re not in touch with the vibe.”

  Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know. Glasgow’s cool, you know. There’s a lot going on in Glasgow. Would you like to go over there some time?”

  But Clare was not listening. “Have you heard of hipsters?”

  Bruce smiled. “Sure, everybody’s heard of hipsters.”

  “They wear beards,” said Clare. “Quite large beards, but well-tended. Nothing scruffy. And these really nice jeans—really tight round the legs.”

  “I’ve seen them,” said Bruce. “There’s a shop down on Queen Street for hipsters; they sell stuff for beards and moustaches. Clippers for trimming nasal hair. Pomade. Notebooks. Speakers. Hipster stuff. And the guys who run it have beards.”

  “Interesting. Just for guys?”

  “Yes. It’s just for guys. But women can go in there to buy stuff for guys, if they like. But they shouldn’t expect to find anything they like for themselves.”

  “Hipsters don’t cause trouble for other people,” said Clare. Her remark had no bearing on what had gone before, and Bruce struggled to see the relevance.

  “I never said they did,” he said.

  “They ride bikes too,” said Clare.

  “Yeah, sure, hipsters ride bikes. Other people ride bikes too.”

  “Hipsters like bikes without brakes,” Clare continued. “You stop the bike by pedalling backwards. Hipsters don’t go for bikes with all sorts of extra stuff on them, like brakes.”

  “Oh well…”

  Clare reached across the table and touched his wrist gently. “Could you and I go shopping?”

  Bruce nodded. “What do you need?”

  “It’s more a case of what you need,” answered Clare.

  “Oh? What do I need? You tell me.”

  “New jeans,” said Clare. “For starters.”

  You’ve Got Great Contours

  Bemused but not unwilling, Bruce accompanied Clare to a shop on Princes Street that she said was just the place “for what we need.”

  “You said it was for what I need,” Bruce pointed out.

  “Same thing, Bruce,” said Clare. “You, me—we’re an item, aren’t we? What you wear reflects on me.”

  “And vice versa?” asked Bruce.

  Clare was thoughtful. “Possibly. Not that I like being arm candy, if you don’t mind.”

  “And yet…” He left his reservation unfinished. There was something about Clare that discouraged argument, and yet this did not really diminish his enthusiasm for her. She was…what was the word? Spirited? Yes, that was it. It was something to do with her being Australian, he thought. Scottish girls were all very well, but they could be a bit given to looking on the negative side. It was something to do with cultural expectations of being miserable. Australians had that optimistic, can-do approach that he found so refreshing.

  He would not have agreed to being led off to Princes Street by a Scottish girl; until the advent of Clare, he would never have so much as considered letting somebody choose his jeans. But now, like some neutered suburban male, dragged off by a domineering wife to buy a cardigan, Bruce agreed to follow Clare into the retail no-man’s-land of Princes Street—the home of bland chain stores, places of mirrors and glass and materialism.

  She seemed to know where she was going and they stopped outside a shop that announced itself simply as M*N.

  “What does the * stand for?” asked Bruce.

  Clare looked up at the sign. “Oh, I don’t think that means anything,” she said. “It’s just a cool name for a shop.”

  Bruce was not convinced. “I think it might be E,” he said. “As in MEN.”

 
Clare was unconvinced. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “You don’t want to read too much into these things.”

  “They’ve got a good selection of jeans in this place,” she said, as they stood at the entrance to a shop at the west end of the street.

  They went inside. Clare seemed to know her way about, and led Bruce to a rack on which pairs of blue denim jeans were displayed. Tight fit, proclaimed a sign.

  “Intimate question, Bruce,” said Clare. “What’s your waist measurement?”

  Bruce gave her the figure. “I’m 34 inches,” he said.

  “Right,” said Clare. “32.”

  Bruce corrected her. “No, 34.”

  Clare shook her head. “We’re not talking about comfort here, Bruce,” she said. “And denim gives. You need to get a slightly smaller size so that the material can mould to your shape.”

  “I thought denim shrank,” said Bruce.

  “It both shrinks and gives,” said Clare. She selected a pair of jeans and handed them to him. “We’ll try these to start.”

  Clare led Bruce to a fitting room.

  “Give them to me,” he said. “I’ll go and try them on.”

  “Oh, we’re all coy all of a sudden, are we?” said Clare. “I’ll help you.”

  Bruce looked embarrassed. “I can do it myself.”

  Clare shook her head. “You’re going to need help,” she said.

  He did not argue, but followed her meekly into the cubicle.

  “Right,” said Clare. “Put these on.”

  Stripped to his shorts, Bruce took the proffered pair of jeans. He now saw just how slender were the legs—a thin sleeve of material no thicker, he thought, than his forearm. “I don’t know if I’m going to get into those,” he said doubtfully. “Maybe a larger size…”

  “Don’t be defeatist,” said Clare, manipulating the foot that Bruce had tentatively pushed into the leg of the jeans. “Just push. Straighten out your foot—like a ballet dancer—and push.”

  Bruce did as he was told. Even with his foot straightened unnaturally, tendons strained, it was only just possible to penetrate the tight embrace of the trouser leg, and then only with Clare reaching in at the other end to grip his foot and pull it through.

  “There we are,” she said, as his left foot burst through to freedom. “I told you it would be fine.”

  Bruce wiggled his foot. “It’s going to cut off the circulation further up,” he said. “It’s gripping me like a vice.”

  “No it won’t,” said Clare.

  “It will,” insisted Bruce. “My legs already feel numb.”

  “That’s natural,” retorted Clare. “When you get new jeans, your legs feel numb to begin with. It wears off.”

  Bruce struggled with the zip. He prided himself on his lean stomach, but even breathing in, it was difficult for him to do up the jeans. Eventually he succeeded, but found that breathing had become painful and could only be managed in short, determined bursts.

  “Great fit,” said Clare, standing back to admire him. “Look how they follow the contours of your body, Bruce.” She paused. “You’ve got great contours, you know, Bruce.”

  Bruce looked in the mirror. He tried to take a step forward, but he found this difficult.

  “I can’t walk,” he muttered.

  “Of course you can walk,” snapped Clare. “Don’t be such a girl, Bruce.”

  Bruce looked at her in astonishment. “I’m not a girl,” he muttered.

  “You’re behaving like one,” repeated Clare.

  Bruce bit his lip. “You’re one to call me a girl,” he said. “You’re one yourself.”

  Clare looked at him belligerently. “You calling me a girl?” she asked.

  Bruce thought better of it. “No,” he said. “And anyway, let’s not argue. It’s just that I think these jeans are too tight. I’m not criticising you or anything, I’m just saying it’s really hard to walk—and it hurts.”

  “What hurts?” asked Clare.

  Bruce looked away. “Walking hurts.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” said Clare. She drew back the fitting room curtain and signalled to the shop assistant hovering outside. “We’ll take these.”

  “Great fit,” said the assistant.

  “He’ll just keep them on,” said Clare. “Can you wrap up his old gear?”

  “Sure,” said the assistant, throwing Bruce an admiring glance.

  They made their way slowly out of the shop.

  “Shoes next,” said Clare.

  “I don’t need shoes,” said Bruce.

  “Yes you do. You need some colour on your feet. You know those soft leather trainers that people wear? They make those in red. Red’s what you need.”

  Bruce sighed. In normal circumstances he would long ago have resisted—and dispatched—this gross interference in his life, but circumstances were not normal. He looked at Clare. He wanted her more than anybody he had ever wanted. He yearned for her approbation. He hung on her every word. He was completely and utterly in thrall to her. So this was what it was like to be…He searched for the right expression. In love? Was this what it was like to be in love?

  He thought: I’d do anything for you. And as he was thinking this, struggling to walk in his new, impossibly tight jeans, he looked at her and felt a by now familiar melting. She dissolves me, he thought.

  Clare turned to him and smiled.

  “This is fun, isn’t it, Bruce? Buying clothes for you. It’s like…it’s like I’m dressing a doll.”

  Bruce tried to laugh.

  “And flannies next,” said Clare.

  “Flannies?”

  “Flannel shirts. They’re the thing, Bruce.”

  She looked at him, as if to discern signs of resistance. Satisfied there were none, she smiled.

  “Good on you, Bruce,” she said. “You’re a real sport, you know.”

  They Simply Cried

  Angus Lordie was relieved when Domenica returned from her walk at half past four that afternoon.

  “You’ve taken your time,” he said. “You haven’t forgotten about the lecture, have you?”

  “Making Sense of the Twentieth Century? No, I’d remembered. It is at six, isn’t it?”

  Angus nodded. “Yes. It’s just that I wasn’t sure that you’d remembered.”

  She reassured him. “I’m looking forward to it. I’m not sure if I’m currently able to make much sense of the twentieth century—the lecture will no doubt help.”

  Angus looked thoughtful. “Oh, it was quite a century. Massive culling by humanity of itself. Degradation of the planet. Close shave with complete destruction…”

  “The Cuban Missile Crisis?”

  He nodded. “We came within two minutes of the end, I gather. Some American naval vessel had a Soviet submarine in its sights. The commander was getting ready to fire, and if he had…then the sub would have replied with torpedoes. And that would have been the beginning of the third—and final—world war.”

  For a few moments they were silent.

  “What would it have been like?” Domenica asked.

  “A rushing wind. Unimaginable light. Then darkness.” He paused. “How did Robert Oppenheimer put it? He was said to have quoted from the Bhagavad Gita: If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be the splendour of the mighty one…”

  Domenica looked doubtful. “I’m not sure that anybody would have said anything quite so striking, don’t you think?”

  Angus was not sure. “Well…”

  Domenica explained. “You see, when something remarkable or important happens, people tend to come up with something very simple. They say Oh no! Or, these days, with strong language being so pervasive, they say something scatological. They tend not to say anything very profound.”

  “So it’s mostly oops-type responses?”

  “I think so. In fact, I read somewhere that some of the people who witnessed the first explosion at Los Alamos simply cried. They just cried
.” She paused. “By the way…”

  “Yes?” said Angus.

  She hesitated. She did not like gossip but she felt that what one said to one’s spouse was, in a sense, privileged and was exempt from whatever moral constraints limited gossip.

  “Well, my walk with Nicola…”

  Angus waited. “Yes? Something happened?”

  They were in the kitchen of their flat in Scotland Street, and Domenica now crossed the floor to look out of the window. Across the street, perched on the roof of the tenement opposite, a couple of large seagulls preened themselves in the late afternoon light.

  “Gulls,” muttered Domenica.

  “Arrogant birds,” said Angus. “Your walk?”

  Domenica turned round. “Stuart downstairs…”

  “Yes?”

  She swallowed hard. “…is having an affair.”

  Angus frowned. “Stuart Pollock? Mr. Irene? Having an affair?”

  Domenica nodded. “Nicola and I saw him in the Dean Village. We were down there on our walk and we saw him in the distance. She wanted to follow him; I was reluctant at first, but I didn’t think it was my place to disagree with her.”

  Angus’s frown changed to a look of incredulity. “You actually followed him? Like a private detective?”

  “Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but we did keep him in sight. He went up to the Gallery of Modern Art.” She paused. “I know how ridiculous this sounds.”

  He nodded. “It certainly is a bit ridiculous, but if you did it, then you did it.”

  “We did. We went inside and we saw him in one of the galleries—with a woman.” Angus absorbed this information.

  “There are many reasons why a man might be with another woman,” he said. “She could be a relative, for instance—a cousin. He might be showing her round.”

  Domenica shook her head. “No, she wasn’t a relative. And you can tell, you know, Angus. You can tell from the body language that people have with one another.”

  “Tell what? Whether they’re related?”

  “No. You can tell whether they’re lovers or not.”

  Angus was silent as he absorbed the news. He had always felt considerable sympathy for Stuart, and he felt not the slightest tinge of disapproval. Irene was impossible—everyone knew that—and most people knew, too, of the tyrannical way in which she seemed to keep Stuart under her control. Most men, he imagined, would have revolted against this a long time ago, but Stuart seemed strangely passive. Some men, perhaps, wanted wives or partners who were domineering; some men actually liked to be treated like little boys. Perhaps there was something of that nature going on and Stuart was not at all unhappy with his lot.