Bertie Plays the Blues
Bertie hesitated before replying. As a general rule, he did not encourage his mother to explain things, as this could lead to long debates in which his own views were usually overruled. But what was this about rage? Could Ulysses really be expressing rage?
“I don’t think he notices very much, Mummy,” Bertie said mildly. “I don’t think that Ulysses actually knows what’s going on. So surely he can’t be expressing rage if he has no idea what’s happening half the time …”
Irene’s discouraging look made Bertie trail off. “You’re so wrong, Bertie,” she said. “Ulysses knows exactly what’s happening. His little mind is very busy, Bertie – busy as a bee, darting here and there, soaking up impressions of the world. Even now, if you look at his expression, you’ll see that he’s thinking about something. See. Look at his little frown of concentration.”
Bertie glanced at Ulysses, and then looked away quickly. The expression that he had seen was not so much that of one soaking up impressions of the world as of one engaged in a much more physical task.
“I think you’re going to have to change him, Mummy,” Bertie whispered. “And I really wish he wouldn’t do it on the bus.”
Irene smiled. “Hush, Bertie, you don’t want to disturb him. This is all entirely natural and everybody understands these things.”
The journey continued. Ulysses had now become quieter, being diverted by the sight of a large beard worn by a passenger across the aisle. This gave Irene the opportunity to raise with Bertie the prospect of a visit from Olive.
“I’ve spoken to Olive’s mummy,” she said as the 23 bus trundled past the Renaissance splendour of Heriot’s School. “And she says that it will be perfectly all right for Olive to come and play some day next week, possibly Wednesday. That will be nice, won’t it, Bertie?”
“No,” said Bertie. “It won’t.”
“Come now, Bertie,” said Irene. “Olive is a very nice little girl and she loves coming to play in Scotland Street. Her mummy says that she plans these little trips for days and talks about it all for a long time afterwards. Isn’t it nice that she gets such pleasure from coming to see you?”
“I hate her,” said Bertie. “And she hates me back. We both hate each other the same.”
“Oh, Bertie, don’t be so ridiculous! Olive doesn’t hate you. If she hated you, why would she want to come and play?”
“She comes because she likes pushing me about,” said Bertie. “Olive’s very bossy, Mummy. She likes to push people around and she really likes doing that to me. When she brought her junior nurse’s kit …”
Bertie had not told his mother of the incident in which Olive had extracted a real syringe from her junior nurse’s kit and insisted on taking a sample of his blood. That had all been too traumatic, and had directly resulted in the subsequent contretemps between Olive and Elspeth Harmony, then their teacher, who had, in sheer frustration, pinched Olive’s ear. Bertie had not previously revealed this to his mother but now he thought that he might do so. If Irene heard that Olive was in the habit of wielding real syringes with real needles, then she might be less enthusiastic about her coming to the house.
His efforts were in vain, as Irene interrupted him with an explanation as to why it was a good idea for Olive to come to play. “The reason why it’s nice to have Olive coming to the house, Bertie, is that it gives you the opportunity to have some female company. That’s very important, you know. If you have female company it will allow you to get in touch with your feminine side.”
Bertie sat quite still. What was this feminine side?
Irene thoughtfully explained. “You see, Bertie, every boy has a girl inside him – an inner girl. It’s the bit of him that has a feminine understanding of the world – the bit that is gentle and sensitive.”
Bertie looked at his mother. “Are you sure, Mummy?” He was thinking of Tofu, and also of Larch, who was currently in disgrace for cutting down a tree without permission and for throwing a brick at a window.
“Yes,” said Irene. “Yes, Bertie, I’m sure.”
“Well,” said Bertie, “does that mean that girls have boys inside them? Do they have inner boys?”
Irene frowned. “No, Bertie,” she said. “Such a concept is quite unnecessary.”
66. Oh, Promised Land of Glasgow!
They alighted from the 23 bus in Bruntsfield and made their way along Merchiston Crescent towards Spylaw Road. Bertie walked several steps behind his mother, who was pushing Ulysses in his pushchair; his mind was full of his forthcoming adventure, which he viewed with a mixture of eager anticipation and dread. This, he thought, is the last time I walk this way to school. As from next week, or possibly even the next day, he would, he imagined, be attending school in Glasgow, perhaps even Hutchesons’, or Hutchy, as he had heard it called. He liked the sound of Hutchy, and had decided that even if his adoptive parents in Glasgow did not mention it, he would raise the issue of his going there. They had rugby, he had heard, and there was a stamp-collecting club and a pipe band and … it would all be so different for him. Perhaps Lard O’Connor had a son who went there and Bertie would get to know him in due course and they could go doon the watter together, as people in Glasgow appeared to do. There were so many possibilities in Glasgow, and it was now all so close – only a forty-five minute train ride away.
“Do hurry up, Bertie,” said Irene over her shoulder. “You’re really dragging your feet today. Are you thinking about something?”
Bertie did not look at his mother. Oh yes, he thought. Oh yes, I’m definitely thinking about something: I’m thinking about my new life in Glasgow. Poor Mummy, I hope that you won’t be too upset when I’m gone, but you’ll still have Ulysses and you can do lots of things with him. You can take him to yoga classes and teach him the piano and speak Italian to him. He can have my psychotherapy appointments and go with you to the Floatarium and float in your flotation chamber as long as he doesn’t go to the loo. There’s so much you can do with Ulysses.
Now they were drawing near to the school gate, and Bertie’s heart within him was beating like a drum. He stared at the scene ahead: he saw Tofu’s father dropping him off and then driving away in the old car that Tofu said had been converted to run on olive oil. He saw Pansy’s mother waving goodbye to her daughter and blowing a kiss – so embarrassing for all concerned! He saw Larch’s father draw up in his truck and throw Larch out of the passenger door, as if pleased, quite understandably, to be getting rid of him for another day. It was all perfectly normal except … except for the fact that one of the actors in this little daily performance was planning a major deviation from the plot.
They approached the school gate.
“Don’t bother to stay around, Mummy,” said Bertie when they were still some distance away. “I’ll manage the last bit by myself.”
Irene looked down on him with amusement. “But it’s no trouble, Bertie,” she said. “And Mummy always likes to wave goodbye at the gate and watch you go in. It’s very nice for Ulysses to see you going to school.”
“I don’t think he knows that I’m going to school,” argued Bertie. “And I think he sees most things upside down anyway.”
“Nonsense, Bertie,” snapped Irene. “Ulysses sees things in exactly the same way that you do.”
Bertie thought quickly. “It’s a matter of independence, Mummy,” he blurted out. “I feel that there are some things I should try to do by myself. Walking the last few steps to school by myself helps me to feel independent.”
Irene looked thoughtful. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to inhibit you, Bertie. So if it means that much to you, I suppose that Ulysses and I can stand here and wave.”
“Better still if you turned round and started walking back up Spylaw Road,” Bertie countered. “That way I’d feel even more independent.”
Rather to his surprise, Irene agreed, and bent down to kiss him goodbye. “Sois sage, mon sausage,” she said.
Bertie blushed. It was not just that his mother insisted on sp
eaking French now – having temporarily abandoned Italian – it was the curious mixture of French and English that embarrassed him. Saucisson, he muttered under his breath, but not loud enough for her to hear.
He walked off. After a few paces he half-turned, and saw that his mother had started to retrace her steps up Spylaw Road. She had her back turned to him and did not see her son staring at her. Nor did she see him suddenly run into the bushes just inside the gate and dive underneath them for cover.
From his hidden vantage point, Bertie took one last look at his mother. The enormity of what he was doing now came home to him and he gulped as he realised it. He had just said goodbye to the mother who had raised him for the last six years. He would see her again, of course, when he came back on holiday from his new Glasgow family, but it would never be the same – for either of them.
He swallowed. It is not an easy thing to say goodbye to a mother, and when you are only six, and still emotionally dependent on her, it is particularly difficult. He loved her – of course he did – but she had left him with no alternative but to seek adoption. It was not that she had been unkind; she had tried her best to give him what he wanted; it was not that she had been unfeeling; she had tried to see things from his perspective, but had simply failed. Now Bertie was left with no alternative but to seek a new life where there would simply be less interference.
As he watched Irene’s retreating figure, Bertie almost relented, almost ran over to embrace his mother and confess that he had thought disloyal thoughts; but he did not. Biting his lip, he realised that he might never see her again; or, when he next saw her, he would have a new mother, who would be Glaswegian, and fun, and would never have read Melanie Klein and have not the slightest interest in ever reading her. Oh, promised land of Glasgow; spontaneous, cheerful, warmhearted; oh, dear green place!
67. By Waverley Station I Sat Down And …
In so far as clockwork goes like clockwork, that is how it went. As soon as he was confident that his mother was well on her way up Spylaw Road, Bertie looked about him, saw that nobody appeared to be looking, and ran into the bushes lining the drive behind the school gate. They were old rhododendrons, thick-trunked, and suitable for the covering of a variety of juvenile illicit activity. All that Bertie demanded of them was temporary cover until the last of the stragglers had made their way down the school drive. Then he could slip out undetected and go as fast as possible – without running, as that might attract attention – to his planned rendezvous with Ranald Braveheart Macpherson outside the Bruntsfield Hotel.
There were only one or two points at which Bertie found himself holding his breath. One was when one of the teachers stopped directly opposite his bush and conducted a lengthy mobile telephone conversation with somebody about the arrival of a central heating engineer to service a domestic boiler; another was when Olive, having been dropped at the gate by her mother, happened to look in Bertie’s direction. For a brief moment it seemed to Bertie that Olive was looking directly into his eyes, and indeed she did take a half step towards the bush, but then she turned away and continued down the drive. It was an awful, agonising moment, every bit as tense as that involving Nazis sweeping the churchyard for Maria and the sheltering von Trapps, and although the stakes were hardly that serious, they were bad enough. Had Olive seen him she would undoubtedly have run straight in to report him to the authorities. And then he would have had to explain what he was doing in the bushes. Birdwatching was the most obvious innocent explanation, but he was not sure whether he would be believed. And Bertie, being utterly truthful, had always found it well nigh impossible to lie, unlike Tofu, who lapsed into mendacity more or less whenever he opened his mouth; or Larch, who was similarly untruthful; or even Olive herself, to whom truth seemed at best a malleable concept. So he would have had to confess that he was hiding in order to run away, and that would have been brought to the attention of his mother and his plans would be ruined.
Once Olive had gone inside, Bertie gave a quick look about him and then scrambled out of the bushes and through the school gate. From there he walked with measured tread all the way up Spylaw Road and along Merchiston Crescent. Nobody stopped him; nobody appeared to be in the slightest bit interested in the sight of a small boy making his way purposefully along the pavement. And even in Bruntsfield Place, as he neared the Bruntsfield Hotel and the pavements became thronged with people on their way to work, nobody so much as looked at Bertie. This gave him confidence, with the result that by the time he reached the rendezvous point his step was light and carefree.
Ranald Braveheart Macpherson was waiting exactly where he had promised to be. “So, Bertie!” he said. “Everything is ready. Let’s go.”
Ranald claimed that he knew exactly how to get to Waverley Station, but Bertie had taken the precaution of bringing with him a small map of Edinburgh that he had found in the back of one of his father’s magazines. This was a map of the bars and restaurants of the city, but the principal streets were clearly shown too, as was Waverley Station itself. Following the map, they made their way across the Meadows and along George IV Bridge. Now Bertie was on familiar territory, as this was the route that the 23 bus took every morning. “We can’t go wrong now, Ranald,” he said confidently. “Waverley Station is just over there – beyond the Scott Monument. Can you see it?”
Bertie pointed to the spiky edifice of blackened stone. Ranald nodded. “They keep Sir Walter Scott’s bones in there,” he said. “My dad told me about it. For ten pence you can have a look.”
“I think that’s really rude,” said Bertie. “I wouldn’t want anybody to look at my bones when I’m dead.”
“Neither would I,” said Ranald. “Bones are private. That’s why you can’t see them, except with an X-ray.” He paused. “Have you heard about X-ray specs, Bertie?”
Bertie had, and had secretly wanted a pair ever since he had seen a small advertisement for them at the back of a comic.
“You put them on,” Ranald Braveheart Macpherson continued, “and then when you look at people you can see through their clothes. It’s really good fun. You see some very funny things.”
Bertie nodded. “I think they’re really expensive,” he said. “Because otherwise everybody would have them.”
They turned off the Mound and began the descent towards Waverley Station. Ranald now assured Bertie that he had enough money for their fares to Glasgow. “I’ll need a return,” he said. “But you will only need a one-way, won’t you, Bertie? You’re going to be adopted over there and so you won’t need a ticket to come back.”
Bertie nodded, trying not to show his anxiety at this arrangement. It was all very well to dream about being adopted in Glasgow, but now that the dream was becoming a reality he was beginning to have second thoughts. What if he did not like the adoptive parents suggested for him by the adoption agency? Would he be able to ask to meet other possible parents, or did he have to accept the people they chose for him? What if he liked them at first and then discovered that he was not so keen on them after a week or two? Could one ask to have another shot, and hope that the second lot would be better? He had not really thought about these questions, and now they were almost at Waverley Station, and the sound of trains could be heard quite clearly – the whistles, the grinding of metal wheels upon railway lines, the echoing announcements of trains leaving for impossibly exotic-sounding destinations: Dunfermline, Croy, Montrose …
68. On the Shoulders of Another
The great slippery concourse of Waverley Station was heavily populated with travellers, some watching the bulletins on the departure board, some hurrying for trains, some engaged in conversation, some standing uncertainly by piles of luggage as if unsure where to go, or perhaps whether to go at all. In this general thrang of Scottish humanity, two small boys hardly stood out, and would have been assumed by others, if they noticed them at all, to be attached in some way to some adult in the crowd. Fifty years ago, of course, they would simply have been boys – and boys were ubiquit
ous, unattached, mendicant even; scruffy urchins who frequented street corners, who sold papers, did errands, picked pockets, played ancient and obscure games of marbles. How different were things now, as the streets had been largely cleared of children, who were now sequestered indoors, attached to addictive electronic gizmos, as if led off by some ultra-effective pied piper.
“The ticket office is over there,” said Ranald Braveheart Macpherson. “I’ve been here before, you see. I went in there with my dad and we bought some tickets.”
Keen not to be outdone, Bertie nonchalantly mentioned his own trip to Glasgow some time before, when he and Stuart had taken the train to retrieve their car. “I went to Glasgow too,” he said. “I went with my dad to fetch our car.”
Ranald looked puzzled. “Why was your car in Glasgow, Bertie?” he asked.
Bertie explained about his father’s having forgotten that he had driven over and then having taken the train back. “We met a very fat man over there,” he went on. “He was called Lard O’Connor and he ate those deep-fried chocolate bars. That’s what they eat in Glasgow – it’s their staple diet, I think.”
“I wish I lived in Glasgow then,” said Ranald. “You’re lucky, Bertie: you’re going to be living there from this afternoon.”
Bertie nodded, but said nothing. The idea of living in Glasgow still appealed, but not quite as much, perhaps, as earlier on. Even deep-fried chocolate bars could pall after a while, he imagined, and what if there were boys at Hutchies who turned out to be like that boy, Jack, who had pushed him over in the rugby match and then kicked him for good measure? And what if there was nowhere like Valvona & Crolla, which was perfectly possible, and consequently there was no panforte di Siena and no opportunity to sample small squares of salami on little wooden cocktail sticks? And what if there was no One-O’Clock Gun fired from the Castle, and even no castle at all? What then? What if there was no National Gallery of Scotland and no picture of a skating minister and no street like Princes Street with the flags all flying and the band playing in the Ross Pavilion, and no Ross Pavilion, and a river that was big and full of floating bodies, unlike the Water of Leith, and boys who said things to you that you couldn’t understand and then head-butted you for good measure when you asked them to repeat themselves or asked them something in Italian because that is what they might have been speaking? What then?