“Because it’s always telling you what you should think,” said Bertie. “Just like Mummy.”
98. Irene and Dr Fairbairn Converse
With Bertie sent off to the waiting room where he might occupy himself with an old copy of Scottish Field, Irene and Dr Fairbairn shared a cup of strong coffee in the consulting room, mulling over the outcome of Bertie’s forty minutes of intense conversation with his therapist.
“That bit about teddy bears was most interesting,” said Dr Fairbairn, thoughtfully. “He had constructed all sorts of anxieties around that perfectly simple account of a bears’ picnic. Quite remarkable.”
“Very strange,” said Irene.
“And as for that exchange over The Guardian,” went on Dr Fairbairn. “I was astonished that he should see you as overly directional. Quite astonished.”
“Absolutely,” said Irene. “I’ve never pushed him to do anything. All his little enthusiasms, his Italian, his saxophone, are of his own choosing. I’ve merely facilitated.”
“Of course,” said Dr Fairbairn hurriedly. “I knew as much. But then children misread things so badly. But it’s certainly nothing for you to worry yourself about.”
He paused, placing his coffee cup down on its saucer. “But then that dream he spoke about was rather fascinating, wasn’t it? The one in which he saw a train going into a tunnel. That was interesting, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed,” said Irene. “But then, Bertie has always had this thing about trains. He goes on and on about them. I don’t think there’s any particular symbolism in his case – he really is dreaming about trains qua trains. Other boys may be dreaming about … well about other things when they dream about trains. But not Bertie.”
“But what about tunnels?” asked Dr Fairbairn.
“We have one in Scotland Street,” said Irene. “There’s a tunnel under the road. But nobody’s allowed to go into it.”
“Ah,” said Dr Fairbairn. “A forbidden tunnel! That’s very significant!”
“It’s closed,” said Irene.
“A forbidden tunnel would be,” mused Dr Fairbairn.
They both thought about this for a moment, and then Dr Fairbairn, reaching out for his cup of coffee, returned to the subject of dreams. “I have never underestimated the revelatory power of the dream,” he said. “It is the most perfect documentary of the unconscious. The film script of both the id and the ego – dancing their terrible dance, orchestrated by the sleeping mind. Don’t you think?”
“Oh, I do,” said Irene. “And do you analyse your own dreams, Dr Fairbairn?”
“Most certainly,” he replied. “May I reveal one to you?”
“But, of course.” Irene loved this. It must be so lonely being Dr Fairbairn and having so few patients – perhaps none, apart from herself – with whom he could communicate on a basis of intellectual and psychoanalytical equality.
“My dream,” said Dr Fairbairn, “occurred some years ago – many years in fact, and yet my memory of it is utterly vivid. In this dream I was somewhere in the West – Argyll possibly – and staying in a large house by the edge of a sea loch. The house was a couple of hundred yards from the edge of the loch, and it was set about with grass of the most extraordinary verdant colour. And this grass was touched with the golden light, as of the morning sun.
“The woman who lived in this house had a name, unlike so many people who come to us in our dreams. She was called Mrs Macgregor – I remember that very distinctly – and she was kind to the guests. There were other people there too, but I did not know them. Mrs Macgregor was gentle and welcoming – she made a tray of tea and then took me gently by the hand and led me across the lawn to a shed beside the loch. And I can remember the smell of the air, which had that tangle of seaweed that you get in the West and that softness too. And I did not want her to let go of my hand.
“We came to the shed and she opened it for me, and do you know, there inside was a lovingly preserved art-nouveau typesetting machine. And I marvelled at this and turned round, and Mrs Macgregor was walking away from me, back towards the house, and I felt a great sense of loss. And that is when I awoke, and the house and the grass and the sea loch faded, but left me with the most extraordinary sense of peace – as if I had been vouchsafed a vision.
“Many years later, I was in a restaurant in Edinburgh, with a largish group of people after a meeting. We were sitting there waiting for our dinner to be served and the subject of dreams arose. I decided to narrate my dream, and there was a sudden hush in the restaurant. Everybody had started to listen to it – the other diners, the waiters, the Italian proprietor of the restaurant, Pasquale, as he was called – everybody.
“And there was a complete silence when I finished. Then, one of the other members of the party – a most distinguished Edinburgh psychiatrist, broke the silence. He said: Mrs Macgregor is your mother!
“And of course Henry was right, and everybody in the restaurant started to talk again, loudly, with relief, perhaps, because they were reassured that their mothers were with them too – their mothers had not gone away.”
Irene was touched by this story, and she was silent too, as had been the diners in that restaurant. She wondered whether she dared tell Dr Fairbairn about her own dream, that had come to her only a few nights previously, in which she had been in the Floatarium, in the flotation tank, and there had been a knocking on the door, and she had opened the lid and seen a blonde child standing outside, like that figure of Cupid in the painting, Love Locked Out. And now she realised that BLONDE CHILD could be translated, in Scots, or half in Scots, to make FAIR BAIRN.
She could not tell him this, because this was dangerous, dangerous ground. So she closed her eyes instead, and thought of her life. She was married to Stuart, and she was the mother of Bertie. And yet she was lonely, hopelessly lonely, because there was nobody with whom she could talk about these things that mattered so much to her. Perhaps things would change when Bertie went to the Steiner School, as he was due to do shortly. Then there would be other Steiner mothers, and she could talk to them. There would be coffee mornings and bring-and-buy sales in aid of the new personal development equipment for the school. And she would not have to go to the Floatarium and float in isolation but would be part of something bigger, and more vibrant, and accepting, as communities used to be, before our fall from grace, the shattering of our Eden.
99. Bruce Takes a Bath, and Thinks
In the bathroom of his flat at 44 Scotland Street, Bruce Anderson stood before the mirror, wearing only the white boxer shorts which his mother had given him for his last birthday. The light in the bathroom was perfect for such posing – light from a north-facing skylight which, although clear, was not too harsh. This light allowed for the development of interesting shadows – shadows which brought out the contours of the pectorals, which provided for shades and nuances in the shoulders and the sweep of the forearms.
Bruce was not unaware of his good looks. As a small boy he had become accustomed to the admiring glances which he attracted from adults. Elderly women would reach out and pat him on the head, ruffling his hair, and muttering little angel or wee stunner, and Bruce would reward them with a smile, an act of beneficence on his part which usually brought forth more exclamations from his admirers. As he became older, the women who patted his head began to desist (although they still felt the urge), as one does not pat every teenage boy on the head, no matter how strong the temptation to do so. The looks of adults were now supplemented with the wistful glances of coevals, particularly the teenage girls of Crieff, for whom Bruce seemed some sort of messenger of beauty – a sign that even in Crieff might one find a boy so transcendentally exciting that all limitations of place, all frustrations at the fact that one lived in Crieff and not in Edinburgh, or Newport Beach, or somewhere like that, might be overcome.
Beauty, of course, has its moment, which may sometimes be very brief, but in Bruce’s case the looks which had driven so many of those girls in Crieff and surrounds
to an anguish of longing, survived; indeed they mellowed, and here he was, he told himself, more attractive than ever before; a picture, he thought, of the young man at the height of his powers.
He moved closer to the mirror, and standing sideways, he pressed his right arm and side against its cold surface. This brought him closer to himself, like a conjoined twin. He moved his arm up, and his handsome twin’s arm moved up too. He smiled, and his brother smiled too, in immediate recognition. Then he turned round and faced himself in the mirror – so close now that his breath clouded the glass, a white mist that came and went quickly, and was strangely erotic. He moved his lips closer to the lips in the mirror, and for a moment they stayed there, almost, but not quite touching, united, for there was something that was beginning to worry Bruce. With whom, exactly, was he in love?
Sally, he said to himself as he turned away from the mirror – a wrench, of course, but he did turn away – with Sally, the girl he had even thought of asking to marry him. She would be keen on that, he imagined, and would naturally accept, but then he had thought that perhaps it was premature. Certainly he liked her – he liked her a great deal – but marriage was perhaps taking it a bit far.
He slipped out of the boxer shorts and then lowered himself into the water. Lying there, he could look up through the skylight and watch the clouds scudding across the evening sky. He liked to do this, and to think; and now he was thinking about his job and how the time had come to move on. He had decided that he had had enough of being a surveyor for Macaulay Holmes Richardson Black. He had had enough of working for Todd, with his pedantic insistence on set office procedures and his tendency to lecture. What a narrow universe that man inhabited! The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors! The world of clients and their selfish demands and complaints! Was this what lay ahead of him? Bruce found himself thoroughly depressed by the thought. He would not allow it. He was cut out for a wider, more interesting world than that, and he now had a clear idea of how he would achieve it.
He would have lingered longer in the bath, but the thought of that evening’s engagement stirred him. Hardly bothering with the mirror, he dressed quickly, gelled his hair, and went into the kitchen. He had eaten very little for lunch and made a sandwich for himself before going out: a piece of French bread sliced down the middle, into which he inserted a piece of the cheese which he had purchased the day before from one of Ian Mellis’s cheese shops. Bruce liked that particular shop; he liked the way one of the girls behind the counter smiled at him and offered him samples of cheese. Bruce leaned forward over the counter and allowed her to slip the slivers of cheese into his mouth, which she obviously enjoyed; and it was a small thing, really, giving her that thrill – no trouble to him and it clearly meant a lot to her.
There was no sign of Pat as he left the flat. Poor girl, he thought. He had seen her in the Cumberland Bar the other evening with that man who had the strange dog, but he had pretended not to see her, as he did not want her to feel any worse than she must already feel. It could not be easy for her – seeing him with Sally while all the time she fancied him terribly, even going to the extent, as she had, of lying on his bed when he was not there. That was amazing, but that’s how women behaved, in Bruce’s experience. He would never forget that girlfriend of his when he was eighteen – the one who had gone to India for three months and who had taken a pair of his boxer shorts with her so that she could sleep with them each night under her pillow. That was disconcerting, and Bruce had been embarrassed that she had written and told him about this on a postcard which anybody, including that nosy postman in Crieff, could have read. The postman had looked at him sideways, and smiled, but when Bruce had accused him of reading his postcards he had become belligerent and had said: “Watch your lip, Jimmy.” That was not the way the postal authorities were meant to behave when faced with a complaint, but the postman was considerably bulkier than Bruce and he had been obliged to say nothing more about it.
He left the flat and went downstairs. A friend at work had arranged the meeting for him, and now he was bound for the wine bar, where Will Lyons would be waiting. Will was the man to give him advice, he had been told, about the new career that Bruce had mapped out for himself. The wine trade. Smart. Sophisticated. Very much more to his taste – and waiting at his feet.
100. Bruce Expounds
Will Lyons had agreed to meet Bruce at the request of his friend, Ed Black. Ed knew a colleague of Bruce’s through Roddy Martine, who knew everybody of course, even if he was not absolutely sure whether he knew Bruce. There was a Crieff connection to all this. Roddy Martine had attended a party at the Crieff Hydro, which was run by the cousin of Ross Leckie, a friend of Charlie Maclean, who had been at the party and who had introduced him to Bruce, who knew Jamie Maclean, who lived not far from Crieff. It was that close.
Will knew about wine, as he had spent some years in the wine trade. Bruce had been told this, and wanted to get some advice on how to get a job. He was confident that this could be arranged, but he knew that contacts were useful. Will could come up with introductions, although he did not want to ask him for these straightaway. So this meeting was more of a general conversation about wine. Will would see that Bruce knew what he was talking about and the rest would follow, but all in good time.
Will was waiting for him in the wine bar. Although they had not met before, Bruce had been told to look out for the most dapper person in the room. “That’ll be Will,” Ed had said.
They shook hands.
“You must let me do this,” said Bruce, reaching for his wallet. “Glass of wine?”
“Thank you,” said Will, reaching for the wine menu.
Bruce picked up a copy of the menu and looked down it. “Not too bad.” He paused, and frowned. “But look at all these Chardonnays! Useless grape! Flabby, tired. Did you see that article in The Decanter a few weeks ago? Did you see it? It was all about those ABC clubs in New York – Anything But Chardonnay. I can see what they mean – revolting against Chardonnay.”
“Well,” said Will quietly, “there are some …”
“I never touch it myself,” said Bruce. “It’s fine for people who get their wine in supermarkets. Fine for women. Hen parties. That sort of thing. Fine for them. But I won’t touch it. May as well drink Blue Nun.”
“Do you like champagne?” Will asked politely.
“Do I like champagne?” replied Bruce. “Is the Pope a Catholic? Of course I do. I adore the stuff.”
“And Chablis?”
“Boy, do I love Chablis! I had the most marvellous bottle the other day. Fantastic. Flinty, really flinty. Like biscuits, you know. Just great.”
Will was about to point out that the Chardonnay grape was used to make both champagne and Chablis, but decided not to. It was fashionable, amongst those who knew very little, to decry Chardonnay, but it was still a great variety, even if its reputation had been damaged by the flooding of the market with vast quantities of inferior wine.
“Of course I’m much more New World than Old World,” Bruce went on, scanning further down the list. “France is finished in my view. Finished.”
Will looked surprised. “France? Finished?”
Bruce nodded. “Washed out. They just can’t compete with the New World boys – they just can’t. If you sit down with a bottle of good California – even a modestly-priced bottle – and then you sit down with a bottle of Bordeaux, let’s say, the California wins every time – every time. And a lot of people think like me, you know.”
Will looked doubtful. “But don’t you think that these New World wines wane after two or three mouthfuls?”
“No,” said Bruce. “Not at all.”
Will smiled. “But, you know, these New World wines give you a sudden burst of delight, but don’t you think that they rather drown the flavour? French wines usually are much more complex. They’re meant to go with food, after all.”
“You can eat while you’re drinking New World wines, too,” said Bruce. “I often do that
. I have a bottle of California and I find it goes well with pasta.”
“Red or white?” asked Will.
“White with pasta,” said Bruce. “All the time.”
They both looked at the menu.
“Here’s one for me,” said Bruce. “I’m going to get a half bottle of Muddy Wonga South Australian. That’s a big wine – really big.”
Will looked at the Muddy Wonga listing. “Interesting,” he said. “I’ve never heard of that. Have you had it before?”
“Lots of times,” said Bruce. “It’s got a sort of purple colour to it and a great deal of nose.”
“Could be the mud,” suggested Will quietly, but Bruce did not hear.
“And you?” asked Bruce. “What are you going to have?”
“Well,” said Will. “I rather like the look of this Bordeaux. Pomerol.”
“A left bank man,” said Bruce.
“Actually, it’s on the right bank,” said Will quietly.
“Same river,” said Bruce.
Will agreed. “Of course.”
“Of course at least you’ll get it with a cork in it,” said Bruce. “None of those ghastly screw caps. Do you know I was at a restaurant the other day – with this rather nice American girl I’ve met – and they served the wine in a screw cap bottle. Can you believe it?’
“Screw caps are very effective,” Will began. “There are a lot of estates …”
Bruce ignored this. “But can you believe it? A screw cap in a decent restaurant? I almost sent it back.”
“Corked?” ventured Will.
“No, it had a screw cap,” said Bruce.
They ordered their wine, which was served to them in a few minutes. Bruce poured himself a glass and held it up to his nose.
“Superb,” he said. “The winemaker at Muddy Wonga is called Lofty Shaw. He had some training at Napa and then went back to Australia. Here, smell this.”
He passed his glass under Will’s nose.
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