Espresso Tales 4ss-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Irene’s voice drifted down from the other end of the flat. “Of course there’s no question but that he can manage,” she said.

  “He’s very advanced, you know.”

  Bertie winced. She was talking about him – again. And what was this that he was advanced enough to do? Certainly not rugby.

  There was a silence as the voice on the other end of the telephone said something. Then Irene spoke again. “His age? What’s his age got to do with it?”

  Again a silence. Then Irene’s response: “Well, that’s a completely absurd rule. Bertie happens to be not quite six yet, but he has the intellectual ability of a boy way, way beyond that.

  There are many eighteen-year-olds who are quite a bit behind him, you know. Bertie could go to university if he wanted to.”

  Bertie felt a cold knot of fear grow within him, an emptiness in his stomach. She was going to send him off to university now before he even had the chance to go to primary school! It was so unfair. He would have to leave home and live in a hall of residence and make his own meals. And there would be no boys of his own age at university; everybody would be eighteen, or even older. And the other students would laugh at his dungarees – he knew they would. He would be the only person at university made to wear dungarees.

  “Yes,” said Irene. “I really mean that. He could easily manage a degree. His Italian, for example, is already fluent. No, I am not hot-housing him, as you put it – and that’s a ridiculous term anyway. There is such a thing as natural intellectual curiosity, you know.”

  The voice at the other end must have spoken at some length, as Irene was silent for several minutes. Then, somewhat abruptly, she said goodbye and rang off.

  Irene’s Plan for Bertie

  135

  Bertie withdrew into his room and closed the door. He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. It was the one white surface in his otherwise pink room, as his mother had been unwilling to stand on a ladder to paint it when she had painted the rest of the room. He stared at his walls. He was sure that Paddy did not have a pink room, nor Jock, the friend he had almost made and who would have been his blood brother had his mother not intervened. They lived in normal rooms, with model cars and footballs and objects of that sort. They did not have mothers like his, who called his room his space.

  Suddenly, the door opened, and Irene stood in the doorway.

  Bertie wished that she would knock before she came into his room, and had once asked her to do this, but she had just laughed. “Now, now Bertie! Do you seriously want me to knock before I come into your space? Why would you want that?”

  “Because it’s polite,” said Bertie. “That’s what you should do before you go into another person’s space. You should knock.”

  “But remember: I’m Mummy,” said Irene. “And you’re Bertissimo. You have no secrets from Mummy, do you, Bertie?”

  Bertie had looked down at the floor and thought about his secrets. Yes, he did have secrets, and he would like to have more.

  His mother did not know about his secret thoughts, his thoughts of freedom. She did not know about his plan, which was now getting so close to fruition. And it was good that she did not know any of this. She thought that she knew everything about him, but she did not know as much as she imagined. That gave him great satisfaction. Ignorant Mummy, he thought, with relish.

  Mummy in the Dark!

  Now, standing in the doorway, Irene looked down at Bertie and smiled. “It’s time for yoga,” she said brightly. “If we hurry, we might be able to have a latte on the way down there.”

  Bertie took a deep breath. He did not want to go to yoga.

  He did not like to lie with his stomach on the ground and his back arched and pretend to greet the morning sun. Nor did he want to take a deep breath and hold it while the yoga 136 Bertie Escapes!

  teacher counted up to twenty-five. He did not see the point of that at all.

  “I don’t really like yoga,” he said quietly. “Couldn’t I give it up and stay at home?”

  Irene looked at him sharply. “Of course you like yoga, Bertie.

  Of course you like it.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “I hate it.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “You can’t hate yoga. One doesn’t hate yoga. And you had better hurry up. At this rate we’re never going to get there.”

  Bertie sighed, and pulled himself up off his bed.

  “Are you sending me somewhere, Mummy?” he asked.

  Irene raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask, Bertie?”

  “Because I want to know,” said Bertie. “I want to know what’s going to happen to me.”

  “Well, I do have a little plan for you, Bertie,” said Irene. “But this is not the time to discuss it.”

  Bertie looked at her. And I have my own little plan, he said to himself. You don’t know about it, you horrible old . . .

  He stopped. He did not want to think that way about his mother. He wanted to love her; he really wanted to. But it was proving difficult.

  42. Bertie Escapes!

  Bertie carried the Watson’s blazer to school folded up and stuffed into the bottom of his rucksack. He was ready with an explanation for his mother, if she asked him why his bag looked so bulky, but Irene seemed preoccupied with something else that morning and paid little attention to Bertie as they boarded the bus together.

  “Is something making you feel sad, Mummy?” he asked, as the bus toiled up the Mound.

  Irene, who had been looking out of the window, turned to Bertie and smiled. “No, Bertie, Mummy’s not sad. Mummy’s thinking.”

  Bertie Escapes!

  137

  “Thinking of what?” asked Bertie. “Of Dr Fairbairn?”

  Irene caught her breath. “Why on earth should I be thinking of Dr Fairbairn?” she snapped. She had been thinking of him, of course, of his blue linen jacket to be exact, but she had not expected Bertie to guess this. Perhaps this was that extraordinary familial telepathy that she had read about somewhere. Could Bertie be psychic? she wondered. Not that such matters were anything more than a lot of weak-minded mumbo-jumbo. He had just guessed – that was all. He had been thinking of Dr Fairbairn himself – by sheer coincidence – and that had led him to attribute the thought to her – it was a common phenomenon, she reminded herself, the transfer of our states of mind to others.

  Bertie said nothing. He wanted his mother to be happy, but it seemed to him that she herself was the obstacle to that. If only she would stop worrying about him; if only she would stop thinking about why people do things; if only she would accept people and things as they were. But he knew that it was hopeless to expect her to do this. If Irene stopped forcing him to do things, then what life would she have? She had very few friends, as far as Bertie could work out. There were some other women at the floatarium whom she liked to talk to, but she never saw them anywhere else and they never came to their flat in Scotland Street. In fact, nobody came to the flat in Scotland Street, apart from one of his father’s friends from the office, who came to play chess once a month. It was possible that his father had other friends at the office, but Bertie was not sure. He had asked him once, and had received a rather strange reply. “Friends, Bertie?

  Friends? Mummy and I are friends, aren’t we? Do I need more friends than that?”

  Bertie thought he did, but did not say so. One thing he was certain of was that he was not going to grow up to be like his parents. Once he was eighteen he would not go to a psychotherapist; he would not go floating; his room would have white walls, or even black perhaps, but certainly not pink; and he would never talk Italian. There were a great deal of changes in store, he thought.

  138 Bertie Escapes!

  Irene walked Bertie from Bruntsfield to the school gate. Then she kissed him goodbye and Bertie watched for a few moments while she walked back up the street. Now it was time for action.

  Glancing about to see that he was not being watched, Bertie darted down the first part of the sch
ool drive and then suddenly turned and ran into the school garden, making straight for a small shed which was propped up against the high stone wall that enclosed the school grounds. This was a shed which the gardener used for the storage of rakes and forks and other bits and pieces of equipment. Bertie had done his reconnaissance well, and knew that it was not kept locked. Now he opened it and slipped inside.

  It took no more than a few minutes for Bertie to be transformed. In place of the crushed-strawberry dungarees and check shirt he was now regaled in a neat white shirt and tie, shorts that were just about the right colour, and the splendid new Watson’s blazer. His old clothes were bundled into his bag and tucked away underneath a rusty bucket which was sitting, inverted, on the ground. Then, glancing out of the cobweb-covered window to check that it was safe to go out, Bertie opened the door of the shed and ran the short distance to the school gate.

  Bertie Escapes!

  139

  It was now time to bring the first stage of the plan to comple-tion. From the pocket of his new blazer, Bertie extracted a neatly written note which he had forged the previous evening. Looking around for a familiar face, he found Merlin, one of the boys in his class.

  “Please give this note to Miss Harmony,” Bertie said, thrusting the envelope into Merlin’s hands. “Don’t say it was me who gave it to you. Just leave it on her desk.”

  Merlin looked at the envelope and then at Bertie. “Why are you wearing that funny outfit?” he asked.

  “I just am,” said Bertie.

  Merlin shrugged, brushing a speck of dust off the shoulder of his rainbow-coloured jacket. “I suppose you’ve got the right to be weird,” he said.

  Bertie thanked him and then quickly went out of the gate and began to make his way round the corner to George Watson’s College. As he walked, he thought of the contents of the letter which he had just entrusted to Merlin. He was good at imitating his mother’s writing, and he thought that he had made a good job of it. “Dear Miss Harmony,” he had written. “Unfortunately my son, Bertie, has contracted an infectious disease and will have to be away from school for some time. I would have come to speak to you about this personally, but I was concerned about passing the disease on to you, in case I have it myself. Please do not worry about Bertie, as he is perfectly happy and will surely be returned to good health in due course. He is being treated with steroids, as are my husband and I, as a precaution.

  Yours sincerely, Irene Pollock.”

  Bertie had been very pleased with this wording and thought that it might work, particularly in view of the medical detail at the end. The mention of an infectious disease, he reasoned, would surely keep the school from contacting his mother, as schools have to be very careful about infections. So if all went according to plan he could simply keep his Watson’s uniform in the shed and change every morning. There were so many children milling about that nobody would notice anything, and Watson’s, he understood, was a very large school. In a large school like that none of the 140 Rugby!

  teachers would notice one extra boy, he felt, and there was no reason why he could not get his entire education there.

  He arrived at the Watson’s gate. Now, he thought, I must just act as if I belong. I must not act suspiciously. I must be confident.

  Bertie swaggered up the drive to the school.

  43. Rugby!

  Once he had entered the portals of George Watson’s College, it was simple matter to find a suitable class. Prominently displayed on the walls were signs indicating which class was which, and Bertie merely followed one that pointed in the direction of Primary One. Once there, he slipped into the classroom with a couple of other boys.

  “Is there a spare desk?” he whispered to one of them. “I’m new here.”

  The other boy pointed towards the back of the classroom.

  “That’s one’s empty,” he said. “Somebody was sitting there, but he went away after only one day. I think he got lost in the corridor.”

  Bertie glanced at the desk. It was ideal for his purposes, as he did not want to draw undue attention to himself. Thanking his new classmate, he made his way to the back of the room and sat himself down at the desk. After a short while the teacher arrived and the class settled down to the task of copying out letters along a straight line. While the pupils were engaged in this, the teacher moved between the rows of desks, stopping to comment on the work of each child. Bertie sat quite still, staring down at the piece of paper on his desk and hoping that the teacher would stop before she reached him. But she did not, and he looked up to see her staring down at him, a surprised expression on her face.

  “Are you in the right room, dear?” she asked kindly. “Have you got a little bit mixed up?”

  Bertie looked up at her and swallowed. “I’ve been transferred,”

  he said. “I was over there, and now I’m here.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the corridor.

  Rugby!

  141

  “Surely not,” said the teacher. “Tell me: what’s your name?”

  “Bertie,” he whispered. “Bertie Pollock.”

  “Well, I think that there must be a bit of a mix-up,” said the teacher. “I’ll check with the office later on. Perhaps they’ve just forgotten to tell me.”

  “Yes,” said Bertie quickly. “That’s probably what’s happened.

  This is such a big school. It must be difficult to keep track.”

  The teacher looked at Bertie with curiosity. “Well, yes, I suppose it is a big school. But people usually end up in the right place. I’m sure that we’ll sort it all out. Don’t you worry about it!”

  When playtime came, Bertie made his way out of the room as quickly as he could. He was not sure whether he would go back into that particular class, as the teacher would presumably discover quite soon that he was not meant to be there. It might be better, he thought, to try another class, perhaps one with a less nosy teacher, if there was one.

  He went out and stood at the side, watching the games that were developing around him. Children were dashing about, shouting at one another, enjoying themselves, but nobody asked Bertie to join in. Bertie looked down at the ground; there did not seem to be much difference between Watson’s and Steiner’s so far; perhaps the whole plan was not such a good idea after all. But then he saw him, and his heart gave a leap. Yes, there was Jock; brave Jock, the boy whom he had met before, the boy who would be his friend.

  “Jock!” shouted Bertie. “Jock! Here I am!”

  Jock, who was running towards the gate, a bag of some sort in his hand, stopped in his tracks and looked at Bertie. He looked puzzled.

  “Yes,” he said. “There you are.”

  Bertie took a few steps towards his friend. “It’s me,” he said.

  “Bertie. Remember?”

  Jock still looked puzzled. “Not really,” he said.

  Bertie felt a stab of disappointment, but did not show it. He gestured to the bag that Jock was carrying. “What are you doing with that?”

  142 Rugby!

  “Rugby,” said Jock. “Over there.” He pointed to a playing field, where a group of boys was beginning to form round a teacher wearing a red tracksuit. “Are you coming too?”

  Bertie lost no time in replying. “Of course,” he said. Then he paused, and added: “I’ve got no kit. I can’t play in my blazer.”

  “Changing rooms,” said Jock casually. “There’s always stuff lying around. Just wear that.”

  Bertie followed Jock to the changing rooms, where he soon found a pair of discarded rugby shorts, a torn and muddy jersey, and a pair of boots that, although several sizes too large, at least did not pinch his toes. Then, trotting along beside Jock, he made his way onto the field, to join the knot of other small players in the middle. His anxieties over the possibility of detection had now faded, and he felt immensely happy. Here he was at last, on the rugby field, in rugby kit, about to play a game with his rediscovered friend, Jock. Mr Gavin Hastings must have started like this, he thou
ght, although he probably wore boots that fitted his feet and wore a jersey that did not have a tear across the right shoulder. But these were small things; the important matter was that he was about to play rugby, on real grass, with real boys, and with a real ball.

  Going Back

  143

  The teacher divided the boys into two teams. Bertie had hoped that Jock would be on his side, but he was not. He waved to Jock, though, but Jock did not return the greeting. Perhaps he did not see me, thought Bertie. Perhaps his mind is on the game already.

  The whistle blew and the ball was in play. Bertie was not quite sure what to do, but he ran enthusiastically in the direction of play. The ball was passed, and Bertie’s side had posses-sion. Bertie cried out: “Over here!” and, rather to his surprise, the boy who had the ball passed it over to him. Now, the ball in his arms, Bertie started to run towards the posts in the distance. He knew that one had to score a try if at all possible, and that all one had to do was to run fast and touch the ball down on the other side of the line.

  He ran as fast he could. There were boys coming towards him, but he ran on. Then one of the boys – and it was Jock –

  stepped in front of him and neatly inserted a foot and ankle between Bertie’s feet.

  Bertie fell to the ground, the ball beneath him. Jock, standing above him, now kicked Bertie in the ribs and, as the effect of this kick made him writhe in agony, Bertie felt the ball being snatched from beneath him. There was no whistle blown; there was no shout of objection; the game simply passed Bertie by.

  Bertie picked himself up and looked at the game, now at the other end of the field. He tried to control himself, but he could not, and the tears ran down his cheeks; bitter tears, that were for everything, really – for the failure of his plan, for the end of his friendship with Jock, for the sheer humiliation of being who he was.

  44. Going Back

  Bertie ran out of the gate of George Watson’s College, hesitated at the edge of the street, and then launched himself across Colinton Road. The traffic was light and he felt none of the 144 Going Back