Bertie looked at the sheet of music. It was not all difficult.
Grade five, he thought, or six perhaps; both of which examina-tions he had recently passed with distinction. It would be easy to play that piece. But no: he would now have to put his plan into operation. He would not play what was before him. Instead, he would play something quite different, something defiant.
That would surely lead to his rejection; if one would not play what one was meant to play, then one should not be in an orchestra – that was obvious.
He mounted the stage and walked over to the music stand.
He placed the sheet of music on the stand and hitched his saxophone onto its sling, at first ignoring the sea of faces in front of him. But then he saw that one or two were laughing. They were looking at him, and laughing at him; laughing at the fact that he had a saxophone, he thought; laughing at the fact that he was only six; laughing at the fact that he was wearing pink dungarees.
Bertie raised the mouthpiece to his lips and blew the first note. Closing his eyes, he continued and soon was well into a fine rendition of ‘As Time Goes By’ from Casablanca, the same 128 Delta of George Street
piece that he practised so regularly directly below Pat’s bedroom in Scotland Street; a fine rendition, perhaps, but a disobedient one, and one which would be bound to irritate the conductor.
When he came to the end of the piece, he lowered the saxophone and glanced quickly at his mother. She would be angry with him, he knew, but it would be better to face her anger than to be forced into a teenage orchestra.
The conductor was silent for a moment. Then, rising to his feet, he clapped his hands together.
“Brilliant!” he exclaimed loudly. “What a brilliant performance, young man! You’re in!”
41. Delta of George Street
“You clever little boy!” said Irene, as she bundled Bertie out of the Queen’s Hall and into the street outside. “It was rather a risky thing to do, of course, but, my goodness, didn’t it pay off!”
Bertie, his eyes downcast, said nothing. As far as he had been concerned, the audition had been a complete disaster.
Not only was there that unfortunate episode in which his mother made that embarrassing comment within earshot of Harry, but then his playing and his deliberate disobedience had brought exactly the opposite result to that which he had intended. He was now a member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra and would be obliged to go with the other players to Paris, with his mother in attendance. It would be bearable
– just – if he went by himself, but that was not to be. Nobody else would have their mother with them; and none of them, he was sure, would be forced to go to bed at seven o’clock.
Nobody went to bed at seven in Paris, even French children.
Les enfants stayed up late at night, he had heard, eating with the adults, sipping red wine, and discussing the latest books and films. French mothers were obviously not like his own; French boys did not do yoga.
Irene glanced down at him. “Are you all right, Bertie?” she Delta of George Street 129
asked. And then, answering her own question, she said: “Of course you are. You’re as thrilled as I am. I can tell.”
Bertie shook his head. “I don’t want to be in it,” he said. “I told you that a hundred times. You never listen, Mummy.”
“Of course I listen,” said Irene, pulling Bertie along. “I listen to you all the time, Bertie. Mummy is a listening mummy! It’s just that sometimes mummies have to take decisions for their boys if their boys are not quite old enough to know what’s good for them. You’ll thank me, Bertie. You just wait. You’ll thank me.”
Bertie was not sure that he would, but he knew that there was no point in arguing with his mother. He sighed, and looked at his watch. It was a Saturday, and that meant yoga in Stockbridge, in the course entitled Bendy Fun for Tots. If Bertie felt that he was too young to be a member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, then he felt that he was far too old to go to Bendy Fun for Tots. In that class, he seemed to be the oldest by far; the other member of the class nearest in age to him was a four-year-old boy called Sigi, whose mother was friendly with Irene and discussed Melanie Klein with her. The other children seemed to be much younger still and had to be helped into the yoga position because they were unable to stand yet.
Bertie wished that after the excitement of the audition his mother would forget about yoga, and his hopes were considerably raised when she suggested that they get off the bus at George Street so that she could go to the bookshop. Although he wanted only to go home, Bertie felt that a visit to the bookshop, which would distract his mother from yoga, was worth-while, and he would, if necessary, prolong the expedition by offering advice on what books were available.
“What are you looking for, Mummy?” asked Bertie, once they reached the bookshop. “More Melanie Klein?”
Irene laughed. “Dear Bertie!” she said. “No, I have rather a lot by Melanie Klein, you know. I’m after something different.
I feel in the mood for something to entertain me.”
Bertie stood on his tip-toes to look at the piles of books on a display table. “There are some nice books here, Mummy,” he said. “Look. That one looks exciting. How about that one?”
130 Delta of George Street
Irene looked to where Bertie’s small finger was pointing. “No dear,” she said. “Anaïs Nin. I think not, somehow.”
“But it looks like a nice book, Mummy,” said Bertie. “There’s a lady on the cover. Look.”
Irene smiled. “Believe me, Bertie, that’s not what I had in mind.”
Bertie looked at the other books. There were several Patrick O’Brian novels, with pictures of sailing ships, their cannons blasting away at each other. The ships had sail upon sail, all the way up their towering masts, and the tiny figures of men, and boys too, it seemed, scaled the rigging.
“Look,” said Bertie. “There’s a book by Mr O’Brian, Mummy.
Daddy has read some of those. Should we get one for Daddy?”
Irene looked disdainfully at the naval tale. “Pure masculine fantasy,” she said. “Escape to sea, to a world without women.
Rather sad, in a way.”
Bertie looked puzzled. He did not see anything wrong with escaping to sea to escape women. He wondered if they still took cabin boys in the Navy. If they did, then perhaps he could enlist and go off to sea from Leith. They would not let his mother come with them – the Navy was fussy about things like that –
and she would have to wave to him from the shore. But the other sailors would not know that she was his mother, and they might think that she was just a strange woman who liked to wave to ships. So that would not be too embarrassing. And perhaps Tofu could come with him, as a cabin boy too, and they Empower Points 131
could climb the rigging together and keep a look-out for other ships, up there, high on the mast, almost in the clouds. It would feel like flying, he thought, almost like flying.
Irene looked at her watch. “Bertie, dear,” she began. And his spirits sank. Yoga. But no. “Bertie, dear,” she said. “You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen! Dr Fairbairn! I think I’ll just pop up and have a quick chat with him in the coffee room upstairs. Would you mind? You could maybe look at some of the books in the children’s section. They have a nice little chair through there.”
Bertie did not mind in the least. He had no desire to see his therapist. It was bad enough seeing him in his consulting rooms.
She was welcome to him. But then he thought: what does she want to chat to him about? Could it be about the baby? Bertie had had a dream in which he saw his future baby brother clad in a romper suit made of the same blue linen as Dr Fairbairn’s jacket. It had been very strange, very disconcerting.
42. Empower Points
Pat had decided that she would have to do something about Wolf. It seemed to her that Wolf had far from broken off with Tessie, and this led to the conclusion that he envisaged having two girlfriends at
the same time. Now, Pat knew that there were some men who liked the idea of such arrangements. On her ill-fated trip to Australia, she had read a novel in which an airline pilot had kept two wives, each in a different city. That was outrageous (although very clever), even if Bruce, to whom she had described the plot, had merely leered at her and said: “Lucky man.” That was typical of Bruce, of course, and she shuddered at the memory of her unlamented landlord.
And yet, in spite of her distaste for Lotharios such as Bruce, she found herself wondering – and she did feel rather guilty about it
– what it would be like to have two boyfriends. Did she, as a woman, disapprove as much of that as she did of the idea that a man might have two girlfriends? It was an interesting thought. What if she 132 Empower Points
were to have Wolf as her exciting boyfriend (a sort of mistress, so to speak; perhaps the masculine term was master, but surely not) and Matthew as her solid, dependable boyfriend? That’s exactly what men did when they kept a mistress, was it not? They had their wife, who was solid and dependable, and who kept the home going, and then they had a younger and more exciting woman tucked away in a flat somewhere, to be visited from time to time and indulged in expensive clothes and Belgian chocolates. Belgian chocolates had come to mind, but, she asked herself, did mistresses actually eat Belgian chocolates? It seemed likely that they did, sitting there on their pink sofas, in Moray Place perhaps. The image seemed somehow quite right, and she smiled at the thought.
She looked out of the window. She was sitting at her desk in the gallery, waiting for Matthew to return from his prolonged coffee-break at Big Lou’s, paging through the catalogue of an impending sale. Women, she thought, were generally the victims of masculine bad behaviour largely because men, for all that they affected to have absorbed the lessons of equality, had steadfastly refused to change their ways. Men wanted to be in control; to take the initiative; to determine the pace and circumstances of a relationship. Many women, of course, were perfectly content that this should be so, and quietly allowed men to assert themselves, or at least enjoy the appearance of being the dominant sex. But others were determined that men should not get away with this and battled to assert themselves. The word for this, Pat knew, was empowerment. Every time a man was cut down to size, a woman was empowered.
In a sudden moment of stark self-appraisal, there in the gallery, Pat reflected on her position. What was she? A middle-class Edinburgh girl, attractive enough, intelligent enough, but amounting to . . . to nothing. I make nothing happen. I do nothing unusual. I have never challenged anything. I am an observer. I lack . . . What do I lack? And the answer seemed to her to be so immediately obvious. Power.
She was disempowered – completely disempowered.
She let the catalogue slip out of her hands and down onto the floor. It seemed to her that if she was going to change, to make Empower Points 133
something of her life, she should start getting what she wanted in life. She had never done this before. She had let other people decide for her; she had deferred to those who already had what they wanted and tried to get still more. Why should she be worried about what Tessie thought of her? If she wanted Wolf, then she should go out and get him. And if Tessie resented that, then let her do so. She would not be bullied by a girl like that, with her split ends and her broken nose. For all she knew, Tessie, who was definitely empowered, had herself taken Wolf from another girl.
Well, whether or not that had happened, now she would find out what it was to come up against a newly-empowered woman.
Of course, there would have to be some reparative work. She had told Wolf in the lecture that she was not interested, and then, when he followed her to the Elephant House, she had thrown him to the mercy of her new friend, Sister Connie. It had been an eye-opener to see how the otherwise gentle nun had succeeded in dealing with Wolf. She had stridden across to his table, sat down opposite him, and spoken to him in an urgent and confidential way. Pat had noticed Wolf’s reaction to this. He had listened intently and then, visibly backing off, he had risen to his feet and left the coffee house, barely looking back as he did so.
She had not managed to find out from Sister Connie what she had said to him. When the nun had returned to the table she had asked, but Sister Connie had merely smiled and raised a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence.
“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I warned him off. He won’t be troubling you again.”
She had not thought much more about it, but now that she might see Wolf again, she might have to undo Sister Connie’s work, whatever that had been. She took out the small red diary that she always carried with her. Wolf had given her his mobile phone number, and she had written it down in the notebook.
She found the number and picked up the telephone.
Wolf answered almost immediately, with the lupine howl that he gave to identify himself. It was very witty, very clever.
“It’s Pat,” she said.
There was complete silence at the other end of the line, or 134 Matthew Comforts Pat
almost complete, for Pat thought that she heard an intake of breath – not quite a gasp, but certainly an intake of breath.
Then Wolf spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t talk now.
Goodbye.”
“But Wolf . . .”
“I said that I can’t talk.”
There was a crackling sound, and Pat realised that somebody else had seized the phone.
“Is that you?” came Tessie’s unmistakable voice. “Is that you?
You listen to me. I warned you. I warned you. You leave my Wolfie alone. Understand?”
43. Matthew Comforts Pat
Pat was still upset when Matthew returned from Big Lou’s. He noticed it immediately, and sat down beside her.
“There’s something wrong,” he said.
Pat shook her head; she could see that he was concerned, but she was not going to tell him.
“Yes, there is. There obviously is.” He reached out and took her hand. “Come on. You’re not very good at hiding things, you know. You’re upset.”
Pat felt the pressure of his hand upon hers. She had never had that degree of physical contact with Matthew, and it seemed strange to her. His hand felt warm and dry.
Matthew smiled. “That’s better. Come on. What is it?” He paused, fixing her with a searching look. She noticed the grey flecks in his eyes, which she had often thought about before –
they were so unusual, so unlikely; she noticed the slight stain on the front of his sweater. He was not wearing his new distressed-oatmeal cashmere today, but had on the sweater that she had seen him wear at weekends, an old, navy-blue garment that had lost its shape.
“I suppose I’ve just had a bit of a shock,” she said. “I’ll get over it.”
Matthew Comforts Pat 135
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “It’s that boy, isn’t it?” he said gently.
“That boy – the one with the name. Wolf. It’s him, isn’t it?”
Pat nodded miserably. “It’s about him, I suppose. Although actually it’s about his girlfriend.”
If Matthew felt relief, he did not show it. “So he’s let you down,” he said evenly. This was very good news. Wolf was a two-timer; of course he was! “You know, I was worried that something like this would happen. I never liked him.”
Pat looked up sharply. “You never met him,” she pointed out.
He waved a hand in the air. “You know what I mean. You can dislike people you’ve never met. I sensed that he wasn’t right for you. I sensed it.”
Pat felt herself becoming irritated. She still felt defensive of Wolf, who had done nothing wrong as far as she was concerned
– other than wanting to have two girlfriends at the same time.
What worried her was Tessie, and the difficulty she would now face on going back to the flat. The animus in Tessie’s voice, the sheer vitriol, was such that she simply could not see herself going back to Spottiswoode Street.
She could not imagine how she could possibly face that unpleasant girl, and she could hardly live under the same roof and not see her. They each had their own room of course, but there was the bathroom and the kitchen, which were shared, and the front door and the stair too. She wondered what she should do if they both came back at the same time and had to climb the stair together. Would they do so in tight-lipped silence, or would one rush ahead to get away from the other? No, it was impossible. She would have to move out. She would have to find somewhere else to live.
She looked at Matthew. She should not be offended that he had taken against Wolf as he had. It was flattering, really, to have about her somebody like Matthew, who at least liked her enough to feel jealousy. And if his fondness for her was sometimes awkward, then perhaps indifference would have been more difficult.
She gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Matthew,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I know that you . . . that you worry about me.”
Matthew smiled reassuringly. “I suppose I do worry,” he said.
“I don’t want you to get hurt. That’s all.”
136 Matthew Comforts Pat
Pat moved her hand away from his, but did so gently. She began to explain to him about Tessie and her hostility, and she told him about her snatching the telephone from Wolf.
“She’s frightening,” she said. “She really is. It seems that she’ll do anything to keep him.”
Matthew’s expression was grim. “You can’t go back there,” he said. “Or you can’t go back there by yourself. Why don’t I go back with you and help you get your things?”
Pat looked relieved. Tessie would hardly try anything if Matthew were present, and then she could . . . She stopped. It was all very well planning to collect her possessions and move out of Spottiswoode Street, but where would she move to? She could not go back to Scotland Street, and she could think of no particular friends on whose floor she could ask to stay. She would have to go home, and that, in spite of the comfort and security which it represented, would be an unacceptable admission of failure. Her father would be nice about it, she thought, and her mother, if she was there, would hardly notice. But it would be so demeaning to have to go home after trying so hard to establish her independence.
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