44 Scotland Street 4ss-1

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “You’re very lucky to have a space like this,” said Irene, pre-emptively. “You really are.”

  Bertie looked at her briefly, almost in reproach, and had then turned away. “Other boys have different spaces,” he said. “They have trains and things.”

  “Other boys are not as lucky as you are,” Irene countered.

  “Other boys are forced into moulds, you know. Forced to play football, for example. Horrid things like that. Do you understand what I mean? We’re giving you something very different, Bertie.

  We’re giving you the gift of freedom from gender roles.”

  “Trains are free,” muttered Bertie.

  Irene struggled to contain her frustration. It was not easy, but she succeeded. “Are they?” she asked gently. “Why are trains free, Bertie? Why do you say that?”

  Bertie sighed. “Trains go out into the night. Remember Mr Auden’s poem, Mummy, the one you read to me once. This is the night mail crossing the border/ Bringing the cheque and the postal order.”

  Irene nodded. She had given him W.H. Auden rather than A.A. Milne in the belief that the insights of Auden would be infinitely better for him than middle-class juvenile nonsense about being halfway up the stairs or changing the guard at Buckingham Palace and all the rest.

  “I could read you more Auden, if you like,” she said. “There’s that lovely poem about . . .”

  “Streams,” interrupted Bertie. “I’d like the poem about streams because he talks about two baby locomotives, remember it? He says the god of mortal doting is pulled over the lawn by two baby locomotives.”

  Irene stared at Bertie. Where on earth did this obsession with trains come from? Neither she nor Stuart talked about trains very much, if ever, and yet he seemed to think of nothing else. She Bertie Begins Therapy

  163

  closed her eyes for a moment and imagined herself arriving at Waverley Station at some time in the future, say ten years from now. And there, standing on the platform, notebook in hand, wearing a blue anorak, would be Bertie, trainspotting, in the company of several other Aspergeresque youths.

  She left the room, the space, quietly. If there was nothing that could be done about it, then this retreat of Bertie into a rejection of everything she and Stuart stood for would be a bitter pill to swallow. But there was something they could do –

  there was a great deal she could do. Therapy – solid, Kleinian therapy – would move Bertie through this dangerous period; therapy would deal with the envy and the other ego issues which were causing this flowering of hate and negativity. And then all would be well. Even if the therapy were to take a year – and she well understood how slow analysis could be – there would still be plenty of time to have Bertie’s ego development sorted out by the time he was due to begin at the Rudolf Steiner School. All that was required was love and patience; the love of a parent who knew that it was only too easy to become a harsh figure, and the patience of one who understood that bad behaviour was merely the product of frustrated longing for that which one wanted to love. Bertie wanted to love the Italian language and the saxophone; in his heart of hearts he associated those with that fundamental object of affection, the good breast, and he would return to a more fulfilling relationship with these things, the things of the mind and the soul, once he had resolved his Oedipal issues.

  And so it was that Irene dressed Bertie in his best OshKosh dungarees and set off for an appointment with Dr Hugo Fairbairn at the Institute. They had time on their hands, and they took a circuitous route, walking along Abercromby Place so that they might look down into the gardens.

  “Look, Bertie,” said Irene, pointing to a shrub that was displaying a riot of blossom. “Look at the little flowers on that bush.”

  Bertie looked down, and then turned away sharply. “Mahonia,”

  he said. “I hate mahonia. I hate flowers.”

  164

  The Rucksack of Guilt

  Irene caught her breath. There was no doubt but that this visit to the therapist was coming not a moment too soon.

  62. The Rucksack of Guilt

  Dr Hugo Fairbairn was unrelated to the distinguished psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn, whose colourful son, the late Nicholas Fairbairn, had so enlivened the Scottish firmament with his surprising remarks and invigorating attitudes. Not many people now knew about Fairbairn père, but his name still counted for something in the history of the psychoanalytical movement, along with names such as Winnicott, Ferenczi, and, of course, Klein. For Hugo Fairbairn, the name was something of a professional asset, as others would make the false assumption of relationship and assume that he was too modest to mention it.

  This gave him authority in the psychoanalytical movement –

  with its dynastic tendencies – and had undoubtedly helped him in establishing his practice. Aided by his name, his rise to eminence had been rapid; he had appeared on conference platforms at the Tavistock, and had been referred to in several articles in The Analytical Review. In due course, his elegantly-written case-history, Shattered to Pieces: Ego Dissolution in a Three-year-old Tyrant, had become something of a classic. Indeed, one reviewer had gone so far as to suggest that Fairbairn’s three-year-old tyrant, Wee Fraser, might be heading for the same sort of immortality as that famous patient whose analysis was written up by Freud – Little Hans, who had feared that the Viennese dray horses might bite him. This, of course, was a grossly inflated claim – no case, ever, anywhere, could be as important as those upon which Freud himself had pronounced – but it was still true that there were some very interesting aspects of Wee Fraser’s troubled psyche. This boy had none of Hans’s neurotic dreads

  – and that was what made him so interesting. Rather than fear that he might be bitten, Wee Fraser had himself bitten a number The Rucksack of Guilt

  165

  of others, including a Liberal Democratic councillor who had called at the door and Dr Fairbairn himself, thus eliciting that famous line in the case history: “The young patient then attempted the oral incorporation of the analyst.”

  Irene, of course, had heard of Dr Fairbairn, and had attended a lecture which he had given on Wee Fraser at the Royal Scottish Museum. She had every confidence in him and in his ability to get to the heart of Bertie’s malaise, and she secretly entertained thoughts of Bertie in due course appearing in the psychoanalytical literature.

  A Remarkably Talented Boy and his Problems in Adjusting to a Mediocre Society. That would be a possible title; and the text itself would be extremely interesting. There would have to be, of course, a complete exposure of Christabel Macfadzean and her lack of understanding of Bertie (and children in general). She, poor woman, would stand for the essential poverty of the bourgeois imagination, a cipher for everything that was wrong with Edinburgh itself.

  She allowed herself the luxury of these thoughts as they completed their journey, Bertie trailing slightly behind her, hands in his pockets, still, she noticed, trying to avoid standing on the cracks.

  “Where are we going anyway?” muttered Bertie.

  “We’re going for therapy,” said Irene. She had never concealed anything from Bertie and this, of all occasions, was one on which a frank explanation was required.

  “What happens at therapy?” asked Bertie, a note of anxiety now entering his voice. “Do other boys have therapy? Will there be other boys there?”

  “Of course other boys have therapy,” said Irene, reassuringly.

  “You may not see other boys, but they do go there. Lots of boys have therapy.”

  Bertie thought for a moment. “Am I having therapy because I’m suspended?” he asked.

  Irene frowned. “Your suspension from nursery was a nonsense,”

  she said. “You mustn’t feel that you have been suspended at all.

  Just ignore it.”

  “But am I suspended?” asked Bertie. “Like a cancelled train?

  Am I cancelled?”

  166

  The Rucksack of Guilt

  “
No,” said Irene, gritting her teeth at the persistent, worrying train references. “That woman tried to suspend you, but I withdrew you before she could do so. You can’t be suspended if you’re withdrawn.” She paused. They were now standing outside the entrance to the Institute, and it was time to go in.

  “We can talk about all that later on,” she said. “Now we must go in and meet Dr Fairbairn. I’m sure that you’ll like him.” And there was certainly nothing forbidding in Dr Fairbairn’s manner when the two of them were shown into his consulting room. He was dressed in a loose-fitting cord jacket and a pair of slightly rumpled charcoal slacks. He greeted them warmly, bending down to shake hands with Bertie and addressing Irene formally as Mrs Pollock.

  Irene knew that she would like him. She usually made snap judgments of people – it had taken her no more than a few minutes to get the measure of Christabel Macfadzean, for example – and she seldom revised her opinions after she had formed them. People were, in her experience, either possible or impossible. Hugo Fairbairn was clearly possible, and she would have judged him so even had she been unaware of his background and his writings.

  Dr Fairbairn gestured to a small circle of easy chairs at one side of the room. “Let’s sit down,” he said, smiling at Bertie as he spoke. “Then we can have a little chat.”

  They took their places and Irene glanced at Dr Fairbairn. In spite of her interest in these matters, she had never actually consulted a psychotherapist before (analysis was ruinously expensive, Stuart had pointed out; the cost of a mortgage, more or less). If she had been able to afford it, Irene would have shown no hesitation in undergoing analysis, not that she had any issues to resolve – there was nothing wrong with her, in her view – but the whole process of discovery of that which drives one would be fascinating, would it not? A whole range of new resentments might surface; new understandings of what one’s parents were doing to one; renewed access to those little secrets of childhood; light upon the dark furniture of the mind.

  The Rucksack of Guilt

  167

  But that was not what Bertie needed. His conflicts were fresh and current, not buried deep in the experience of the past.

  But how would Dr Fairbairn elucidate these things? Through Kleinian play therapy?

  “What’s the trouble then?” asked Dr Fairbairn, rubbing his hands together as he spoke. “Been a naughty boy?”

  Irene could not prevent herself from gasping. This was a very direct approach, almost naïve in its directness, and yet he must know what he was doing. This was, after all, the author of Shattered to Pieces.

  Bertie stared at Dr Fairbairn. For a moment he did nothing, and then he winced, as if bracing himself for a slap.

  Dr Fairbairn’s eyes narrowed. He threw a glance at Irene, who was looking at Bertie and frowning.

  “You aren’t here to be punished,” said Dr Fairbairn. “Did you think I was going to smack you?”

  “Yes,” said Bertie. “I thought that you were going to smack me for thinking bad thoughts.”

  Dr Fairbairn smiled. “No, Bertie, I’d never do that. Analysts don’t smack people.”

  “Not even if they deserve it?” asked Bertie.

  “Not even then,” replied Dr Fairbairn. He was about to continue, when he stopped, and appeared to think of something.

  168

  Irene Converses with Dr Hugo Fairbairn When he had been bitten by Wee Fraser, he had in fact smacked him sharply on the hand. Nobody had seen it and of course it was not mentioned in the case report. But he had done it, and now he felt guilt, like a great burden upon his back. The Rucksack of Guilt, he thought.

  63. Irene Converses with Dr Hugo Fairbairn

  “There’s something troubling you,” said Irene when she saw the pained expression cross Dr Fairbairn’s face. “You looked almost tormented just then.”

  Dr Fairbairn turned away from Bertie to face Irene.

  “You’re very observant,” he said. “And indeed you’re right. I felt a great pang of regret. It’s passed now, but yes, it was very strong.”

  “The emotions always register so clearly,” said Irene. “Our bodies are not very good at concealing things. The body is far too truthful.”

  Dr Fairbairn smiled. “Absolutely. That’s the great insight which Wilhelm Reich shared with us, isn’t it? Reich was a bit odd in some of his views, I’m afraid, but he was right about character armour. Are you familiar with what he says about that?”

  Irene nodded. “The idea we create a carapace of posture and gesture to protect the real us. Like Japanese Noh actors and their masks.”

  “Precisely,” said Dr Fairbairn.

  For a short while nothing was said. During the exchange between his mother and Dr Fairbairn, Bertie had been watching the adults, but now he turned away and looked out of the window, up at the sky, which was deep and empty. A tiny vapour trail cut across the blue, drawn by an almost invisible plane. How cold it must be up there in that jet, thought Bertie, but they would have jerseys and gloves and would be kept warm that way. Planes were good, but not as good as trains. He had travelled on a plane the previous year, to Portugal for their holidays, and he still cherished Irene Converses with Dr Hugo Fairbairn 169

  the memory of looking out of the window and seeing the ground fall away below him. He had seen roads, and cars, as small as toys, and a train on a railway line . . .

  “You looked anguished,” said Irene. “It must have been a very painful memory.”

  “Not for me,” said Dr Fairbairn quickly. “Well, the smack was painful for him, I suppose.”

  “For whom?”

  Dr Fairbairn shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it,”

  he said.

  Irene laughed. “But surely that’s exactly what you get other people to do – you get them to talk about things.”

  Dr Fairbairn spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I have talked about it in the past,” he said. “I certainly told my own analyst.”

  “And did that not draw the pain?” asked Irene gently.

  “For a short time,” said Dr Fairbairn. “But then the pain returned. Pain comes back, doesn’t it? We think that we have it under control, and then it comes back to us.”

  “I understand what you mean,” said Irene. “Something happened to me a long time ago which is still painful. I feel an actual physical pain when I think of it, even today. It’s like a constriction of the chest.”

  “We can lay these ghosts to rest if we go about it in the right way,” said Dr Fairbairn. “The important thing is to understand the thing itself. To see it for what it really is.”

  “Which is just what Auden says in that wonderful poem of his,” said Irene. “You know the one? The one he wrote in memory of Freud shortly after Freud’s death in London. Able to approach the future as a friend, without a wardrobe of excuses – what a marvellous insight.”

  “I know the poem,” said Dr Fairbairn.

  “And so do I,” interjected Bertie.

  Dr Fairbairn, whose back had been turned to Bertie, now swung round and looked at him with interest.

  “Do you read Auden, Bertie?”

  Irene answered for him. “Yes, he does. I started him off 170

  Irene Converses with Dr Hugo Fairbairn when he was four. He responded very well to Auden. It’s the respect for metre that makes him so accessible to young people.”

  Dr Fairbairn looked doubtful, but if he had been going to contest Irene’s assertion he appeared to think better of it.

  “Of course, Auden had some very strange ideas,” he mused.

  “Apropos of our conversation of a few moments ago – about psychosomatic illness – Auden went quite far in his views on that.

  He believed that some illnesses were punishments, and that very particular parts of the body would go wrong if one did the wrong thing. So when he heard that Freud had cancer of the jaw, he said: He must have been a liar. Isn’t that bizarre?”

  “Utterly,” said Irene. “But then people
believe all sorts of things, don’t they? The Emperor Justinian, for example, believed that homosexuality caused earthquakes. Can you credit that?”

  Dr Fairbairn then made an extremely witty remark (an Emperor Justinian joke of the sort which was very popular in Byzantium not all that long ago) and Irene laughed. “Frightfully funny,” she said.

  Dr Fairbairn inclined his head modestly. “I believe that a modicum of wit helps the spirits. Humour is cathartic, don’t you find?”

  “I know a good joke,” interjected Bertie.

  “Later,” said Dr Fairbairn.

  Irene now resumed her conversation with the analyst. “I’ve often thought of undergoing a training in analysis,” she said. “I’m very interested in Melanie Klein.”

  Dr Fairbairn nodded encouragingly. “You shouldn’t rule it out,” he said. “There’s a crying need for psychoanalysts in this city. And virtually nobody knows anything about Klein.” He paused for a moment. “It’s a totally arbitrary matter – the supply of analysts. There’s Buenos Aires, for example, where there is an abundance – a positive abundance – and here in Scotland we are so few.”

  Irene looked thoughtful. “It must be very hard for analysts in Argentina, with their economic crisis and everything. I gather that some analysts have seen their savings wiped out entirely.”

  Irene Converses with Dr Hugo Fairbairn 171

  “Yes,” said Dr Fairbairn. “It’s been tough for analysts there.

  Firstly the generals, Videla and that bunch. They banned the teaching of psychoanalysis, you know. For years people had to be discreet. Freud unsettles people like generals. Military types don’t like him.”

  “Not surprising,” said Irene. “People in uniform don’t like to be reminded of the fact that we’re all vulnerable underneath.

  Uniforms are a protection for fragile egos.

  “I would never, ever, send Bertie to a school that required a uniform,” said Irene firmly. “There are no uniforms at the Steiner School.”

  They both looked at Bertie, who looked back at them.