Espresso Tales 4ss-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

  106 Bertie Makes a Move

  Big Lou wanted to side with Matthew, but could not. “Yes,”

  she conceded, a note of reluctance in her voice. “Angus is probably right – in this case. But you’re right, too, Matthew, when it comes to most of the things we do. There must be a difference between the things you do on a sudden urge and the things you do after you’ve thought about them for a long time.”

  “So what do you think, Lou?” asked Angus. “Is there a difference between Uncle A and Uncle B as far as you’re concerned?

  What did that book of yours say?”

  “It hinted at an answer,” said Big Lou. “But mostly it just raised the question. Books don’t always give the answers, you know. Sometimes they just raise the questions.”

  Angus smiled. “So nothing’s certain, then?”

  “That’s right,” said Big Lou.

  “Except death and taxes,” interjected Matthew. “Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

  “They don’t pay taxes in Italy,” observed Angus. “I knew a painter in Naples who never paid taxes – ever. Very good painter too.”

  “What happened to him?” asked Matthew.

  “He died,” said Angus.

  33. Bertie Makes a Move

  In the days that followed his visit to George Street with his mother, Bertie had been preoccupied with his plan. The purchase of the Watson’s blazer from Aitken and Niven was feasible only with the co-operation of the boy from round the corner.

  Unfortunately, there was a difficulty with this as he was not sure exactly where this new friend lived. He had met him only on the one occasion and although the other boy had given him his name – he was called Paddy – he had not been specific as to where he lived. He had pointed in the direction of the far end of Fettes Row, which was just round the corner, when Bertie Makes a Move

  107

  Bertie had asked him, but he had given no number.

  Nor had he given Bertie his surname, which would have allowed the telephone directory to be consulted. So all that Bertie could do if he wanted to contact him was to wait in the street in the hope that he might appear.

  And there was a difficulty with doing even that. Bertie was now allowed out alone in Scotland Street and Drummond Place, provided that he did not cross any busy roads and provided that he told Irene exactly where he was going. This allowed him to sit on the steps outside No 44 and watch people going in and out of their houses. It also allowed him to stand at the end of Scotland Street Lane in the hope of seeing one of the motorcycles that occasionally roared out of the vintage-motorcycle garage (out of bounds).

  Bertie liked the motorcyclists, who sometimes waved or nodded to him. He would like to have a motorcycle like that, which he could ride to rugby matches, and he would do so, he thought, when he was bigger.

  His mother would not like it, of course – she said that motorcycles were noisy things – worse than cars – and that if she were the Lord Provost of Edinburgh she would ban them from the streets. But even if he got hold of a motorcycle, she would still try to spoil it for him, thought Bertie. Motorcyclists wore leather outfits, sometimes with badges on them; she would force him to wear leather dungarees, he thought, and all the other motorcyclists would laugh at him.

  If Paddy lived on Fettes Row, then he would have to go and seek him there. But again there were obstacles. Although one section of Fettes Row was accessible, the other section, where Paddy lived, lay beyond Dundas Street, and the crossing of Dundas Street was definitely forbidden.

  Bertie wrestled with this. He could not tell his mother that he was going to the other side of Fettes Row because she would forbid him outright. And if he lied, which he did not want to do – for he was a truthful boy (apart from his habit of occasionally giving a false name) – then he would surely give himself away with his blushes. So he would have to 108 Bertie Makes a Move

  develop a form of words which allowed for the crossing of Dundas Street.

  “Can I go down to Royal Crescent?” he asked one afternoon.

  Irene glanced up from the book she was reading, a new biography of Melanie Klein. For a moment she wondered how Melanie Klein would have answered had anybody asked her permission to go to Royal Crescent. It would have been too simple just to say yes. Perhaps she would have said: Why do you want to go to Royal Crescent?

  “Why?” she said.

  Bertie shrugged. “I want to play.”

  Irene looked back at the book. The biographer had reached a point where Kleinian theories of play were on the point of being discussed at an important meeting in London. Melanie was anxious about the implications of a possible attack from Freudian loyalists who believed she had strayed too far from the fold. The pace of the account, with all its intrigue, was building up.

  “That’s fine, Bertie. You play. And then maybe we can talk about how you played. Would that be all right? You could tell Mummy about your little games?”

  Bertie pursed his lips. It was none of her business how he played. He wanted to play Chase the Dentist, but she said that it was too violent, and he could never find anybody to play it with him. But he did not want to argue about that now; bland acceptance was a better policy.

  “And then I’ll go round to the end of the street and then come back,” he said.

  Every word of the sentence had been rehearsed, and he delivered his line faultlessly. It was true, after all, and there was no need to feel ashamed or to blush over what he had said. Royal Crescent and Fettes Row were, strictly speaking, separate streets, but in a broad sense they were the same street, as Fettes Row was a continuation of Royal Crescent. And the section of Fettes Row which lay on the far side of Dundas Street could, of course, be described as the same street as the bit that lay on the near side. So he felt that it was quite reasonable for him to say that Bertie Makes a Move

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  he was going to the end of the street, even if he knew that Irene might misinterpret what he said. A boy was not responsible for the misinterpretations of his mother, he thought. That was carrying things far too far.

  Irene nodded. “Be careful,” she said. “And don’t be too long.”

  She paused, and looked up again from her book. “And have you done your Italian today, Bertie?”

  Bertie had taken the precaution of doing his Italian exercises to prevent their being used as a way of thwarting his plan.

  “Si, si,” he said. “Ciao, Mama!”

  “Ciao, ciao, bambino!” Irene muttered, and returned to her Melanie Klein. It was typical, she thought, that institutional forces should have sought to discredit truly innovative developments in the international psychoanalytical movement. It was absolutely typical.

  For a moment she allowed her mind to wander. Dr Fairbairn had been something of a pioneer himself – a recent pioneer –

  with his theory of the juvenile tantrum. But he must have encountered opposition to his theories when he first published his study of Wee Fraser.

  Presumably there were those who were envious of his success, who wanted to bring him down because they hated the fact that he had done something. There were always people like that, she thought. They are unsettled by the good fortune, or the happiness, of others. They allowed envy, that most corrosive of human emotions, to prompt them to make sneering remarks.

  And all they achieved in this way was an increase in the sum total of the world’s unhappiness and a contraction, a deforma-tion, of their own hearts.

  110 Chapter title

  34. Bertie Prepares to Cross Dundas Street Bertie left the front door of 44 Scotland Street in that state of heightened excitement of mind and senses that goes with the performance of the dangerous, or the plainly forbidden. He had not lied to his mother – he was certain of that – but at the same time what he was proposing to do was clearly outside the understanding that existed between them.

  He thought for a moment: I am going to cross Dundas Street, alone, and the enormity of his adventure came home to him. In such a st
ate of anticipation might Adam have reached up to pick the fruit, thought Bertie, although as all boys, and men, knew, that was really Eve’s fault. If he was breaking the rules, then, it was obviously his mother’s fault for making them in the first place.

  This thought encouraged him, and he smiled as he began to walk along Royal Crescent and then to Fettes Row, with its fateful conjunction with Dundas Street. He knew that this mission might prove futile, that there might be no trace of Paddy, and that he would return with nothing accomplished.

  But it was at least a first step in the execution of his plan, and he was confident that sooner or later he would meet up with Paddy and put his proposal to him. And Paddy would accept, of course; he was that sort of boy. He went fishing in the Pentland Hills and caught trout. For a boy who did that, the task which Bertie had planned for him would be simplicity itself.

  Bertie had decided that he would walk up and down Fettes Row for half an hour or so in the hope that Paddy might emerge.

  It was a warm afternoon, part of an Indian summer in which Edinburgh was basking, and Paddy might well come out on to the street to play. But even if he did not, then Bertie had brought with him a small piece of blackboard chalk, and with this he would leave a message for Paddy on some of the stairs that led up to the front doors on Fettes Row. PADDY, he would write, MEET ME IN SCOTLAND STREET SOON. URGENT.

  SECRET. BERTIE.

  Bertie Prepares to Cross Dundas Street 111

  That would draw him out, thought Bertie. No boy could resist a message like that. And then Bertie thought: will Paddy know how to read? If he did not – and that was perfectly likely

  – then there would be no point in writing the message. This conclusion slightly dampened his spirits; it was not easy, he realised, being more advanced than others. And again this was not his fault, he thought with irritation; it all came back to his mother. She’s the one who has ruined my life. She’s the one.

  Royal Crescent, a terrace of high, classical buildings, was quiet as Bertie made his way along it. A cat watched him from the top of a car, its eyes narrowing as it assessed the threat which he presented to its peace of mind and safety. But Bertie was no threat and the cat closed its eyes again. And then a woman came out of a front door and stood for a moment at the top of her steps as Bertie walked past. Bertie looked up, and she smiled.

  “Going somewhere?” she asked in a friendly tone.

  Bertie stopped in his tracks. “Yes,” he said.

  The woman continued to smile. “Don’t get up to any mischief,” she said.

  112 Bertie Prepares to Cross Dundas Street Bertie stood quite still. How could she tell? Did something give it away, just as Pinocchio’s face gave away his lies? Could adults just tell?

  “I won’t,” he muttered.

  “Good,” she said, and turned away, fumbling with her key.

  Bertie continued on his way, more slowly, more circumspectly.

  Now the end of the first section of Fettes Row was in sight and there was Dundas Street, with its traffic. A bus went past on its way up to town, its engine straining against the hill. Behind it, a blue van waited its chance to overtake. The traffic seemed heavy.

  As he came to the corner, the shadows of the buildings gave way to a burst of sunlight. Bertie stopped at the edge of the pavement and looked across the busy thoroughfare of Dundas Street. For a moment, out of ancient habit, he looked up beside him, expecting to find the familiar adult, his mother or his father, at his side. That is how one crossed the street – beside an adult

  – with one’s hand in the adult hand, safe and guided. But there was no adult now; no mother, no teacher, no psychotherapist.

  Bertie was alone. He swallowed hard, and closed his eyes for a moment. Nobody had taught him the principles of crossing a busy street. Should he wait until there were no cars in sight and then walk slowly across? The problem with that was that he would stand there forever: there were always cars in sight on this busy road.

  He looked up the hill. The traffic came down more quickly than it went up. This meant that if he could find a break in the traffic coming down, it would not matter so much if there was something coming up the hill – such traffic would always take longer to reach him. But how long would he need? It was difficult to judge the precise speed of the traffic, and although the buses seemed to be moving very slowly, some of the cars were doing anything but that. Indeed, as he stood there, a small red car shot past him so quickly that he would have missed it, he felt, had he blinked. That car would most certainly have run him over if he had been crossing the street when it had roared round the corner of Henderson Row.

  Halfway Across

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  For a few moments, Bertie considered abandoning his mission. It would be simple to turn round and retrace his steps

  – as yet innocent steps – back to Scotland Street and home. If he did that he would have done nothing wrong at all and could face his mother and tell her exactly what he had done. He had gone to the end of the safe part of Fettes Row – that was all.

  But to do this was a complete capitulation. If he did not even have the courage to cross Dundas Street, then would he have the courage to do anything at all? And what of Gavin Hastings?

  he thought. Would he have been afraid to cross Dundas Street at the age of six? He would not. He imagined that Gavin Hastings had run across Dundas Street on many occasions as a boy; run and jumped and kicked his heels so that anyone watching would have nodded their heads wisely and said: Look at that boy! That’s a boy who’s bound to play rugby for Scotland!

  Bertie took a deep breath. He decided to run.

  35. Halfway Across

  Peter Backhouse, musician and aficionado of old railways, happened to be walking down Dundas Street that afternoon.

  He had spent a very satisfactory hour practising on the St Giles’ organ and was pleased with the Olivier Messiaen and Herbert Howells which he planned to perform at a “St Giles’

  at Six” concert the following Sunday. There was such quiet in the music, such calm; it was the perfect antidote to the frenzied pace of modern life. Now, returning to the Academy for afternoon chamber-choir practice, he thought of what lay ahead of him. No Messiaen or Howells for the choir – at least not today – but a quick run through of Stand by Me and So it Goes, which the chamber choir had sung before and would respond to well; tear-jerkers, both of those pieces, if one were in a sentimental mood – which parents often were at school concerts.

  He had reached the point at which Cumberland Street meets 114 Halfway Across

  Dundas Street when he realised that something was happening.

  He had glanced at his watch – a quick check to see that he was still in good time for choir practice – and for some reason, perhaps through an unconscious prompting of things seen but unseen, he looked over to his right and saw a small boy, wearing strawberry-coloured dungarees, suddenly run out into the street. For a moment, Peter Backhouse thought that the boy had kicked a ball into the road and was rushing out to retrieve it – it was that sort of purposeful, darting movement – but then the boy hesitated, took a few more steps, and stopped again.

  Oliver Sacks has pointed out that those who are involved in moments of extreme peril often report a slowing-down of time.

  They see the danger, they may even see impending annihila-tion, but they often feel that they have plenty of time to react.

  The quick seconds of peril are slowed, become minutes in the minds of those involved. This is how it seemed that afternoon.

  For Peter Backhouse, the boy seemed to be standing still for an inordinately long time, quite enough time to step from the path of the bus that was approaching him as he stood, momentarily frozen, in the middle of the road. The bus lumbered past, some faces at least peering out from the window at the sight of the small boy, statue-like, in the middle of the traffic. Then there were cars, one of which slowed down and swerved, avoiding a small movement that the boy had made.

  Peter Backhouse s
houted out to the boy, “Don’t move!” He looked up the road at the approaching traffic; a red light on the corner of Great King Street had changed and a stream of vehicles seemed to be hurtling down towards the boy while at the same time more cars came from the other direction. He looked behind him and decided that he should step out into the traffic and hold it up, hoping that it would heed him and allow the boy to complete his journey. But a car had already reached the point where he was standing and had shot past the stationary boy. Perhaps they could not see him; perhaps they thought that he was waiting to cross and knew exactly what he was doing.

  And then, quite suddenly, a car careered round the corner Halfway Across

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  behind him and launched itself down the road, going far too fast, the driver, distracted perhaps, unaware of the boy in the middle of the road – the boy who now seemed on the verge of overcoming his panicky indecision and launching himself into the rest of his interrupted crossing of the road. Peter Backhouse shouted, and began to leap forward, but he had been anticipated by another, a man on the other side of the road. This man, who had been walking up Dundas Street, had also seen what was happening and had acted. With a quick glance behind him, he darted forward, narrowly avoiding a passing van, and ran into the middle of the road. There, he seized the frightened boy and lifted him up bodily, right out of the path of the oncoming car.

  Then, still holding him in his arms, he strode back to the edge of the road and to safety. A car squealed to a halt and a motorist shouted something out – a compliment, an expression of relief, an offer to help – but the rescuer indicated that all was well and the car drove off. On the other side of the road, Peter Backhouse shook his head, but breathed a deep sigh of relief. Then he strode off to choir practice. Stand by Me indeed! How very appropriate.

  Bertie, quivering with fright and on the point of tears, stood abjectly on the pavement, his rescuer beside him.