Espresso Tales

by Alexander McCall Smith

  17. Down Among the Innocents

  Sitting at his new desk, with his name printed out in large letters in front of him, Bertie stared at his new classmates. There were fifteen of them, eight boys and seven girls, none of whom he knew. He at least had the advantage over them; he could read the names of all the others, whereas most of them could not. He looked at the placards: Luke, Marcus, Merlin, Tofu, Larch, Christoph, Hiawatha and Kim (boys); and Jocasta, Angel, Lakshmi, Skye, Pansy, Jade and Olive (girls).

  He looked in vain for Jock, the boy he had met at his interview and whom he wanted so much to be his friend, but there was no sign of him. So he had gone to Watson’s, Bertie concluded; it was just as I thought. Jock would be at Watson’s that very morning, playing rugby perhaps, rather than sitting in a circle with Tofu and the rest.

  There was a short talk from Miss Harmony, the teacher, a tall woman with an encouraging smile, who explained what fun going to school was. They would learn so much, she said, and enjoy themselves in the process. There would be music, too, and they would shortly start on the recorder.

  “It’s like a whistle,” said the teacher. “You blow it and–peep–out comes some music. Such fun!”

  “And very well suited to early music,” said Bertie brightly.

  There was a silence, and the teacher spun round. “What was that, Bertie? Did you say something, Liebling?”

  “I said that the recorder is very well suited to playing Renaissance music,” he said. “Italian music, for example. The Lamento di Tristan. That sort of thing.”

  “She said it goes peep,” said Tofu, looking accusingly at Bertie. “Or does it go poop? Hah!”

  All the children thought this was extremely funny, and laughed loudly. Tofu smiled modestly.

  The teacher sighed. “We don’t laugh at things like that,” she said softly. “We must learn that such things just aren’t funny. Tofu, darling, remember that we’re quite grown-up now. And you, Bertie, what an interesting thing to say. Can you play the recorder already?”

  “A bit,” said Bertie. “The fingering isn’t all that hard. It’s easier than playing the saxophone.”

  “Sexophone?” said Tofu, smiling at the resultant giggles.

  The teacher glared at him. “Bertie said ‘saxophone’, Tofu. Perhaps you did not hear him correctly.” She turned to Bertie. “And do you play the saxophone, Bertie?”

  “Yes,” said Bertie. “But I don’t have it with me.”

  “No,” said the teacher. “So I see. Well, I’m sure that we shall all have the chance to hear you playing the saxophone some time soon. The saxophone, boys and girls, was invented by a man called Arthur Sax, a Frenchman. He made many beautiful brass instruments.”

  “Adolf Sax,” corrected Bertie politely. “And he was Belgian.”

  The teacher looked at Bertie, and then at Tofu, who had started to tickle the girl sitting next to him.

  “Tofu, dear,” she said firmly. “Girls don’t like being tickled.”

  “Oh don’t they?” said Tofu. “I know lots of girls who like being tickled. They like it a lot.”

  The teacher was silent. It was time for some diversion, she felt. She crossed the room to the cupboard and opened the door. The children watched closely as she took out a pile of old copies of the Guardian and handed a folded copy to each child.

  “Now you’ll know what this is,” she said.

  A forest of hands shot up. “It’s the Guardian,” the innocents cried out.

  “Well done,” she said. “And can anybody name another newspaper for me?”

  There was complete silence. The children looked at one another in puzzlement. Then Bertie spoke. There were plenty of other newspapers, and he had read a number of them. There was the Scotsman and the Herald and a newspaper called the Daily Telegraph.

  “The Daily Telegraph,” he said.

  The teacher looked at him. “Perhaps,” she said. Then, turning to the class in general she gave them their instructions. They were to fold the Guardian up, she said, and then they were to try to cut out the shape of a man. Then, when they unfolded it, they would have lots of little men, all joined together in a chain.

  Picking up a copy herself, she demonstrated the folding and the cutting. “There,” she said, holding up the result. “Look at that long line of little men, all holding hands.”

  “Gays,” said Tofu.

  The teacher put down her paper cut-out. “Tofu, dear, if you wouldn’t mind just going and standing outside the door for five minutes. And while you’re there, you can think about the things that you say.”

  “Shall I hit him for you?” asked Larch, a burly boy with a very short hair-cut.

  “No,” said the teacher quickly, and then, under her breath so that nobody might hear, she muttered: “Not just yet.”

  When the time came for the morning interval, Bertie went out into the playground by himself. He was aware of the fact that he alone was wearing dungarees and he smarted with embarrassment. Tofu, for example, had electric sneakers that sent out small pulses of light each time he took a step, and even Merlin, who was wearing obviously home-made sandals and a rainbow-coloured jacket, at least had normal trousers. Bertie felt miserable: everybody else seemed to have made a friend already, or even more than one friend. Tofu had a knot of four or five others around him, even including somebody from one of the classes above. Bertie had nobody, so when Tofu came up to him a few minutes later, he had nobody to defend him.

  “Dungarees!” the other boy said contemptuously. “Or are they pyjamas?”

  “It’s not my fault,” said Bertie. “It’s my mother.”

  Tofu looked at him and sneered. “Dungarees are good for falling over in,” he said suddenly. “Like this.” And with that he gave Bertie a push, causing him to fall to the ground. There was laughter, and Tofu walked off.

  Bertie picked himself up off the ground and dusted his dungarees. There was a large brown patch on one of the knees. As he attended to this, he became aware of the fact that a girl was standing beside him. It was Olive.

  “Poor Bertie,” she said. “It’s not your fault that you look so silly. It really isn’t. And that Tofu is a horrid boy. Everybody knows he’s horrid.” She paused. “But I suppose we should feel sorry for him.”

  “Why?” asked Bertie. “Why should we feel sorry for him?”

  “Because he doesn’t have a mummy,” explained Olive. “She was a vegan and she starved to death. My dad told me all about it.”

  Bertie was horrified. “And what about his daddy?” he asked. “Has he got a daddy?”

  “Yes,” said Olive. “But he’s a vegan too, so he won’t last long either.”

  “And Tofu himself?” whispered Bertie.

  “He’s very hungry,” Olive replied. “We were at nursery together, and I saw him stealing ham sandwiches from the others’ lunch boxes. Yes, he’s very hungry. In fact, he’s not going to last too long himself. So cheer up, Bertie! Cheer up!”

  18. On the Way Home

  For the first few days, they went home early. Irene was there at the school gate, in good time, along with all the other parents, waiting for the children to be released. She looked about her, seeing whether she recognised anybody: she knew that the parents of the other children would see a lot of one another over the years ahead, and she was interested to find out what they were like. Most of the faces were unfamiliar, although there was one woman whom she had met somewhere or other and who nodded in her direction. Where had it been? Yoga? The floatarium? Edinburgh was like that; there were so many familiar faces but they were often difficult to place exactly.

  Her gaze moved discreetly over the other parental faces. They were much as she expected; ordinary, reasonable people, just like herself. Irene felt comfortable.

  “Warm, isn’t it?” said a voice just behind her.

  She turned and looked at the speaker. He was a tall man, with a rather thin face, and dark hair swept back over his head. He was wearing a pair of bottle-green slacks and
a thin, denim jacket.

  “I’m Barnabas Miller,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand. “I’m Tofu’s father. And you’re…”

  “Bertie’s mother,” said Irene. And then, laughing, she added: “I have a name as well, I suppose. Irene Pollock.”

  Barnabas nodded. “No doubt we’ll all meet at the parents’ evenings,” he said. “They’re very good with that sort of occasion. This is a very happy school.”

  “Yes,” said Irene. “No doubt we will.” She paused. “And Tofu–it was Tofu, wasn’t it?–was he at nursery here?”

  “Yes,” said Barnabas. “We took him out for a while–minor behavioural issues–and then he went back. He’s a very expressive child. I looked after him at home while I was writing my book. My wife is often away. She lectures on diet.” (Note: Olive was wrong, of course; Tofu’s mother may have been thin, but she was still quick–in the old-fashioned sense of the word.)

  Irene was interested. “Your book? What do you write?”

  “I’ve just had a new one come out,” said Barnabas. “The Sorrow of the Nuts. I don’t imagine that you’ve read it.”

  “Sorry,” said Irene. “What is it? Fiction?”

  Barnabas shook his head. “No. It’s a holistic nutrition book. It examines the proposition that nuts have energy fields–and some form of morphic resonance. You’ll have heard of Rupert Sheldrake, I take it?”

  Irene had, but only just. “The man who wrote The New Science of Life?”

  “Yes,” said Barnabas. “He’s the one who pointed out that there are resonant energy fields that contain biologically significant information. He proved it with the milk-top hypothesis.”

  Irene frowned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I did look at that book, ages ago, and I’ve forgotten…”

  “No need to apologise,” said Barnabas. “Sheldrake reminds us that before the war birds had worked out how to peck away at the foil tops of milk bottles and drink the top of the milk on the doorstep. It took them some time to learn this, but eventually they did. Then along came the war and they stopped using those foil tops–metal had to be kept for other uses. And so several generations of birds never saw those milk tops. Then, after the war they were able to introduce those tops again and, lo and behold, the birds knew immediately what to do.”

  “And Sheldrake says?”

  “That the only way in which the birds could have picked up that knowledge would be if there had been some sort of energy field which contained that information for them. He calls it morphic resonance.”

  Irene reflected on this. It was challenging stuff. “And your book?” she asked.

  “It explores the possibility that nuts have feelings,” said Barnabas solemnly. “And it concludes that they do. Not feelings in the sense that we might use the term about ourselves, but feelings in the sense of some form of quasi-conscious response to the world.” He paused. “Not everyone would agree with me, of course. But it does have major dietary implications.”

  “It means that eating nuts is cruel?” prompted Irene.

  “Not exactly,” said Barnabas. “But it might be thought inconsiderate.”

  “Do you eat them yourself?” asked Irene. “Not that I mean to be personal. I hope you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I’m in the process of giving them up,” said Barnabas. “After all, I feel that I should practise at least some of what I preach.”

  Irene was about to say something when there was a sudden noise of shouting and laughing and the children streamed out of the building. When Bertie saw Irene, he seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, but then came forward to her.

  “Well, Bertie,” asked Irene. “How was it? How was your first day of school? Did you learn anything?”

  “I learned a little about life,” said Bertie.

  “Good,” said Irene. “Now let’s go home. We’ll get the 23 from up the road.”

  They walked back up Spylaw Road and on towards Bruntsfield. They were just in time for a 23 bus as it came up the road from Holy Corner.

  “We shall sit on the top, Bertie,” said Irene. “We can look out and see what’s happening on the pavement.”

  They found seats and sat down on the upper deck. Bertie was silent as the bus started its journey back. He looked down at the dirt stain on the knee of his trousers, the stain caused by the assault perpetrated on him by the poor, doomed Tofu. Could Olive be right that he was starving to death? Were people allowed to starve to death these days, now that the Labour Party was in power? Surely not.

  Irene was lost in her thoughts too. The bus had stopped near a bank cash machine, and she noticed a young man, blanket around his legs, sitting on the pavement right next to the machine. As people came to draw their money, he looked up at them and asked for change. The sight made her angry. He was able-bodied, was he not? He was young enough to work, or draw benefit if he could not: what right did he have to importune people in this way? People had the right to draw money, she felt, without being subjected to any pressure. And where were the police? Did they stand by and tolerate this? It appeared that they did.

  She stopped herself. Should I be thinking like this? she wondered. Like what? She supplied her own answer: like a Conservative. The problem was that whenever the Conservatives made a policy statement these days she found herself agreeing with it. That was awkward, in her book, and she put the thought out of her mind. But then the thought occurred to her: perhaps I’m a Conservative leftist. That sounded much more respectable than being a leftist Conservative. But what exactly was the difference?

  19. Matthew’s Situation

  Matthew, proprietor of the Something Special Gallery, and Pat’s employer of four months’ standing, opened the gallery that morning rather earlier than usual. Pat often arrived well before he did. She came in shortly after nine, at a time when all the other galleries in the area were still firmly closed. And what would have been the point of their opening that early? People did not buy paintings at that hour, and indeed the sort of people who bought paintings were still enjoying a leisurely breakfast then or were hard at work in their offices.

  Matthew had tried to work out exactly who his customers were. He had read few business books, but had eventually picked one more or less at random from the business section of a bookshop, that section so distinguished by such titles as Cut out the Competition! and The New Executive You. His choice was called Retail Success: Ten Secrets Revealed. Matthew thought the title absurd but had found the book more interesting than he had imagined it would be. Retail, it appeared, was a complicated process, in which people who were unwilling, for entirely understandable reasons, to hand over their money to others, were persuaded by those very others to do just that. That was secret number one: nobody really wanted to buy anything. It was then revealed that the second secret, closely allied to the first, was that even if people were persuaded to hand over their money, they wished to minimise the extent to which they did so. This led the authors of the book to counsel the reader to encourage unanticipated overspend.

  Matthew’s business career had not been conspicuously successful. Indeed, it had been a dismal failure: each time his father had set him up in a new enterprise it had not lasted long. If, then, there were secrets to business success, he was not party to them. His last business before the gallery had been a travel agency, which had failed as well, largely due to the incompetence of the two members of staff whom Matthew had employed and whom he had not had the courage, nor the business acumen, to dismiss. One of these employees had made a series of bad mistakes, usually of a geographical nature, but also, occasionally, of a linguistic one. One client had been sold a package holiday to Turkey, in the belief that it was Greece, and another who was travelling to Strasbourg and who wished to be booked into the Hotel de Paris there, had unfortunately been booked into the Hotel de Strasbourg in Paris. This sort of thing happened all the time.

  Matthew had, in fact, tackled the young man about his geographical ignorance.

  “Did they teach
you geography at school?” he had asked, after one particularly awkward geographical mix-up (involving a confusion between British Columbia in Canada and the Republic of Colombia).

  “What?” asked the young man.

  “Geography,” said Matthew. “You know–the world. Maps. Where things are.”

  The young man shook his head. “Dunno,” he said. “Don’t think so.”

  “Clearly not,” said Matthew. “Tell me: which do you think is further south–India or Australia?”

  The young man shook his head. “Difficult,” he said. “Not sure.”

  Matthew had sighed, and left it at that. And the travel agency had limped on, and then collapsed, and he had gone back to his father apologetically and reported the failure.

  Matthew’s father had not been surprised. “You’ve got to be tougher, son,” he had said. “You have to have a clear business plan and then stick to it. Set targets. Beat them. Look for ways of cutting costs. Businesses can’t be left just to tick over. They go under if you do that.”

  Matthew had nodded. The problem was that he was not very good with people. He was too soft. He paid them too much and he could never bring himself to criticise their performance. He was not cut out for business. And that was well understood by his father, who had come to the realisation that even if the best thing for his son was to find him a business, that was no more than a facade–a sinecure, in other words. So when he heard that one of the tenants in a building he owned in Edinburgh, a gallery, was going to close, it seemed the perfect opportunity. Matthew could run that. He need not make any money, as long as he did not make too much of a loss. Perhaps a loss of fifteen to twenty thousand pounds a year would be about right, although he could carry much more than that, if need be. To Matthew’s astonishment, at the end of the first quarter’s trading, the gallery appeared to have made a modest profit. He had arranged an appointment with his accountant, a man who acted for one of his father’s companies, and they had gone over the accounts together.