44 Scotland Street

traits. He had stopped biting people, of course, which amounted to a slightly more sensitive approach to life, but in other respects one could probably not hope for much change.

“Bertie,” she began, “when Dr Fairbairn asked you – asked you, mind – whether you had been a naughty boy, he was referring to how other people might have reacted to your behaviour. This is different from saying that you had been a naughty boy. His tone was ironic. If he really thought that you had been naughty, then he wouldn’t have used those words. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Bertie said nothing. He had been naughty, he thought: he had A Meeting in Valvona and Crolla

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written on the nursery walls. Surely that was quintessentially naughty. And he wanted to be naughty. That was the whole point.

If they kept making him learn Italian and play the saxophone and all the other things, he would show them. He would punish them, and they would stop. That was how grown-ups, people like Mrs Klein, whose book he had read, thought. And this Doctor Fairbairn person, who had hardly talked to him at all and who hadn’t even been interested in his joke – the only way to make him take any notice would be to do something really naughty.

Perhaps I should bite him, thought Bertie. Then he will really take notice and tell them to drop the Italian and the saxophone.

They might even be persuaded not to send me to the Steiner School and send me to Watson’s instead, where there are uniforms and rugby and things like that. And secret societies too, Bertie thought, although those might only be for after you’ve left.

Irene looked at her son. There was so much promise there –

such an extraordinary level of ability – and she would not let her project for him be derailed. She stopped herself; train metaphors were not what she wanted here.

“Bertie,” she said gently, “I want you to know that Stuart loves you very much. It’s quite natural for boys to feel confused about their fathers and, well, I suppose one might say that it’s natural for boys to feel threatened by their fathers. Dr Fairbairn will help you to get over this. That’s what Dr Fairbairn is for.”

Bertie looked at her. What was all this? He liked his father very much, and when he had set fire to his copy of The Guardian it had nothing to do with his feelings for his father. Why would they just not leave him alone? Why did they force him to do all these things? Those were the questions which worried Bertie.

Irene reached for her latte and took a sip. She glanced around her. The cafe was uncrowded, and she let her gaze run slowly over the few people who were there. There was a woman in her mid-thirties, a blonde, with hair held back with an Alice band.

Irene noticed that she had that look about her which goes with bored affluence. Her husband, no doubt, was a fund manager or something similar. There would be a couple of children, and she was whiling away the hours before it was time to collect them 178

Mr Dalyell’s Question

from school. The children would be exactly like her, thought Irene, right down to the Alice band (if they were girls). She smiled. People were so predictable.

Her gaze moved to the next table. There was a young couple poring over The Scotsman property section. Irene looked at their faces. Yes, they were anxious, she thought. How difficult for them, struggling to find a place to live in that competitive, overpriced market. And what would they find at the end of the day? A two-bedroomed flat for the price of a small farm in Australia.

Mind you, she had no idea what small farms cost in Australia, but she imagined that it was not very much. She had read somewhere that people sometimes gave such farms away, just to get off them.

I would never, ever farm in Australia, she said to herself, and shuddered at the thought. Heat. Dust. Drought.

Then she stopped. A man was sitting by himself at the table beyond that. He was reading a newspaper, and nursing a small cup of espresso. There was a file with some papers sticking out of it on the table in front of him, but his attention was fixed on the newspaper.

“Bertie,” she whispered. “That man over there. The one reading the paper. Do you recognise him? He looks very familiar.”

Bertie followed his mother’s gaze.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve seen his picture in the paper. I know who that is.”

“Who is it then?” asked Irene. She had thought that Bertie would know. He was a very attentive boy.

“That’s Mr Dalyell,” said Bertie.

66. Mr Dalyell’s Question

Although Bertie was Irene’s creation, in both the biological and the metaphorical sense, she was constantly astonished by the things that he knew and that he occasionally revealed so casually. His Mr Dalyell’s Question

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recognition of Tam Dalyell, purely from newspaper photographs, was a case in point. How many five-year-olds were there in Edinburgh, or anywhere else for that matter, who would recognise the redoubtable politician? None, she imagined. It was even possible that there were many adults who would not know the name, given the contemporary obsession with an entirely superficial celebrity. People had no difficulty in recognising rock musicians and actresses, people for whom Irene had the most profound distaste, but they had great difficulty in recognising those who actually did things of value. So while they would know who all the current actors and footballers were (or at least the good looking ones like Mr Grant and Mr Beckham), they could not be expected to know about people who did something to change the world for the better. Except Bertie, it would seem: Bertie knew.

Irene gazed at her son with pride. There had been moments in the last few days when she had even begun to