Espresso Tales

Bertie. “My room!” he shouted.

“Look, Mummy! My room’s turned white!”

The joy in Bertie’s voice was unmistakable and indeed became even more apparent with his next exclamation. He did not use Italian spontaneously now, but this was an occasion, he thought, when Italian seemed more eloquent than English. “Miracolo!”

he shouted. “Miracolo!”

Irene, standing at the door to Bertie’s room, surveying the transformation, was momentarily lost for words. But then she found her voice.

“What on earth has happened here?” she said. “Somebody has painted . . .”

302 Discussions Take Place Between Irene and Stuart She stepped into the room and noticed the periodic table, torn up and tossed into the bin. She picked it up gingerly, as a detective might pick up a piece of evidence at the scene of the crime.

“Isn’t it nice?” asked Bertie, nervously. He realised that his mother was far from pleased and he dreaded the possibility that she would immediately repaint it in pink. “I think white is such a good colour for . . .” He was going to say “for boys” but he knew that would merely provoke his mother. So he finished by saying “for rooms”.

“We can talk about that later on,” said Irene grimly. “In the meantime, don’t touch anything. We don’t want you getting paint on your dungarees.”

She turned on her heel and went through to the kitchen.

“Well!” she said, glaring at Stuart. “Somebody’s been busy!”

Stuart looked at her coolly. “I thought it was about time that we redecorated Bertie’s room,” he said. “I did it quite quickly, actually. You got a problem with that?”

Discussions Take Place Between Irene and Stuart 303

“What?” hissed Irene. “What do you mean have I got a problem?”

Stuart shrugged. “You seem a bit taken aback. I thought you would be pleased to discover that your husband’s a skilled painter.”

Irene turned and slammed the kitchen door behind her. She did not want Bertie to hear what was to come.

“Have you gone mad?” she asked. “Have you gone out of your mind?”

“No,” said Stuart, adding: “Have you?”

Irene took several steps forward. “Listen to me, Stuart, I don’t know what’s come over you, but you’ve got a bit of explaining to do. What are you thinking of, for heaven’s sake?”

Stuart held her gaze. “I decided that it was about time we let Bertie have one or two things his way. It’s been perfectly apparent for some time that he did not like his pink room. Nor, for that matter, does he like those pink dungarees of his.”

“Crushed strawberry,” corrected Irene. She shook her head, as if to adjust a confused picture of reality. “I just don’t know what you think you’re doing. There’s a reason why Bertie is being brought up to like pink. It’s all to do with gender stereo-types. Can’t you even grasp that?”

Stuart smiled. “There’s something which I grasp very well,”

he said. “And that is this: it’s about time we let that little boy just be a little boy.”

“Oh!” said Irene. “So that’s it, is it? You think that you know what it is to be a little boy? You, the inheritor of the patriar-chal mantle, passing it on to your son! Get him interested in things like cars . . .”

Stuart frowned. “By the way,” he interrupted. “Where’s our car?”

Irene, derailed by the question, stared at her husband.

“Outside in the street,” she said. “Where you parked it the other day.”

“No it isn’t,” said Stuart. “You parked it.”

“Nonsense!” said Irene. “You had it last. And you parked it in the street.”

304 Discussions Take Place Between Irene and Stuart

“I did,” he said. “I parked it there the other day and then you used it to go somewhere or other. You’re the one who parked it last.”

Irene opened her mouth to say something and then thought better of it. He was right, she feared. She had driven the car recently and had parked it somewhere, but she had no recollection of where that was. But then, something else occurred to her; something which was more serious than the temporary mislaying of the car.

“Be that as it may,” she said. “There’s something that I’ve been meaning to raise with you for some time now. That car of ours. How many gears does it have?”

Stuart swallowed. He could see where this was leading, and suddenly the whole business of painting Bertie’s room seemed to fade into insignificance.

Irene stared at him. “How many?” she repeated.

“Five,” said Stuart, his voice now deprived of all the assertiveness which he had injected into it earlier. So much for courage, he thought.

“Oh yes?” said Irene. “Then why does it now have only four?”

She waited a moment before continuing. Then: “So could it be that the car you brought back from Glasgow is not actually our car? Could that be so? And if it isn’t, then whose car, may I ask, is it?”