– but because they’re perfectly happy by themselves. Women clutter their lives. They don’t need women any more. There are maybe . . .” She plucked a figure out of the air . . . “Twenty per cent of men who think that they’re better off by themselves. So if you add the ten per cent who aren’t available anyway, that means thirty per cent who are out of it, so to speak.”
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Matthew thought about this. “But surely there will be the same number of women who drop out too? There’ll be women who don’t like men and women who may like men but who don’t want any involvement with them. So surely these two cancel one another out, and you end up with two equal groups?”
Pat was sure that this was wrong. The objection to Matthew’s theory, at least from her point of view, was that she had not met many women who would prefer to be by themselves rather than with a man, if a suitable man came along. But that, of course, meant nothing – and she was intelligent enough to see it. One should not generalise from one’s own experience, because one’s own experience was coloured by one’s own initial assumptions and perspective. If you like men, then you’ll end up in the company of those who like men too, and then you reach the conclusion that the whole world likes men. And that clearly was not true.
She sat down, facing Matthew. She was puzzled. “Why are you asking about all this?”
“It’s because my father seems to have found a girlfriend,” he said glumly. “And I don’t know what she sees in him.”
Pat had met Matthew’s father on a previous visit he had paid to the gallery. “But your father’s very nice,” she said. She paused, before adding: “And tremendously rich.”
“Now tell me, Bertie,” said Dr Fairbairn, straightening the crease of his trousers as he crossed his knees. “Tell me: have you written your dreams down in that little notebook I gave you?” Bertie did not cross his legs. He was unsure about Dr Fairbairn, and he wanted to be ready to leap to his feet if the psychotherapist became more than usually bizarre in his state-ments. The best escape route, Bertie had decided, would be to dart round the side of his desk, leap over the psychotherapist’s leather-padded couch, and burst through the door that led into
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the waiting room. From there he could launch himself down the stairs, sliding down the banister, if need be, and run out into the safety of the street. No doubt somebody would call the police and Dr Fairbairn would be led off to Carstairs, which Bertie understood to be the place where people of this sort sometimes ended up. They would take good care of him there, as the doctors would all be friends of his and would perhaps allow him to play golf in the hospital grounds while he was getting better.
He looked at Dr Fairbairn. He noticed that the tie which the psychotherapist frequently wore – the one with the teddy-bear motif – was missing, and that in its place there was a dark silk tie with a question-mark motif. Why would Dr Fairbairn have a question-mark on his tie? Bertie was intrigued.
“Yes, I’ve written down my dreams,” said Bertie. “But can you tell me, Dr Fairbairn: why have you got those question-marks on your tie?”
Dr Fairbairn laughed. “You’re always very observant about what I’m wearing, Bertie. Why do you think this is?”
“Because I can see your tie,” said Bertie. “I have to look at you when I talk to you and I see what you’re wearing.”
Dr Fairbairn stared at Bertie. “You’re not jealous, are you, Bertie? You’re not jealous of my tie, are you?”
Bertie drew a deep breath. Why should he think that he should be jealous, when he already had a tie at home? “No, I’m not jealous,” he said. “I just wondered.”
Dr Fairbairn nodded. “You wouldn’t by any chance have thought of cutting my tie off ? Have you thought that about your father’s ties?”
Bertie’s eyes narrowed. Would they let Dr Fairbairn wear a tie in Carstairs? he wondered. Or would they take it away from him? Would they cut if off ? Dr Fairbairn was always going on about other people’s anxieties that things would be cut off; well, it would teach him a lesson if somebody came and cut his own tie off. That would serve him right.
“I’ve never wanted to do that,” he said quietly. “I like Daddy’s ties. He’s a got a tartan one that he sometimes wears with his kilt.”
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The mention of a kilt seemed to interest Dr Fairbairn, who wrote something down on his pad of paper. The psychotherapist opened his mouth to speak, but Bertie was too quick for him. “My dream,” he said, fishing into his pocket for the notebook he had been given. “We mustn’t forget my dream.”
Dr Fairbairn smiled. “Of course,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me all about it? I’m very interested in your dreams, Bertie.
Dreams are very important, you know.”
Bertie opened the notebook. He did not think that dreams were important. In fact, he thought that dreams were silly, and hardly worth remembering at all. Indeed, he had been quite unable to remember many dreams recently and had been obliged to resort to a dream he had experienced some months ago, so as to humour Dr Fairbairn.
Dr Fairbairn stared at Bertie. What a strange little boy this was – only six years old, and how determined, how astonishingly determined he was to suppress the Oedipal urge. It would come out, of course, but it might take some time, and dream analysis could help. All would be revealed. There would be father figures galore in this dream; just wait and see!
“I was on a train,” read Bertie. “I was on a train and the train was going through the countryside. There were fields on either side of it and there were people standing in the fields waving to us as we went past.”
“Were these people men or women?” asked Dr Fairbairn gently, his pencil moving quickly across the paper. They would be men, of course: fathers . . . watching, scrutinising.
