Stuart hugged his son. “And you want to go to it, Bertie?”
Bertie nodded miserably. “Olive says that it won’t be any fun, but that’s just because she hasn’t been invited. She wants to spoil it for me.”
Stuart reflected on this. He did not know Olive, but he thought the type sounded familiar. Some girls took pleasure in spoiling it for boys. He could remember that. And it continued . . .
“I’ll speak to Mummy,” he said. “We’ll fix it up for you. I’m sure that Mummy’s just trying to be helpful, Bertie. Mummy loves you, you know, Bertie.” And he thought:
He gave Bertie a final pat on the shoulder, rose to his feet and went through to the kitchen, where Irene was chopping vegetables.
“Bertie’s in a state,” he said. “I’ve just been talking to him through there. Poor wee boy. He was crying his eyes out.”
Irene looked up from her vegetables. “I had to put my foot down, I’m afraid,” she said. “I tried explaining things to him, but he wouldn’t listen. He’ll get over it.”
“I don’t think so,” said Stuart quietly.
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“You don’t think what?” asked Irene.
“I don’t think he’ll get over this sort of thing all that easily,”
he said. “He had his heart set on going to that party, you know.”
Irene put down her knife and looked Stuart in the eye. “You know what this so-called party consists of ? Let me tell you. It’s not a sit down round the table and have cake party. Oh no. It’s a bowling alley, for God’s sake! Some tawdry, smoke-filled den down in Gorgie or wherever! That’s what it is.”
“It’s a perfectly clean and respectable bowling place,” said Stuart. “I know it. I went to the opening of the whole complex, as it happens. The Minister was invited and a number of us went along.”
“These places start off like that and then go downhill,” said Irene quickly. “But that’s not really the point. The point is that he would miss yoga and a saxophone lesson. He already missed yoga when you took him off on that jaunt to Glasgow.”
Stuart struggled to control his anger. “That jaunt, as you call it, was the highlight of his little life. He loved it! He loved the train. He loved Glasgow. He loved the Burrell.”
“And those dubious characters you bumped into?” asked Irene. “Oh yes, I heard all about that, you know. Bertie told me about Fatty O’Something, or whatever he was called.”
“Lard O’Connor,” Stuart said. “What about him? He was very helpful. Just because he’s not middle-class . . .”
Irene, eyes bright with anger, interrupted him. “Middle-class!” she screamed. “Who are you calling middle- class? Me?
Is that it? Middle-class? Me?”
“Calm down,” said Stuart. “Nobody would call you middle-class to your face.”
He had not meant to add the words “to your face”, but they somehow came out.
“Oh,” shouted Irene. “So that’s it. So you think I’m middle-class, do you? Well, that’s very nice, isn’t it? I spend all my time, all my energy, on raising Bertie to be an integrated citizen, to make sure that he understands all about inclusiveness, and has the right attitudes, and then you come along and describe the whole enterprise as middle- class. Thanks for your support, Stuart!”
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Stuart sighed. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s not have a blazing row over this. The whole point is this: you have to give Bertie a bit more space, a bit more room to be himself, to be a little boy. And one way of doing that is to allow him to have his own social life. So let’s allow him to go to this party. Let’s allow him to go bowling. He’ll have a whale of a time.”
“No,” said Irene. “We must be consistent parents. We can’t say one thing one moment and another thing the next. Melanie Klein . . .”
She did not finish. “He’s going,” said Stuart. “That’s it. He’s going. And I’m going to go and tell him that.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Irene, turning back to her vegetables.
She reached for a carrot and chopped it with her knife. Stuart could not help but think how symbolic this was. But the time had come to act, and he did. He remembered that conversation he had had with Bertie on the train, that moment when they had been so close and where he had vowed to be a better father.
He would be that father, and he would be that father now. Not at some time in the future. Now.
He moved to the kitchen door. Irene reached for another
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carrot and chopped it smartly with her knife.
“Bertie,” shouted Stuart through the open door. “You can stop crying now. You’re going bowling, my boy. The party’s on!”
Stuart dropped Bertie off at the bowling alley, delivering him into the care and control of Tofu’s father, Barnabas Miller.
