Love Over Scotland

“Hurry up now, Bertie,” said Irene. “It’s almost ten o’clock, and if we don’t get there in time you may not get your audition.

Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Bertie sighed. To miss the audition was exactly what he would want, but he realised that it was fruitless to protest. Once his mother had seen a notice about the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, she had immediately put his name down for an audition.

“Do you realise how exciting this is?” she said to Bertie. “This orchestra is planning to do a concert in Paris in a couple of weeks. Not much rehearsal time, but Paris, Bertie! Wouldn’t you just love that?”

Bertie frowned. The name of the orchestra suggested that it was for teenagers, and he was barely six. “Couldn’t I audition in seven years’ time?” he asked his mother. “I’ll be a teenager then.”

“If you’re worried about being the youngest one there,” said Irene reassuringly, “then you shouldn’t! The fact that it’s called the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra is neither here nor there. The word “teenage” is there just to indicate what standard is required.

That’s all it is!”

“But I’m not a teenager,” protested Bertie, helplessly. “They’ll all be teenagers, Mummy. I promise you. I’ll be the only one in dungarees.”

“There may well be others in dungarees,” said Irene. “And anyway, once you’re sitting down behind your music stand, nobody will notice what you’re wearing.”

Bertie was silent. It was no use; he would be forced to go, just as she had forced him to go to yoga and to Italian lessons and to all the rest of it. There was no use protesting. But he thought he would try one final argument.

120 At the Queen’s Hall

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind being in it, Mummy,” he said. “But the saxophone, you know, isn’t an orchestral instrument. They won’t want anybody to play the tenor sax.”

“Nonsense,” snapped Irene. “The tenor sax is in B flat. That’s exactly the same as the clarinet or the euphonium. You see euphonia in orchestras, don’t you? And other B flat instruments.

You can just play one of those parts, or Lewis Morrison can arrange a part specially for you.”

Bertie was silent. If he was unable to persuade his mother not to subject him to the humiliation of being the youngest member, by far, of an orchestra, then he would have to find some other means to ensure that he did not get in. He thought for a moment and then realised that there was a very obvious solution.

Irene saw Bertie’s face break into a broad grin. He must have realised, she thought, what fun it would be to go to Paris. These little bursts of resistance were curious things; they could be quite intense and then suddenly evaporate and he would come round.

Such a funny little boy, but so appealing!

“Why are you smiling, Bertissimo?” she asked. “Thinking of Paris? The Eiffel Tower – you know you can climb that right up to the top? And then there’s the Louvre with the Mona Lisa.

We’ll have such fun in Paris, Bertie!”

Bertie, who had been smiling to himself over the prospects of escape which had just presented themselves, now became grave. We? Had his mother said we’d have such fun in Paris?

His voice was tiny when he asked the question. “Are you coming, too, Mummy? Are you coming to Paris, too?”

Irene laughed. “But of course, Bertie. Remember that you’re only six. Mummy will come to look after you.”

“But the teenagers won’t have their mothers with them,”

pleaded Bertie. “I’ll be the only one.”

And it would be worse, he thought; the humiliation would be doubled and redoubled by the fact that Irene was now visibly pregnant. This would mean that the other boys would know what she had been doing. It was just too embarrassing. Tofu had already passed a comment on Irene’s pregnancy when he had raised the subject in the playground.

At the Queen’s Hall 121

“Your mum makes me sick,” he said. “Do you know what she’s been doing? It’s gross! Yuk! Disgusting!”

Bertie had said nothing; one cannot defend the indefensible, but he had smarted with shame. And now he was to be subjected to yet further humiliation, unless, unless . . .

“I haven’t been to Paris for years,” said Irene. “There is really no other city like it.”

Bertie nodded grimly. “Should I go and put my saxophone in its case?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Irene, looking at her watch. “We will probably need to take a taxi now, as we’ll never get up to the Queen’s Hall in time if we have to wait for a bus.”

They were soon in a taxi, rattling their way up Dundas Street and the Mound. Princes Street was en fete, with its lines of flut-tering flags and its flowers. Bertie liked Princes Street Gardens, and had gone there once with his father, when they had climbed the hill beneath the Castle and watched the Glasgow train emerging from its tunnel beneath the gallery. He had also gone to the Gardens several times with his mother, but they had not climbed the hill. On the last occasion, she had insisted that they watch a display of Scottish country dancing at the Ross Bandstand.

“Why do people dance?” he had asked his mother.

“It’s a form of deflection of the sexual impulse,” explained Irene.

“Even at the Ross Bandstand?” asked Bertie.

Irene laughed. “Oh my goodness no, Bertie! Scottish country dancing is not like that at all. It’s an expression of bourgeois obsession with time and order. That’s what’s going on there.