Look at it! Absurd!”
Bertie looked at the dancers, who appeared to be enjoying themselves greatly. He did not understand why they should be absurd. “But aren’t we bourgeois, Mummy?” asked Bertie.
Irene laughed. “Most certainly not,” she said.
The journey to the Queen’s Hall passed largely in silence, or at least on Bertie’s part. Irene had various bits of advice for him, though, including tips on how to present himself at the audition.
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“Don’t feel nervous,” she said.
“Remind yourself that there are not only strangers there –
I’ll be sitting there, too! Keep that in mind, Bertie.”
Bertie reeled under the fresh blow. He had been hoping that his mother would wait outside. Now she was coming in! And that, he realised, would make his plan much more difficult to put into effect.
The Queen’s Hall was thronged that morning with a large crowd of ambitious parents and children. Bertie followed his mother down the corridor that led to the coffee room and bar at the end. He was aware of the fact that there were many people about, but he hardly dared look up to see who they were. His eyes were fixed on the floor, hoping to locate the geological flaw which would swallow him up and save him from his current embarrassment. But of course there was none; at no time is the earth more firm than when we wish that it were not.
Irene cast her eye about the room like a combatant assessing the field before joining the fray. Such gatherings held no terrors for her; this was the opposition of course, the other parents, but she knew that she had little to fear from any of them. In fact, she felt slightly sorry for them as she surveyed their offspring; that bespectacled teenage boy in the corner of the room, for example, standing with his mother – what an unhealthy speci-men, with his sallow complexion and his jeans with holes in the knees. Irene knew how expensive such jeans could be. That boy, she thought, is a fashion victim and that mother of his does nothing to prevent it. Sad.
Her gaze moved on to the rather prim young girl seated at one of the tables, her oboe case balanced on her knee and her mother proudly sitting opposite her. Such a consummately middle-class pair, thought Irene: the daughter at St Margaret’s, perhaps; the father – at the office, probably – a lawyer of some
sort; their Volvo parked somewhere on the edge of the Meadows.
Irene stopped. She had a Volvo, too, of course, or used to have one. Let those without Volvos make the first social judgment, she told herself, and smiled at her wit.
“You can sit down here, Bertie,” she said, pointing to a chair beside one of the tables. “I shall go and get some coffee. But I won’t get you a cup, Bertie, as we don’t want you wanting to rush off to the little boys’ room for a tinkle in the middle of the audition, do we?” Bertie felt his heart stop with embarrassment. It was bad enough for his mother to say such things in any circumstances, but for her to say it here, in the middle of the Queen’s Hall, with the eyes of the world upon him, was horror itself. His face burning red, he looked about him quickly.
A girl at a neighbouring table had clearly heard, and was giggling and whispering to her friend. And there, on the other side of their very table, was a boy who had also heard and was now staring at him.
The boy, who looked barely thirteen, glanced at Irene as she made towards the bar, and then turned to face Bertie. “Is that your mother?” he asked.
Bertie shook his head. “No,” he said. And then added, for emphasis: “No, she’s nothing to do with me.”
“Who is she then?” asked the boy.
“She’s just somebody I met on the bus,” he said. “I talked to her and then she followed me in.”
The boy looked surprised. “You have to be careful about talking to strangers,” he said. “Haven’t you been told that?”
Bertie nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s just that I felt sorry for her.” He racked his brains for a credible story, and then continued: “She’s just been let out of a lunatic asylum, you see.
They let them out every Saturday, and she had nobody to talk to her. So I did.”
“Oh,” said the boy. “Do you think she’s dangerous?”
“Not really,” said Bertie. “Or maybe just a little bit. But she’s very strange, you know. She’s pretending to be my mother, I think.”
“Some grown-ups are really sad,” said the boy.
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“Yes,” agreed Bertie. “It’s really sad.”
He looked at the boy. If he could make a friend here, then the ordeal of being the youngest person present, by far, would be lessened. And this boy, who had what looked like a trombone case with him, seemed to be friendly enough. “What’s your name?” Bertie asked.
The boy smiled. “I’m called Harry,” he said. “And you?”
Bertie swallowed. “I’m called Tom,” he said.
“But she called you Bertie,” said Harry. “That woman called you Bertie. I heard her.”
Bertie shook his head. “Yes,” he said. “It’s sad, isn’t it? I think she calls everybody Bertie. It’s her illness talking.”
Harry nodded. “Look,” he said. “If you need to get away from her, I can help you. We can go and hide in the toilet while she’s getting her coffee. I suppose she’ll go away after a while. How about it?”
Bertie looked towards the bar. He had never run away from his mother before, although he had once managed
