Love Over Scotland

Bertie looked puzzled. “Cosa? ” he asked.

Irene smiled, and repeated herself carefully. “Si, Bertie: Tutti insieme appassionatamente! Do you know what that means? Tutti

– we know that word, don’t we, Bertie? Tutti frutti! You know what that means.”

“All fruits,” said Bertie.

“Bravo! Allora, if tutti means all, what about insieme? A nice little word that, Bertie. Very useful. No? Well, it means together, doesn’t it, Bertie? You should have known that by now. But no matter. So . . .”

“All together passionately,” said Bertie. “What’s that got to do with me, Mummy?”

Irene raised a finger. “Well, Bertie,” she said, “that’s what The Sound of Music is called in Italian. Yes! That’s what they call it.

Isn’t that interesting? But let’s move on to the second thing.”

Bertie was silent. He was thinking of the problems that lay ahead with the school production of The Sound of Music, in which he was to play Captain von Trapp. The fact that he had been chosen for this role was bound to lead to conflict with Tofu –

he was sure of that – and Bertie had no desire for conflict, particularly with a friend. Tofu was not much of a friend, but he was all that Bertie had.

“In secondo luogo,” said Irene brightly. “In secondo luogo, we have L’Orchestra degli adolescenti di Edimburgo. And we know what that is, don’t we, Bertie?”

Bertie did, and the thought of playing in the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra filled him with even more dread than did the prospect of being in The Sound of Music. They had already had one or two rehearsals, which Bertie had attended with some reluctance. Now it was almost time to go to France on the much-

Preparations for Paris 225

vaunted Parisian tour, and it seemed to him that there was no way out for him. He could try to feign illness, of course, but he very much doubted whether he would get away with that. So it looked as if he would have to go, in spite of being at least seven years younger than everybody else.

There was one consolation, though – the fact that his mother would not be coming after all. That prospect had truly appalled him, but had been eventually ruled out after the committee running the orchestra had refused point- blank to make an exception to their no-parents rule.

“It’s not that we have any objection to parents per se,” the chairman of the committee had told Irene. “It’s just that it’s difficult enough doing the logistics for the children themselves. If we have to start making arrangements for the parents too, then it would become a nightmare.”

Irene had begun to protest. “But in my case . . .”

“And there’s another thing,” persisted the chairman, raising his voice. “If we allowed one parent to come, we’d have to allow all the others. And that would inhibit some of the children. We’ve found that they play better if they don’t have parents breathing down their necks. It brings them out of themselves a bit.”

226 Preparations for Paris

Irene glared at the chairman. “Are you suggesting that I would actually inhibit Bertie?”

The chairman made a calming gesture. “Perish the thought!

Naturally, this doesn’t apply to you, Mrs Pollock. You wouldn’t inhibit Bertie. But not every parent is as reasonable as you clearly are. You’d be surprised at some of the people I meet in this job.

You really would. I meet some really pushy people, you know.

Mothers who just won’t let go, particularly of their sons.”

The chairman looked at Irene as he spoke. He wondered what degree of insight she had into her behaviour. Probably none, he thought. These people smother their sons, poor boys, and then, the first opportunity the sons have, they distance themselves. It was rather sad, really. One boy who had been in the orchestra had actually emigrated to Australia to get away from his mother under the Australian government’s Son Protection Scheme. And then she went to live there too.

Reluctantly, Irene had accepted that she would not be able to travel with Bertie. However, she had a list of things for Bertie to be reminded to do, and she asked the chairman to write these down and pass them on to one of the women who would be looking after the teenagers. There were instructions about Bertie’s clothing, about his diet, and about the need for him to be given time to work on his Italian exercises.

“Bertie also does yoga,” she went on. “It would be helpful if he were to be given a mat to do his yoga on. But please remind him to do it.”

There were other things on the list, and these were all duly noted. Poor boy, thought the chairman, but did not say that.

Instead, he said: “What a lucky little boy Bertie must be – to have all these things in his life.”

“Thank you,” said Irene. “My husband and I . . . well, we call it the Bertie Project.”

The chairman said nothing. He had looked out of the window, where a bird had landed on a branch of the elm tree near his window. Birds are such an obvious metaphor for freedom, he thought.

And so now Irene had packed Bertie’s case for him, neatly At the Airport 227

folding and tucking in a spare pair of dungarees and an adequate supply of socks. It was a strange feeling for her, sending Bertie off to Paris like this, and she had more than one pang of doubt as to whether the whole thing was a good idea. But then she told herself that the people in charge of the orchestra would be experienced in looking after children on such trips, and that if they could look after teenagers, who were notoriously unruly and