“What are we going to do now?” he asked Max, who was busy unpacking his suitcase into the small chest of drawers at the end of the room.
“Richard says that we have to meet downstairs in fifteen minutes and go for a rehearsal,” said Max. “That’s all we have to do today. But I’m going to go out tonight.”
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Bertie looked at his shoes. What time would he have to go to bed? he wondered. Would they insist that he went earlier than everybody else, because he was the youngest, or would he be allowed to go out with Max?
“Go out?” he said timidly.
Max shut a drawer with a flourish. “Yes. Paris is a great place for night life. Didn’t you know that, Bertie?”
“Oh yes,” said Bertie quickly.
“So I thought I might go somewhere like the Moulin Rouge,”
said Max casually. “And I’ve heard that the Folies Bergeres is a great place too. Have you ever seen the can- can?”
Bertie was silent. He was unsure what the can-can was, but he was reluctant to appear ignorant – or too young. At least he had known who General de Gaulle was, and Max had not, but then Bertie sometimes wondered whether the things he knew –
and he knew quite a lot – were up-to-date enough. He had a set of encyclopaedias in his room, but he had found out that these were published in 1968, and might not be as reliable as he thought. But there was time enough to think about that later.
For the moment, there was the Moulin Rouge. Were you allowed to go to the Moulin Rouge if you were only six? he wondered.
Or did you have to be at least ten?
“Would you like to come with me, Bertie?” asked Max. “I don’t mind if you come along. But you may have plans of your own.”
“I haven’t really made any plans yet,” said Bertie. “And I would like to come with you.” He paused. “Are we allowed?”
“Of course not,” said Max. “We’ll have to slip out the back.
But I noticed a fire escape as we came up the stairs. You can get to it from out there, and we can shin down that and then catch the Metro. Easy.”
“All right,” said Bertie.
“Good,” said Max. “We’re going for dinner somewhere after the rehearsal and then we come back here. We’ll wait fifteen minutes until everyone has gone to bed, and then we’ll leave.
Boy, are we going to have fun, Bertie!”
They went downstairs a few minutes later and then the whole
orchestra was driven off in a bus to the hall where they were due to rehearse.
At the rehearsal, Bertie found it difficult to concentrate, but the small parts he had been given to play were simple and his distracted state did not show. He threw a glance at Max, sitting with the strings, and the other boy at one point winked at him, as if in confirmation of their conspiracy.
At the end of the rehearsal, as they were packing up their instruments, Bertie went to stand close to Max, so that he could sit next to him on the bus and discuss their outing.
“It’s very exciting,” whispered Bertie.
“Yes, sure,” said Max nonchalantly.
They were taken from the rehearsal to the restaurant, which was a large, hall-like establishment, specialising in the feeding of school parties on visits to Paris. The menu, which was printed on laminated cards, was written in English, Italian and German. There was no French. The description of each course was helpfully accompanied by a small picture of what the dish looked like.
To Bertie’s disappointment, Max appeared to have found some new friends and sat with them, leaving him to sit with a small group of girls, who made a place for him and seemed to be quite happy with his company.
“You’re very sweet, you know,” said one of the girls.
Bertie blushed. He was not sure whether it was a good thing to be described as sweet, but he thought that it probably was not.
“How old are you?” said another. “Somebody said that you were only four. Is that true?”
Bertie looked down at his plate. “I’m going to be seven on my next birthday,” he said.
“Six!” exclaimed another girl.
Fortunately, the conversation soon moved on to another topic, 276
and Bertie’s embarrassment subsided. The topic, it transpired, was the other members of the orchestra, particularly the boys.
“Have you seen that boy called Kevin?” asked one of the girls.
“He plays the oboe, or thinks that he does.”
“He’s gross,” said another. “He thinks he’s so cool, but he’s really gross. Have you seen his ears? They stick out like this.
