Bertie listened to this solemnly, but said nothing. He did not mind doing music exams, which for the most part he found very easy, but he wished that he had slightly fewer of them. He had thought that Grade Eight of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music was the highest examination available, and he had been dismayed when Irene had pointed out that it was possible to do examinations beyond that – in particular the Licentiate. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to fail Grade Eight deliberately and continue to fail it at every resitting. But he had tried that technique with his audition for the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra and had only succeeded in getting himself accepted into the orchestra immediately. He looked up at his father. “Why all these hurdles, Daddy?” he whispered.
“What was that, Bertie?” his father asked.
Bertie glanced at Irene. She was watching him.
“He said he enjoys hurdles,” said Irene. “So just ask Lewis for the details – set pieces and all the rest. Then Bertie can get cracking.”
“People who do Grade Eight are usually much older,” said Bertie. “Sixteen, at least.”
Irene reached forward and ruffled his hair fondly. “But you’re exceptional, Bertie,” she said. “You’re very lucky. I don’t wish to swell your little head, Bertie, but you are not the average boy.”
Bertie swallowed hard. He wanted so much to be the average boy, but he knew that this would forever be beyond his reach.
The average boy, he knew, had the average mother, and his mother was not that.
They left the flat with the issue of Grade Eight unresolved.
As they went downstairs, Bertie asked his father if they were going to go to the lesson by bus or car. Bertie loved going in their car and rarely had the chance to do so, as Irene believed in using the bus whenever possible.
“You’d like to go in the car, wouldn’t you?” said Stuart.
Bertie nodded his head vigorously.
“Well, in that case,” said Stuart, “let’s go in the car, Bertie!
And then afterwards – after your lesson – we could take a spin out into the Pentlands, perhaps, or down to Musselburgh. Would you like that?”
Bertie squealed with pleasure. “Yes, Daddy,” he said. “Or we could drive round Arthur’s Seat, all the way round.”
“That’s another possibility,” said Stuart. “The whole world –
or at least that bit of it within twenty miles or so of Edinburgh –
is our oyster, Bertie. We can go wherever we like!”
Bertie, who was holding his father’s hand as they walked downstairs, gave the hand a squeeze of encouragement.
“Thank you, Daddy! Thank you so much!”
Stuart smiled. Bertie was so easy to please, he found; all that he wanted was a bit of company, a bit of time. Now they stepped out into the street and Bertie looked about him.
“Where’s our car, Daddy? Is it far away?”
Stuart hesitated. He looked up Scotland Street, up one side, and then down the other. There was no sign of the car.
“Has Mummy used it today?” he asked.
Bertie shook his head. “No, Daddy. You were the last one to use it. Last week. You came in and said that you had parked the car and you put the keys down on the kitchen table. I saw you, Daddy.”
Stuart scratched his head. “You know, Bertie, I think that you’re right. But I just can’t for the life of me remember where 162
Bertie thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so, Daddy.
Can’t you just try to remember?”
Stuart glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, Bertie, I can’t. And time’s getting on a bit. If we don’t leave now we’ll be late for Lewis Morrison, and Mummy will be cross. So we’re just going to have to go and catch a bus on Dundas Street.”
Bertie knew that what his father said was true. It was a bitter disappointment to him, though; his parents were always forgetting where they parked the car, and it often meant that outings were delayed or cancelled altogether. His mother was always telling him that people who lost or otherwise did not look after their things did not deserve to have them in the first place. Well, if that was the case, he wondered if his parents deserved to have a car, or if it should be taken away from them and given to somebody who deserved it. It was so disappointing. Other boys had cars which were never mislaid; and most of these cars were rather more impressive than the Pollocks’ old red Volvo. Even Tofu, whose father had converted their car to run on vegetable oil, had a better car than Bertie had, and one that collected him every afternoon at the school gate, its motor purring away as contentedly as if it were running on ordinary petrol. That was Tofu. And then there was Hiawatha, whose mother had a small open BMW sports car in which she would collect him from school each afternoon. Olive had expressed the view that Hiawatha’s family needed to have an open-topped car because of the way that Hiawatha’s socks smelled, but Bertie had ignored this uncharitable suggestion, even if it had the ring of truth about it.
Bertie walked in silence to the bus stop with his father. There would be no run out to the Pentlands or Musselburgh.
There would be no circumnavigation of Arthur’s Seat. There would just be a saxophone lesson and a return to
