one step beyond that. It would be far better, Stuart thought, if they could present the occasion as a concert. To say that one was going to Arbroath for a concert sounded much better than saying that one was going to a jazz club in Arbroath – that was clear.
He broached the subject with Bertie as they climbed the stairs to their front door. “Bertie,” he began, “let me tell Mummy about that concert we’re going to. I think that might be best.”
“What concert?” asked Bertie. “Do you mean the jazz club?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I do. It’s just that there are ways of explaining things to other people. Mummy is not a great aficionado of jazz, is she? She doesn’t know about jazz clubs, but she does know about concerts. I think it might be better for us to say that we’re going to a concert – which is true, of course.
It will be a sort of a concert, won’t it?”
Bertie nodded. He was relieved that his father seemed willing to take on the task of persuading Irene. “Of course, Daddy,” he said. “And Mummy is your wife, isn’t she? You know her better than I do, even if Ulysses might not be your baby.”
Stuart stopped. He stood quite still. They were halfway up the stairs, and he stopped there, one foot on one stair and one on another, as if caught mid-motion by some calamity, as at Pompeii. Bertie stood beside him, holding his hand, looking rather surprised that his father had come to this abrupt halt.
“Now, Bertie,” said Stuart, his voice barely above a whisper.
“That’s a very odd thing to say. Why do you think Ulysses might not be my baby? Whatever gave you that idea?”
“He doesn’t look like you, Daddy,” said Bertie. “At least, I don’t think he does.”
Stuart’s relief was palpable. “Oh, I see. Is that all it is?” He laughed and patted Bertie on the shoulder. “Babies often don’t look like anybody in particular, Bertie. Except Winston Churchill, of course. All babies look like Winston Churchill. But you can’t draw any conclusions from that!”
“But Ulysses does look like somebody, Daddy,” said Bertie.
“He looks like Dr Fairbairn. You should look at Dr Fairbairn’s ears, and his forehead too. Ulysses has this little bump, you see . . .”
Bertie became aware that something was amiss. Stuart was leaning back against the banister, staring at him.
“Are you feeling all right, Daddy?” asked Bertie, the concern rising in his voice. “Are you sure that you didn’t have too much shortbread?”
“No, I’m all right, Bertie,” Stuart stuttered. He leaned forward so that his face was close to Bertie’s. On the little boy’s breath 170
He recovered, but only to the extent of being able to say to Bertie: “I don’t think that you should talk about that, Bertie.
That sort of thing is a bit sensitive. People are funny about it.”
“I know,” said Bertie. “You should have seen how Dr Fairbairn looked when I asked him.”
She had read somewhere that the vast majority of boxes of notelets that were sold in stationery shops were never used.
They were bought with good intentions, or given as presents in the same spirit, but they remained in their boxes. But that, she reflected that morning, was a common fate for so many objects which we make and give to one another. Exercise bicycles, for example, were not designed to go anywhere, but the wheels, at least, were meant to go round, which they rarely did.
Exercise bicycles in gyms might be used, but this did not apply to those – the majority – bought for use in the home. They stood there, in mute affront to their owners, quite idle, before being moved to a spare room and ultimately to an attic. Then they were recycled, which did not mean, in this case, that they had been cycled in the first place.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and stared out of the window. And then, she thought, there were those books bought and not read. Somewhere there might be those who read each and every book they acquire – read them with attention and gravity and then put them carefully on a shelf, alongside other books that had received the same treatment. But for many books, being placed on the shelf was the full extent of their encounter with their owner. She smiled at this thought, remembering the anecdote about the late King George VI – she thought, or V
perhaps, or even Edward VII – who was presented with a book by its author and said: “Thank you, Mr So-and- So, I shall put it on the shelf with all the other books.” This was not meant to be a put-down to the author – it was, by contrast, a polite and entirely honest account of what would be done. And one could not expect one who was, after all, an emperor, to read every book given to him, or indeed any. Although – and this thought came to Domenica as she took a first sip of her coffee – even those whose office makes them too busy to read are never too busy to write their book when they leave office – a book which, by its very nature, will be most likely to appeal to those in similar office, who will be too busy to read it.
Some books, of course, were destined not to be read, largely because of their unintelligibility to all except a very small number of people. Domenica could think of several examples of this, including the remarkable books of
