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the mess where it was, intending to clear it up after her bath.
And she thought of her father, and a remark he had made about accidents and how they reveal our repressed wishes. We destroy that which we love, he had said. Had she intended to destroy Bruce’s hair gel, because she was falling in love with him?
Impossible. She could not fall in love with Bruce. She simply could not.
15. 560 SEC
Pat left the flat the next morning at precisely the time that Domenica Macdonald opened her door onto their mutual landing. Domenica, wearing a green overcoat and carrying a scuffed leather bag, greeted her warmly and enquired about her settling in.
“I’m very happy,” said Pat, but thought immediately of the fact that she had not told Bruce about the dropping of the gel.
“It’s all going well, or . . .” Quite well was what she meant to say.
“I know,” said Domenica, lowering her voice. “Bruce might be a little bit, how should we put it? Difficult? Is that the right word, difficult?”
“Different,” suggested Pat.
Domenica smiled, and took Pat’s arm as they went downstairs.
“Men are different, aren’t they? I remember when I first lived with a man – my husband, in fact, things being somewhat more respectable in those days, I found it very strange indeed. Men are so . . . so. . . well, I must say I don’t quite know the word for men, do you?”
“Masculine?” suggested Pat.
Domenica laughed. “Exactly. That says everything, doesn’t it?
Bruce is masculine. In a way.” She looked at Pat in a shared moment of feminine understanding. “They’re little boys, aren’t they? That’s what I think they are.”
They were now on the landing of the floor below, and 40
560 SEC
Domenica gestured at the door of the flat on the right. “Speaking of little boys, that’s where young Bertie lives. You will have heard him playing the saxophone last night, I assume.”
Pat glanced at the door, which was painted light blue and bore a sticker indicating that no nuclear power was produced, nor used, within.
“Yes,” she said. “I heard him.”
Domenica sighed. “I don’t object to the noise. He plays remarkably well, actually. What I object to is his age.”
Pat was uncertain what this meant, and looked at Domenica quizzically. It was difficult to imagine how one might object to the age of another person: age was something beyond one’s control, surely.
Domenica sensed her confusion. “Bertie, you see, is very young. He’s about five, I believe. And that’s too young to play the saxophone.”
“Five!”
“Yes,” said Domenica, looking disapprovingly at the landing behind them and at the light blue door. “Very pushy parents!
Very pushy, particularly her. They’re trying to raise him as some sort of infant prodigy. He’s being taught music and Italian by his mother. Heaven knows why they decided on the saxophone, but there we are. Poor child!”
Pat found it difficult to imagine a five-year-old boy playing As Time Goes By on the saxophone. If it was a tenor instrument, then it would be difficult to see how his fingers would span the keys. And a saxophone would be almost as tall as the boy himself.
Did he stand, then, on a chair to play it?
“The whole point about childhood,” Domenica went on, “is that it affords us a brief moment of innocence and protection from the pressures of the world. Parents who push their children too hard intrude on that little bit of space. And of course they make their children massively anxious. You weren’t pushed by your parents, were you?”
Pat shook her head. “Not at all. I was encouraged, but not pushed.”
“There’s a big difference,” said Domenica. “And I could tell
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that you weren’t pushed. You’re too calm and sensible. You seem to be a very balanced person to me. Not that I know you terribly well. In fact, I don’t know you at all. But one gets that feeling about you.”
Pat felt vaguely embarrassed by this conversation, and was about to change the subject, but they had by now reached the front door and Domenica had disengaged her arm.
“You’re on your way to work?”
“Yes,” said Pat.
“I could give you a lift,” Domenica offered. “My car is right there in the street. It would be no trouble.”
“Work is just round the corner,” said Pat. “It’s kind of you, though.”
Domenica paid no attention to this refusal. “That’s it over there,” she said. “That custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz 560
SEC. That’s my car.”
Pat stared at the car which was being pointed out by Domenica.
It was a sleek-looking coupé with gleaming silver hub caps and a proud Mercedes circle worked into the grille. “It’s a very beautiful car,” she said. “A lovely car.”
“It’s a dream to drive,” said Domenica. “It has a double kick-down feature. You press your foot right down and it shifts the automatic gear-box down, twice, if you need it. And the power! The engine capacity is five point six litres, which gives it the power of five Minis!”
“Five Minis!” exclaimed Pat.
“Yes!” said Domenica. “Five Minis! Now come, my dear, let’s get in it!”
16. Irrational Beliefs and the Mind of the Child Bertie and his mother came out of the front door of 44 Scotland Street just after Domenica and Pat had strapped themselves into the front seats of the custard-coloured Mercedes-Benz. Neither couple noticed one another: Domenica was busy with the starting of the engine, while Pat was looking with admiration at the plush off-custard leather upholstery and the polished walnut dashboard. For their part, the two members of the Pollock family, young Bertie, aged five, and his mother, Irene, aged thirty-four, were concerned about getting to the East New Town Nursery in good time. For Bertie, an early arrival was important if he was to secure the train set before other boys, with lesser moral entitlements, claimed it; for Irene, an early arrival meant that she could speak to the supervisor, Miss Christabel Macfadzean, before she became too distracted by children and parents to give her any attention. There were several matters which she wished to raise with her, and it was no good writing to her as she never gave anything more than a brief acknowledgment of the note.
Irene did not like Christabel Macfadzean, even if she had to admit grudgingly that the teacher had a few good points – she was conscientious enough, and the children seemed quite attached to her. The trouble was, though, that she did not appear to realise just how gifted Bertie was and how much extra stimulation and attention he needed. This was not to say that other children did not have their needs – of course they did – it’s just that Bertie’s needs were special. The other children could not read, for instance, while Bertie read English well and was making good progress with Italian. He had a well-used Italian children’s book, L’Avventure del Piccolo Roberto which he could now read in its entirety, and he had moved on to an Italian translation of Max und Moritz (not something with which Irene saw eye to eye ideologically, but it was better, she decided, than the Struwwelpeter with its awful cruelties).
As they walked through Drummond Place, Bertie held onto his mother’s hand and desperately tried to avoid stepping on any of the cracks in the pavement.
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“Do come along, Bertie,” said Irene. “Mummy has not got all day. And why are you walking in that silly way?”
“Cracks,” said Bertie. “If I step on the cracks, then they’ll get me. È vero.”