“Hardly. But it would be a rather good way of letting him develop without having to look over his shoulder at other children. I’m sure he’d benefit. And perhaps I could take him to Italy – to perfect his spoken Italian.”
Stuart laid aside his newspaper. “I was thinking of taking the pressure off a bit, rather than adding to it. I thought of a year out, so to speak. Perhaps we should leave Italian for the time being.”
This suggestion did not go down well with Irene. “It would be a criminal waste of everything we’ve done so far if we let his Italian get rusty,” she said coldly. “And the same goes for the saxophone and theory of music. For everything in fact.”
“But perhaps at this age we should concentrate on his langue maternelle,” said Stuart. “Italian is a very beautiful language, admittedly, but it isn’t his langue maternelle. ”
“Neither here nor there,” said Irene dismissively. “There is evidence – ample evidence – that the development of linguistic skills in the early years leads to much greater facility with language when one’s older. Every minute is precious at this age. The mind is very plastic.”
Stuart opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and was silent. He knew that he could not win an argument with Irene, and nine years of marriage to her had convinced him that he should no longer try.
“I’ll think about it further,” said Irene. “The only decision we have to make now is not to take him back to that woman and her so-called nursery school. And I don’t think we should.”
“D’accordo,” said Stuart.
Irene looked satisfied. “In that case, I shall have a look around and see what’s possible. I’ll do this after we’ve started his therapy.”
Stuart gave a start. This was new information. Had therapy been discussed before? He could not recall anything being said Plans for the Conservative Ball
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about it, but then sometimes he stopped paying attention when Irene was talking. He might have missed the discussion.
Irene, noticing his puzzlement, explained. “The Scottish Institute of Human Relations,” she said. “We have an appointment there on Monday. A Dr Fairbairn. He’s been highly recommended and he’ll be able to advise us on why Bertie has suddenly started playing up.”
“Do we really need all this?” asked Stuart.
Irene stared at him. No response was necessary, or at least no verbal response.
48. Plans for the Conservative Ball On the other side of the city, in their house in the higher reaches of the Braids, Raeburn Todd and his wife, Sasha, had finished their breakfast and were now drinking a cup of coffee in the conservatory. This was where they liked to sit after breakfast at weekends, particularly on a fine day, such as this was. The Braids could be cold, with their extra three hundred feet or so, but that morning the weather was warmer than normal and they had even opened a window of the conservatory. It was the day of the South Edinburgh Conservative Ball, and Todd, who was the chairman of the ball committee, was reviewing the prospects for that evening’s entertainment. He had made a list of things to do and was going through this with Sasha.
“First thing,” he said in a businesslike fashion. “First thing is hotel bits and pieces. Meal and ballroom.”
“All fine,” said Sasha, who composed the rest of the committee, the other members having sent their apologies. “The menu’s approved and the hotel said they would look after the flower.”
Todd smiled. “Flower? Only one?”
Sasha nudged him playfully. “You know what I meant. Flowers.
The fact that we have very few people coming doesn’t mean we’re only going to have one flower.”
Todd looked down at the list in front of him and shook 124
Plans for the Conservative Ball
his head. “On which subject,” he said, “this is really very disappointing. Nothing’s come in this morning, I take it? Nobody else signing up?”
Sasha shook her head. “When the phone went before breakfast I hoped that it would be somebody. But it was the dress shop about my dress. So it looks like that’s it.” She paused. “Are you still sure that we should go ahead? Couldn’t we come up with some other explanation for a late cancellation?”
Todd’s reply was firm. “No. Absolutely not. We’ve been through this before. And, anyway, other parties have their problems with parties, so to speak. Have you ever been to a Labour Party do?
Awful. Dreadfully dull events. Like a primary school parents’
evening, but not quite so much fun. And the Liberal Democrats have these terrible dinners where everybody wears woolly pullovers and rather shabby dresses. And as for the SNP, well, everybody’s usually tight at their events, rolling all over the floor.
Ghastly. No, we don’t do too badly, I’m telling you!”
“Even with . . . how many is it?”
Todd consulted his list. “I make it six,” he said. “You, me, Lizzie, that young man from the office, and Ramsey and Betty Dunbarton. They’ve confirmed, so that’s six.”
Sasha picked up her coffee and took a sip. “We could have just one table, then,” she said. “We could all sit together.”
This idea did not appeal to Todd. “No,” he said. “I think we should have two tables. Table One and Table Two. This is because it would look rather odd just to have one table, and then I’m not sure if we want to spend the whole evening with the Dunbartons, charming company though they undoubtedly are. It’s just that he’s such a bore. And I’m sorry, but I can’t stand her. So, no.
Let’s have two tables. We’ll be at Table One, and they can be at Table Two.”
Sasha accepted the reasoning behind this, and moved on to raise the issue of the band and the dances. “I’ve spoken to the man who runs it,” she said. “They come from Penicuik, I think, or somewhere out that way. I’ve told him that we want middle-of-the-road dance music to begin with and then something suitable for reels. He said that’s fine. He said they could do anything.”
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Todd nodded his agreement and was about to go on to another matter, but stopped. “Reels?” he asked. “Eightsomes and the like?”
“Yes,” said Sasha. “People love that.”
“But there are only going to be six of us,” Todd pointed out.
“How will we be able to do an eightsome if there are only six people there? And Ramsey Dunbarton is pretty frail these days.
I can’t imagine him doing an eightsome. The old boy would probably drop down stone dead. Then there’d only be five of us.”
“There are other dances,” said Sasha quickly. “A Gay Tories, for example, I mean a Gay Gordons! You only need two for that.
And there’s the Dashing White Sergeant. That needs three for each set, so there could be two sets.”
Todd thought for a moment. “But don’t you go in opposite directions with the Dashing White Sergeant, and then meet up? If three of us went off in one direction and three in another
– always assuming that Ramsey Dunbarton is up to it – then we would only meet once we’ve danced round the whole room. The band would have to adapt. They’d have to play on and on until we got all the way round the room and met up on the other side.
Wouldn’t that be a bit odd?”
“Some of these bands are rather good,” said Sasha.
49. Tombola Gifts
Todd left Sasha in the house while he went off to play golf. His golf partner had declined to buy a ticket for the ball, and Todd intended to reproach him for this, although he knew that there was no possibility of his relenting. He was reconciled now to the idea of a ball of six, which was, in his view, quorate. Even two would have been enough; had he and Sasha been the only people there, they would have persisted and danced in the face of adversity. That was the only way in politics. A ball with six people one year could be a ball with sixty the next year, and then six hundred the year after that. Political fortunes shifted, and 126