The roots of the difference lay in the very nature of the two societies: whatever Scotland was, it was not a matriarchy; whereas the United States was a profoundly matriarchal society – and much more feminine than would be suggested by all that male bravado.
That was a front, and a misleading one at that; underneath the male swagger lay a passive acceptance of female dominance – a fact not always appreciated by outsiders. And as a result, such people often fundamentally misread American society and assume that decisions articulated by men are male decisions – a serious mistake.
Although he had not reflected on the general issue of why American women behaved the way they did, Bruce found it very difficult to adjust to the independence which Sally showed in her relationship with him. In his view, it was only natural that the male should take the lead in most matters (“That’s the whole point of being a male,” he had once remarked to a friend who had consulted him about a fraying relationship). Women who did not accept this were, in Bruce’s view, self-evidently unhappy in their gender. They made very unstable girlfriends and were best avoided, even if they were sometimes every bit as enthusiastic as other women were in flinging themselves at him. Bruce knew that he was attractive even to women who were not interested in men 32
Bruce’s Plan
at all, although they often fought so hard against it and felt so bad about their feelings towards him. Go with the flow, he might have said. That is how Bruce thought.
The impending departure of Sally, rather curiously, added a zest to the relationship. Although neither would have thought of it in these terms, this was probably owing to the fact that neither now felt trapped, and a sense of freedom in a friendship
– or in a love affair – often adds a certain lightness to what might otherwise weigh heavily. It is not hard to be considerate, or even enthusiastic, towards those who are going away; in fact, they often appear much more attractive and desirable as friends than they did before they announced their intention to go. Now, after the decision to go is taken, the obligation of those who are staying behind is finite; we do not have to be nice to them for much longer – the smile need not be maintained into some distant and unknowable future.
For her part, knowledge of the fact that Bruce was about to be dropped made Sally feel slightly guilty, which caused her to be particularly affectionate towards him. She gave him several small and unexpected presents – a set of cuff links from Jenners, and a silk tie which she bought from Stewart Christie in Queen Street. And Bruce reciprocated with a box of Callard and Bowser nougat and a book of Edinburgh views taken by a well-known soft-focus photographer. “So that you can remember how happy you’ve been in Edinburgh,” he wrote on the title page of the book. “And to remind you of me.”
Sally was touched by this, but when she began to analyse the wording of his inscription, her irritation with Bruce resurfaced. Was he implying that her happiness in Edinburgh was directly attributable to her having met him? If so, that was nonsense. She had been perfectly happy before she had met him; indeed she had even been slightly happier then. So the inscription might more accurately have read: “To remind you of how happy you’ve been in Edinburgh, in spite of memories of me.” But people never wrote that sort of brutally honest thing in books, largely because people very rarely have a clear idea of the effect that they have on other people, or can bring A Bus for Bertie
33
themselves to admit it. And Bruce, as Sally had discovered, lacked both insight into himself and an understanding of how somebody like her might feel about somebody like him. I really am wasting my time with him, she said to herself; I may as well bring the whole thing to an end right now. And yet there was something compelling about him, something fascinating that drew her to him. Something to do with the way he looked, she thought; the lowest common denominator of such dalliances. The conclusion depressed her, but there it was: some relationships are a matter of the physical, try as we might to ennoble them. Ultimately, the reason why one person may stay with another may be as small a thing as the shape of the other’s nose.
Unaware of Sally’s doubts, Bruce assumed that she would find the separation difficult, and that she might wish to prolong their affair at a distance. So when the idea occurred to him of how he might spend a month or two before he started his new job in the autumn, he imagined that Sally would welcome the suggestion.
“I’ve got some good news for you,” he said casually, as they sat in the garden at the Cumberland Bar, enjoying some late Saturday afternoon sunshine.
She looked at him and smiled. The sun was in his hair, melting the gel. Poor Bruce!
“I can come to Nantucket with you,” said Bruce. “You’ve made me curious about it. We could spend a few weeks there maybe, at your place, and then do some travelling. I’ve always wanted to see New Orleans. We could go down there maybe.”
Sally stared at him. The moment had come, unexpected just then, but it had definitely arrived.
11. A Bus for Bertie
“We have to reach a decision,” said Irene Pollock, mother of Bertie, and neighbour, one floor down, of Pat, Bruce and Domenica. She looked at her husband and waited for him to speak.
34
A Bus for Bertie
He was sitting in the chair which he liked to occupy near one of the windows of the sitting room, immediately under the small reproduction Warhol which Irene had bought for him at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He had not been listening closely to what Irene was saying, as he had been thinking about a row which had blown up at the office – Stuart was a statistician in the Scottish Executive – and there had been an intense discussion in an internal meeting of how figures might be presented. The optimists had been pitted against the pessimists, and Stuart was not sure exactly into which camp he fitted. He believed that there were sometimes grounds for optimism and sometimes grounds for pessimism, and that one might on occasion choose between them at the level of subtle, and permissible, nuances but in general should stick to the truth, which was often uncomfortable.
All of this was some distance away from the matter which Irene was talking about, which was the issue of how their son, Bertie, the remarkably talented five-and-three-quarter-year-old, should get from Scotland Street, where they lived, to the school in Merchiston, in which he had now been enrolled.
“Obviously I shall go with him for the first year or so,” said Irene. “And I’ll pick him up at three in the afternoon or whenever it is that he finishes. But before we know where we are he’ll be big enough to go by himself, and we’ll have to make a decision.”
“About what?” Stuart asked, distractedly.
Irene felt vaguely irritated. There were times when Stuart’s mind seemed to be less focused than it might. And these occasions, she had noticed, were increasingly occurring when she was talking about something important to do with Bertie. Was he fully committed to the Bertie project? She would have to talk to him some time about that. One did not raise a little boy like Bertie without full commitment from both parents, and that meant a full commitment to all aspects of the project: educa-tional, social and psychological.
“About which bus he takes,” she said, the irritation creeping into her voice. “There are several possibilities, as you know. The A Bus for Bertie