At the end of the rehearsal, as they were packing up their instruments, Bertie went to stand close to Max, so that he could sit next to him on the bus and discuss their outing.
“It’s very exciting,” whispered Bertie.
“Yes, sure,” said Max nonchalantly.
88. Girl Talk
They were taken from the rehearsal to the restaurant, which was a large, hall-like establishment, specialising in the feeding of school parties on visits to Paris. The menu, which was printed on laminated cards, was written in English, Italian and German. There was no French. The description of each course was helpfully accompanied by a small picture of what the dish looked like.
To Bertie’s disappointment, Max appeared to have found some new friends and sat with them, leaving him to sit with a small group of girls, who made a place for him and seemed to be quite happy with his company.
“You’re very sweet, you know,” said one of the girls.
Bertie blushed. He was not sure whether it was a good thing to be described as sweet, but he thought that it probably was not.
“How old are you?” said another. “Somebody said that you were only four. Is that true?”
Bertie looked down at his plate. “I’m going to be seven on my next birthday,” he said.
“Six!” exclaimed another girl.
Fortunately, the conversation soon moved on to another topic, 276 Girl Talk
and Bertie’s embarrassment subsided. The topic, it transpired, was the other members of the orchestra, particularly the boys.
“Have you seen that boy called Kevin?” asked one of the girls.
“He plays the oboe, or thinks that he does.”
“He’s gross,” said another. “He thinks he’s so cool, but he’s really gross. Have you seen his ears? They stick out like this.
It’s really gross.”
“He needs surgery,” said the first girl. “That’s his only chance.”
They laughed at this. Bertie, who could see Kevin sitting on the other side of the room, looked at his ears. They did not seem too large to him.
“And that boy in percussion,” one said. “I saw him looking in the mirror in the hotel. There’s this big mirror in the hall, see, and he was standing in front of it looking at his profile. It was really sad.
“He actually asked Linda out, you know. She couldn’t believe it. She said: ‘Are you mad or something?’ She said to me that she saw the seat he’d been sitting in on the plane and there was a large patch of hair gel where his head had been.
“And what about Max? Do you know him? He sits next to Tessa in the cellos. She says she can’t bear him. She says that he’s really stupid and that she has to do all the counting for him.”
Bertie opened his mouth to say something. Max was his friend, and he did not think he was stupid.
“He’s not stupid,” he said.
One of the girls glanced at him. “You said something, Bertie?”
Bertie tried to make his voice louder, and deeper. “I said: He’s not stupid. Max isn’t stupid.”
“All boys are stupid,” said one of the other girls, and laughed.
“Except you, Bertie. You’re not stupid. You’re sweet.”
At the end of the meal, they returned to the hotel by bus and, after receiving instructions about the following day, when the concert was to be performed, they dispersed to their rooms. When Bertie got to his room, he found that Max was already there.
“I saw you sitting with those girls,” Max remarked. “What were they like?”
Girl Talk 277
Bertie met his friend’s gaze. He was a truthful boy and he thought: would it be a fib, a real fib, not to tell Max what they had said about him? Was it a fib to say nothing when the effect of that would be exactly the same as if you had said something?
“They were quite . . .” Bertie began.
“I think one of them fancies me,” said Max casually. “You know that one with the fair hair? You know the one I mean?”
Bertie nodded. It was the girl who had passed on the comment about Max being stupid.
“She’s the one,” said Max. “Do you think I should ask her out, Bertie?”
Bertie looked doubtful. “I think she may be busy,” he said.
“I’ll think about it,” said Max. “Maybe I’ll give her a chance.”
Bertie looked out of the window. In the streets below, the cars moved slowly past and there was the sound of an approaching Metro train. “When are we going?” he asked Max.
Max lay back on the cover of his bed and looked at his watch.
“It’s a bit late, Bertie,” he said. “And anyway, do you know the way?”
“To the Moulin Rouge?” asked Bertie.
“Yes,” said Max. “Because I don’t. And we can’t go if we don’t know the way.”
“I don’t,” said Bertie, looking crestfallen. “But maybe we could ask somebody in the street.”
Max laughed. “I can’t speak French,” he said. “We can’t ask if we don’t speak French. I do German, you see. And that’s no use in Paris.”
Bertie sighed. “So we can’t go?”
“Not this time,” said Max, slipping out of his shoes and throwing them onto a chair. “Next time we’re in Paris, boy will we have fun then!”
It took Bertie some time to get to sleep that night. He was disappointed by the cancellation of the visit to the Moulin Rouge, but he was looking forward to the concert tomorrow and they still had another night in Paris after that. He drifted off to sleep in a state of contentment and pride at being by himself – or almost – in Paris, fully accepted by a group of 278 Irene Has a Shock
teenagers, more or less an honorary teenager. It was a fine state to be in.
He dreamed, and in his dream he was in the Moulin Rouge, which was a large room bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. He was sitting at a table with one of the girls from the orchestra, who was talking to him, although Bertie did not hear anything that she said. And then, into the Moulin Rouge, came Dr Fairbairn.
It seemed to Bertie that Dr Fairbairn was looking for him, and he tried to hide under the table. But he had been spotted, and the psychotherapist came up to him and pulled him back onto his chair.
“What are you doing in the Moulin Rouge, Bertie?” asked Dr Fairbairn.
“I came here because . . .” Bertie started to reply.
“Because it’s a dream, Bertie?” interrupted Dr Fairbairn. “Is that why you’re here? Is that why any of us is here? Is that it, Bertie?”
89. Irene Has a Shock
The following day was the day of the concert, which took place in a hall in the UNESCO building. The performance was to be in the evening, which left the day for sightseeing, including a boat trip on the Seine, a trip to the Pompidou Centre, and a walk round Île de la Cité. Bertie, guidebook in hand, enjoyed all of this a great deal, and ticked off each sight against a check-list in the back of his book.
The Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra was one of a number of youth orchestras which had been invited to perform in the UNESCO Festival of Youth Arts. The day before, there had been a concert performed by the Children’s Symphony Orchestra of Kiev, and the day afterwards was to feature the Korean Youth Folk Dance Company, which had recently danced in Rome, Milan and Geneva, before admittedly small, but Irene Has a Shock 279
nonetheless enthusiastic audiences. Now it was the turn of Edinburgh, and the orchestra had prepared a programme of predominantly Scottish music, including Hamish McCunn’s
‘Land of the Mountain and the Flood’, George Russell’s rarely-performed ‘Bathgate Airs for Oboe and Strings’ and Paton’s haunting ‘By the Water of Leith’s Fair Banks’.
This programme was well received by the audience of several hundred Parisians. In Le Monde the following week, it was to receive a mention in a feature on young people and the arts, in which the writer referred to the fact that while the youth of France appeared to be burning cars at weekends, Scottish youth seemed to be more engaged in cultural pursuits. This, the writer suggested, was the complete opposite of what one might expect, were one to believe the impression conveyed in film and literature.