44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [144]
Very slowly, she reached for the handle of his door and began to turn it. The handle was silent, fortunately, and the door moved slightly ajar as she pushed at it. Hardly daring to breathe, astonished at what she was doing, at her brazen act, she moved slowly through the open door and stood there, just over the threshold, in Bruce’s room.
The room was not in complete darkness, as the curtains did not quite meet in the middle and some light came in from outside; light that fell, slanted, upon the bed near the window. Bruce lay there, half covered by a sheet, his dark hair a deep shadow on the pillow, one arm crooked under his head, and one foot and ankle protruding from the sheet at the foot of the bed. Pat looked and saw the rise and fall of his chest and the flat of his midriff and she felt as if she would sway and stumble. She could reach out easily, so very easily, and touch him, touch this vision of beauty; she could lay her hand upon his shoulder, or upon his chest, but did not do so, and just stood there quietly, struggling with the temptation which was before her. And as she did so, she thought of something that Angus Lordie had said when he had quoted from Sydney Goodsir Smith, who talked 302
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of the earth spinning around in the emptiness. Yes, the earth spun in a great void in which our tiny issues and concerns were really nothing, and what small pleasure or meaning we could extract from this life we should surely clutch before our instant was over.
She took a step forward, and was closer to him now, but stopped, and quickly turned away and walked out of the room. Bruce had been awake, and she had seen his eyes open at the last moment as she approached and the smile that flickered, just visible, about his lips. 104. The Place We Are Going To
Sitting on the top deck of a number 23 bus, bound for an interview at the Rudolf Steiner School, Irene and Bertie looked down on the passing traffic and on the pedestrians going about their daily business.
“It would have been easier to go by car,” Bertie observed. “We could have parked in Spylaw Road. The booklet said there was plenty of parking in Spylaw Road.”
“Travelling by bus is more responsible,” said Irene. “We must respect the planet.”
“Which planet?” asked Bertie. He had a map of the planets in his room – or his space as it was called – and he had learned the names of many of them. Which planet did his mother mean?
“Planet Earth,” said Irene. “The one we are currently occupying, as you may have noticed, Bertie.”
Bertie considered this for a moment. He had great respect for the planet, but he also respected cars. And it was still a mystery to him as to what had happened to their own car. He had last seen it five weeks earlier; now it had disappeared.
“Where is our car, Mummy?” he asked quietly.
“Our car is parked,” Irene replied.
“Where?”
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Irene’s tone was short when she replied. “I don’t know. Daddy parked it. Ask him.”
“I did,” said Bertie. “He said that you parked it somewhere.”
Irene frowned. Had she parked the car? She tried to remember when she had last driven it, but it seemed so long ago. Deciding to leave the conversation where it stood, she looked out of the bus window, over Princes Street Gardens and towards the distant, confident shape of the Caledonian Hotel. This trip to the Steiner School for an interview had been Dr Fairbairn’s idea, although she had accepted it, eventually.
“Bertie must be able to move on,” said the psychotherapist.
“We all need to move on, even when we’re five.”
Irene looked pained. If Bertie moved on, then where, in the most general sense, would he go? And where would that leave her, his mother? Bertie was hers, her creation. Dr Fairbairn picked up her concern, and sought to reassure her. “Moving on means that you may have to let go a bit,” he said gently. “Letting go is