44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [42]
“You did,” said Matthew. “You said something about John not knowing who Pat was. But why did you call him John? Do you know him?”
Pete shook his head. “You misheard me. I didn’t say anything about a John. I don’t know any Johns.”
“Rubbish,” said Lou. “Don’t know any Johns? Rubbish.”
“What I said was that he –this man who wants the Peploe?
– whoever he is, and how would I know he’s called John? – he’ll not know who Pat is and won’t know where she lives. Which is, where?”
“No idea,” said Matthew.
Pete shrugged. “All right. Tell her to take it back to her place and keep it in a cupboard until you’ve decided what to do with it. It’ll be safe there.”
“Good idea,” said Matthew. “I’ll speak to her about it. I’ll ask her to take it home this evening.”
They finished their coffee in silence. Matthew was the first to go, leaving the other two men at their table.
“I suppose we have to get back,” said Ronnie after a while. He looked at Lou. “Perhaps I should have been a philosopher instead, Lou. Easier job, I think.”
Lou smiled. “I wouldn’t know. But I suspect that it’s not as easy as you think. They worry a lot. Life’s not simple for them.”
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“Nor for us,” said Pete, rising to his feet.
“Maybe,” said Big Lou. “But then, ignorance can be comfortable, can’t it?”
34. On the Way to the Floatarium
Irene had an appointment at the Floatarium, but with a good half-hour in hand before she was due to submit to the tank’s womb-like embrace, she had time to enjoy the bright, late spring day. Strolling along Cumberland Street that morning, she noted the changes brought by relentless gentrification. A few years back there had been at least some lace curtains; now the windows with their newly-restored astragals were reassuringly bare, the better to allow, at ground level at least, expensive minimalist or neopost-Georgian furniture to be admired. Irene paused before the windows of one flat and pondered the colour scheme. No, she would not have chosen that red, which was almost cloying in its richness. Their own flat was painted white throughout, apart from Bertie’s room, which they had chosen to paint pink, to break the sexist mould. Or, rather, she had chosen to paint the walls pink. Stuart, her husband, had been less certain about this and had argued for white, but had been overruled. Irene was not sure about Stuart’s commitment to the project of Bertie’s education, and she had even wondered on occasions whether he fully understood what she was trying to do. The discussion over colour schemes had been a case in point.
“Boys don’t like pink,” he had observed. “I didn’t, when I was a boy.”
Irene had been patient. “That, of course, was some time ago, and your upbringing, as we both know, was not exactly enlightened, was it? Attitudes are different now.”
“Attitudes may be different,” said Stuart, “but are boys? Boys are much the same as they always were, I would have thought.”
Irene was not prepared to let such a patently false argument 88
On the Way to the Floatarium
go unrefuted. “Boys are not the same!” she said. “No! Definitely not! Boys are constructed socially. We make them what they are. A patriarchal society produces patriarchal boys. A civilised society produces civilised boys.”
Stuart looked doubtful. “But boys still want to do boyish things. If you put them in a room with dolls and toy cars, won’t they choose the cars? Isn’t that what they do?”
Irene sighed. “Only boys who have had no other options will go for cars. Some boys will go for other things.”
“Dolls?”
“Yes, dolls. If you give them the chance. Boys love playing with dolls.”
“Do they?”
“Yes. As I said, if you make the environment right.”
Stuart thought for a moment. “Well, look at Bertie. He loves trains, doesn’t he? He’s always going on about the train set at the nursery school. He loves it.”
“Bertie loves trains because of their social possibilities,” said Irene quickly. “The train set enables him to act out social dramas. Bertie likes trains