44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [47]
“No! No! ” shouted Bertie, stamping his feet on the ground. His face was red with rage now, and his fists were clenching and unclenching.
“Bertie, just calm down,” said Irene. “If you want to talk, we can do so over latte. You mustn’t make a noise here in the Floatarium. There are other people floating.”
At the Floatarium
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“I hope they sink!” shouted Bertie.
Irene took a deep breath. “That’s a very, very nasty thing to say. What if somebody did sink? How would you feel then? You’d feel very bad, wouldn’t you?”
Bertie did not reply. He was looking down at the ground now, and Irene noticed that his shoulders were heaving. Bertie was sobbing, but in silence.
She reached forward and embraced him, hugging the little boy to her.
“You’ll feel better soon, Bertie,” she said. “That smelly nursery must be very boring for you. We’ll send you somewhere better. Perhaps St Mary’s Music School. You like their Saturday mornings, don’t you? There are some nice boys and girls there. And you might even get into the choir and dress up, like the rest of the Episcopalians. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“No,” sobbed Bertie. “No.”
38. Mother/Daughter Issues
Barely a mile from the Floatarium, where Bertie was protesting, Sasha Todd, wife of Raeburn Todd ,was sitting down for morning coffee with her daughter, Lizzie. Sasha had chosen Jenners’
tea-room for this meeting, because Jenners made her feel secure, and had always done so. Other shops might come and go, and one or two parvenus had indeed recently set up in the city, but she, quite rightly, remained loyal to Jenners. There was nothing unsettling about Jenners, as she had cause to reflect whenever she approached Edinburgh on a train from the west and saw the satisfying sign Jenners Depository. This signalled to the world that whatever one might find on the shelves of Jenners itself, there was more in the depository, round the back. This was reassuring in the most fundamental way.
There was nothing reassuring about Lizzie. She was twentythree now, and had done very little with her life. At school she had been unexceptional; she had never attracted negative attention, but nor had she attracted any praise or distinction. Her reports had been solid – “might get a B at Higher level, provided she puts in more work”; “almost made it to the second team this year – a solid effort” and so on. And then there had been three years at a college which gave her a vague, unspecified qualification. This qualification had so far produced no proper job, and she had moved from temporary post to temporary post, none of which seemed to suit her.
Both Sasha and Todd thought that marriage was the only solution.
“We can’t support her indefinitely,” said Todd to his wife.
“Somebody else is going to have to take on the burden.”
“She’s not a burden,” said Sasha. “All she’s doing is looking for herself.”
“She should be looking for a husband,” retorted Todd.
“Possibly,” said Sasha. “But then, it’s not easy these days. These young men one meets don’t seem to be thinking of marriage.”
Todd shook his head. “Yet marriages take place. Look at the back of Scottish Field. What do you see? Wedding photographs. Mother/Daughter Issues
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Nice fellows in their kilts getting married in places like Stirling and Balfron.”
Sasha sighed. What her husband said was true. Such a world existed – it had certainly existed in their time – but their own daughter seemed not to be part of it. Was there anything wrong with her, she wondered. There had been no signs of anything like that – no unsuitable friends with short-cropped hair and a tendency to wear rather inelegant jackets – so at least that was not the problem. Thank heavens they did not have to face the problem faced by friends in the Braids whose daughter, an otherwise reasonable girl, had brought home a female welder. What did one talk to a female welder about, Sasha wondered. Presumably there was something one could say, but she had no idea what it might be.