44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [79]
– and that was what made him so interesting. Rather than fear that he might be bitten, Wee Fraser had himself bitten a number The Rucksack of Guilt
165
of others, including a Liberal Democratic councillor who had called at the door and Dr Fairbairn himself, thus eliciting that famous line in the case history: “The young patient then attempted the oral incorporation of the analyst.”
Irene, of course, had heard of Dr Fairbairn, and had attended a lecture which he had given on Wee Fraser at the Royal Scottish Museum. She had every confidence in him and in his ability to get to the heart of Bertie’s malaise, and she secretly entertained thoughts of Bertie in due course appearing in the psychoanalytical literature. A Remarkably Talented Boy and his Problems in Adjusting to a Mediocre Society. That would be a possible title; and the text itself would be extremely interesting. There would have to be, of course, a complete exposure of Christabel Macfadzean and her lack of understanding of Bertie (and children in general). She, poor woman, would stand for the essential poverty of the bourgeois imagination, a cipher for everything that was wrong with Edinburgh itself. She allowed herself the luxury of these thoughts as they completed their journey, Bertie trailing slightly behind her, hands in his pockets, still, she noticed, trying to avoid standing on the cracks.
“Where are we going anyway?” muttered Bertie.
“We’re going for therapy,” said Irene. She had never concealed anything from Bertie and this, of all occasions, was one on which a frank explanation was required.
“What happens at therapy?” asked Bertie, a note of anxiety now entering his voice. “Do other boys have therapy? Will there be other boys there?”
“Of course other boys have therapy,” said Irene, reassuringly.
“You may not see other boys, but they do go there. Lots of boys have therapy.”
Bertie thought for a moment. “Am I having therapy because I’m suspended?” he asked.
Irene frowned. “Your suspension from nursery was a nonsense,”
she said. “You mustn’t feel that you have been suspended at all. Just ignore it.”
“But am I suspended?” asked Bertie. “Like a cancelled train?
Am I cancelled?”
166
The Rucksack of Guilt
“No,” said Irene, gritting her teeth at the persistent, worrying train references. “That woman tried to suspend you, but I withdrew you before she could do so. You can’t be suspended if you’re withdrawn.” She paused. They were now standing outside the entrance to the Institute, and it was time to go in.
“We can talk about all that later on,” she said. “Now we must go in and meet Dr Fairbairn. I’m sure that you’ll like him.” And there was certainly nothing forbidding in Dr Fairbairn’s manner when the two of them were shown into his consulting room. He was dressed in a loose-fitting cord jacket and a pair of slightly rumpled charcoal slacks. He greeted them warmly, bending down to shake hands with Bertie and addressing Irene formally as Mrs Pollock.
Irene knew that she would like him. She usually made snap judgments of people – it had taken her no more than a few minutes to get the measure of Christabel Macfadzean, for example – and she seldom revised her opinions after she had formed them. People were, in her experience, either possible or impossible. Hugo Fairbairn was clearly possible, and she would have judged him so even had she been unaware of his background and his writings.
Dr Fairbairn gestured to a small circle of easy chairs at one side of the room. “Let’s sit down,” he said, smiling at Bertie as he spoke. “Then we can have a little chat.”
They took their places and Irene glanced at Dr Fairbairn. In spite of her interest in these matters, she had never actually consulted a psychotherapist