Espresso Tales - Alexander Hanchett Smith [24]
46
Pat and Bruce Work It Out
Bruce nodded. “I think it was.” His toast popped up and he reached for the butter. “But water under the bridge, as they say. Let’s not talk about it any more. Let’s look to the future. Plenty of other girls – know what I mean?”
“Of course there are,” said Pat. “And you’ve got a lot in your life as it is.”
Bruce looked at her. “Are you winding me up?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Pat. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it. You see, wouldn’t it be easier to tell the truth? Wouldn’t it be easier to admit that you’ve lost your job and your girlfriend? Then I could tell you how sorry I am and that might help a little, just a bit. Instead of which you stand there and spin a story about resigning and giving people their freedom and all the rest. It’s all a lie, isn’t it, Bruce?”
Bruce, who had been buttering the toast as he spoke, stopped what he was doing. He looked down at the plate, and moved the toast slowly to one side, putting down the knife. Then his shoulders began to heave and he turned and walked out of the room, leaving Pat in the kitchen, alone with her sudden guilt.
Chapter title
47
15. Domenica Advises
“I feel terrible,” said Pat to Domenica. “I could have stopped myself, but I didn’t. And then, suddenly, he seemed to crumple.”
“Crumple?” asked Domenica, taking a sip of her sherry. It was a lovely thought. “Deflate?”
“Yes,” said Pat. “And that was it. He left the kitchen – and I felt terribly guilty. After all, he’s lost his job and now he’s lost his girlfriend. I suppose he just felt a bit vulnerable – and I made it all the worse for him by crowing.”
Domenica shook her head. “You didn’t crow. You just told him a few truths about himself. I suspect that you did him a good turn.”
Pat thought about this. Perhaps it was time for Bruce to be deflated, and perhaps she was the person who had to do it. And yet it had not been easy and she had felt bad about it; so bad that she had come straight through to speak to Domenica.
“Not that your good turn will have much effect,” Domenica went on. “I don’t think that a few painful moments will have much long-term impact on that young man. Yes, he’s feeling miserable, and he might do a little bit of thinking as a result of what you said. But people don’t change all that radically on the basis of a few remarks made to them. It takes much more than that. In fact, there’s the view that people don’t change at all. I think that’s a bit extreme. But don’t expect too much change.”
Pat frowned. Surely people did change. They changed as they matured. She remembered herself at fourteen. She was a different person now. “People grow up, though,” she said. “They change as they grow up. We all do.”
Domenica waved a hand in the air. “Oh, we all grow up. But once the personality is formed, I don’t think that you get a great deal of change. Bruce is a narcissist, as we’ve all agreed. Do you see him becoming something different? Can you imagine him not looking in mirrors and worrying about his hair? Can you imagine him thinking that people don’t fancy him? I can’t. Not for the moment.” She put her glass down on the table and looked at Pat. “How old is Bruce, by the way?”
48
Domenica Advises
“He’s twenty-five,” said Pat. “Or just twenty-six. Somewhere around there.”
Domenica looked thoughtful. “Well, that’s rather interesting. Men are slower, you know. They mature rather later than we do. We get there in our early twenties, but they take rather longer than that. Indeed, I believe that there’s a school of psychology that holds that men are not fully responsible until they reach the age of twenty-eight.”
Pat thought this was rather late. And what did it mean to say that men were not fully responsible until that age? Could they not be blamed for what they did? “Isn’t that a bit late?” she asked. “I thought that we were held responsible from . . .” From what age were we held responsible? Was it sixteen? Or eighteen?
Young people ended up in court, did they not, and were held to account for what they had done? But at