Espresso Tales - Alexander Hanchett Smith [25]
Domenica noticed Pat’s surprise. “Twenty-eight does seem a bit late,” she said. “But there’s at least something to it. If you look at the crime figures they seem to bear this out. Young men commit crimes – ones that get noticed – between seventeen and twenty-four, twenty-five. Then they stop.” She thought for a moment and smiled at some recollection. “I knew a fiscal,” she went on. “He spent his time prosecuting young men up in Dunfermline. Day in, day out. The same things. Assault. Theft. So on. And he said that he saw the same people, from the same families, all the time. Then he said something very funny, which I shall always remember. He said that the fiscals saw the same young men regularly between the age of seventeen and twentysix, and then the next time they saw them was when they were forty-five and they had hit somebody at their daughter’s wedding!
What a comment!”
“But probably true?”
“Undoubtedly true,” agreed Domenica. “On two counts. Weddings can be violent affairs, and everything runs in families. You’ve heard me on genetic determinism before, haven’t you? But that’s another topic. Let’s get back to excuses, and change, and Bruce. If you think that twenty-eight is a bit late Domenica Advises
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for responsibility – true responsibility – to appear, then what would you say to forty?”
“Very late.”
Domenica laughed. “Yes, maybe. But again, if you ask people to describe how they’ve behaved over the years, you will often find that they say they’ve looked at it very differently, according to the stage of life that they’re at. Here I am, for example, sitting here with all the wisdom of my sixty years – what a thought, sixty! – and I can definitely see how I’ve looked at things differently after forty. I’m less tolerant of bad behaviour, I think, than I used to be. And why do you think that is?”
Pat shrugged. “You get a bit more set in your ways? You become more judgmental?”
“And what is wrong with being judgmental?” Domenica asked indignantly. “It drives me mad to hear people say: ‘Don’t be judgmental.’ That’s moral philosophy at the level of an Australian soap opera. If people weren’t judgmental, how could we possibly have a moral viewpoint in society? We wouldn’t have the first clue where we were. All rational discourse about what we should do would grind to a halt. No, whatever you do, don’t fall for that weak-minded nonsense about not being judgmental. Don’t be excessively judgmental, if you like, but always – always – be prepared to make a judgment. Otherwise you’ll go through life not really knowing what you mean.”
Pat was silent. She had not come to see Domenica to discuss developmental psychology. She had come to talk about Bruce, and, specifically, to ask what she should do.
“Very interesting,” she said quietly. “But what should I do?
Do you think I should apologise to Bruce?”
“Nothing to apologise about,” snapped Domenica.
“I feel so sorry for him,” said Pat. “I feel . . .”
“Don’t,” interrupted Domenica. “Be judgmental. He told you a series of lies. And even if he isn’t quite twenty-eight yet, he should know better.”
“More judgmentalism?”
“Absolutely,” said Domenica. “Silly young man. What a waste of space!”
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Chapter title
16. Bertie Goes to School Eventually
Irene would have liked to have driven Bertie to his first day at the Steiner School, but there was the issue of the location of their car and she was obliged to begin as she intended to continue
– by catching the 23 bus as it laboured up the hill from Canonmills.
“It would be nice to be able to run Bertie to school,” she had remarked to Stuart the previous evening, “but not knowing exactly where the car is makes it somewhat difficult, would you not agree?”
“Don’t look at me,” said Stuart. “You were the last to use it. You parked it. You find it.”
Irene pursed her lips. “Excuse me,” she said. “I very rarely use that car, and I certainly was not the last one to drive it. You drove it when you went through to Glasgow for that meeting a couple of months ago. Remember? It was that meeting when