Espresso Tales - Alexander Hanchett Smith [55]
He looked up the hill. The traffic came down more quickly than it went up. This meant that if he could find a break in the traffic coming down, it would not matter so much if there was something coming up the hill – such traffic would always take longer to reach him. But how long would he need? It was difficult to judge the precise speed of the traffic, and although the buses seemed to be moving very slowly, some of the cars were doing anything but that. Indeed, as he stood there, a small red car shot past him so quickly that he would have missed it, he felt, had he blinked. That car would most certainly have run him over if he had been crossing the street when it had roared round the corner of Henderson Row.
Halfway Across
113
For a few moments, Bertie considered abandoning his mission. It would be simple to turn round and retrace his steps
– as yet innocent steps – back to Scotland Street and home. If he did that he would have done nothing wrong at all and could face his mother and tell her exactly what he had done. He had gone to the end of the safe part of Fettes Row – that was all. But to do this was a complete capitulation. If he did not even have the courage to cross Dundas Street, then would he have the courage to do anything at all? And what of Gavin Hastings?
he thought. Would he have been afraid to cross Dundas Street at the age of six? He would not. He imagined that Gavin Hastings had run across Dundas Street on many occasions as a boy; run and jumped and kicked his heels so that anyone watching would have nodded their heads wisely and said: Look at that boy! That’s a boy who’s bound to play rugby for Scotland!
Bertie took a deep breath. He decided to run.
35. Halfway Across
Peter Backhouse, musician and aficionado of old railways, happened to be walking down Dundas Street that afternoon. He had spent a very satisfactory hour practising on the St Giles’ organ and was pleased with the Olivier Messiaen and Herbert Howells which he planned to perform at a “St Giles’
at Six” concert the following Sunday. There was such quiet in the music, such calm; it was the perfect antidote to the frenzied pace of modern life. Now, returning to the Academy for afternoon chamber-choir practice, he thought of what lay ahead of him. No Messiaen or Howells for the choir – at least not today – but a quick run through of Stand by Me and So it Goes, which the chamber choir had sung before and would respond to well; tear-jerkers, both of those pieces, if one were in a sentimental mood – which parents often were at school concerts.
He had reached the point at which Cumberland Street meets 114 Halfway Across
Dundas Street when he realised that something was happening. He had glanced at his watch – a quick check to see that he was still in good time for choir practice – and for some reason, perhaps through an unconscious prompting of things seen but unseen, he looked over to his right and saw a small boy, wearing strawberry-coloured dungarees, suddenly run out into the street. For a moment, Peter Backhouse thought that the boy had kicked a ball into the road and was rushing out to retrieve it – it was that sort of purposeful, darting movement – but then the boy hesitated, took a few more steps, and stopped again. Oliver Sacks has pointed out that those who are involved in moments of extreme peril often report a slowing-down of time. They see the danger, they may even see impending annihilation, but they often feel that they have plenty of time to react. The quick seconds of peril are slowed, become minutes in the minds of those involved. This is how it seemed that afternoon. For Peter Backhouse, the boy seemed to be standing still for an inordinately long time, quite enough time to step from the path of the bus that was approaching him as he stood, momentarily frozen, in the middle of the road. The bus lumbered past, some faces at least peering out from the window at