Espresso Tales - Alexander Hanchett Smith [83]
Their turn came to get into a taxi. Stuart opened the door and Bertie climbed in. This was far better than the No 23 bus, he thought: comfortable seats, small glowing red lights, and a taxi driver who looked at them in his rear-view mirror and smiled cheerily.
“Whauryousesgaahn?” the driver asked.
“Dumbarton Road, please,” said Stuart.
The driver looked back up at the mirror. “Radumbartonroad?
B u t w h i t p a r t o r a d u m b a r t o n r o a d y o u s e s w a n t i n a n t h a t ?
Radumbartonroadizzaroadanahafwhaurabit?”
Stuart explained that he was not sure exactly which part of the Dumbarton Road they wanted, but that he would let the driver know when they neared it. The driver nodded; people who got off the Edinburgh train were often a bit vague, he had found, but they very rarely tried to jump out of the taxi without paying. Nor did they try to walk half the way in order to save money. You had to watch the Aberdeen train for that.
“Now, Bertie,” said Stuart. “Look over there. That’s . . . well, I’m not sure what that is, but look over there anyway.”
Bertie looked out at Glasgow. It seemed busier than Edinburgh, he thought, and the buses were a different colour. But everybody seemed to know where they were going, and seemed happy enough to be going there. He was going to like Glasgow, he thought, and perhaps he would even come to live here when he was eighteen. If he did that, then he would even start to learn the language. It sounded quite like Italian in some respects, and was possibly even easier to learn. They made their way to St George’s Cross and then down below Glasgow University. Stuart pointed in the direction of the university and drew Bertie’s attention to the fact that his own father, Bertie’s grandfather, had studied medicine there.
“It’s a very great medical school,” said Stuart. “Many famous doctors have trained there, Bertie. You could even go there yourself.”
“That would be nice,” said Bertie. The thought had occurred Arriving in Glasgow
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to him that perhaps Dr Fairbairn had trained there, but then that would have been a long time ago. Glasgow did not seem like a good place for psychotherapists, Bertie thought. It was difficult to say exactly why this should be so, but Bertie certainly felt it. Edinburgh was better territory for that sort of thing. And he had not seen a single floatarium during the taxi drive, not one; a large number of Indian restaurants, of course, but no floataria.
Once they reached the Dumbarton Road, Stuart began to sit forward in his seat and peer out at the roads going off to either side.
“It’s pretty near here,” he said to the driver.
“Ayeitspruttybutwhauryuzwantintogetaff ?” the driver replied genially.
Stuart stared at a road-end which was approaching them on their right. Yes, this was it. There had been a church at the end of the street because he had remembered its odd-shaped tower.
“Right here,” he said to the driver. “This is where we want to get aff.”
The driver nodded and drew into the side of the road. Stuart paid the bill, and then he and Bertie strode across the busy Dumbarton Road and began to walk slowly down the quiet residential street to the right.
“It was along here,” said Stuart. “Further along on this side.”
Bertie skipped ahead of his father, looking for the familiar shape of their red Volvo station wagon. It was not a long street, and before he had gone very far he realised that he had cast his eyes down the line of cars parked along the street and there was no sign of a red Volvo. He turned to face his father.
“Are you sure, Daddy?” he asked. “Are you sure that this is the right road?”
Stuart looked down towards the end of the road. He was sure that this was it. He closed his eyes and imagined that afternoon. He had taken his files from the back of the car and had locked the door. And then he had begun to walk towards the Dumbarton Road and the place where the meeting was to be held. And there had been a dog crossing the road and a motorist 174 Lard O’Connor
had