Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [58]
At the Queen’s Hall 121
“Your mum makes me sick,” he said. “Do you know what she’s been doing? It’s gross! Yuk! Disgusting!”
Bertie had said nothing; one cannot defend the indefensible, but he had smarted with shame. And now he was to be subjected to yet further humiliation, unless, unless . . .
“I haven’t been to Paris for years,” said Irene. “There is really no other city like it.”
Bertie nodded grimly. “Should I go and put my saxophone in its case?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Irene, looking at her watch. “We will probably need to take a taxi now, as we’ll never get up to the Queen’s Hall in time if we have to wait for a bus.”
They were soon in a taxi, rattling their way up Dundas Street and the Mound. Princes Street was en fête, with its lines of fluttering flags and its flowers. Bertie liked Princes Street Gardens, and had gone there once with his father, when they had climbed the hill beneath the Castle and watched the Glasgow train emerging from its tunnel beneath the gallery. He had also gone to the Gardens several times with his mother, but they had not climbed the hill. On the last occasion, she had insisted that they watch a display of Scottish country dancing at the Ross Bandstand.
“Why do people dance?” he had asked his mother.
“It’s a form of deflection of the sexual impulse,” explained Irene.
“Even at the Ross Bandstand?” asked Bertie.
Irene laughed. “Oh my goodness no, Bertie! Scottish country dancing is not like that at all. It’s an expression of bourgeois obsession with time and order. That’s what’s going on there. Look at it! Absurd!”
Bertie looked at the dancers, who appeared to be enjoying themselves greatly. He did not understand why they should be absurd. “But aren’t we bourgeois, Mummy?” asked Bertie. Irene laughed. “Most certainly not,” she said. The journey to the Queen’s Hall passed largely in silence, or at least on Bertie’s part. Irene had various bits of advice for him, though, including tips on how to present himself at the audition. 122 Bertie’s Agony
“Don’t feel nervous,” she said.
“Remind yourself that there are not only strangers there –
I’ll be sitting there, too! Keep that in mind, Bertie.”
Bertie reeled under the fresh blow. He had been hoping that his mother would wait outside. Now she was coming in! And that, he realised, would make his plan much more difficult to put into effect.
39. Bertie’s Agony
The Queen’s Hall was thronged that morning with a large crowd of ambitious parents and children. Bertie followed his mother down the corridor that led to the coffee room and bar at the end. He was aware of the fact that there were many people about, but he hardly dared look up to see who they were. His eyes were fixed on the floor, hoping to locate the geological flaw which would swallow him up and save him from his current embarrassment. But of course there was none; at no time is the earth more firm than when we wish that it were not. Irene cast her eye about the room like a combatant assessing the field before joining the fray. Such gatherings held no terrors for her; this was the opposition of course, the other parents, but she knew that she had little to fear from any of them. In fact, she felt slightly sorry for them as she surveyed their offspring; that bespectacled teenage boy in the corner of the room, for example, standing with his mother – what an unhealthy specimen, with his sallow complexion and his jeans with holes in the knees. Irene knew how expensive such jeans could be. That boy, she thought, is a fashion victim and that mother of his does nothing to prevent it. Sad.
Her gaze moved on to the rather prim young girl seated at one of the tables, her oboe case balanced on her knee and her mother proudly sitting opposite her. Such a consummately middle-class