Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [59]
sort; their Volvo parked somewhere on the edge of the Meadows. Irene stopped. She had a Volvo, too, of course, or used to have one. Let those without Volvos make the first social judgment, she told herself, and smiled at her wit.
“You can sit down here, Bertie,” she said, pointing to a chair beside one of the tables. “I shall go and get some coffee. But I won’t get you a cup, Bertie, as we don’t want you wanting to rush off to the little boys’ room for a tinkle in the middle of the audition, do we?” Bertie felt his heart stop with embarrassment. It was bad enough for his mother to say such things in any circumstances, but for her to say it here, in the middle of the Queen’s Hall, with the eyes of the world upon him, was horror itself. His face burning red, he looked about him quickly. A girl at a neighbouring table had clearly heard, and was giggling and whispering to her friend. And there, on the other side of their very table, was a boy who had also heard and was now staring at him.
The boy, who looked barely thirteen, glanced at Irene as she made towards the bar, and then turned to face Bertie. “Is that your mother?” he asked.
Bertie shook his head. “No,” he said. And then added, for emphasis: “No, she’s nothing to do with me.”
“Who is she then?” asked the boy.
“She’s just somebody I met on the bus,” he said. “I talked to her and then she followed me in.”
The boy looked surprised. “You have to be careful about talking to strangers,” he said. “Haven’t you been told that?”
Bertie nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s just that I felt sorry for her.” He racked his brains for a credible story, and then continued: “She’s just been let out of a lunatic asylum, you see. They let them out every Saturday, and she had nobody to talk to her. So I did.”
“Oh,” said the boy. “Do you think she’s dangerous?”
“Not really,” said Bertie. “Or maybe just a little bit. But she’s very strange, you know. She’s pretending to be my mother, I think.”
“Some grown-ups are really sad,” said the boy. 124 Bertie’s Agony
“Yes,” agreed Bertie. “It’s really sad.”
He looked at the boy. If he could make a friend here, then the ordeal of being the youngest person present, by far, would be lessened. And this boy, who had what looked like a trombone case with him, seemed to be friendly enough. “What’s your name?” Bertie asked.
The boy smiled. “I’m called Harry,” he said. “And you?”
Bertie swallowed. “I’m called Tom,” he said.
“But she called you Bertie,” said Harry. “That woman called you Bertie. I heard her.”
Bertie shook his head. “Yes,” he said. “It’s sad, isn’t it? I think she calls everybody Bertie. It’s her illness talking.”
Harry nodded. “Look,” he said. “If you need to get away from her, I can help you. We can go and hide in the toilet while she’s getting her coffee. I suppose she’ll go away after a while. How about it?”
Bertie looked towards the bar. He had never run away from his mother before, although he had once managed to get as far as Dundas Street. He did not wish to run away, having decided that he would sit his childhood out until that magical date when he turned eighteen, but the humiliation he had just suffered at the hands of his mother seemed to him now to justify a strong response. But he was not sure whether hiding with Harry would solve anything. What if Irene panicked when she found him missing and started to scream? Or what if she saw him going into the toilets and came in after him to drag him out? She was quite capable of doing that, he thought, and he imagined the scene if Irene went into the men’s room. He closed his eyes. He could not bear to think about it. “Too late,” muttered Harry rising to his feet. “Look out, here she comes. I’m taking off. See you!”
Irene, reaching the table, put down her cup of coffee and lowered herself into the chair beside her son. “It’s going to be very easy for you, Bertie,” she said. “I was talking to one of the other mummies at the bar, and she said