The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [39]
‘Miss Macfadzean,’ Irene corrected. ‘She was Miss Macfadzean because no man in his right mind would ever have married her, poor woman.’
‘But you didn’t like her, did you, Mummy?’ Bertie asked again.
‘It was not a question of disliking her, Bertie,’ said Irene. ‘It was more a question of feeling sorry for her. Those are two different things, you know. Mummy felt pity for Miss Macfadzean because of her limited vision. That’s all. And her conservative outlook. But that’s quite different from disliking her. Quite different.’
Bertie thought about this. It had seemed very much like dislike to him, but then adults, he noticed, had a way of making subtle distinctions in the meaning of words. But even if his mother claimed not to have disliked Miss Macfadzean, then there were still other people whom he was sure she did not like at all. One of these was Tofu, Bertie’s friend – of sorts – from school.
‘What about Tofu?’ he asked. ‘You don’t like him, Mummy. You hate him, don’t you?’
Irene gasped. ‘But Bertie, you mustn’t ever say things like that! Mummy certainly does not hate Tofu. Mummy just thinks . . .’ She trailed off.
‘Thinks what, Mummy?’ Bertie asked.
‘I think that Tofu is just a little bit aggressive,’ Irene said. ‘I don’t want you to grow up being aggressive, Bertie. I want you to grow up to be the sort of person who is aware of the feelings of others. The sort of boy who knows about the pain of other people. I want you to be simpatico, Bertie. That’s what I want.’
Bertie looked thoughtful. ‘And you don’t like Hiawatha,’ he said. ‘That other boy in my class. You said you didn’t like him. You told me so yourself, Mummy.’
Irene glanced away. ‘Bertie,’ she said, ‘you really mustn’t put words into my mouth. I did not say that I disliked Hiawatha. All I said was that I didn’t like the way Hiawatha . . . well, not to beat about the bush, I didn’t like the way that Hiawatha smelled. He really is a rather unsavoury little boy.’
‘But if you don’t like somebody’s smell,’ said Bertie, ‘doesn’t that mean that you don’t like them?’
‘Not at all,’ countered Irene. ‘You can dislike the way a person smells without disliking them, in their essence.’ She paused. ‘And anyway, Bertie, I really don’t think that this conversation is getting us anywhere. We were really meant to be talking about Dr Fairbairn. I was giving you an answer to the question that you asked about stopping your psychotherapy. And the answer, Bertie, is that you must keep up with it until Dr Fairbairn tells us that there’s no longer any need for you to see him. He has not done that yet.’
Bertie looked down at his shoes, thinking of how the answer was always no. Well, if his mother wanted to talk about Dr Fairbairn, then there was something that had been preying on his mind.
‘Mummy,’ he began. ‘Don’t you think that Ulysses looks a lot like Dr Fairbairn? Haven’t you noticed?’
Irene was quite still. ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘What do you mean by that, Bertie?’
‘I mean that Ulysses has the same sort of face as Dr Fairbairn. You know how they both look. This bit here . . .’ He gestured to his forehead.
Irene laughed. ‘But everybody has a forehead, Bertie! And I suspect if you compared Ulysses’ forehead with lots of other people’s, then you would reach the same conclusion.’
‘And his ears,’ went on Bertie. ‘Dr Fairbairn’s ears go like that– and so do Ulysses’.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Irene abruptly.
‘Do you think that Dr Fairbairn could be Ulysses’ daddy?’ asked Bertie.
He waited for his mother to respond. It had just occurred to Bertie that if Ulysses were to be Dr Fairbairn’s son, then that could mean that he would go and live with him, and Bertie would no longer have the inconvenience of having a smaller brother in the house. He was not sure how Ulysses could be the psychotherapist’s son, but it was, he assumed, possible. Bertie had only the haziest idea of how babies came about, but he did know that it