The Importance of Being Seven (16 page)

Since the departure of Miss Harmony, Bertie had had two new teachers. The loss of Miss Harmony had been keenly felt by the children, no more so than by Bertie, who had completely sympathised with her when, driven to distraction by Olive, the teacher had momentarily lapsed and pinched Olive’s ear. That, he thought, was something that anybody having contact with Olive could be forgiven for doing, and it seemed to him very unjust that she should leave simply on account of that. He had been pleased, though, when she had married Matthew and all the children had been invited to the wedding. Olive had been included in this invitation, which struck Bertie as an exceedingly and unnecessarily generous thing to do. It offended him that Olive had expressed no regrets over the incident – in which he felt she was entirely to blame – and indeed had made a number of exaggerated claims as to what had happened.

‘I liked Miss Harmony,’ Olive was heard to say. ‘It’s just a pity that she tried to tear my ear off.’

‘But she didn’t,’ protested Bertie. ‘It was just a little pinch, Olive. I saw her.’

‘It’s a pity she didn’t tear it off,’ Tofu interjected. ‘You deserve it, you little cow.’

‘I forgive you for those crude words,’ said Olive. ‘I forgive you, Tofu, but I’m afraid that God won’t. He’s going to really sort you out when you die. Just you wait.’

Bertie sighed. He was used to this sparring between Olive and Tofu, but he wished that it would not happen. Miss Harmony was gone, and he believed she was happy enough in her new life. There was no point, he thought, in raking over old coals, and of course they had their new teacher to get used to now that the temporary stand-in had been replaced.

Miss Harmony’s replacement was one Miss Maclaren Hope, like all the staff at the school a well-trained and committed teacher. She came from the Isle of Skye, by way of Aberdeen University, and had about her that gentleness and slight dreaminess that is often associated with the Hebrides, both Outer and Inner. She was fluent in Gaelic and played the clarsach, which enchanted the children and even managed to put a thoughtful expression on Tofu’s face. She was keen on singing, too, and soon had the entire class singing Gaelic songs such as ‘Fear a’ Bhata’ and ‘Braigh Loch Iall’. Even Tofu sang, sitting quite still – which was unusual for him – staring up at Miss Maclaren Hope as she led them through the lovely, liquid sounds of the Gaelic.

“ ‘Fear a’ Bhata”,’ she explained, ‘is a song sung by somebody who is thinking of her friend, who is a boatman. Will he come to
see her? Will she see his boat approaching over the water, or will she close the door with a sigh, realising that she will have to wait until the following day before she sees his boat?’

‘Couldn’t he phone her?’ asked Olive.

Miss Maclaren Hope smiled. ‘This song was written before people had mobile phones, Olive. Or even ordinary phones, for that matter. So no, he couldn’t phone her and tell her whether he was coming to see her or not. She would have to wait, down by the seashore, where the kelp is strewn by the tides. She would have to wait, with the soft evening breeze from the outer islands, gentle upon her brow.’ She paused. ‘That is why she is singing this lovely song, you see.’

One of the innovations introduced by Miss Maclaren Hope was a weekly Show and Tell session. This involved one of the members of the class bringing in an object of some sort – a photograph, a book, an ornament or picture – and discussing it with the others. It had been a great success. Hiawatha had brought in a crystal radio set that his father had built as a boy, and this had enabled the class to look up crystal radios and discuss how radio waves worked. Pansy had brought in a book on flower arranging, which her mother used for the class on that subject that she ran in the local church hall. When it came to Tofu’s turn, he had brought in the wheel of a vintage motorcycle that his father had been restoring, which he had stopped doing.

‘Tofu’s dad’s too weak to do anything any more,’ Olive whispered to Bertie. ‘He’s a vegan, you see.’

Bertie looked anxiously at Tofu, who fortunately had not heard.

‘It’s true,’ Olive continued sotto voce. ‘Have you seen him when he comes to collect Tofu at the school gate? The only reason why Tofu’s still alive is that he steals so many sandwiches at school. Otherwise he’d be just like his dad. Just about dead.’

‘My mummy says that Tofu’s dad is fine,’ pointed out Bertie. ‘She said he’s very healthy.’

Olive looked pityingly at Bertie. ‘You shouldn’t believe what adults say, Bertie. I’m surprised that you don’t know that already. Most adults lie. It’s a well-known fact.’

This conversation had been cut short by Miss Maclaren Hope.
‘This is very interesting, Tofu. Old motorcycles are intricate pieces of machinery and this wheel shows us just how beautifully they were made. It’s very heavy, though, so do be careful when you roll it about. And what does this tell us, boys and girls?’

‘You need two of them,’ said Hiawatha. ‘One’s no good.’

‘Indeed,’ said Miss Maclaren Hope. ‘That is undoubtedly true. Motorcycles have two wheels and cars have … How many wheels do cars have, boys and girls?’

So the session continued. And now it was Bertie’s turn, and he was having difficulty in thinking of what he could bring to Show and Tell. Tofu’s wheel had been a great success, as had the crystal radio. Bertie’s problem was that he felt that there was nothing of interest in his house. There were no machines and the books, which mostly belonged to his mother, were mainly by Melanie Klein. Bertie did not want to bring any of those in. Nor did he feel that he could bring in his contraband
Scouting for Boys
by Baden-Powell. That book was too precious, and he feared that it might be confiscated on the grounds that it advocated the carrying of knives. So what was there left to bring?

Then it occurred to him. Ulysses. He could bring his baby brother. Why not? There was lot that could be said about Ulysses.

Untoward incidents are often the result of a series of misunderstandings. In this case, the first misunderstanding arose out of a remark that Bertie dropped into a conversation with his mother while he was accompanying her along Cumberland Street on a walk to Stockbridge. Would it be possible, he asked, for him to take Ulysses to school one day to show him to everybody there? Irene, who was conducting a conversation on her mobile phone at the time – she was talking to the organiser of Bertie’s yoga classes – only listened to Bertie with half an ear, if that, and replied that of
course it would be all right. Ulysses always travelled with her on the 23 bus when she went to collect Bertie in the afternoon, and she assumed that Bertie had in mind her arriving slightly early and taking the baby in to be introduced.

Bertie had not meant that. He had envisaged taking Ulysses in by himself. His brother could then be looked after in the classroom until it was time to go home. This would give him a feeling for the Steiner School, he thought, and would provide more than enough for Bertie to talk about in the Show and Tell.

He then asked: ‘May I take him in myself, Mummy?’

And Irene, who was now not listening at all, replied: ‘Of course, Bertie, of course.’

It was in this way that the whole unfortunate series of events was set on course. There was no real fault on either side: Bertie thought that he had been given permission to take Ulysses to school, and Irene thought that she had merely promised that she would one day take him for a brief visit to the classroom. And there the misunderstanding might have remained, had it not been for a further bit of confusion, this time involving Stuart.

On most mornings it was Irene who went with Bertie on the 23 bus. Every couple of weeks, though, Stuart would arrange to go to work later and would accompany Bertie on the bus, thus allowing Irene the luxury of a long lie-in. Ulysses was a sound sleeper – in the mornings – and so it was not uncommon on such days for Irene to be able to lie in bed until well after ten. And this is what she thought would happen on the morning in question.

Stuart was first out of bed. ‘I’ll take you to school today,’ he said to Bertie when he went into his son’s bedroom to waken him. He had then gone back to the kitchen, and it was there that he received an urgent call from his immediate superior in the government office in which he worked as a senior statistician. An embarrassing report had just been published in the morning papers revealing that slightly under 19 per cent of Scottish children were illiterate when they left primary school at the age of twelve. This was particularly embarrassing in a country that made much of its educational tradition.

Stuart was used to awkward statistics, and he knew how
uncomfortable politicians felt about them. On rare occasions there was nothing that could be done, and the statistics had to be left as they were, but usually it was possible to find some other contrary statistic that made things look better from the political point of view.

Thus, although it might well be true that 19 per cent of twelve-year-olds could not read, the shock involved in this brute fact could be mitigated, perhaps, by discovering a statistic that revealed that they had far fewer dental fillings than was the case, say, thirty years ago, before the age of fluoridation. This statistic could then be fed to the press to gain immediate time. Later, a further statistic, to the effect that the ability of the age group in question to use a computer had improved considerably. The fact that most twelve-year-olds used computers exclusively to play shoot-’em-up games might not even be raised at all, and, if it was, public attention may well have shifted anyway.

‘You’d better get down here this instant,’ said Stuart’s boss. ‘The journalists are braying like dogs, and the Heid Bummer is wanting some good figures pronto, if not prontissimo.’ This was the way senior civil servants spoke; the Heid Bummer, also known affectionately as the High Heid Yin, was the First Minister of Scotland, a popular politician known for his nimble footwork. If he was distressed to find that almost one fifth of Scottish children were illiterate, then his distress would be taken very seriously by the civil servants who surrounded him. What they really needed to find, of course, was a statistic that revealed that in England even more than one fifth of twelve-year-olds could not read; that would take the heat off and provide considerable political satisfaction. But this did not appear to be the case: twelve-year-olds in England, it appeared, all had their noses buried in Joyce, Beckett and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

‘The government’s sunk,’ said Stuart’s boss. ‘Our only hope is that the general population will be too illiterate to read this report anyway. But get here right now, Stuart, and see what you can do.’

It was in the face of this call that Stuart quite forgot that he was due to take Bertie into school. So when Bertie went into the kitchen, there was no sign of his father. His mother, he knew, was asleep, and he did not want to wake her up. Irene valued her long lie-ins,
and Bertie felt that it would not be helpful to disturb her. So he made his own breakfast, put the dirty plate in the dishwasher, and wrote a note to be left on the kitchen table.

Dear Mummy,

Daddy has gone to the office. I think he has forgotten that he was going to take me to school. So I’ll go by myself – I promise you I won’t cross the road except with the green man. I’ll take Ulysses too as it’s my turn for Show and Tell and Miss Maclaren Hope will be really pleased to see him. She can sing him a Gaelic lullaby if he gets tired and starts to girn.

Lots of love, Bertie.

Ulysses was delighted to wake up and find Bertie looking over the edge of his cot. He cooed with delight as his brother lifted him out of bed and set him carefully on the changing table. Bertie was quite familiar with the routine, as he had observed and helped with every step; so Ulysses was soon dry and comfortable and Bertie began to rummage in the cupboard for suitable clothes for him. He quickly dismissed the small dungarees that his mother favoured, and found, to his great delight, a completely unused baby’s sailor suit at the back of a drawer. This had been a present to Ulysses from Stuart’s cousin in Troon, but had been consigned to oblivion by Irene, who had remarked that she thought there were quite enough uniforms in this world without babies being dressed in sailor suits.

With Ulysses in his sailor suit, Bertie sponged his face, combed his few wisps of hair, and carried him to his pushchair. He would give him something to eat in the bus, he thought – a piece of cake, perhaps, and the yellow plastic cup from which he liked to drink milk. But for now everything was ready, and all he had to do was slip out of the flat without waking his mother.

Ulysses continued to beam, especially when he realised that Irene did not appear to be coming. That caused him to chuckle with pleasure and to clap his little hands together.

‘Shh, Ulysses,’ said Bertie. ‘Mummy loves her lie-ins. We mustn’t wake her.’

Getting Ulysses down the stairs in the pushchair was not easy, and there was a dreadful moment when Bertie thought that he would lose control, but that passed, and soon they were out on Scotland Street, walking confidently up to Drummond Place. At the top of the street they turned right and made their way in the direction of Dundas Street and the 23 bus. Bertie felt extremely adult and responsible as he pushed his brother along, and if one or two heads turned in surprise at the sight of a small boy in evident charge of an even smaller one, his manifest self-assurance made them conclude that all was well.

Once they had boarded the bus, the magnitude of the adventure on which he had embarked came home to Bertie. Not only was this the first time he had been on a bus by himself, which was in itself a major milestone, but also it was the first time that he had been in sole charge of Ulysses.

‘I hope that you’re going to be good,’ whispered Bertie, as he balanced Ulysses on his knee. ‘And you mustn’t be sick, understand?’

Ulysses seemed to grasp the gravity of the request, as he stared solemnly at his older brother and began to nod his head in apparent agreement.

‘Good,’ said Bertie. ‘Good boy.’

The bus journey was uneventful. Ulysses, entirely content with Bertie’s company, gurgled appreciatively each time the bus turned a corner, but regurgitated nothing. And when they came to the stop at which Bertie normally alighted, Bertie managed to carry both Ulysses and his pushchair with no difficulty at all. From there, the walk along Merchiston Crescent and Spylaw Road was simplicity itself, and in no time at all they reached the school.

Miss Maclaren Hope was out of the classroom when Bertie entered with Ulysses.

‘What have you got there, Bertie?’ asked Olive suspiciously. ‘Have you brought a doll? Boys shouldn’t play with dolls, you know.’

‘It’s my little brother,’ said Bertie. ‘He’s called Ulysses.’

‘Good!’ shouted Pansy. ‘A real live baby. Can I have a go with him, Bertie?’

Olive was quick to take command of the situation. ‘No,’ she said peremptorily. ‘I’ll take him. Give him here, Bertie.’

Bertie handed Ulysses over gently. ‘Keep him the right way up, please,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t like going upside down.’

‘I know how to hold a baby,’ snapped Olive. ‘I’ve held hundreds of babies. They really like me.’

‘That’s because they can’t see very far,’ said Tofu, who had appeared from the back and was peering at Ulysses.

Olive ignored this taunt, and busied herself with tickling Ulysses under the chin. ‘I like his sailor suit,’ she said. ‘And his nose is really cute, Bertie. You should be proud of his nose.’

‘I am,’ said Bertie.

‘I’m a bit worried about what Miss Maclaren Hope is going to say,’ went on Olive. ‘I think that we should hide him in case she says that he’s not allowed.’

‘Yes, hide him,’ agreed Pansy. ‘Then we can take him out at playtime.’

‘He’s not a toy,’ said Bertie mildly. ‘It might be better to …’

‘No, Pansy’s right,’ said Olive. ‘We should make a little bed for him in the cupboard.’

Bertie tried to point out that Ulysses might not like being put in a cupboard, but was quickly overruled by the girls, who had now taken complete control of their young visitor.

The cupboard had been opened and several jerseys laid down to form a makeshift bed when Miss Maclaren Hope came back into the room. In the silence that followed, Bertie looked at Olive, who quickly handed Ulysses back to him.

‘I’ve brought my little brother in for Show and Tell,’ he explained. ‘He won’t be any trouble, Miss Hope. He’s very nice.’

‘What a sweet little boy,’ said the astonished teacher. ‘But …’

‘He looks like my last psychotherapist,’ said Bertie. ‘Especially his ears.’

‘Well, that’s very interesting, Bertie, but where’s your mummy? Is she here as well?’

Bertie explained that his mother was having a lie-in. And so Daddy was somewhere in the school? No, he was not; he had to go into the office. And so … ‘I think that we’d better make a phone call,’ said Miss Maclaren Hope. ‘And if you don’t mind, Bertie, I’ll hold little Ulysses for the time being.’

Bertie and Miss Maclaren Hope left the room and made their way to the office. ‘Mummy said I could bring him,’ explained Bertie. ‘I asked her.’

Miss Maclaren Hope pursed her lips. ‘Well, be that as it may, Bertie, I think though that Ulysses is just a tiny bit young to come to school. So we’ll just give Mummy a quick ring and see if she could come up and get him. Don’t you think that’s best?’

Bertie did not. But he realised that this was not the point. It was such a pity for Ulysses, he thought: he was enjoying himself so much and now this. And when his mother arrived, he knew exactly what Ulysses would do: he would be sick. He would have to warn Miss Maclaren Hope about this, but it was difficult to know how to put it – it so often was.