44 Scotland Street Chapter 22 At the Carl Gustav Jung Centre
Since that testing evening at the school Stuart and Irene had not gone out together. There was no deliberate decision to remain at home – it just seemed to work out that way. Irene had a busy schedule, what with her Melanie Klein book group, her other book group, her Pilates sessions, her East New Town Community Council outreach evenings, and her commitments as a volunteer counsellor at the Edinburgh Carl Gustav Jung Drop-in Centre. The last of these, which involved her going out every Tuesday and Wednesday evening for three hours, was a commitment that Stuart would dearly have loved her to drop, but she resolutely stuck by it. In Stuart’s view, the Carl Gustav Jung Drop-in Centre should have been closed a long time ago on the grounds that even if people dropped in, most of them soon dropped out. This was because the centre, which passers-by imagined dispensed soup and coffee and handouts of various sorts, in fact was there principally to provide Jungian counselling, including advice on the meaning of dreams.
A typical evening at the centre involved two counsellors waiting several hours for a member of the public to drop in. If anybody did, then he or she would be allocated to a counsellor on a strict rotation basis. After a few minutes it would become apparent whether or not the dropper-in was prepared to accept counselling. Almost always the answer to this was unambiguous, and became evident through the attitude of the potential client.
Misunderstandings were frequent, as in this exchange:
Member of the Great Edinburgh Public: So, I take my coffee white. Two sugars. Make it three.
Counsellor: Hah! Coffee? Well this is not exactly that sort of drop-in centre.
MGEP: So what do yous do then? Soup? I wouldn’t mind a bowl of something hot and nourishing, ken what I mean?
Counsellor: Hah! No, we don’t do soup, I’m afraid. What about your dreams? MGEP: My dreams? You joking, pal! Counsellor: Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychologist who … MGEP: You think I need a psychologist? Counsellor: I didn’t say that. That’s for you to decide. We are here simply to provide support for those who do. I didn’t say you did. What about your dreams, anyway?
MGEP: Mind your own business. I’ll tell you one thing, and I’ll tell you free: I’m out of here.
That sort of thing happened distressingly frequently, as the drop-in centre was in a run-down building rather close to two popular pubs on the very eastern fringes of the Eastern New Town – and therefore virtually on Leith Walk, which was, to use Jungian terminology, a whole different ball-game.
With all these commitments, Irene found no time to go out with Stuart, even though Stuart’s mother, Nicola, was still living just around the corner in Northumberland Street and had declared her willingness to baby-sit whenever required. Irene thanked her in the icily polite tones she always used with Stuart’s mother, and said that she would think about it. “Possibly some time,” she said, adding, “Perhaps. We’ll see.”
No casting agency, faced with a talentless hopeful, had ever issued so clear a rejection, and quite understandably Nicola had taken offence.
“Most mothers,” she said to Stuart, “by which I suppose I mean, most normal mothers, would jump at an offer of babysitting from a grandmother, but I must remind myself that we are not dealing here with a normal mother. No offence meant, Stuart, and I hope none taken, but that is an observation that I feel compelled to make.”
Stuart had mumbled some excuse on Irene’s behalf, but even he knew that he sounded less than convincing.
“She has a lot on her plate these days,” he said. “There are problems at her yoga class …”
Nicola looked dismissive. “Problems at a yoga class? Now that’s something to think about! I suppose some people might find themselves twisted into a position out of which they can’t escape. I suppose some of them be left there for hours while the instructors endeavour to disentangle them. Oh yes, I can imagine that problems at a yoga class would weigh very heavily on anybody’s mind.”
“Mother,” said Stuart. “Please! Please! There’s no need to adopt that tone. You have to understand that …”
Nicola, who had shown great patience over the years, erupted. “Oh, I understand, Stuart – I understand very well indeed. I understand that you have married an eighty-four horse-power, six cylinder, fuel injection, turbo-charged cow.” “Mother!” protested Stuart. But Nicola was in full stride. “No, let me finish. Let me tell you how it breaks my heart – it breaks my heart – to see my son under the thumb of that selfish, opinionated woman with her Melanie Klein nonsense and her relentless denigration of men.
“Do you think I don’t see it? Do you think I don’t say to myself every day – every day, Stuart – oh, I wish my son had the mettle to stand up to that ghastly wife of his. And then I find myself thinking: oh, if only my son would just go out and have an affair – not a pathetically insipid attempt like last time – but a full-blooded, passionate affair with all the bells and whistles and with a woman who doesn’t diminish him at every step, who doesn’t set out to neuter him, who doesn’t subject him and my grandsons to a barrage of politically-correct claptrap. With a woman who would cherish him, rather than undermine him. Oh, I wish the day would dawn when he would just stand up to her and push her into the Water of Leith or something like that – not a deep part, of course, but just a bit at the edge.”
“Mother! How can you say such things? How can you?”
Nicola was undeterred. “Very easily, Stuart, and with utter conviction. Because that is exactly what I wish, and what I know, in my heart of hearts, I shall never get. And that heroic little boy, Bertie, is going to have to continue to put up with a mother who to all intents and purposes is a cross between Carl Gustav Jung and a Stasi officer.”
“Oh, mother, come on! That’s a bit extreme, surely?”
“You say ‘a bit extreme’, Stuart. Only a bit. So that means you see at least some truth in what I’m saying. And yet you let this situation continue. You let it go on and on and never, never do anything to stop it.”
She looked at her son. Now she felt sorry for him, and sighed. “Oh, darling,” she said. “Can’t you see what’s going on? I know you’re a lovely, nice man and you don’t like conflict, but can’t you see what’s happening?”
‘Oh, I understand, Stuart,’ said Nicola. ‘I understand very well indeed. I understand that you have married an eighty-four horse-power, six-cylinder, fuel-injection, turbo-charged cow’