44 Scotland St
‘You don’t want to hot-house children excessively,’ Stuart had protested. But his heart was not in the argument, as he knew that he would lose – just as he lost every argument with Irene
VOLUME 13 CHAPTER 3 A GOOD PLACE TO DO A PHD
‘But speaking of freedom,” said Domenica. “What about downstairs ?” down stairs was the flat below, the home of the Pollock family – of Bertie Pollock, now, at last, seven; of his young brother, Ulysses, one-ish; and their father, Stuart Pollock, formerly a statistician in the Scottish Government. It was also the home of Irene Pollock, of course, enthusiast for the works of Melanie Klein, former Director of the Carlgustav Jung Drop-in Centre in the Edinburgh New Town, and now a registered PHD student in the University of Aberdeen. This fact made Scotland Street her home only for brief periods – weekends, for the most part – while for the remaining five days of the week she lived in a small shared flat in the university area of Aberdeen.
Irene had taken the unusual step of leaving her family behind in Edinburgh while she went back to university. For many, this was as outrageous as it was inexplicable.
“That woman,” Domenica had observed, “has responsibilities. She has a small child – not much more than a baby – and poor little Bertie. She has a husband too – poor man. And yet she gaily waltzes off to Aberdeen to undertake some half-baked PHD. Can you credit it?”
There were two reasons why it had been easy for Irene to take herself off to Aberdeen. The most important of these was that Stuart’s mother, Nicola, having been deserted by her Portuguese husband, was now back in Scotland and had been prepared to move out of her rented flat in Northumberland Street in order to look after the boys. Nicola had little time for Irene – in fact, she had no time for her at all – and felt nothing but relief that Irene had largely left Scotland Street. She loved her grandchildren, and was only too pleased to step into the maternal shoes vacated by Irene. She had time on her hands, and filling it with the demands of two small boys was, in her view, an inestimable privilege.
The other factor that made Irene’s departure relatively easy was the encouragement that she had received to pursue her studies in Aberdeen. In Stuart’s view, the marriage, which he had never had the courage to end, was effectively over. It suited him that Irene should have a new goal to pursue, and that she should choose to do that in a city other than Edinburgh. There was something between her and Dr Fairbairn – Stuart was sure of that – and he did not resent it in the least. In fact, he was relieved that Irene should become the emotional responsibility of somebody else. So he came up with no objections when the move was first mooted. His difficulty then was to try not to appear too enthusiastic. Irene had a habit of doing the opposite of what she thought Stuart wanted, and he was concerned that if she sensed keenness on his part, then she might change her mind and stay after all.
Bertie was too young to show such tact. “That’s a wonderful idea, Mummy!” he enthused. “I’ve always thought you should do a PHD.”
“Have you now, Bertie?” Irene responded. “Well, I must say that’s very supportive of you.”
Bertie nodded solemnly. “And I’m sure it’s a good idea to do it in Aberdeen,” Bertie went on. “Aberdeen’s a jolly good place to do a PHD, Mummy.”
“Do you think so, Bertie?” said Irene. “Yes, I do.” He paused. “And you can go and live up there, can’t you? It would be best to go up there and spend all your time on it. You could come back every other year, maybe … for a visit. Or you could phone us if you didn’t want to do the train journey. A phone call would be fine.”
“Bless you, Bertie,” said Irene. “I’ll come back every weekend. Mummy wouldn’t want to leave her boys too long.”
“But we’ll be fine, Mummy,” protested Bertie. “We have to learn to stand on our own two feet.”
Irene laughed. “But Bertie, Ulysses can’t even stand properly yet. He’ll need Mummy to look after him.”
Bertie bit his lip. He knew how Ulysses felt about his mother. It had been obvious right from the very beginning of his small brother’s life, when Ulysses had spontaneously and copiously thrown up whenever his mother approached him. Bertie had diagnosed this as fundamental antipathy, and although loyal to his mother in the face of all her scheming, had attributed this to her ill-fated attempt to start Ulysses on music lessons at the age of eight weeks.
“I gather that a six-year-old recently auditioned for the Conservatoire in Glasgow,” Irene had remarked to Stuart.
“Ridiculous,” had been his response, which had brought forth a severe rebuke from Irene.
“That, Stuart,” she lectured, “is exactly the sort of attitude that destroys potential. What if Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart had not given their son music lessons when he was very young? What if Leopold Mozart had said ‘Ridiculous’?”
“You don’t want to hot-house children excessively,” Stuart had protested. But his heart was not in the argument, as he knew that he would lose – just as he had lost every argument with Irene, on every subject, throughout their marriage.
Bertie realised that in so far as Irene would return at weekends, he would probably still have to endure his yoga and saxophone lessons, both of which took place on Saturday. His psychotherapy appointments, however, were another matter, as these were usually scheduled for Thursday afternoons when, according to Irene’s new timetable, she would be safely up in Aberdeen and therefore unable to take him to his psychotherapist in Queen Street.
He had hardly dared hope – and his pessimism was justified: before she started her new life, Irene had extracted an undertaking from Stuart that Bertie would continue in therapy.
“I can’t emphasise it enough,” she said to Stuart. “Continuity in these matters is of the essence – the very essence. If Bertie is to grow up neurosis-free, then he must continue in therapy. He needs it, Stuart, he needs it …”
“Like a hole in the head,” muttered Stuart, sotto voce, but not quite sotto enough.
Irene’s glance told him she had heard. “I’ll be watching you, Stuart,” she said. “Aberdeen is not all that far away, you know.”
Would that it were further, thought Stuart.
© 2018 Alexander Mccall Smith Alexander Mccall Smith welcomes comments from readers. Write to him c/o The Editor, The Scotsman, Orchard Brae House, 30 Queensferry Road, Edinburgh, EH4 2HS or via e-mail at scotlandstreet@scotsman.com