Alexander Smith - Unbearable Lightness of Scones

Tofu nodded.

Bertie was still staring at his friend. “You never said your dad…”

“I don’t have to tell you everything,” Tofu whispered.

“But your name isn’t Irish,” persisted Bertie. “You’re named after that stuff that vegetarians eat. That white stuff. You’ve got the same name as that white stuff.”

“I’m not,” said Tofu. “It’s Irish. It means… it means chieftain in Irish.”

“Well, boys,” said Akela. “If you go and sit over there, we’ll start once everyone has arrived. And there are still a few to turn up. Here’s somebody now. Another new member.”

The two boys looked in the direction of the door.

“It’s her,” hissed Tofu.

Bertie groaned. “I didn’t tell her,” he whispered. “I promise you, Tofu. I didn’t tell her.”

Olive came skipping across the room to where Akela was standing, followed by her mother, who, seeing Bertie, waved in friendly recognition. While Olive’s mother talked to Akela, Tofu and Bertie stared steadfastly at the floor.

“She’s going to spoil it,” said Bertie miserably.

“Why doesn’t she join the brownies?” Tofu asked. “She just wants to spoil our fun.” He paused. “I hate her. I really hope that she gets struck by lightning sometime. I really do.”

Bertie’s eyes widened. He did not think that this sort of talk was compatible with the cub promise. “I don’t think that’s very kind, Tofu,” he said.

“Not to kill her altogether,” relented Tofu. “But maybe enough just to fuse her to the ground.”

Olive’s mother now left, and Akela summoned the two boys over to her side. “Olive tells me that you already know her,” she said. “It’s always better when people are friends at the beginning.”

“She’s not my friend,” mumbled Tofu. “And why doesn’t she join the brownies?”

“What was that, Tofu?” asked Akela.

“Nothing,” said Tofu.

“And Olive says that she’s been in the cubs before,” Akela went on. “Which is a good thing, as we shall need to appoint some leaders. In the cubs we have somebody called a sixer. That person is the head cub of a six. You’ll all be in the red six, and Olive will be in charge.”

This news was greeted with horrified silence by the two boys.

“Well, that’s settled that,” said Akela. “Now I’ll administer the cub promise. This is a very solemn moment, boys and girls. So all stand in a line and put up your right hands like this. This is the special scout salute that Baden-Powell invented. No, Tofu, the fingers face inwards rather than the way you’re doing it. That’s right. Now I’ll say the words of the promise and you say them after me.”

There was no heart in it, no conviction; not now that Olive was there and had, in the space of a few minutes, been promoted above their heads. Bertie had a strong sense of justice, and this was now mortally offended. Olive did not deserve to be a sixer; the experience she claimed was completely imaginary – he was sure that she had never been a cub before. And how could Akela be fooled by Olive’s false claims? Why did she not ask Olive exactly what her experience had been and get her to show some proof of it?

Now, with the promise administered and everybody duly enrolled, Akela began to tell the cubs about badges. There were many badges they could get, she explained: collecting, swimming, history, model-making, cooking, music; whole vistas of achievement opened up.

“I’d like to get my cooking badge, Akela,” said Olive. “And music too. And map-reading – I always read the maps in the car. I read the map all the way to Glasgow once, and back again.”

“That’s not hard,” said Tofu. “There’s only one road to Glasgow and it has signs all the way along. It says Glasgow this way. You can’t go wrong.”

“Well, I’m sure Olive read the map very nicely anyway,” said Akela. “And what badge do you boys want to get? Bertie, what about you?”

Bertie looked up. “Mozart,” he said. “If you’ve got a Mozart badge, I could do that, Akela.”

Olive laughed. “Oh, Bertie, they don’t have that sort of thing in the cubs. Why don’t you do a cooking badge with me? I could teach him how to cook, Akela. Then we both could do the badge together.”

“That would be nice,” said Akela. “Would you like that, Bertie?”

Bertie stared down at the floor. His hopes of the cubs were dashed beyond redemption now. He had wanted to learn how to do tracking and how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together. He wanted to learn how to use a penknife and how to use a wrist watch and the sun to find south. He wanted to learn all that, but instead he was going to be cooking with Olive. Is this really why Mr. Baden-Powell had invented scouting – so that boys could learn how to cook?

“Well,” pressed Akela. “Olive has made you a very kind offer there, Bertie? Would you like to take her up on it?”

Bertie stared at the floor. He felt the tears burning in his eyes, hot tears of regret over the ending of his hopes. Tofu, noticing his friend’s distress, turned to Olive. “You see what you’ve done,” he said. “You see!”

Olive reacted with indignation. “It’s not my fault that Bertie’s homesick,” she said. “He’s only six, after all.”

Bruce’s first photographic session with Nick McNair had been a resounding success. When the photographer had got the shots he wanted, he immediately downloaded them onto his studio computer and invited Bruce to look at the results.

“You know what I’d say, Bruce,” he remarked, tapping at an image on the screen. “I’d say you’ve got it. There’s no other way of putting it. You’ve just got it.”

Bruce leaned forward and stared at the image on the computer. This was one of the serious-looking poses, in which he was staring into the distance with a look of… well, how exactly would one describe his expression? One of determination? Confidence?

“Well, I suppose it looks all right to me,” he said. “I hope that the people in the agency…”

“The people in the agency are going to love you, Bruce,” interrupted Nick. “They can tell it when they see it.”

Bruce shrugged. “Well, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

“I know,” exclaimed Nick. “Oh boy, is your profile going to be raised! You’ll be on that poster in the airport. You know the one that greets you as you come down the steps at Edinburgh Airport? The one that says Welcome to Scotland? Well, it’s going to be you on that poster, Bruce. You – and underneath it’s going to say: The Face of Scotland. That’s the slogan. They’ve already approved that. Cost them two hundred thousand pounds.”

Bruce whistled. “The poster? Two hundred thousand?”

“No, not the poster,” said Nick. “The slogan. The poster cost…” He shrugged. “I don’t know what the poster cost. It’s the words that cost two hundred thousand. Some guy in one of the agencies invented them. That’s what a slogan costs these days. These things aren’t cheap.”

“But two hundred thousand…”

“Yeah, well that’s what quality costs, Bruce.”

Bruce was thinking. “And my face? The image?”

There was a change in Nick’s manner. Turning away from the screen, he faced Bruce. “We’ve got to talk about it,” he said. “I was going to raise the issue with you tomorrow. But we may as well talk about it right now.”

“No time like the present,” said Bruce, suddenly wondering what was going to happen to the joint bank account he had set up with Julia. Would he have time tomorrow to draw something out of that – just his own money, of course – before she closed it down? She might be dim, he thought, but she had shown herself to be fairly astute when it suited her.