Alexander Smith - Unbearable Lightness of Scones

Lou nodded. “There are a lot of them,” she said. She paused. “I suppose, though, that the Pretender will be in. He hardly ever gets up until half way through the afternoon.”

With all the morning’s excitement, Angus had forgotten about the Pretender, whom Big Lou was sheltering on behalf of her Jacobite boyfriend.

“How long is he staying with you, Lou?” he asked. “Surely they don’t expect you to put him up for much longer?”

Big Lou sighed. She explained that she was not sure. Robbie had talked of a short time, but the Pretender seemed to have settled in and showed no signs of going off to rally his supporters, which is what she thought had been the original plan.

“He’s awfully difficult, Angus,” said Lou, as she fished for her keys. “He doesn’t really speak any English, and so Robbie communicates with him in French. I have a bit of French too, but he seems to ignore me whenever I say anything to him. It’s as if he doesn’t understand what I’m saying.”

Big Lou opened her front door and ushered Angus into the flat. A light was on in the hall, and from the kitchen there came the sound of voices. She looked surprised.

“Robbie,” she whispered. “Robbie and the Pretender.”

They crossed the hall and entered the kitchen. Angus saw Robbie first, sitting with his back to him, at the kitchen table. On the other side, a slighter figure, wearing a purple dressing gown, was gesticulating angrily. When Big Lou and Angus entered the kitchen, Robbie turned round and the Pretender stopped gesticulating.

“I’ve brought Angus back for lunch,” Big Lou explained. “We saw a terrible thing outside the coffee bar. A man died.”

Robbie looked sympathetic. “Oh. What happened?”

“Hah!” said the Pretender. “ Un homme est mort. Bof! Alors? Et moi? Ça ne me regarde pas .” (Hah! A man died. Bof! And then? And me? That has nothing to do with me.)

Big Lou glanced at him and whispered to Angus. “He’s very self-centred.”

Robbie rose to his feet. “There is a bit of a crisis here, Lou,” he said. “The Pretender went out this morning.”

“That makes a change,” said Big Lou. “Normally he spends the morning in bed.”

“Well, not this morning,” said Robbie. “He went up to the High Street. And he got involved in an incident in one of those tourist shops that sell tartans. Some row about Royal Stuart tartan. They called the police, and the Pretender ran away.”

Angus had difficulty not smiling. History, it seemed, had a way of repeating itself. “So now he’s on the run from the authorities,” he said.

“Yes,” said Robbie. “And he wants to go up to the Outer Islands. He wants to get away and rally his supporters.”

“Well, that must be why he came in the first place,” said Angus. “And it would have been rather disappointing if he had not become a wanted man. Hiding in the heather is all very well, but it must seem a bit pointless if one is not actually being pursued by anybody.”

Robbie glowered at Angus. “It’s not a joke,” he said reproachfully. “This is dead serious. The Hanoverians will stop at nothing.”

Angus tried to look serious. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make light of these things.”

The Pretender now rose to his feet. He glared suspiciously at Angus and then addressed Robbie.

“ Aux îles ,” he said. “ Nous n’avons qu’une seule destination. Les îles .” (To the Isles! We have a single destination. The Isles.)

To the islands, thought Angus. Well, at least there were reliable ferries these days, which is more than could be said for the Scotland of Charles Edward Stuart.

“Now then, Bertie,” said Irene Pollock, as they walked up the hill towards Queen Street. “As you know, Dr. Fairbairn has gone to Aberdeen.”

Bertie nodded gravely. He had been thrilled by the news that Dr. Fairbairn was leaving, but his hopes of being released from psychotherapy had very quickly been dashed.

“But don’t worry,” his mother went on. “He has not left you floundering.”

Bertie thought that there was no danger of his floundering. He had never seen the point of his weekly psychotherapy session; nothing that Dr. Fairbairn said had ever changed anything for Bertie, and now that he was going to see Dr. Fairbairn’s successor, the same would apply.

“Is Carstairs near Aberdeen, Mummy?” Bertie asked.

“Goodness me, Bertie,” said Irene, throwing him a curious glance. “Why should you want to know about Carstairs?”

Bertie did not answer this question. He knew that the State Hospital was at Carstairs, and he knew too that this is where Dr. Fairbairn was likely to end up. There was so much proof of his instability that it would not need any testimony of Bertie’s to make the case for the psychotherapist’s detention. You only have to listen to him for five minutes, thought Bertie, and you know that all is not right with Dr. Fairbairn.

“They’ve made Dr. Fairbairn a professor,” said Irene. “That is a great honour for him, and so he felt that he had to leave Edinburgh to take it up.”

Bertie thought for a moment. “You’ll miss him, Mummy, won’t you?”

“We shall all miss him, Bertie,” said Irene carefully. “Dr. Fairbairn’s move is a great loss to the psychotherapeutic community here in Edinburgh.”

Bertie reflected on this. He would not miss Dr. Fairbairn at all. But this was not a time, he thought, to be mean-spirited.

“And it’s a pity that he won’t get to know Ulysses,” said Bertie. “Ulysses looks so like Dr. Fairbairn, Mummy. Have you noticed that too?”

Irene brushed the question aside. “Aren’t you looking forward to meeting the therapist who’s taken over from him?” she asked. “I’m sure that you’ll get on very well with him.”

Bertie looked down at the pavement. It was important to be careful not to step on any of the lines. Vigilance was all. One did not see the bears, but that did not mean that they were not there; the Queen Street Gardens provided an ideal habitat for bears, Bertie felt.

“Do I really need to see him, Mummy?” he asked. “I’ve stopped doing naughty things. Wasn’t that why you sent me to Dr. Fairbairn in the first place? Because I’d set fire to Daddy’s Guardian while he was reading it? Wasn’t that the reason?”

Irene looked down at Bertie with disapproval. “What’s past is past, Bertie,” she said. “We don’t need to go over those old things. No, your psychotherapy sessions are designed to help you understand yourself.”

Bertie thought about this. “But I do understand myself, Mummy,” he said. “I don’t see why I need psychotherapy for that.”

“Well, you do,” said Irene. “There are some things that you need that you don’t know you need. And it is Mummy’s business to make sure you get those things. Later on, Bertie, you’ll thank me.”

Bertie said nothing. In the most profound and hidden corners of his soul, he wished that his mother would just go away. But at the same time, he dreaded the prospect of losing her, and felt that even to entertain such thoughts was dangerous. It was like believing in Santa Claus after the time when such beliefs become untenable: one did not want to relinquish the belief lest the loss of belief had dire consequences, such as no presents. So one believed just that little bit longer.

But now they were on Queen Street and close to the door that led up to Dr. Fairbairn’s consulting rooms.

“Will Ulysses come for psychotherapy too?” asked Bertie, as they climbed the stairs. “I think that he will really need to understand himself.”