“A bit,” said Bertie. “The fingering isn’t all that hard. It’s easier than playing the saxophone.”
“Sexophone?” said Tofu, smiling at the resultant giggles.
The teacher glared at him. “Bertie said ‘saxophone’, Tofu.
Perhaps you did not hear him correctly.” She turned to Bertie.
“And do you play the saxophone, Bertie?”
“Yes,” said Bertie. “But I don’t have it with me.”
“No,” said the teacher. “So I see. Well, I’m sure that we shall all have the chance to hear you playing the saxophone some time soon. The saxophone, boys and girls, was invented by a man called Arthur Sax, a Frenchman. He made many beautiful brass instruments.”
“Adolf Sax,” corrected Bertie politely. “And he was Belgian.”
The teacher looked at Bertie, and then at Tofu, who had started to tickle the girl sitting next to him.
“Tofu, dear,” she said firmly. “Girls don’t like being tickled.”
“Oh don’t they?” said Tofu. “I know lots of girls who like being tickled. They like it a lot.”
The teacher was silent. It was time for some diversion, she felt. She crossed the room to the cupboard and opened the door.
The children watched closely as she took out a pile of old copies of the Guardian and handed a folded copy to each child.
“Now you’ll know what this is,” she said.
A forest of hands shot up. “It’s the Guardian, ” the innocents cried out.
Down Among the Innocents
55
“Well done,” she said. “And can anybody name another newspaper for me?”
There was complete silence. The children looked at one another in puzzlement. Then Bertie spoke. There were plenty of other newspapers, and he had read a number of them. There was the Scotsman and the Herald and a newspaper called the Daily Telegraph.
“The Daily Telegraph,” he said.
The teacher looked at him. “Perhaps,” she said. Then, turning to the class in general she gave them their instructions. They were to fold the Guardian up, she said, and then they were to try to cut out the shape of a man. Then, when they unfolded it, they would have lots of little men, all joined together in a chain.
Picking up a copy herself, she demonstrated the folding and the cutting. “There,” she said, holding up the result. “Look at that long line of little men, all holding hands.”
“Gays,” said Tofu.
The teacher put down her paper cut-out. “Tofu, dear, if you wouldn’t mind just going and standing outside the door for five minutes. And while you’re there, you can think about the things that you say.”
“Shall I hit him for you?” asked Larch, a burly boy with a very short hair-cut.
“No,” said the teacher quickly, and then, under her breath so that nobody might hear, she muttered: “Not just yet.”
When the time came for the morning interval, Bertie went out into the playground by himself. He was aware of the fact that he alone was wearing dungarees and he smarted with embarrassment. Tofu, for example, had electric sneakers that sent out small pulses of light each time he took a step, and even Merlin, who was wearing obviously home-made sandals and a rainbow-coloured jacket, at least had normal trousers.
Bertie felt miserable: everybody else seemed to have made a friend already, or even more than one friend. Tofu had a knot of four or five others around him, even including somebody from one of the classes above. Bertie had nobody, so when 56
On the Way Home
Tofu came up to him a few minutes later, he had nobody to defend him.
“Dungarees!” the other boy said contemptuously. “Or are they pyjamas?”
“It’s not my fault,” said Bertie. “It’s my mother.”
Tofu looked at him and sneered. “Dungarees are good for falling over in,” he said suddenly. “Like this.” And with that he gave Bertie a push, causing him to fall to the ground. There was laughter, and Tofu walked off.
Bertie picked himself up off the ground and dusted his dungarees. There was a large brown patch on one of the knees. As he attended to this, he became aware of the fact that a girl was standing beside him. It was Olive.
“Poor Bertie,” she said. “It’s not your fault that you look so silly. It really isn’t. And that Tofu is a horrid boy. Everybody knows he’s horrid.” She paused. “But I suppose we should feel sorry for him.”
“Why?” asked Bertie. “Why should we feel sorry for him?”
“Because he doesn’t have a mummy,” explained Olive. “She was a vegan and she starved to death. My dad told me all about it.”
Bertie was horrified. “And what about his daddy?” he asked.
“Has he got a daddy?”
“Yes,” said Olive. “But he’s a vegan too, so he won’t last long either.”
“And Tofu himself ? ” whispered Bertie.
“He’s very hungry,” Olive replied. “We were at nursery together, and I saw him stealing ham sandwiches from the others’
lunch boxes. Yes, he’s very hungry. In fact, he’s not going to last too long himself. So cheer up, Bertie! Cheer up!”
18. On the Way Home
For the first few days, they went home early. Irene was there at the school gate, in good time, along with all the other parents, waiting for the children to be released. She looked On the Way Home
57
about her, seeing whether she recognised anybody: she knew that the parents of the other children would see a lot of one another over the years ahead, and she was interested to find out what they were like. Most of the faces were unfamiliar, although there was one woman whom she had met somewhere or other and who nodded in her direction. Where had it been?
Yoga? The floatarium? Edinburgh was like that; there were so many familiar faces but they were often difficult to place exactly.
Her gaze moved discreetly over the other parental faces. They were much as she expected; ordinary, reasonable people, just like herself. Irene felt comfortable.
“Warm, isn’t it?” said a voice just behind her.
She turned and looked at the speaker. He was a tall man, with a rather thin face, and dark hair swept back over his head.
He was wearing a pair of bottle-green slacks and a thin, denim jacket.
“I’m Barnabas Miller,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand. “I’m Tofu’s father. And you’re . . .”
“Bertie’s mother,” said Irene. And then, laughing, she added:
“I have a name as well, I suppose. Irene Pollock.”
Barnabas nodded. “No doubt we’ll all meet at the parents’
evenings,” he said. “They’re very good with that sort of occasion. This is a very happy school.”
“Yes,” said Irene. “No doubt we will.” She paused. “And Tofu
– it was Tofu, wasn’t it? – was he at nursery here?”
“Yes,” said Barnabas. “We took him out for a while – minor behavioural issues – and then he went back. He’s a very expressive child. I looked after him at home while I was writing my book. My wife is often away. She lectures on diet.”
(Note: Olive was wrong, of course; Tofu’s mother may have been thin, but she was still quick – in the old-fashioned sense of the word. )
Irene was interested. “Your book? What do you write?”
“I’ve just had a new one come out,” said Barnabas. “The Sorrow of the Nuts. I don’t imagine that you’ve read it.”
“Sorry,” said Irene. “What is it? Fiction?”
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On the Way Home
Barnabas shook his head. “No. It’s a holistic nutrition book.