“So far, so good,” he said. “Now if you pass me the glasses, we’ll see what we have here.”
Bruce’s expression was anxious as he passed over the glasses.
This, he thought bitterly, is the moment of humiliation – the crowning humiliation, in fact, coming on top of everything that had gone wrong for him in recent months – that business over 294 Self-assertiveness Training for Civil Servants that stuck-up American girl, the loss of his job at that pathetic firm of Macauley Holmes Richardson Black, and finally that terrible betrayal by George and his haggis-like fiancée. He closed his eyes briefly, hardly daring to look at the dark red liquid which Will was now sniffing at and swirling round his glass.
He watched in fascination as Will took a sip of the wine and moved it about his mouth, drawing in air through the lips.
Nervously, he raised his own glass and sipped at the wine. It tasted all right to him – rather good, in fact – but then, in a rare moment of honesty, he said to himself: what do I know about this?
Will looked at Bruce. “What a stunner!” he said.
Bruce looked startled. “Stunner?”
“A beautiful wine,” went on Will. “So supple and ripe – yet it has elegance and length. One can understand why this is seen as such a great wine. One really can.”
Afterwards, when Will had left the flat, Bruce went into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was lit with triumph, and in his ears rang Will’s parting words. His visitor had explained that he thought there would be no trouble in entering the remaining wine, now reduced to thirty-five bottles, but still a very impressive quantity, in the wine auction that was due to take place in a few days’ time. And then he had said: “And I suspect that you’ll clear at least thirty thousand for the lot, once commissions are taken.”
Bruce looked back into the mirror and smiled at himself.
“You’re a stunner yourself,” he said in self-compliment. “A human Chateau Petrus!”
90. Self-assertiveness Training for Civil Servants It was about this time that the Scottish Executive decided that all civil servants above a certain level of seniority should receive self-assertiveness training. The reason why this training was offered only to those in more senior positions was simple: there appeared to be no need to increase the self-assertiveness of the Self-assertiveness Training for Civil Servants 295
more junior civil servants, whose confidence generally exceeded that of their superiors. Indeed, greater self-assertiveness in the higher echelons of the Executive was thought to be the only way in which policies could be implemented in the face of opposition from below. And in due course, it had been announced, ministers themselves would receive self-assertiveness training to assist them to assert unpopular policies in the face of widespread public opposition and thereby to force their acceptance. (This is not to say that these policies were bad. Indeed, many of them were good; it’s just that the public cannot always be trusted to recognise a good policy when they see it.) Stuart had signed up for a personal assertiveness workshop that would require him to spend two hours alone in the company of an assertiveness counsellor. He was looking forward to this, as he had gradually been reaching the conclusion that whatever level of assertiveness he managed to achieve in his working environment, this was far from adequate at home. In particular, he had concluded that if he was to do anything about his relationship with his son, Bertie, then he would need to stand up to Irene.
And that was an alarming thought. It was all very well to have scored a minor victory with Bertie’s attendance at Tofu’s bowling party, but it would be quite another thing to achieve the goal of getting Bertie out of psychotherapy, of relieving him of the need to attend yoga lessons in Stockbridge, and to dismantle, as far as possible, the remaining planks of what Irene called the
“Bertie project”. And yet he owed it to his son. He had vowed that he would not let the little boy down: he would restore to him the tiny pleasures and idle moments of a happy boyhood.
He would make his life whole again.
Stuart sat in Meeting Room 64A/3B/4/16 (west) in the offices of the Scottish Executive, awaiting the arrival of the assertiveness counsellor, who was already ten minutes late. Stuart passed the time reading a newspaper, and was immersed in an editorial when the door was opened by a slight man in his early thirties, wearing jeans and an open-neck shirt.
“You’re Stuart Pollock?” asked the counsellor, glancing at a clipboard in his hand.
296 Self-assertiveness Training for Civil Servants Stuart replied that he was, and extended his right hand to shake hands. The counsellor seized his hand and squeezed it tightly.
“Good to meet you, Stuart!” he said. “My name’s Terry. You got a problem with that?”
Stuart blinked. “No,” he said hesitantly. “Of course not.”
“You see,” said Terry, “some people think that the name Terry is a bit effeminate. Know what I mean by that?” Terry fixed him with a stare. “You don’t find me short, do you, Stuart?”
“Not at all,” said Stuart.
“And would it matter if you did?” asked Terry aggressively.
“What exactly is wrong with being on the short side?”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong with it,” said Stuart. “You raised it, not me. And, anyway, I don’t think your name is effeminate, Shorty . . . I mean, Terry. And your height is neither here nor there as far as I am concerned.”
Terry continued to glare at him. “All right, let’s sit down. I’m going to take this chair, right? This one here. That’s my chair.”
“That’s fine,” said Stuart.
“But what if you really wanted to sit in that chair?” asked Terry. “What if you wanted my chair?”
Self-assertiveness Training for Civil Servants 297
“I don’t think that I would make a fuss about it,” said Stuart.
“It’s exactly the same as this chair over here. All the Scottish Executive chairs are the same, actually.”
“And that worries you?” asked Terry. “Have you got a problem with the Scottish Executive, Stuart?”
Stuart took a deep breath. Terry was extremely irritating, and they had had only five minutes of the two-hour session. He wondered whether he would be able to survive the full time; would it be entered in his file if he failed to complete the course?
Would the conclusion be drawn that he lacked the requisite degree of assertiveness needed by a competent modern civil servant?
“No,” he said in reply to Terry’s question. “I have no problems with the Scottish Executive. The only problem I have at present is a slight irritation with you.”
Terry clapped his hands together. “That’s the spirit, Stuart!
Well done! That’s exactly what I wanted you to say. I wanted you to assert yourself.”
“Well, there you are,” said Stuart, relaxing visibly. “And I suppose, if I were to be completely frank . . .”
“Always be frank,” said Terry. “Tell it how it is, Stuart. Don’t conceal. Get it out.”
“Well,” Stuart continued, “I suppose that I do have a bit of a problem with my wife. She herself is rather on the assertive side.”
“Assertive!” exclaimed Terry. “I bet she’s assertive! She’s emasculating you, Stuart. I’ve never met her but I can tell what’s happening. I see it all the time. Virtually every man I meet in this job has been emasculated by some woman. It’s endemic these days, absolutely endemic.”
Stuart was surprised by the force with which the counsellor issued this judgment. By his own admission he did not know anything about Irene, and so how could he possibly judge her in such extreme terms? On the other hand . . .