Bertie Plays the Blues 125
“He may not know,” muttered Bertie.
“Of course he’ll know,” said Irene. “Naturally, I’m going to have a word with him beforehand. I’ll make sure that he knows just who you are.”
Bertie looked at the ground in despair. “Mummy,” he said.
“Please take me home. That’s all I’m asking you. Please just take me home.”
Irene leaned forwards. “Later, Bertie, carissimo,” she said.
“I’ll take you home after the audition. And that’s a promise.”
40. Bertie Plays the Blues
There were at least one hundred hopeful young musicians assembled in the hall for the orchestral audition. The young people ranged between the age of thirteen and eighteen, although there were one or two nineteen-year-olds and Bertie, of course, who was six. The teenagers had been instructed to sit in the first five rows of seats at the front and, in the case of those with large instruments, the cellists, bass players and bassoonists, in a cluster of seats to the side of the stage. The auditions were by section, and the aspirants were free to wander out of the hall until their section was called, as long as they kept their voices down and did not allow the door to bang shut when they left or came in.
To his horror, Bertie found that his mother insisted on sitting next to him in the fourth row. Nobody else’s parents sat anywhere near them, he noted. Most of the parents sat at the back with their friends, or had remained in the bar. But Irene insisted, and Bertie sank down in his seat, trying to persuade himself that not only was she not there, but that neither was he. He had remembered reading somewhere that the best way of dealing with unpleasant moments was to try to imagine that one was somewhere else altogether. So he closed his eyes and conjured up a picture of himself in Waverley Station, watching the trains coming in, his friend Tofu at his side. Tofu had a large bar of 126 Bertie Plays the Blues
chocolate and was breaking off a piece and handing it to him.
And he felt happy, curiously happy, to be there with his friend, just by themselves.
He felt a nudge in his ribs. “We’ll be next,” whispered Irene.
“It’s woodwind next.”
“Shouldn’t I go on with the brass?” asked Bertie. “Maybe just after the trombones?”
“But you’re woodwind, Bertie,” said Irene reproachfully. “You know that the saxophone is technically woodwind.”
Bertie bit his lip. His mother’s insistence that he should audition even when there was no call for saxophones was perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of the entire experience. It was bad enough being six and trying to get into a teenage orchestra, but being six and a saxophonist, was even worse. Nobody else had brought a saxophone with them; everybody else, everyone, had a conventional orchestral instrument with them.
At a signal from a woman who was helping the conductor, a small knot of oboists made their way to the front of the hall.
“You get up now, Bertie,” said Irene. “Woodwind now.”
Bertie did nothing. His mother was giving him no alternative. He did not want to put his plan into effect, but she really left him with no choice.
“Come on,” said Irene, rising to her feet and pulling Bertie up by the straps of his pink dungarees. “I’ll come with you.”
“Please, Mummy,” pleaded Bertie. “Please . . .”
It was to no avail. Virtually frogmarched to the front, Bertie approached the conductor at his table.
“Tenor saxophone,” said Irene, pushing Bertie forward.
“Bertie Pollock.”
The conductor looked up. “Saxophone?” he said. “Well, I’m afraid . . .”
“His sight-reading is excellent,” said Irene. “And he can trans-pose very well, too. He can easily go from B flat to E flat, so you can let him play the tenor horn part. I don’t see any tenor horns around. Bertie can fill that gap for you.”
“Well,” said the conductor. “It’s a different timbre, you know.
I’m not sure that . . .”
Bertie Plays the Blues 127
“Or the euphonium part,” went on Irene. “I take it that you want a bit of slightly richer bass. I don’t see any tuba players.
You don’t want to sound thin, do you?”
The conductor exchanged a glance with the woman beside him, who was smiling, lips pursed. Irene shot the woman a warning glance.
“He’s a bit young, isn’t he?” ventured the woman. “This is the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra, after all. We’ve never had anybody that young . . .”
Irene’s eyes flashed. “That, if I may say so, is a somewhat unhelpful remark,” she said coldly. “Do you really want to stifle talent by discriminating against younger musicians?”
She waited for an answer, but none came. The conductor looked at the woman, as if seeking moral support. She shrugged.
“Oh, very well then,” said the conductor wearily. “Go up on stage, Bertie. And just play us this piece, the first fifteen bars, that’s all. Do you think you can manage?”
Bertie looked at the sheet of music. It was not all difficult.
Grade five, he thought, or six perhaps; both of which examina-tions he had recently passed with distinction. It would be easy to play that piece. But no: he would now have to put his plan into operation. He would not play what was before him. Instead, he would play something quite different, something defiant.
That would surely lead to his rejection; if one would not play what one was meant to play, then one should not be in an orchestra – that was obvious.
He mounted the stage and walked over to the music stand.
He placed the sheet of music on the stand and hitched his saxophone onto its sling, at first ignoring the sea of faces in front of him. But then he saw that one or two were laughing. They were looking at him, and laughing at him; laughing at the fact that he had a saxophone, he thought; laughing at the fact that he was only six; laughing at the fact that he was wearing pink dungarees.
Bertie raised the mouthpiece to his lips and blew the first note. Closing his eyes, he continued and soon was well into a fine rendition of ‘As Time Goes By’ from Casablanca, the same 128 Delta of George Street
piece that he practised so regularly directly below Pat’s bedroom in Scotland Street; a fine rendition, perhaps, but a disobedient one, and one which would be bound to irritate the conductor.
When he came to the end of the piece, he lowered the saxophone and glanced quickly at his mother. She would be angry with him, he knew, but it would be better to face her anger than to be forced into a teenage orchestra.
The conductor was silent for a moment. Then, rising to his feet, he clapped his hands together.
“Brilliant!” he exclaimed loudly. “What a brilliant performance, young man! You’re in!”
41. Delta of George Street
“You clever little boy!” said Irene, as she bundled Bertie out of the Queen’s Hall and into the street outside. “It was rather a risky thing to do, of course, but, my goodness, didn’t it pay off!”
Bertie, his eyes downcast, said nothing. As far as he had been concerned, the audition had been a complete disaster.
Not only was there that unfortunate episode in which his mother made that embarrassing comment within earshot of Harry, but then his playing and his deliberate disobedience had brought exactly the opposite result to that which he had intended. He was now a member of the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra and would be obliged to go with the other players to Paris, with his mother in attendance. It would be bearable
– just – if he went by himself, but that was not to be. Nobody else would have their mother with them; and none of them, he was sure, would be forced to go to bed at seven o’clock.