“One day,” snorted Tofu. “This is the first time you’ve done this.”

“You may say that,” said Olive. “And I won’t hold it against you. Not since you’re not going to be here much longer.”

“Bad luck, Tofu,” said Merlin.

“What do you mean?” asked Tofu. He was less confident now, and his voice wavered.

“Well, since you really want me to tell you,” said Olive, “I shall.” She reached again for Tofu’s hand and pointed to lines in the middle. “You see this line here? That’s your life line, Tofu, and you’ll see that it’s really short. So that means you’re not going to last long. Maybe another couple of weeks. No more than that.”

“Rubbish,” said Tofu. But he did not sound very convinced.

“You can call it rubbish if you like,” said Olive. “But that won’t make it any less true. And there’s another thing. You’re going to die painfully, Tofu. See that line there – that means you’re going to die painfully.”

If Olive had not embellished her reading with this last qualification, Tofu would probably have believed her. But this was one prediction too far, and Tofu had seized her own hand, turned it over, and pointed to a line on her palm. “And what about you, Olive?” he had shouted. “Look. See this line here? You know what that means? It means that somebody’s going to spit at you. There, and it’s come true!”

Bertie wished that Tofu and Olive would not fight so much, and in particular that Tofu would stop spitting at her. But try as he might to make conciliatory remarks, they ignored his peace-making efforts and remained as bitter enemies as they ever had been. So having the two of them in his flat was not Bertie’s idea of a promising social mix.

“We’re going to play house,” announced Olive, looking defiantly at Tofu. “I’m going to be the mummy. Bertie’s going to be the daddy. And Tofu can be the marriage counsellor.”

“What’s that?” asked Tofu.

“You don’t know what a marriage counsellor is?” asked Olive.

“Neither do I,” said Bertie.

Olive sighed. “It would take too long to explain to you, Tofu. You’ll just have to make up your mind: do you want to play house or not?”

“No,” said Tofu. “I don’t.”

Olive turned to Bertie. “And you, Bertie? You want to play, don’t you?”

Bertie swallowed. “Well…”

“That’s fine then,” said Olive. “Bertie and I will play house. You can do what you like, Tofu. We don’t care.”

“I don’t know, Olive,” Bertie began. “Tofu is here to play too…”

Olive was not to be distracted. “Don’t worry about him, Bertie. Now let’s pretend it’s dinner time and you’ve come back from the office. I’ll ask you how your day was and then I’ll make you some tea. There, I’ve put the kettle on, and there, listen, it’s already boiled. How many spoons of sugar do you take, Bertie?”

Tofu had been watching attentively. Now he interrupted with a sneer. “If you were married to him, Olive, you would know. You don’t get mummies asking daddies how much sugar they take. They know that already.”

Olive ignored this. “There, Bertie dear. Two spoons of sugar. And now I’ll cook your mince and tatties. Look, there it is. That’s your plate and that’s mine. What shall we talk about while we’re having dinner? Or should we just sit there, like real married people?”

How did all that go?” asked Stuart when he came home that evening. Irene, who was standing in the kitchen looking pensively out of the window, rolled her eyes heavenwards. “Not a conspicuous success,” she said. “As you know, Bertie had two guests this afternoon.”

“That’s nice for him,” said Stuart. “I’ve always thought that he needed a few more friends.”

Irene looked at her husband disapprovingly. The trouble with Stuart, she thought, was that he had an outdated, possibly even reactionary vision of childhood. Childhood was no longer simply play and picnics; childhood was a vital time for potential self-enhancement, a time when one could develop those talents that would stand one in good stead in adult life. She had explained this to Stuart many times before, but he seemed incapable of grasping it. “Friends are not the issue,” she said. “Bertie gets plenty of opportunities for social interaction, both in the home, with you and me, and in the classroom, with his classmates. The issue with friends is not how many, but who.”

“Well, he seems happy enough with Tofu’s company,” said Stuart. “He seems a pleasant enough boy – in his way.”

Irene sighed. Stuart did not get it; he did not get this, and there were many other things that he did not get. Now she adopted the tone of voice that she used when explaining the obvious either to Bertie or to her husband, an ex cathedra tone redolent of the more condescending type of politician trying to avoid responsibility for some failure or other. “Tofu is completely unsuitable,” she intoned. “There is simply too much unresolved psychopathology there. He has a passive-aggressive personality, as you may or may not have noticed. He’s the worst possible influence on Bertie.”

“I was just making an observation,” Stuart said meekly. “That’s all.”

“Well, it wasn’t a very perceptive one,” snapped Irene. “I don’t know, I really don’t. Bertie seems to be doing so well with Dr. Fairbairn and now…”

Stuart raised an eyebrow. “Problems?”

Irene spoke carefully. She sounded insouciant – perhaps excessively so. “I meant to tell you. Hugo is going to Aberdeen. Very soon. Bertie has one more session and then that will be that.”

Stuart seemed relieved to hear the news. “Well, he’s had a long time with the good doctor. And I think he’s a bit fed up with going along there. He’ll be pretty pleased to hear the news.”

Irene’s eyes narrowed. “That,” she said, “is the very last thing I had in mind. Interruptions in therapy are extremely counter-productive. We must try and arrange as smooth a transition as possible.”

“You mean…”

“Yes. Hugo is handing his practice on to a new therapist. A highly thought-of Australian, I gather. He’ll be fully briefed by Hugo. Bertie will be in safe hands.”

Stuart stood in silence, looking out of the window. He was remembering his conversation with Bertie in Dundas Street, the conversation in which the issue of joining the cub scouts had been raised. Did Irene know about this, he wondered; and, if not, should he raise it with her?

He turned away from the window to face Irene. “Perhaps we should ask Bertie what he wants,” he said. “He’s old enough now to have views.”

“I know very well what Bertie wants,” said Irene coldly. “I spend a lot of time with him, you know.”

Stuart was not sure if there was an element of censure in this last remark. Perhaps I am a failure as a father, he thought. But I don’t seem to get a look-in. She decides, all the time. I try, but she decides.

He took a deep breath. “So what does he want then?” he asked.

She had not heard him. “What?”

He repeated the question, louder now. “What does Bertie want? You said that you knew what his views were. Well, what does he want?”

Irene opened her hands; a gesture to be made when answering the obvious. “He wants to… He wants to learn Italian. He wants to go to yoga. And I suspect that underneath it all he enjoys his psychotherapy sessions. And, oh, he wants to have a train set. Which he’ll get one of these days.”

“No,” said Stuart. “He does not like learning Italian. He hates yoga. And he endures psychotherapy because he has no alternative.”

Irene looked down at the floor. This would pass. But Stuart was warming to his theme now. “And as for what he actually wants to do,” he went on, “Bertie confided in me that he wants to join the cub scouts.”

Irene gave a cry of triumph. “Oh, I know all about that,” she said. “That came up this afternoon. Our little friend Tofu announced over tea that he wanted Bertie to join a club with him. So I asked what it was and was told that it was the Young Liberal Democrats! Can you believe it? So a bit of probing and the whole thing collapsed and it emerged it was some cub scout pack in Morningside and that the Young Liberal Democrats was Tofu’s idea of what I might approve of. Isn’t that rich?”