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in understanding the whole process of child-nurture, something which girls and women understood but which, in Irene’s view, often escaped boys and men. The other objective was that the relationship which grew up between the two boys would be one in which there was a full measure of reciprocity. Bertie would come to know the baby’s needs, just as the baby, in the fullness of time, would come to know Bertie’s needs.
    The first of these objectives–that Bertie should be brought up to understand what it was to look after a baby–meant that right from the beginning he would have to shoulder many of the tasks which went with having a baby. Bertie would be fully instructed in the whole business of feeding the baby, and had already been shown how to operate a breast pump so that he could help his mother to express milk for the baby should breast feeding become uncomfortable, which Irene thought likely.
    â€œThe trouble is this,
carissimo
,” said Irene. “When you were a little baby yourself–and remember, that’s just six short years ago–yes, six!–you tended to be a little–how shall we put it?–guzzly, and you bit Mummy a little hard, making Mummy feel a bit tender. You don’t remember that, do you?”
    Bertie looked away in horror; the sheer embarrassment of the situation was more than he could bear.
    â€œWell, you did,” went on Irene. “So now Mummy has bought this special pump, and you can help to put it on Mummy and get the milk out for baby when he comes along. That will be such fun. It will be just like milking a cow.”
    Bertie looked at his mother in horror. “Do I have to, Mummy?”
    â€œNow then, Bertie,” said Irene. “It’s all part of looking after your new little brother. You don’t want to let him down, do you?”
    â€œI’ll play with him,” promised Bertie. “I really will. I’ll show him my construction set. I’ll play the saxophone for him and let him touch the keys. I can do all of that, Mummy.”
    Irene smiled. “All in good time, Bertie. Tiny babies can’t do that sort of thing to begin with. Most of the things you’ll be doing will be very ordinary baby things, such as changing him.”
    Bertie was very quiet. He looked at his mother, and then looked away. “Changing him?” he said in a very small voice.
    â€œYes,” said Irene. “Babies need a lot of changing. They can’t ask to go to the bathroom!”
    Bertie cringed. He hated it when his mother talked about such things, and now a whole new vista of dread opened up before him. The thought was just too terrible.
    â€œWill I have to, Mummy…?” He left the sentence unfinished; this was even worse, he thought, than the breast pump.
    â€œOf course you will, Bertie,” said Irene. “These things are very natural! When you were a baby, Bertie, I remember…”
    But Bertie was not there to listen. He had run out of the kitchen and into his room; his room, which had been painted pink by his mother, then white by his father, and then pink again by his mother.

9. So Who Exactly Are Big Lou’s Big Friends?
    Big Lou always opened her coffee bar at nine o’clock in the morning. There was no real reason for her to do this, as it was only very rarely that a customer wandered in before ten, or sometimes even later. But for Big Lou, the habit of starting early, ingrained in her from her childhood in Arbroath, resisted any change. It seemed to her the height of slothfulness to start the morning at ten o’clock–a good five hours after most cows had been milked–and it was decadence itself to start at eleven, the hour when Matthew occasionally opened the gallery.
    â€œHalf the day’s gone by the time you unlock your door,” she had reproached Matthew. “Eleven o’clock! What if the whole country started at eleven o’clock? What then? Would folk