Stuart continued to gaze out of the window. In the evening sky above the city, the sun had touched a bank of high cumulus with reddish-gold; behind that, the thin white line of a jet’s vapour trail, heading west, high over Scotland. Stuart imagined the people in the jet, in their tube of metal, hurtling through the attenuated air at thirty thousand feet. He imagined the pilots, sitting in front of their glowing instruments, thinking the thoughts that pilots think. What a fine career it must be; one would see one’s wife so infrequently – three days out of seven, perhaps. Or if one were on long-haul duty, perhaps even a whole week might go past before one saw her. That was if one was a man, he corrected himself quickly. There were women pilots, of course, and they would see their husbands – or their partners, Stuart again corrected himself – equally infrequently. Indeed, if two pilots married, or entered into a civil partnership – Stuart corrected himself yet again – then they might never see one another at all. It would all be a question of rotas and their adjustment; and surely the airlines would be sympathetic to a request to arrange duties in such a way that one never had to see one’s wife. Surely they would understand …

‘Stuart? Are you with me here? Or are you in one of your dissociative states?’

Stuart shook his head. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

‘I was saying that it’s a matter of real regret that you interfered over this scouting issue.’

Stuart frowned. ‘Interfered?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at her. When I’m fifty, he thought, I’m going to go and live in Glasgow. By myself. On my fiftieth birthday. On the very day.

23. The Insouciance of Tofu

That Friday evening, Bertie was ready for cub scouts at least half an hour before he was due to travel up to Holy Corner on the 23 bus. They were going to play games that evening; Akela had promised that, and Bertie was excited. He would have liked to play games more often, perhaps even at home, but it seemed that there was little time for such things, what with yoga sessions in Stockbridge, his psychotherapy with Dr St Clair, Italian conversazione with his mother, and his saxophone lessons with Mr Morrison. He had asked his mother whether he could give up at least some of these things, but she had been unwilling.

‘But you love all the things that Mummy plans for you, Bertie!’ she replied. ‘All of them. You have such fun, and you’ll thank me, Bertie, when you’re a big boy. You’ll thank Mummy for making … helping you to do all these things.’