Free The Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

interjected Isabel.
    “The Pope?”
    “You asked: Who doesn’t occasionally, even
very
occasionally,
think
such words? I said: the Pope.”
    “You’d be surprised,” retorted Jamie. “Presumably the air turns blue in the Vatican when things get really difficult.” He smiled wryly. “Well, perhaps not … But whatever the Pope does or does not say, I don’t really use language like that, especially around Charlie.”
    Isabel thought for a moment. “Grace?”
    Jamie shook his head. “She doesn’t use strong language. It’s highly unlikely it was her.”
    “Then he must have picked it up from one of the other children. Maybe it was …”
    They both reached the identical conclusion at the same time.
    “Algy,” said Isabel.
    Jamie nodded his agreement. Algy was Charlie’s special friend at playgroup—or as close to a special friend that children of that age will have. Friendships at that stage in life are notoriously fickle, and friends will be readily jettisoned over the smallest of things. Algy and Charlie, though, appeared to get on well and their friendship had survived several disputes and the throwing of sand from the sandbox.
    “It must be him,” said Isabel. “His mother is an actress.”
    Jamie burst out laughing, causing Charlie to look up with interest.
    Isabel smiled sheepishly. “I know it sounds a bit odd, but she swears like a trooper. I’ve heard her. I assume it’s fashionable in acting circles. Or, if not fashionable, at least completely normal.”
    “So what do we do?”
    “Ignore it,” said Isabel. “If we tell him not to use that word, then he’ll realise that it gives him some power over us. He’ll use it all the time.”
    Jamie thought that this made sense. “But what would people have done in the past?”
    “Washed his mouth out with soap, perhaps,” said Isabel. “Punished him.”
    Jamie shook his head. “So we leave it, then?”
    “For the time being, yes,” said Isabel. “Then, if he uses words like that a bit later on, we can talk to him about it. We can tell him that people don’t like to hear that sort of thing.”
    “Of course, once he’s a bit bigger we could stop it in its tracks,” said Jamie. “If we told him that if he used that language he’d be struck by lightning or something else pretty severe would happen. His teddy bear would die perhaps. That would work. One hundred per cent certain.”
    She knew he was joking. “Unwise,” she said drily. “Imagine what it would do to his little psyche.”
    Jamie remembered something. “People used to do that sort of thing. They frightened children. It’s just that I’m recalling how when I was a young boy I was eventually cured of … Well, I’m a bit embarrassed to say this: fiddling around in public with my hand in my pocket. Small boys do it all the time, you may have noticed. My mother told me it would drop off. I stopped immediately.”
    Isabel made a sympathetic face. “Oh, Jamie, how awful! Exactly what a mother should not say to her son. Your psycho-sexual development—”
    “I’m still a bit worried about it,” he said, with mock concern.
    “So you should be,” said Isabel, smiling.
    Jamie returned to the question of what to do. “Should we have a word with Algy’s mother?”
    Isabel considered this, and decided not to. “I should hate to seem prudish,” she said. “She’s very trendy. And we don’t really have any proof, do we?” She paused. “I’ve had an idea. Why don’t I say to her that we’ve heard that Charlie has been using inappropriate words and that we thought we should apologise to her if he’s done so in Algy’s hearing. We could say that we wanted to warn her that it might come up because we knew that she would be shocked to hear Algy saying anything like that, as he obviously wouldn’t come across such words in his own home. We’d get her to think about it—but do so tactfully.”
    “Brilliant,” said Jamie. “As ever.”
    But then Isabel thought: