Red Alert by Margaret Thomson Davis

my brother, but he doesn’t get away with it with me. I refuse to allow him to destroy my self-confidence, and you shouldn’t allow him to destroy yours. He’s charming to Greg, of course. He knows he couldn’t get away with anything with him.’
    Tommy didn’t look convinced. Sandra loved him and longed to be able to comfort and help him. She kept desperately trying to think of something.

14
    They pushed in through the double doors nearest Sauchiehall Street. The long oval wooden bar dominated the room. The gantry was covered with various bottles and speciality whiskies, and along the wooden fascia above the bar were inscribed various couthy sayings. Along the window wall were snug booths, facing into the main bar, where the tutors liked to sit for the early part of the evening when any business could be discussed. They always chose Tuesday because at nine-thirty a local blues band had a jam session in the far corner. This was always popular, not just for the quality of the group, which was indeed superb, but because of the fact that after forty minutes or so, pub regulars could join in, bringing out their own guitars, saxophones, or mouth organs.
    The standard of the amateurs was always surprisingly good and, because you could never predict who would turn up with what instrument, it gave the evening a real vibrancy. All tied together beautifully with the rasping vocals of the lead singer, a small, slender, middle-aged man with a voice straight from a ghetto in the deep south.
    The pub was crowded. Crushed round a table cluttered with pint glasses, some of the directors and tutors were already enjoying a drink and a talk. The main topic of conversation was the different groups of students and how they were progressing.
    ‘One thing that gets nowhere with me,’ Simon Price said, ‘is the sycophantic idiots who think they’ll get a good crit if they buy me a few drinks.’
    One of the others laughed. ‘I know. I get them as well. Doesn’t stop me enjoying the drinks, though. A good pint’s a good pint, no matter who pays for it.’
    Simon Price remained serious. ‘I’m only interested in genuine talent. In one lot I go to, there’s this guy, Tommy Pratt. Now he has real talent but he’s needing toughened up. As you can imagine, he’s going to get a lot of stick with a name like that, for a start. And, like all of us had at the beginning, he’s going to get rejections and God knows what else to put him down.’
    One of the others rolled his eyes and groaned. ‘Don’t remind me. One guy said about me that I’d never get anywhere and he could paint better than me. He was a bloody journalist, for God’s sake.’
    A director said, ‘You think this Pratt boy has got something special then, Simon?’
    ‘Yes, definitely. But he’s such a soft mark. He’s got no guts. No stand up and fight. He’s likely to pack everything in at the first bad review.’
    ‘Well,’ the director laughed, ‘if anyone’s able to toughen him up and make him hang on in there, it’ll be you.’
    ‘Writers are the same,’ somebody else said. ‘J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter was turned down by nineteen publishers before she got accepted. That’s guts for you.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Simon agreed. ‘Pratt would have given up after the first rejection. But I’m determined to make a man of him, if only because I don’t want the brilliant paintings he could do never to materialise.’
    ‘It must have been from the group he’s in that a girl came to me and complained that you were picking on him.’
    ‘Oh aye, that would be Sandra Matheson, a red-haired girl. She’s got him shacking up with her in her flat in Charing Cross Mansions. It would be better if she concentrated on her own work instead of distracting Tommy from his.’ Price got up. ‘It’s my round, I think. The same again for everybody?’
    He went over to the bar counter and had a tray filled with pints of beer and a glass of soda and lime for Joe Brownlie, who had a