Chapter Twelve

Gloria MacFarlane’s arrival had disrupted Isabel’s work that morning but its overall effect was beneficial. After Gloria had left, the anxiety that Isabel had felt over the Lettuce affair faded away almost completely. What had happened was strange, but it made sense, and, moreover, the way out of a potentially awkward situation was now quite clear. She was relieved to discover that Professor Lettuce had not been involved in a criminal scheme to enrich himself. Although she did not have a great deal of time for Lettuce, she did not want him to be shamed or humiliated. Lettuce was pompous and irritating, but he was not in any way despicable, and Isabel even felt a sneaking fondness for his misguided ways. Without Lettuce, the world of academic philosophy would be, she thought, a great deal duller: Lettuce provided entertainment, as did Christopher Dove, who was a splendid pantomime villain, Isabel thought. She imagined Dove arriving to deliver a lecture and being greeted with hissing from the audience—the same audience reaction that always greets Captain Hook in Peter Pan, or the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella.

Her lighter mood enabled her to get through the day’s work remarkably quickly. By three o’clock in the afternoon, the towering pile in the in-tray had more or less disappeared, and by five it was completely cleared. Grace had gone to collect the boys from school, and Isabel was now able to take over their dinner and bath-time. Charlie was full of stories from school: One of the girls had pulled the hair of another girl and had been made to sit by herself until she made a full apology. One of the boys had been sick over the teacher’s shoes, and the stick insects that the class had been keeping in a small terrarium had all escaped and could not be found. Isabel listened to this with interest, as did Magnus who, not wishing to be upstaged by his older brother, reported that half his class had died before ten o’clock. Their lunch, he said, had been given to somebody else. Isabel received this news with appropriate solemnity and had then gently reminded Magnus that it was important not to tell lies, even if to do so was at times very tempting.

Charlie had administered his own warning. “You’ll get lockjaw if you tell fibs,” he had advised. “And your nose will grow longer. So you better watch out, Magnus.”

Isabel was intrigued. Lockjaw must have been mentioned at school, as she had no recollection of mentioning it herself in the boys’ hearing. It was a condition well suited to the childish imagination, with its threat of jaws clamped tight in agonising grimace.

“That’s not true, Charlie,” she said. “You mustn’t tell lies, but that’s nothing to do with lockjaw.”

Charlie looked doubtful. “Or lightning,” he said. “If you tell lies you get struck by lightning.”

“No, that’s not true either,” said Isabel. And sighed. Childhood could be a dark and frightening time, with all these threats. As a young child she herself had believed that treading on the lines in the pavement would lead inexorably to an attack by bears. That there were no bears in Scotland was beside the point: Bears had ways of getting you anyway. And then there had been that copy of Struwwelpeter that a cousin had shown her when she was seven. She had read with horror of the Suckathumb Man, that wild-eyed figure with his great tailor’s scissors who would cut off the thumbs of children who sucked their thumbs. The illustrations accompanying this salutary tale had been vivid: the blood a bright red, the terror in the victim’s face unmistakeable. Generations of German children had been frightened by that book and it was still in print, she believed. Concealed in the horrifying stories were moral lessons, but that was not the way she wanted to teach Charlie and Magnus how to behave.

The boys were put to bed, and then Isabel went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Jamie would be home late, he had said, as he was playing in an early-evening concert in Glasgow and would not get back to Haymarket Station until at least eight-thirty.

Isabel looked out the ingredients for a mushroom risotto, brought the arborio rice to the boil, and prepared the mushrooms. Then, with the pot tucked away in the oven, she sat down at the kitchen table and flicked through a music magazine that Jamie had left in the kitchen. The magazine was full of news of musicians who meant nothing to her, although here and there she saw a familiar name. An article about Arvo Pärt caught her attention, but it rapidly became too technical for Isabel to understand. Jamie had introduced her to Pärt’s music, and she had developed a taste for it, but the musical analysis of Pärt’s tintinnabuli, into which the article soon delved, was beyond her.

The key to it was that Pärt liked the sound of bells, and that a bell usually sounded a single note encased in harmonics. Isabel understood that, but further technicalities of chords and inversions escaped her. The article said that Pärt composed silences, that he set great store by the quiet on either side of the note; there was as much silence in his works as there was sound. She put the magazine down and gazed up at the ceiling. Surrounding silences were important in human speech just as they were in music, she thought: The silence that preceded a word could be laden with meaning, as could the silence that followed it.

She heard the doorbell ring, and it broke her chain of thought. She wondered whether it was Jamie, and that he had forgotten his key, but when she looked at her watch she saw that it was too early for him to have returned from Glasgow. She got up from the table and made her way through the hall.

Cat stood on the doorstep.

“I’d like to come in.”

Isabel moved aside. “Of course.” She sensed that something was wrong. Cat usually telephoned before dropping in; there had been no call.

They went into the kitchen.

“I’m making risotto,” Isabel said. “There’ll be enough for the three of us, if you’ve no other plans.”

“Where’s Jamie?” Cat asked.

Isabel explained that he was playing in an early concert in Glasgow. Cat half listened to this, but did not seem interested. “I can’t stay for dinner,” she said.

“Suit yourself,” said Isabel. “I just thought that if you hadn’t eaten…”

Cat spun round to face her. “Gordon’s gone,” she said.

Isabel caught her breath. There was a certain familiarity to this conversation; it was Gordon this time, but not long ago it had been Leo who had gone, and others before him. But Gordon, she felt, was different: Gordon had seemed so suitable. He had been talking about marrying Cat, after all, and that had only been a few days ago. What could possibly have caused his sudden departure?

Isabel invited Cat to sit down. She poured her a glass of white wine—the New Zealand white that Isabel liked and that she knew Cat enjoyed too. “Tell me what happened,” she said.

“He left a note,” said Cat. “He didn’t even tell me to my face.”

Isabel sighed. “When did this happen?”

“This morning,” said Cat. “He got up early. He said he was going to go for a run. I stayed in bed. Then, when I went into the kitchen, there was a note on the table. Just like that.”

Isabel made a sympathetic noise. “I’m so sorry, Cat. This is…well, it’s awful. It is really awful.” She paused. “What did he say in the note? Do you want to tell me?”

“He said that he didn’t think it was going to work,” said Cat. “He said that when you feel that way, it’s best to make a clean break. He said that he hoped I didn’t mind his leaving without telling me about it, but he said that he would find it too upsetting.”

“And you’re not meant to be upset?” said Isabel, a note of anger creeping into her voice.

“He said that he felt that neither of us owed the other anything. He said that it had been an important time in his life, but that ultimately it wasn’t right—for either of us.”

Isabel took a sip of wine. She sensed that she was on perilous ground. Cat did not take criticism well, and if she said anything that could be interpreted as questioning her judgement when it came to men, then the situation could quickly become fraught. So she was cautious. “It’s possible that he just couldn’t face commitment,” she began. “I thought Gordon was very suitable, but some men are like that, you know. I’m not suggesting there was anything wrong with him, but they take fright and then…”

Cat cut her short. “I think that he heard something about me.”

Isabel trod gently. “But what could he have heard?”

Cat was looking at her accusingly. “He might have heard that I…well, that I have had a few boyfriends. He was odd about that, you see. I got the impression that he wanted to put me on a bit of a pedestal.” She looked away. “Who doesn’t have a romantic past these days? Everybody has relationships.”

Isabel answered quickly. “You’re right. The days of…” She almost said chastity, but stopped herself just in time, and said uninvolvement instead. Then she continued, “I imagine that the Temple of the Vestal Virgins would be hard put to recruit these days.”

It was a light-hearted aside, of course, but Cat neither took the reference nor thought it amusing. She turned to face Isabel again. “You spoke to him a few days ago, didn’t you?”

Isabel could see where this was leading. She struggled to remain calm. “I did. Yes, I spoke to him.”

“And did you talk about me?” Cat pressed, her voice rising.

Isabel liked to tell the truth. She disliked lies, and found it inordinately hard to tell them. “Of course we spoke about you. Would you expect otherwise?”

Cat drew in her breath. “And what did you talk about?”

Isabel hesitated. Cat had no business interrogating her about a private conversation she had had with somebody else. Surely she understood that: It was a rule of everyday protocol, really—the same rule, applied at a much lower level, that prevents you from revealing what the president of the United States or the Pope says to you when you are admitted to a tête-à-tête. You don’t say “The Pope told me that he can’t stand…” and then give the name of one of the many people of whom one imagines the Pope must disapprove. So Isabel said, “It was a private chat. I wouldn’t ask you what you said to one of your friends if you had a private chat with her. So, I really don’t think you should ask me what I said to Gordon or what Gordon said to me.”

It was a perfectly reasonable response, but also a perfectly wrong one in the particular circumstances.

“You must have told him about my previous boyfriends,” Cat challenged. “Did you?”

Isabel gave an honest answer. “Not really. No, I wouldn’t do that.”

“So what did you talk about then?” snapped Cat.

There was a question of principle, Isabel thought. “I told you: It was a private conversation.”

“Then I take it that you did talk about my love life.”

It sounded a curiously old-fashioned expression, coming from Cat. But it was clear enough what Cat meant.

“Your love life?” Isabel decided to give in. “Actually, we talked about his relationship with you. It was that way round. He started the conversation, as it happened. He told me how much he appreciated you. He was quite frank with me that he was very much in love.”

Cat was silent, caught, Isabel felt, between disbelief and surprise.

“And another thing,” Isabel continued. “He made it clear he thought that you hadn’t had many relationships before this one. He thinks of you as…well, as an innocent, so to speak. In a nice sense, of course.”

Cat suddenly shook her head. “I find this very difficult to believe. Sorry, but I do.”

Isabel was taken aback by the directness of Cat’s response. Cat was her niece, and even if there was a relatively small age gap between them, you did not expect a close relative to accuse you of lying. She gave Cat a reproachful look. “Are you saying that I’m making this up?”

Cat avoided her gaze. She looked uncomfortable, but she seemed to be sticking to her insinuation. “I think you probably said something about me that has put him off. That’s the only conclusion I can reach.” She paused. “I’m sorry if you don’t like that, but it’s the way I feel. I think you’ve put him off.”

Isabel felt her heart beat more vigorously. Her neck felt warm. This was what it was like to be disbelieved. This is how the innocent must feel when accused of a crime they have not committed.

“You’re completely wrong,” she said. “I would never lie to you, Cat. Surely you know that?”

Cat had risen to her feet. “I’m going,” she said.

“I don’t want us to part on these terms,” said Isabel. “Please, Cat. Please don’t leave things like this.”

Cat hesitated, but only briefly. “Sorry,” she said. “I really have to go.”

Isabel made a final effort. She reached out and took Cat’s arm, but she was quickly shrugged off. She did not follow Cat to the front door, but left her to let herself out. Then she returned to the kitchen and sat down at the table again. The evening had started so differently, with her pleasure over the resolution of the Lettuce affair. But the effect of that was to be short-lived: Now she felt a flat despair embrace her. Cat was mercurial—she always had been—but this was a serious breach, and she wondered whether their relationship would weather it. It would, she decided: Cat had been in a huff before, but that did not make the experience any more bearable. She wanted Jamie to return; she wanted a shoulder to cry on, and there was no shoulder on which she would more readily and therapeutically cry than his.