The Lost Art of Gratitude id-6

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “It’s no laughing matter,” snapped Cat.

  Isabel apologised. It had not been a joke; she had meant that she did not want the flat to explode. Cat was being unduly literal in assuming that the reference to her home was a reference to her. She had offended Eddie, and now Cat. Yet on neither occasion did she think that the offence was warranted; they were both too sensitive, she decided, or—and it was a worrying thought—was she the insensitive one?

  They did not stop for lunch, as the delicatessen was at its busiest between noon and two in the afternoon. Then it slackened off, and Isabel provided cover at the counter while Eddie ate a sandwich in Cat’s office, his feet up on the table. She said nothing about that; when Cat was away it was understandable that mice would play.

  Eddie finished his lunch and it was Isabel’s turn for a break. She poured herself a cup of coffee, telephoned Jamie to check that Charlie was all right and then sat down with her coffee and a cheese roll at one of the tables. A customer had left an early copy of the Evening News, the local paper, on the desk, and she paged through this. It was a parochial paper, as local papers should be, and Isabel rarely found anything of interest in it. On this occasion, though, a small headline on an inner page caught her eye: Woman Attacked in Morningside. She began to read the text below. A young woman, it reported, had been attacked the previous night near the Royal Edinburgh Hospital; she had fought with her assailant and he had run off. He was a slight man, she said, but that was all the description she managed. It had been dark.

  Isabel read the article again and then looked up towards the counter. Eddie smiled at her.

  No, this was completely inconceivable; it was ridiculous. Eddie was a gentle young man who would never attack anybody. He was more likely to be attacked himself, she thought, and indeed she believed that he had been, some time ago. Plenty of people were scratched, one way or another, and even if Eddie was making up the story of the bramble bush, and even if the scratch came from a set of fingernails, it was unthinkable that the attacker could be him. But then she remembered the expression: someone’s brother, someone’s son. Those who committed horrendous crimes were still someone’s brother, someone’s son; or someone’s mild, inoffensive assistant at someone’s delicatessen.

  Isabel drained her coffee cup and rose to her feet. A woman had come in and was fingering the avocado pears, surreptitiously giving them a squeeze.

  “Please don’t do that,” said Isabel mildly, as she came up behind the customer. “It bruises them.”

  The woman turned round and looked defiantly at Isabel. “How do you expect me to tell if they’re ripe?”

  “You can feel them very gently. Tap them if you must—use a finger. But don’t squeeze them hard.”

  The woman’s nostrils flared. “I have never been so insulted in my life,” she said.

  Isabel recoiled. “Oh, please! I’m not insulting you. I merely asked you not to squeeze the fruit. We have to throw out an awful lot, you know, because people have done what you’ve done.”

  The woman turned on her heel. “There are plenty of other places to buy things,” she said. “Places where the assistants don’t insult you quite so much.” She spat out the word assistants.

  Isabel resisted the temptation to laugh. “I’m very sorry …,” she began. But the woman was not listening. She looked helplessly at Eddie, who was smirking.

  “What did you say to her?” Eddie asked, after the woman had left.

  “I simply asked her not to squeeze the avocados,” said Isabel. “And she flew off the handle.”

  “You must have offended her,” said Eddie. “People are so touchy.”

  Isabel raised an eyebrow. We see the touchiness of others and not our own—obviously. Eddie watched her with the air of somebody who had seen another disgrace herself through impetuosity or sheer foolishness.

  I don’t have to do this, thought Isabel. I really don’t have to put up with all these hypersensitive people. This was Cat’s business, and Eddie and all these difficult customers were her problem and not Isabel’s. She saw that Eddie was still looking at her. There was something odd about his stare, and for a moment Isabel thought: What if he knows that I know? What if he knows that I’ve read the report about the attack? What if he realises that now that I know, I’m a danger to him—a danger that can only be solved by … She brought this train of thought to an end. It was absurd, and she would not entertain any such absurd, fanciful thoughts about Eddie; she simply would not.

  BY THE END OF THE DAY , Eddie had become quite talkative. His earlier surliness had disappeared, and even the scratch on his face looked as if it had calmed down. Isabel tried not to think about that, and largely succeeded: her imaginings had been ridiculous, anyway, and she felt not unlike one of those nervous women who keep phoning the police about the men they were convinced were hiding under their beds. Wishful thinking, the police might say, although they were always so tactful in such cases.

  As she prepared to lock up, Eddie stood behind the counter, untying the strings of his apron.

  “Cat washes that for you, does she?” asked Isabel, nodding in the direction of the apron.

  “She’s meant to,” said Eddie. “But she always forgets. So I give it to my mum. She does all my washing.”

  “You’re lucky,” said Isabel.

  “But you have somebody to do all your washing too,” Eddie said. “Cat says that you have this lady who does everything.”

  Isabel winced. “I’m also lucky. Not that Grace does everything. But she does a lot.”

  “It must be great being rich,” said Eddie. There was no envy in his voice; it was just an observation.

  Isabel smiled to cover her embarrassment. “I’m not really rich,” she said. “Again, I’m lucky. And if you have money, you know, you tend not to talk about it—or throw it around. If you’ve got anything approaching a conscience, you try to use it well.”

  “Well, I’ll never be rich,” said Eddie, dusting a small patch of flour off his apron. “Not that it matters.”

  “Exactly,” said Isabel.

  Eddie folded the apron and slipped it into a plastic bag. “Cat says that she has to be careful. She’s got a bit of money and she doesn’t want a boyfriend who’s interested in the money rather than her. That’s what she told me, anyway.”

  “She’s very wise,” said Isabel, realising that she had never before said that of her niece, and perhaps she should have. Wisdom came in different forms, she reminded herself. “There’s nothing worse than a gold-digger.” She paused, before continuing: “Is there anyone at the moment?” She intended to sound casual, but she suspected that Eddie could sense the depth of her interest.

  He looked at her sideways. “Cat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes. There is someone.”

  Isabel waited for him to expand on this. After a while she encouraged him gently. “Do you like him?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Her boyfriends don’t seem to last long, do they? Do I like him? Well, I haven’t really seen much of him. This one has only been round here once or twice. He’s too busy, I think.”

  Isabel probed gently. “Busy doing what?”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Eddie said with a smile. “He’s a tightrope walker!”

  Isabel said nothing. She did believe it. It was typical of Cat, even if it was somewhat original.

  She picked up the keys. Eddie was ready to leave now; he had had enough of talking about Cat, and the evening lay ahead of him. “A funambulist!” muttered Isabel.

  Eddie, moving towards the door, stopped. “What’s that?”

  Isabel explained. “Cat’s new boyfriend. A funambulist. One who walks on tightropes.”

  Like all of us, she thought. In the final analysis.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  R ODERICK McCAIG’s second birthday party was to take place at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon, with carriages at five. Isabel smiled at the thought: baby carriages.

  Jamie was not en
thusiastic. “Do we have to go? I don’t like that woman, you know. And Charlie hates Roderick. Do you really have to sit through the birthday party of somebody who tries to pull your shoes off?”

  Isabel conceded that Roderick was, at present, not perhaps the friendliest company for Charlie, but pointed out that there would be other children there. “He’s got to start making friends at some point. Who has he got at the moment?”

  “Me,” said Jamie lamely. “You. Grace.”

  “You can stay behind if you like,” said Isabel. “I don’t want to force you. I can say that you couldn’t make it, which will not exactly be a lie. The truth would be that you couldn’t make it because you couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm. Minty won’t care.” It occurred to her, though, that Minty might well mind. She had looked at Jamie with undisguised interest, and she might be disappointed if he were not there. And then the further thought occurred: perhaps that was why the invitation had been issued in the first place. Perhaps it had nothing to do with Roderick and Charlie, but everything to do with Jamie.

  “I’ll come,” said Jamie. “It may have its moments.”

  They dressed Charlie with care. Isabel thought that he might wear the kilt that she had recently bought for him—a small strip of Macpherson tartan, expertly pleated and complemented by a tiny sporran and ornate Celtic kilt-pin. The garment had been specially designed for a wearer who was still in nappies, thereby resolving, in a very evident way, the age-old question of what was worn under the kilt, at least in this case.

  “Look at him,” said Jamie. He pointed to Charlie, who was standing up unsteadily, getting the feel of his new outfit. “Aren’t you proud, seeing him in his kilt?”

  Isabel was. She knew that one’s nationality was an accident of history and that it was difficult to justify being proud of a heritage—one never did anything to deserve being Scottish or American or whatever one was. But national pride was something that people did feel—they could not help it—and she felt it now on Charlie’s behalf. And it was a form of love, she decided; loving one’s country, one’s culture, amounted to loving a particular group of people, and that, surely, was not something for which one had to apologise.

  They set off, with Isabel at the wheel of the car, Jamie at her side and Charlie strapped into his child-seat in the back. He liked the car, and chuckled with excitement as they started the drive to Minty’s house. Halfway there, with the Pentlands rising on one side of the road and the hills of Peebleshire off to the other, Charlie suddenly said “olive” again. Jamie turned round and smiled at him. Charlie stared back, as if surprised by his father’s sudden attention.

  “Olive?” Jamie said. “Olive, Charlie?”

  Charlie said nothing, fixing Jamie with the disconcerting, utterly fearless stare that only babies and very young children are capable of.

  “No olives, Charlie,” said Isabel over her shoulder. “Olives all gone.”

  “Olives all gone,” repeated Jamie. And then, turning to Isabel, he said, “That would make a lovely title for a song, you know. ‘Olives All Gone.’ It’s very poignant.”

  Isabel agreed. “And the words?”

  “I’ll have to think,” Jamie said. “I’ll tell you once I’ve composed it.” The song would come to him, he was sure; it always happened when a line struck him in this way. “Olives All Gone”—it would be about loss, of course, as so many songs were; about what we once had, but had no more.

  It did not take long to reach Minty’s house, which was just short of Carlops, a small village twelve miles or so out of Edinburgh. It was in a stretch of country that Isabel particularly liked. Here the land spread out to the south and east, gently rolling fields and folds, green here, ripening brown there, becoming blue in the distance. It was a landscape of mists and distances, beneath a sky that was somehow washed, attenuated, softened. It was a landscape that had been the same for a very long time, dotted with farmhouses and shepherds’ cottages that were there in Robert Louis Stevenson’s time, and in the time of Hume. People here did what they had always done—tending this part of Scotland, keeping it fertile, handing it on to provide for a new generation. It was a place of custom and fond usage.

  Minty had given very detailed instructions, which Isabel had written down on the piece of paper she now handed to Jamie. He used these to direct her along the narrow farm track, pressed in upon by hedges, that led off the main road and past a large stand of Scots pines.

  “That’s it,” said Isabel. “Look.”

  Jamie drew in his breath. “Is that her place?”

  “I assume so,” said Isabel. “I never imagined Minty in cramped accommodations, but all the same …”

  The house was several hundred yards back from the farm track, which meandered off towards a low byre and a huddle of sheds in the distance. A driveway led from the track to the house; this was lined with rambling rhododendron bushes, flowering in clusters of pink and pale red. Beyond the bushes, a lawn swept up to the house itself, which was Georgian and far more imposing than the larger gentleman-farmers’ houses of the area. At the time of its construction this would have been the house of a family on its way up; not quite in the league of those who aspired to a country mansion, but heading in that direction.

  They turned off the farm track and made their way up the somewhat smoother driveway and to the parking place at the side of the house. There were already several prosperous-looking vehicles, which made Isabel’s green Swedish car look distinctly shabby. One of these cars had evidently arrived only a few minutes before, as a woman was still in the process of unloading a small child and a basketful of supporting paraphernalia. She looked in Isabel’s direction, hesitated for a moment and then gave a friendly wave as she made her way into the house.

  They approached the front door, which had been left open. Minty was standing in the hall, talking to one of the other mothers. She broke off and welcomed Isabel and Jamie warmly.

  “You’ve not been here before, have you?” she said.

  Isabel shook her head. “No. But what a lovely place.”

  Minty looked pleased. “We searched and searched, and eventually we found this just as we were seriously thinking of going to live in Gullane. Edinburgh sur mer, as you know. Then this came up. It was just what we were after.” She smiled at Isabel and then turned to give Jamie an even bigger smile. “Do have a look around. But it might be best later on, when I can show you. We need to get the children to the table. The masses require to be fed.”

  They went through to the kitchen, a vast square room floored with large stone slabs. The room was dominated by a long refectory table at which places for the party had been laid. Most of the small guests were now seated—all eight of them—with a parent beside them to feed them and to keep the food off the floor. Jamie took Charlie over to the table and sat beside him; Isabel watched from the side of the room.

  As Charlie and Jamie appeared to be enjoying themselves without her, Isabel moved across to a French window to look out at the garden. The kitchen wing was at the back of the house, a Victorian addition that gave on to a small square of grass. On the other side of this lawn was a large kitchen garden, its surrounding wall built in the grey stone of eastern Scotland, several feet higher than head height. Against its outer side were espaliered apple trees and, in between them, white climbing roses, now in full bloom. Through the open doorway in the wall, she could make out what looked like fruit bushes, some of which were covered with nets against marauding birds.

  Isabel became aware that somebody was standing behind her, and she turned to find Minty, holding a plate.

  “I made these cheese scones for the adult palate,” she said. “Everything for the children, I’m afraid, is sweet. There are no carrots, I confess. I’m not the most modern of mothers.”

  Isabel laughed. “I suspect that their little hearts sink if they get carrots at a birthday party.”

  Minty held the plate of scones out to Isabel. “Do try one. I used Parmesan. The recipe called for Cheddar
, but I find Cheddar so dull.”

  “I suppose it is,” agreed Isabel. She felt almost guilty over her remark, which seemed to dismiss a whole tradition of cheese-making. So, as she took a scone, she added, “Some people like Cheddar, though, and they don’t think it’s that dull.”

  “Oh, but it is,” said Minty.

  Isabel took a bite of her scone. She was not sure if she wanted to get into an argument with Minty about the merits or otherwise of Cheddar, and so she simply said, “A chacun son fromage.”

  Minty looked at her. “And mine is definitely not Cheddar.”

  Isabel said nothing. The scone tasted very good, and she decided to compliment Minty on it; it would be a way of ending the debate about Cheddar. But Minty, who had now put the plate down on a nearby sideboard, suddenly took Isabel by the arm, holding her just below the elbow. Isabel felt a momentary shock; surely a disagreement about Cheddar would not lead to a fight about Cheddar. For a moment she imagined the headlines in the press—it would be a gift for a sensationalist sub-editor: Edinburgh Ladies Slog It Out in Georgian Mansion over Cheese Disagreement; Shocked Kids Look On. Minty’s grip, though, was not confrontational, but conspiratorial.

  “Let me show you the garden. Come.”

  Minty did not wait for an answer but gently propelled her guest towards the door. They went outside and crossed the lawn towards the entrance to the walled garden. A child’s toy, a broken helicopter, lay sideways on the lawn, plastic rotors bent from impact; ditched on a sea of green.

  “This garden was one of the things that really sold the house to us,” said Minty. “There’s something special about a walled garden, don’t you think? And it’s very useful here, of course, with the wind that comes up from Lanarkshire. Biggar, you know, is one of the coldest places in Scotland. Really freezing.”

  They reached the doorway into the garden and Minty gestured for Isabel to go in first. Isabel ducked, although the doorway was quite high enough to accommodate her easily, and found herself faced with the fruit bushes that she had seen from the house. There were more of them than she had imagined, though, as they occupied at least half the area of the garden, the other half being given over to salad vegetables—lettuces, red and green; kale; spring onions.