The Lost Art of Gratitude

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.

“Very functional,” said Minty.

Isabel thought of her failure as a gardener. “I should grow something,” she remarked. “Even a few potatoes. But we have a fox, you see, and he digs things up.”

“Get rid of him,” said Minty. Then she added, “We had a fox too.”

For a moment Isabel imagined a fox in this domain, using one of the espaliered apple trees to get to the top of the wall, sleeking his way along the top, and then finding his way down into the garden itself. What harm would he have caused? There was plenty of room for him to dig, to make his earth, without impinging on Minty’s vegetables. Four words showed that this woman, this successful banker, had no heart, Isabel thought: Get rid of him. Four words.

Then Minty said, “I couldn’t bring myself to have him … well, they don’t mince their words in the country, the farmer offered to shoot him. I said no.”

I have misjudged you, Isabel said to herself. Again, I have misjudged you.

“I know how it is,” said Isabel. “I rather like him.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you do him in,” Minty explained. “But you can get somebody—there’s a man in Dalkeith, I think—who will come and collect him from town and release him somewhere in the country.”

“I’ve heard of that,” said Isabel. “But I wondered whether he would really …”

“We have to trust people,” interrupted Minty. And it seemed to Isabel that as she said this, the other woman looked at her more pointedly.

Isabel wondered what had happened to Minty’s fox. Had the man from Dalkeith called?

“What …”

Minty seemed to have an ability to anticipate questions. “He died a natural death. I found him on the other side of the wall. At first I thought he was sleeping and then I saw that he was quite still. His grave is down by the burn over there.” She pointed away from the house. Isabel looked; it would be a fine place to be buried, she felt, with those hills crouching on the horizon like great sleeping foxes, vulpine deities, perhaps, the gods to whom foxes prayed at night. A good place for a fox.

Isabel sighed. “Poor fox.” It was a trite thing to say, she knew, but what else could one say about living and then dying, as we—and foxes—all must do.

Minty was silent. It was a strange moment: there was a wind, not a strong one, just a breath, and Isabel felt it against her cheek; a wind from over there, from the hills that ran towards the coast, towards the North Sea, towards the edge of Scotland. Then Minty spoke. “I don’t know how to say this,” she said.

Isabel looked at her enquiringly.

“I wondered whether I should raise it with you at all,” Minty went on. “I decided I could. You seem … well, you seem so sympathetic.”

Isabel was about to protest. She wanted to say “I’m not really,” but when she opened her mouth all she said was, “Oh.”

“Yes,” said Minty. “I’ve got plenty of friends—close ones too. But I don’t feel that I can burden any of them with this. I don’t know how they would handle it.”

Isabel ran over the possibilities in her mind. Matrimonial difficulties? That was the sort of matter one was usually worried about raising with friends. But what possible insight could Minty imagine that she, Isabel, could bring to the matrimonial problems of a person whom she barely knew? Financial problems? Surely not; not with this house and the private whisky label and the bank.

“You can speak to me,” said Isabel. “I don’t know whether I’ll be much help, but you can certainly speak to me.”

Minty thanked her. Then she continued, “The reason I thought that I should speak to you is because I know you have helped various people. Remember how we met—over that awful business with that young man who fell in the Usher Hall? Remember? And then somebody else told me about something you had done for another person. So I thought that you might not mind if I told you.”

“Told me what?” Isabel prompted.

“Or asked you, rather. Have you ever been frightened?”

In her surprise, Isabel blurted out, “Me?”

Minty bent down to pick a small blue flower growing by the side of the path. “Wild hyacinth,” she said, showing the flower to Isabel. “Uninvited.”

Isabel glanced at the flower. She remembered something she had read somewhere, some generalisation about women picking flowers and men letting them be. It was Lawrence, she thought; women were always picking flowers in his novels, watched by men. “Bavarian Gentians.” What a strange poem. Not every man has gentians in his house … Of course they didn’t …

“We’ve all been frightened at some time or other,” Isabel said. “And I’m no exception.”