The Lost Art of Gratitude

When Cat rang the bell, Isabel was with Charlie in the sitting room, reading to him from a battered copy of Now We Are Six. A poem about the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace might not have been the most intellectual of fare, but for Charlie, not yet two, it was as metaphysically challenging as the most obscure lines of John Donne or Andrew Marvell. But whereas Donne and Marvell did not go tiddly-om-pom-pom in metrical terms, Milne did, and that was what Charlie liked. So it did not matter that Charlie had no idea why one of the sergeants should look after the guards’ socks or why Alice was about to marry one of the guards. Nor did it matter when Isabel read Hiawatha to him that he had no inkling as to what a wigwam or the shining Big-Sea-Water was; what counted was Longfellow’s use of metre, a monstrously repetitive business, which Charlie loved, and which could be counted upon to send him into a state of somnolence after fifty lines. Noticing this, Isabel had toyed with the idea of suggesting to some far-sighted publishers that they publish a book specifically targeted at insomniacs. This volume would not offer advice on how to tackle sleeplessness (there were far too many people advising us about everything, she thought); it would simply contain passages the reading of which could be relied upon to send the insomniac reader to sleep. Hiawatha would be there, but so would, for quite different reasons, excerpts from Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, and from one or two modern political memoirs.

Isabel put down the Milne and announced to Charlie that she would have to leave him for a moment to answer the door. She laid him down gently in his playpen, and then said, “Your cousin’s at the door, Charlie.”

Charlie looked up at her expectantly. “Olive,” he muttered.

“Not now,” said Isabel. “But well done.”

She went through to the front hall and opened the door. Cat was there, and immediately behind her was a man whom Isabel took to be Bruno. The evening sun, slanting in from the west, was in Cat’s hair, creating a halo effect.

Isabel stepped forward and gave the younger woman a light kiss. “And this, I assume, is Bruno.”

“Yes,” said Cat, moving aside to let Isabel reach out to shake hands with her new fiancé.

Bruno inclined his head. His expression was one of bemusement shading into condescension. It was the look of somebody who would rather be somewhere else but was there anyway and was prepared to be tolerant.

When he spoke, Bruno did so with a curiously high-pitched voice. “Pleased to meet you.”

It was entirely involuntary, but Isabel felt the muscles about her mouth tighten. She knew she should not feel that way, but she did. She did not like the tone in which Bruno said Pleased to meet you. There was a jauntiness to it, almost an irony, as if he were saying that he was pleased but was not, or was indifferent. He is here on sufferance, she thought; he has come here only because Cat has insisted. She disliked that intensely. It was like one of those occasions at a cocktail party when you find yourself conversing with somebody who is looking over your shoulder to see if there is anybody more important to engage in conversation.

She looked at Bruno, being struck by the fact that he was short; he was like a jockey—short and wiry. Every previous boyfriend of Cat’s had been tall, and here was Bruno, half a head shorter than Cat herself, and even that, she noticed as her eyes ran down his legs to his feet, was in his elevator shoes.

They went inside. Jamie appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea cloth. He embraced Cat quite easily, kissing her lightly on each cheek before shaking hands with Bruno.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Bruno said.

Again Isabel experienced an involuntary reaction, this time a slight wince. It was an ill-chosen remark—immediately embarrassing for the one to whom it was addressed. The knowledge that one is being talked about is not always welcome; it makes one wonder just what has been said, particularly in a case like this where relations between Jamie and Cat had not been especially easy.

Isabel could see that Bruno’s comment made Jamie feel uncomfortable, and she was on the point of making some anodyne remark on the weather when Jamie spoke.

“Oh yes?” he said. “And I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Bruno glanced at Cat. He was clearly annoyed. “Can’t imagine there’s much to be said about me,” he said. “Apart from my film credits, of course.”

Isabel seized the opportunity. “Now that’s something I didn’t hear. Nobody mentioned films.”

Bruno turned from Jamie to Isabel. “You’ve never seen me on the screen?”

“I watch so little,” Isabel said, waving a hand in the air. “I’d like to see more of … more of everything, but where’s the time?”