The Lost Art of Gratitude

Isabel lowered her gaze; she was in no mood to argue. She would telephone Minty when she got home and remonstrate with her for involving her in the whole business. She had assumed that Minty was telling the truth when she spoke of Jock’s difficult behaviour, but now she thought that Minty had exaggerated—at best—or even lied.

“I can’t have another child,” Jock said suddenly. “Last year I had orchitis. You know what that is?”

She was taken by surprise. She did know. It was becoming clear to her now.

“People talk lightly of mumps,” he said. “Even the name sounds a bit jokey. But it’s deadly serious—at least in some cases. And I’m one of those cases. I can’t have children now. Or ever.”

Isabel looked down. She had been ten minutes or so with Jock and her entire understanding of the situation had been completely called into question. Not only did she suspect that the campaign that Minty referred to was an imagined one but she had also come to understand why Jock might be so desperate to have some relationship with Roderick—sufficiently desperate to concoct a ridiculous and unrealistic scheme to see something of the boy. She felt confused, as if she had tumbled into a place where things were not quite what they purported to be. It was easy to feel that, of course, and it was unsettling; it was why people clung so fervently to their beliefs about the world.

She took Jock’s arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the situation. I’m very sorry.”

They began to walk back towards the hothouse door.

“What are you going to do?” asked Jock.

“I’ll contact Minty and tell her that I can’t do anything to help her,” she said. “In other words, I’ll withdraw.”

Jock shook his head in frustration. “Can’t you do something? Can you persuade her to see it from my point of view?”

Isabel was not sure how to answer him. It seemed to her that the situation simply could not be resolved in a way that would allow for compromise. If Jock came out into the open and took legal action for access to Roderick, it could result in the end of Minty’s marriage to Gordon, which would hardly predispose her to sharing Roderick with him. If Gordon forgave Minty her unfaithfulness, it might help Minty but would not help Jock’s claim to see the boy, as it was difficult to imagine his agreeing to let another man develop a relationship with Roderick, even if that other man was the boy’s real father. Why should he? And if it went to court, a judge would almost certainly take the view that Roderick’s best interests would be served by his remaining with Minty and the man whom he had been brought up to believe was his father. In any event, Jock stood to lose.

It would have been simplest to disengage altogether, to wash her hands of them both. And she almost did; but not quite. It was moral proximity again: this man standing before her was not a moral stranger to her—he was asking her for help and she could not turn him away. She simply could not. “All right, I’ll talk to her,” she said. “But I really don’t see any solution that’ll help you.” She broke off as they went through the door. Now, out in the sunlight, feeling cooler and more comfortable than in the artificial warmth of the hothouse, she said, “Mr. Dundas, I think that you may just have to accept that Roderick can never be yours.”

He stared at her. There was nothing firm or confident in his manner now. He was like a man facing sentence. And this made Isabel all the more certain: this was not a man who had been threatening anybody.

“Do you know how I feel?” he asked. His voice was low and unsteady.

“I think I do,” said Isabel.

“It’s like being dead,” he said.

He spoke quietly, each word chiselled out with complete clarity. Of course he was right—that is what such a loss felt like. Stop all the clocks, as WHA had said in that harrowing poem of his. Yes, that is how she herself would feel if somebody came to her and said, “You may never see Charlie again.”

She could not think of anything to say to that, and indeed she did not want to; any gloss on his remark was unnecessary. The feeling behind the death analogy was perfectly vivid. This poor man had made a terrible mistake in becoming involved with Minty Auchterlonie in the first place, probably an ill-thought-out, regretted fling. And then it had brought these dreadful, painful consequences. But who had seduced whom? She him, Isabel imagined; he would have been an entertainment for Minty, as men can be for predatory women, a bit of variety to relieve her of the tedium of the worthy—but wealthy—Gordon. And now she had the result of that, a little boy who very clearly was loved to distraction by his natural father, who, through him, had been given a vision of fatherhood, only to see it abruptly snatched away.