The Lost Art of Gratitude

Most problems, Isabel had always believed, could be solved by the telling of the truth. This, though, was not one of them. She saw no solution here other than the denial of the love that Jock had for his son. She wished that she could have found some words of comfort for him, but she could not. There were none.

Minty was the one who was responsible for this, she felt. She had brought this anguish to this man because she had thoughtlessly engaged in an extramarital affair. She paused. Of course Jock might have been responsible too: an affair, after all, always involves two—only complete narcissists are capable of having an affair with themselves. Here, though, it was easy to imagine Minty as Siren, luring Jock on to the rocks. So she was to blame for that, and, while one was about it, she had had no right to bring Isabel into the situation with those invented stories of threats and danger.

Isabel would speak to her and decisively wash her hands of the whole business. Jamie was right—again. She should not get involved in the affairs of others, especially when the other person reveals herself as manipulative and ruthless, ready to use people where and when it suited her. Jamie was also right in another respect. He did not like Minty; how astute he was, how acute his judgement. Minty Auchterlonie, she now decided, was in that category of people who did nothing but bring trouble into the lives of others, whatever they did. The only way of dealing with them was to keep out of their way, to isolate them as bearers of a dangerous infection who must be stopped from going out into a city with their burden of germs. But who was there to stop Minty Auchterlonie? Isabel?

She made to take her leave of Jock.

“You’ll talk to her?” There was anxiety in his voice.

She nodded. “Yes. But, as I’ve said, I don’t see it making the slightest bit of difference to anything.”

“But please do it anyway. Please.”

“I shall. I said I shall.” She paused. Minty had told her to offer him money; now it seemed quite unnecessary, and quite inappropriate. And yet, it was there in the background, and might just move the situation on; one never knew.

“There’s something else,” she said. “I don’t know whether I should even mention this. You may feel very insulted. I suspect you will.”

“What?”

“Money. She told me that she would … would compensate you for dropping your claim on Roderick.”

He was quite still; he did not move. But she saw that something was going on in his mind. He turned his head away.

“I’m sorry even to have raised this,” she said.

He shrugged. “You were an emissary. I’m a lawyer and I know that you have to say unpalatable things when you’re acting for somebody else.”

She was relieved that he did not appear to be angry. But if he was not angry, then what had he been thinking when she made the offer?

“Minty mentioned a figure of fifty thousand pounds,” she continued.

He did not meet her gaze. He was looking at a bee orchid, now in flower: a blaze of gold. So are we all reduced by money, thought Isabel; so are we all corrupted.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ISABEL HAD TRIED not to think about Christopher Dove, ignoring him as one studiously avoids looking at an ominous rain-cloud spotted on a country walk. But such acts of self-delusion provide only temporary relief, and she knew that sooner or later she would have to answer his letter and the charge it contained. She was not a prevaricator by nature and she would get round to it, but it seemed at the time that there were just rather too many unpleasant or delicate duties waiting to be performed.

She would have to write to Christopher Dove; she would have to speak to Minty Auchterlonie; she would have to buy Cat an engagement present and make a further effort to like Bruno; she would even have to bring herself to watch Oil so that she could tell him that she had seen him on the screen. He would like that, Isabel thought, and it might be a way of building a relationship between them, which she knew she had to do. She had to do so many things, and most of them, it seemed to her, were things that she did not really want to do. That, though, was what life was like for most of us: doing things that we would probably not do if we really had any choice in the matter.

She thought about this as she sat at her desk the following day. Jamie had caught an early train from Haymarket to Glasgow, to play in a recording session—lucrative work that came his way occasionally and that he enjoyed. Grace had taken Charlie for a walk down Morningside Road, where there was household shopping to be done, and that left her with the time to get through the mail that had piled up again on her desk. But no sooner had she started than the telephone rang.

For a moment she toyed with the idea of not answering. It was a delicious feeling, ignoring the phone, a feeling of freedom almost wicked in its intensity. Why, she asked herself, should we be so enslaved by such instruments?