The Lost Art of Gratitude

“I had a wonderful visit there,” Isabel said. “A few years ago—in the spring. The blossom was out and it was just perfect. I was very well looked after. They took me to the Lilly Library. They have the most remarkable collection there—literary papers from all sorts of people, all neatly boxed away. And an astonishing collection of miniature books. Tiny ones. Smaller than that plum tomato you’re trying to eat. You should impale it on your fork, you know.”

It took Professor Lettuce some time to marshal his thoughts. As she waited for him, Isabel, toying with her pasta, found herself feeling some sympathy for her now-deflated adversary, caught between ambition and loyalty to his dubious ally. He was like one of those lettuces that, when you squeeze them, are all air between the leaves and reduce to more or less nothing, just a few thin green leaves. Although Lettuce was older than Dove by at least a decade, if not more, he was not the ringleader; it was dawning on her that it was Christopher Dove who was the prime mover in whatever plans the two of them had hatched. Lettuce was the mere messenger here, and he had seen the ground completely cut from beneath his feet with this countercharge against Dove. Now, watching him try to recover, she felt sorry for him; he was like a great beached whale struggling to get back into the water. To be pitied rather than despised.

“I’m most interested in Hume …,” Lettuce began. Then he stopped.

Isabel reached out across the table and placed her hand on his wrist. “I have no desire to fight with you, you know. I bear you no ill will over what happened.”

He opened his mouth to speak. “Christopher said—”

“Christopher Dove does not like me. He tried, quite wrongly, to get me out as editor of the Review. I fought back. But I am quite prepared to regard all of that as past business. I really am. And I hope you are too.”

Lettuce’s eyes were on her as she spoke. He looked down at her hand upon his wrist, as if trying to make sense of it, but he did not try to shrug it off.

“I fear that Christopher may have misled me,” he said. “And if that is so, I believe that I owe you an apology.”

“Which I am happy to accept,” said Isabel quickly. “So let’s forget all about it and talk about your new book on Hutcheson. Isn’t it extraordinary how the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment is still felt so strongly?”

She moved her hand, and Lettuce went back to his salad. “You’re quite right,” he said. “And Hutcheson has not had adequate attention paid to him, I feel. His insights into morality and our sense of beauty seem so fresh, even today. I pay quite a lot of attention to those in my new work.”

“Good,” said Isabel. “I very much look forward to reading it.”

Lettuce now smiled. “I’ve been a rather foolish Lettuce,” he said.

The strange turn of phrase caught her by surprise; referring to oneself in the third person always made Isabel feel uneasy, conveying, as it did, a slight sense of dissociation from self. Here it seemed almost comical—sounding like a childish reference to oneself as a vegetable; mind you, the French, she remembered, called one another chou, in affection. She reached out again and patted his wrist. “You’ve been human—that’s all. We all make mistakes.”

He looked at her in gratitude. “Thank you.”

She inclined her head. She had not expected him to thank her; indeed she rarely expected anybody to thank her for anything. Gratitude was a lost art, she felt. People accepted things, took them as their right, and had forgotten how to give proper thanks. Professor Lettuce, for all his faults, had at least said thank you and she, in turn, was grateful for that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

JAMIE ANNOUNCED that he would cook dinner that evening—scallops, with green beans and dauphinois potatoes. Isabel, who had taught him how to make the potato dish, was pleased—and he was proud. “Nobody else in the orchestra can make potatoes dauphinois,” he said, adding, “as far as I know.”

With his preternaturally sophisticated palate, Charlie liked potatoes done this way, turning up his nose at ordinary boiled potatoes.

“Where did he get these sophisticated tastes from?” asked Jamie, looking firmly at Isabel.

It was not from her, claimed Isabel. Boiled potatoes were fine with her; but so were scallops and truffle oil and smoked wild salmon. “His grandfather, of course, my father, had a liking for savouries—potted shrimps, angels on horseback—that sort of thing. Maybe it’s from him.”

“We had mince and tatties when I was a boy,” said Jamie. “And rice pudding.” Mince and tatties were standard Scottish fare, as ordinary as could be.

“But you were lucky to have the mince,” said Isabel. “Remember that there were those who had only the potatoes? A tatty and a pass? When the children’s potatoes were passed over the meat—just passed—to get a whiff of the flavour on them? Then the father ate all the meat.”