The Lost Art of Gratitude

“I have one too,” said Isabel. “Each year I say this will be the year I make elderflower cordial, and each year I forget, or put it off, or think of an excuse. I suppose I’m just weak.”

Susie shook her head. “You’re not. You’ve got a journal to run, as well as a child and a fiancé. You’ve got more than enough in your life.”

“But I could do something about elderflower cordial. It’s not a big thing.”

“Well, you have to draw the line somewhere,” said Susie.

“The problem, though, is where to draw that line,” observed Isabel. “Don’t you think?”

Peter looked at her. “Yes, that’s right. And it seems to me that you have difficulty with that. Hence your getting involved in other people’s problems.” He paused. “Are you doing that right now? Are you getting mixed up in Minty’s affairs?”

She knew that she could not conceal anything from Peter; he would know immediately. And yet she could not tell him about Minty’s approach to her, as she had promised that she would pass that secret on to nobody but Jamie.

“A bit,” she said. “Unfortunately, I can’t talk about it. I hope you’ll understand.”

Peter did. “But I really feel I should warn you,” he went on. “Be careful. That woman is dangerous. Just be careful.”

Susie looked anxious. “I’ve never liked her,” she said quietly. “She’s …” She looked around for the right word. Susie was charitable.

“Wicked,” said Peter. “Susie’s too kind to say it.”

Isabel looked over the lawn at the monkey-puzzle tree that grew in front of the Victorian greenhouse. There was something ruthless about Minty—that was clear enough—but was she wicked? There were plenty of people who were excessively ambitious and self-seeking, who would think nothing of tramping over others to get what they wanted, but were such people wicked? Wickedness was surely something very extreme: an attitude of utter and callous disregard for the feelings of others, coupled with a desire to hurt them; it was a deliberate, chilling perversity. She had no evidence that Minty showed such a cast of mind, even if she was selfish and greedy. No, she would have to reserve judgement on that just a bit longer.

“Wicked,” repeated Peter. He looked intently at Isabel as he spoke, as if to make certain that she understood exactly what he meant.

SHE ARRIVED back at the house slightly later than she had anticipated. She went into the kitchen to find Jamie leaning against the sink, looking disconsolately at a red Le Creuset oven dish on the draining board. He looked up when she came in, but then his gaze fell.

“Your potatoes dauphinois?” she asked.

He nodded. “Burned,” he said. “Ruined. I put them in and went off to play the piano. I forgot about them.”

“And I was late,” she said. “It’s my fault. I’m very sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “It was mine.”

She walked across the room and put her arms around him. “Darling Jamie.”

It seemed to her as if he was somehow resisting her. His body felt taut, wound up like a spring. She touched his cheek with the back of her hand, gently, as if to take his temperature. His skin was smooth. His eyes had been closed; now they opened. She saw the flecks of colour.

“I don’t love you just because you can cook potatoes dauphinois,” she said.

His eyes widened. “You don’t?”

They both laughed.

“Nor because you play the bassoon,” Isabel went on. “Nor because your hair goes like that at the front and you can make up funny little songs out of nowhere.”

“Stop.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re making me laugh when I don’t want to laugh. I want to feel cross.”

She disengaged from him, smiling with pleasure. “Look,” she said. “Take off the top layer—like that—and, see, everything is fine underneath. We can have potatoes dauphinois after all.”

He did as she instructed, laying each burned slice on a plate beside the oven dish.

“Somebody phoned,” he said as he tipped the contents of the plate into the bin.

Isabel licked a piece of creamy potato off the tip of her finger. “Who?”

“He wouldn’t say,” Jamie replied. “He asked for you and then just more or less slammed the phone down when I said that you weren’t here. Rude.”

Isabel felt a sudden twinge of concern. “Not a voice you recognised?”

“No.”

“Scottish?”

Jamie looked thoughtful. “Maybe. Yes, probably. Not very broad. In fact, not broad at all.”

Isabel wondered. “A lawyer’s voice?”

Jamie looked bemused. “How does one tell that?” But then he nodded. “Yes, maybe.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SHE WOULD HAVE CALLED Jock Dundas at nine o’clock the next morning, which was the earliest she thought that his office switchboard would answer, had it not been for the fact that Jamie suddenly shouted from the garden. She immediately feared that something was wrong—he had taken Charlie out on to the lawn to pull him about on the small, red-wheeled cart that he loved so much. Charlie had fallen out of the cart; Charlie had cut himself; Charlie had swallowed something and stopped breathing—the possibilities ran through her mind as she ran for the back door and pushed it open.