The Lost Art of Gratitude

The salmon steaks cooked, Jamie served the potatoes and put the salad bowl on the table. “Very delicious,” remarked Isabel. She was looking away as she spoke and Jamie could tell that her mind was elsewhere. He assumed that all philosophers were like that—not only his philosopher.

“I think we should invite Cat and Bruno back for dinner,” she said. “How about next week?” She did not want to do this, but she knew that she had to make an effort. Ill feeling, in whatever quarter it existed, was like a slow and insidious poison, a weedkiller that strangled the life about it. She would make an effort with Bruno, no matter how hard it might be.

He shook his head. “It might be too late,” he said.

“Why?”

He delivered the news in even tones. “Because I don’t think they’re still together.”

Isabel had half expected this. Cat was incorrigible; she was ashamed of her, but she was also pleased. How quickly, she thought, have my good intentions been replaced by delight in the end of Cat’s romance. She was human, made up of a will to do good, but also with human failings. It was the end of Bruno, but she resisted any hint of triumphalism, or evident relief, restricting herself to asking Jamie how he had formed this impression.

“Eddie said something,” Jamie replied.

Isabel felt her pleasure fading rapidly. Eddie was not always to be relied upon.

“Eddie went to a show on the Meadows,” Jamie went on. “It was some sort of sample of what was coming up at the Fringe—the usual thing, actors, jugglers, musicians. And Bruno was doing a tightrope walk.”

Isabel could see it. There would be colour and music and the very faint hint of marijuana smoke mingled with cheap perfume.

Jamie continued with his explanation. “Bruno’s wire was not very high—about twelve feet or so, Eddie said. But he was doing all sorts of tricks on it—he rode a unicycle across and skipped—you know what these characters do.”

Isabel imagined Bruno padding across the wire in his elevator shoes. No, he would take those off and don a pair of soft kid slippers. Did they make elevator slippers? she wondered.

Jamie was watching her. “Are you trying not to laugh?”

She could reply—quite honestly—that she was not. But she sensed that laughter was there, not far away, and that this would spoil all her moral effort, her determination to like Bruno.

“Anyway, he was walking along the wire, and Cat and Eddie were watching from down below. Cat suddenly called out to him and waved—Eddie said that he thought she was really proud of seeing him up there being admired by everybody.”

“I suppose so,” said Isabel. But she thought: I wouldn’t be.

“He looked round, apparently, and then fell off. She had distracted him.”

Isabel gasped.

“He wasn’t hurt, apparently, or not badly,” Jamie went on. “He twisted an ankle a bit, but picked himself up and went over to Cat.”

“And?”

“And he yelled at her,” said Jamie. “Ranted and raved in front of everybody. Then apparently he stormed off. Eddie said that Cat was in tears and nothing’s been seen of Bruno since then. No apology. Nothing.”

Isabel sat in silence. It was a painful discovery to make, but one very much better made before she married him.

“The end of Bruno,” she muttered.

“Yes,” said Jamie. He pointed to the salmon steaks on their plates. “Don’t let the salmon get cold.”

She lifted her knife and fork. Cat had made numerous mistakes, and seemed destined to make more. One day she would stop—she would have to—and take stock of the men she had chosen. Every one of them had been unsuitable, in one way or another, apart from Jamie, that is. But then Jamie had been unsuitable for Cat—principally because he was so suitable for virtually anybody else. Poor Cat: Could she not see the problem?

They exchanged glances. “Let’s be honest,” said Jamie. “It would have been a disaster. Those elevator shoes.”

Isabel was thinking more of his temper, but she agreed that the elevator shoes were a problem too. And the tightrope walking. And the stunts. And Oil.

“You’re right,” she said.

They finished their meal. Then Jamie said, “I composed something today. The words are by somebody else; the music by me. Would you like to hear it?”

Isabel said that she would. She would make coffee and bring it through to the music room. He could go through and get ready.