“Melbourne? Or meeting somebody?”
She thought for a moment. “Well, I did go to Melbourne once, you know. And I found it fascinating. I’d be very happy there, I think. I love the Australian landscape. I like Australians.”
But that was not what Cat had wanted to find out. She had hardly ever discussed John Liamor with Isabel— there had been an unspoken understanding about that—and she knew that there was concealed pain there. But Isabel was a vivacious, attractive woman, and men liked her. There was no reason why she should not have a lover; or none that Cat could see.
“But what about meeting somebody?” asked Cat. “Australian or otherwise. There are plenty of men in Scotland, you know. Have you thought . . .”
Isabel had another olive to attend to. She thought: She doesn’t know, Cat doesn’t know that I have met somebody and that it’s Jamie. Yes, she had met him, but that was not what Cat meant. Cat’s question was about the meeting of somebody who would actually be suitable for her, who would be about her age, in his early forties, maybe a bit older. That’s what her question meant.
And for a few moments, Isabel was confused. She was confused because she knew that this was something that she had not confronted. She had been so scarred by what had happened with John Liamor that she had decided that she would be best off by herself. And then what had happened was that she had 7 8
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h found that of course she needed a man, and she had found herself falling for Jamie because he was there and he was so attractive and sympathetic and nobody could help but fall for him.
The point about love, the essential point, was that we loved what we loved. We did not choose. We just loved. WHA again had seen that when he had written about his love, as a boy, for a pumping engine.
“I’d like to meet somebody,” she said. “Yes. I would. Yes.”
She looked up from her Greek salad, from the small, blissful world of olives and sliced boiled egg, and met Cat’s gaze.
Now Cat did not know what to say. What she thought was: Good, she’s over that awful Irishman. Good. But she did not know what to say because she had said that there were plenty of men in Scotland, but the fact of the matter was that there were not. There was a shortage of eligible men because of . . . what?
Demographic reasons: the death of men; all those men who died from working too hard and living at the wrong pace, whose final seconds must be filled with such regrets for all they had given to their work? The social acceptance of the gay alternative? She could not think of anybody suitable for Isabel, not one man, not one. He would have to be intelligent and urbane; he would have to have a sense of humour. She knew nobody over thirty- five who fitted those requirements who was not already married or with somebody or gay.
Isabel smiled at her. She felt better for having said, and thought, what she had just said. She felt that she had revealed something to Cat, and with revealing something about oneself there always comes a sense of lightening of the load that we all carry: the load of being ourselves. “But of course,” she said, “I shouldn’t talk about meeting other men. There’s Patrick.”
T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
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There was a slight cooling of the atmosphere. “I haven’t known him that long,” said Cat defensively. “He’s not necessarily the one.”
“Of course not,” said Isabel hurriedly. “I enjoyed meeting him, by the way.”
Cat looked away. “He enjoyed meeting you too.” Isabel was not sure if this was true or if it was just politeness on Cat’s part—or on Patrick’s part, for that matter. She doubted whether he would really have enjoyed meeting her; there had been no warmth in their encounter—although she told herself that she really had tried; they were just too dissimilar.
There was a silence. Over at the counter, Eddie finished serving a customer and stretched his arms above his head, yawning. He looked towards Isabel and lowered his arms sheepishly, as if caught doing something furtive. “Tired?” Isabel mouthed to him across the room, and he nodded.
“Patrick is fun,” said Cat suddenly, as if she had just thought of a reason why she should like him. “He makes me laugh. He’s witty.”
Isabel tried to conceal her surprise. She could not recall much of Patrick’s conversation, but it did not seem to her it had been witty. “That’s important in a man,” she said. “I can imagine nothing worse than being with a man who has no sense of humour. Just imagine it. It would like being in the desert.” She paused. “Have you met his mother yet? He lives at home, doesn’t he?”
“I’ve met her once or twice,” Cat replied. “She’s a local politician. She used to be in charge of—”
Isabel raised a hand. “Of course! I thought that Patrick’s name was familiar. Cynthia Vaughan. That’s his mother. I’ve met her too. Several times. We were on a committee together.”
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“That’s her,” said Cat. “They live in Murrayfield. Near St.
George’s School.”
Isabel placed her knife and fork on her empty plate. This was not particularly good news. Cynthia Vaughan was the last woman she would wish on Cat. She was a powerful, rather hec-toring woman, almost a parody of the pushy local politician. Any son of hers would have a battle escaping from a mother like that. That was why he still lived at home, thought Isabel. She won’t let him leave.
“She’s not a woman I would care to disagree with,” Isabel said cautiously.
The note of defensiveness came back into Cat’s voice. “She was perfectly nice to me.”
“I’m sure she was,” reassured Isabel. But she thought, with some relief perhaps, Patrick is not going to last. The choice is going to be between Cat and his mother. And the mother will win, because she was the sort who had
