T H E R E C E P T I O N I S T I N V I T E D I S A B E L to take a seat. The lawyer, she said, would be down to see her in a few minutes and would see her in the small conference room off the reception area. Isabel sank into a large black leather sofa and paged through a social magazine. It was about cocktail parties and receptions and openings at galleries. The same faces appeared in several of the photographs, faces which looked confidently into the camera as if to say, “Yes, me again.” She turned the pages quickly, and then stopped. A dance had been held at Prestonfield House: somebody’s birthday, the daughter of a man in a kilt with an elaborate ruff at his throat, the full Highland rig, an East Lothian grandee. And there were the bright young people, smiling, laughing, glasses of champagne in their hands.
And there was Jamie standing in a group of three young men, all of them in their kilts and formal jackets, their arms around one another. She stared at the photograph, stared at the faces of the other two young men, and at Jamie, and her heart gave a lurch.
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She was not part of that world. But there was something else about the photograph that intrigued her, something almost homo-erotic in the easy intimacy of the three young men, their friendship, their closeness. She looked closer. Their arms were on one another’s shoulders; the face of one of them was turned to another, facing him. Jamie had pulled back from the kiss that afternoon; could it be that, for all his obsession with Cat, who was, after all, boyish in her appearance, his inclinations, or some of them, were otherwise? That was quite common, and one should not be surprised that a man might be attracted to one or two women but still be attracted to his own sex. There were many such relationships. And a young man like that might find the company of an older woman appealing, because it was easy and interesting and sexually undemanding. She looked at the photograph again, and, in a quick movement, furtively tore it out, folded it and tucked it into her bag. There was a rustling of paper from the desk near the window, and she gave a glance in the direction of the receptionist, who had clearly seen her. She smiled and shrugged, a gesture which came naturally to her but which was ambiguous in its meaning.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel said across the room. “I simply had to keep that. It’s someone I know. And it’s pretty out of date . . .”
“Of course,” said the receptionist politely. “It’s just that we tend to keep the magazines for a while. People like to read them.”
“Good,” said Isabel, meaninglessly, looking up at the ceiling, like a child caught in an act of flagrant disobedience who simply pretends that it has not happened.
The lawyer, an attractive woman in the dark skirt and high-boned looks of her profession, came through the door and shook hands. She gestured to a door and led Isabel into a small, 1 0 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h windowless conference room furnished with a beechwood table and chairs. There was coffee in a vacuum jug and a small plate of biscuits.
As she helped Isabel to coffee, the lawyer explained that although she was happy to talk about the purchase of the flat, any formal offer would have to come through Isabel’s own lawyer in the proper legal form.
“I understand,” said Isabel. “But there was something I wanted to discuss with you personally.”
“I haven’t seen the flat myself,” warned the lawyer. “I have some particulars about it, but I don’t have details. If there is something about it that needs further looking at, then you need to speak to your surveyor. I take it that —”
Isabel interrupted. “It’s nothing to do with that,” she said.
“We had a survey done. Everything was fine. No settlement in the building.”
“Which is very much a plus in the New Town, isn’t it?” said the lawyer. “There are some parts where the floors are at quite an angle. I suppose it’s the penalty you pay for living in an old building. Lots of character, but sometimes lots of cracks.
No, I gather it’s a very nice little flat.” She looked at Isabel enquiringly.
“Simon Mackintosh said that the owner—”
“Florence Macreadie.”
“Yes, I met her. He said that Florence Macreadie was prepared to let me have the flat for substantially under the starting price.”
The lawyer nodded. “It’s unusual. Very unusual. But yes, I can confirm that. Ten thousand below.”
Isabel sipped at her coffee. She looked at the lawyer’s hands, which were resting on a pad of paper, an expensive, lacquered 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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fountain pen held loosely between the fingers. But her hands did not move. They were perfectly still.
“It’s very generous of her,” said Isabel. “But I fear that she has the wrong impression.” She looked at the lawyer, whose eyes moved away from hers. It was embarrassing for her, she decided. This was not a matter of conditions and clauses. “Yes,”
she went on. “She formed the impression that the young man who was with me was there because we were going to move in together. She was . . .”
“Touched,” supplied the lawyer, and smiled at Isabel, as one woman to another. She looked down at her hands and placed the pen very deliberately on the pad of paper. It rolled slightly and then came to rest. Isabel watched it.
“Well, we’re not,” said Isabel. “I asked him to come simply because he knows the area.”
The lawyer was silent for a moment. Then she laughed.
“Ah! So you’re not . . . Well, I suppose one must say that you’re not . . . together. I’m sorry. The way she described it to me made it sound rather romantic. I’m sorry, Miss Dalhousie.”
Isabel looked again at the lawyer’s hands. The wedding ring.
