At the far end of the lawn, under one of the oak trees, Susie clapped her hands together. Dinner, brought out on several large serving plates by a pair of young helpers, was now being served on the trestle tables. There would be a seat for almost everybody, Susie called out, and there were extra seats in the kitchen for those who could not be accommodated at the tables.
T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
1 4 9
Isabel walked with Mimi towards the tables. Susie, seeing Mimi, came to her side and led her to a place in the middle of the larger table. Isabel, detaching herself, was preoccupied with what Mimi had said about Angie. So Angie found Jamie attractive; well, that was hardly earth-shattering news—any woman would, as Mimi herself had said. And if it was true that Angie was after Tom’s money, then that was hardly anybody else’s business, other than Tom’s relatives, who could have an interest in his assets. Fortune hunters were hardly rare, and in places like Highland Park and University Park, those plush suburbs on the edge of Dallas where there were numerous oil and other fortunes—the Hunts, the Perots and others in that league—
people must know about the need to be careful. If Angie had penetrated the defences of those tight circles and found a middle-aged man who was prepared to share his millions with her, then she was not doing much more than playing a wealthy society by its own rules, and nobody should be unduly surprised or concerned. And certainly she, Isabel Dalhousie, should keep out of it; she who had recently decided that she would mind her own business and not get caught up in the affairs of others. Yet this was the same she who found this so very difficult and who could not ignore the needs of those with whom she came into what she called moral proximity.
She found a seat at one of the tables, not far from the end, and sat down. She was beside a thin-faced man with a shock of dark hair and that almost translucent skin which goes with a particular strain of Celtic genes. She shook hands with him and they exchanged names. He was Seamus. Of course you are, she thought; that name went with the genes. And on her other side sat a tall, attractive girl of about twenty, with a wide smile and an Australian accent. Her name was Miranda, and she had 1 5 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h come with one of the other guests, she said, adding that she knew nobody else in Edinburgh apart from the people she was staying with. “And I have to find a job,” she said, the smile spreading across her face. “Or I’m going to starve.”
“I could try to help,” said Isabel, almost automatically. She sneaked a glance at Miranda’s plate. It was stacked high with food. Perhaps this was her first proper meal for days . . . But then she had said that she was staying with people, and that implied that she was being fed. Unless there was a category of guests whom one did not have to feed. Isabel smiled at the thought.
“Could you?” said Miranda eagerly. “Could you really?”
Isabel had not thought before she spoke, and now realised that she had no idea how she might help. How could she find anybody a job? It was moral proximity again; if one sat next to somebody one had to at least try to help her find a job. Certainly one could not let that person starve.
“Well, I’m not sure,” Isabel said. “I don’t know . . .”
The disappointment showed in Miranda’s face, and Isabel immediately relented.
“What can you do?” she asked.
“Anything,” said Miranda. “Anything general. I’m happy to do anything. I’m not fussy, you see. No worries.” She laughed.
“And I can cook too. No worries there either.”
Isabel thought for a moment. She imagined living in a world as uncomplicated as Miranda’s seemed to be. A world in which there would be, as Miranda had said—twice—no worries. She looked at Miranda and saw that there were small freckles on her face, and she noted, too, that her nose was aquiline, markedly T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
1 5 1
so; and then there was a bracelet on her sun-tanned forearm, one of those plaited elephant-hair bracelets that people picked up in Nairobi or Cape Town or somewhere like that. And she looked up at the sky, just for a moment, at the high blue, which seemed to dance—a trick of the light, and the emptiness—and she thought of Jamie suddenly, and thought,
She turned again to Miranda, who smiled back at her expectantly. Cat had talked about needing somebody during the summer, particularly if Eddie took a holiday, as she thought he might. He had not taken a holiday last year, but now he was talking of going to France with a nameless friend about whom Cat knew nothing, not even the gender. If Eddie did this—and Cat was keen to encourage him to do anything that would boost his confidence—then she would certainly be short-handed, particularly during the Festival, when the number of delicatessen-oriented people staying in the area seemed almost to double.
Miranda could be the solution to this staff problem, so Isabel gave Miranda her telephone number and suggested that she call her the following day. She talked to both Seamus and Miranda during the meal, and they chatted with each other across Isabel while she spoke to the woman opposite her. It was an easy, relaxed atmosphere and the weather held.
At the end of the meal, people were encouraged to get up from the table and help themselves to coffee in the kitchen.
Isabel left Seamus and Miranda deep in conversation. Seamus had been in Perth and wanted to go back. Miranda had lived 1 5 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h there for a time, and they had discovered mutual friends whose exploits, related by Seamus, were causing them both hilarity.
Now you know somebody, Isabel thought with satisfaction, and tomorrow you may have a job. She looked around for Mimi and Joe; they were in conversation at the other end of the table with Malcolm and Nicky Wood, both singers. She did not need to worry about them: the talk, which was already animated, would be about choirs. Mimi sang in the choir of a high Episcopal church in Dallas, one that claimed to possess a holy relic, a fragment of the true cross. Unlikely, thought Isabel, but then people believe in all sorts of things, some even more unlikely than that.
