How many people in the United States believed that they had been abducted by aliens? It was a depressingly large number.
And the aliens always gave them back! Perhaps they were abducting the wrong sort.
Isabel walked across the lawn towards the kitchen door at the back of the house. There was a chill in the air now, not enough to spoil the evening, but a sign of the advancing night.
A white night, she thought, like the midsummer nights of St.
Petersburg, when it never became dark; it was so still; there wasn’t a hint of breeze.
She moved across the small courtyard and headed toward the kitchen. There were several guests ahead of her: a man in a mustard-coloured linen jacket; a woman in a rather-too-formal dress with a stole across her shoulders; a young man with a high complexion who was regaling them with a story. The man in the linen jacket half turned and caught Isabel’s eye. She knew him but could not remember his name or what he did. He looked at her briefly, obviously in the same position of uncertainty, and smiled before returning his attention to his companions. Then, in the kitchen, there were more guests, coffee cups in hand.
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Isabel helped herself to coffee and began to move back towards the lawn. Peter and Susie had planned music and she could hear, drifting from one of the rooms further inside the house, the first strains of a fiddle tune. She turned round and went back down a corridor that led to the hall and the staircase.
The music was coming from a room to the right—it was one of those lilting Scottish fiddle tunes that celebrated somebody’s return or departure from Islay or Skye or somewhere like that, or a battle that took place a long time ago; maybe it was even that curiously named “Neil Gow’s Lament for His Second Wife.” She paused and listened. There was something about this music that always affected her strongly; perhaps because it came from such a particular place. It could not be the music of anywhere else. It was the music of Scotland and it spoke of the country she loved. She closed her eyes. What was Scotland to her? Her place, yes. And it was right that one’s place should make one’s heart stop with longing, particularly when it was as beautiful as was Scotland.
She opened her eyes. She was aware that somebody, a woman, had come up behind her. “That tune,” she said. She made the remark, or the beginning of a remark, before she took in who it was, and now she gave a slight start of surprise.
“Yes,” said the woman. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? Cynthia Vaughan.”
Isabel inclined her head. “Of course. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t putting two and two together. I saw you outside, at the other end of the table, but hadn’t . . .”
Cynthia raised a hand. “I wasn’t sure either,” she said. “And then somebody said yes, it was you. I can’t remember exactly 1 5 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h when we met last time, but wasn’t it on that committee—the one to do with the hospital?”
They established where it was, and when, and they talked briefly about what had happened to the committee. Isabel thought: So this is her, Patrick’s mother. The possessive one.
She certainly looked the part—the matron, the galleon in full sail; she was tall, and there was that look Isabel always associated with political women—a firmness, a determination to stick to the agenda.
They had been standing near the door that led into the large dining room, where the music was coming from. “We’re in the way,” said Cynthia, gently steering Isabel away. “Here’s a sofa.
We can sit down here.”
Isabel slightly resented being drawn away and told to sit down. What if she preferred to stand? But it was quite in character, she thought, for a woman like this to tell people what to do, and she found some amusement in that. And it was obvious that Cynthia had something to say to her, which intrigued Isabel; something about Cat, perhaps—if she knew of the connection.
“I gather that we have something in common,” said Cynthia.
Isabel thought: She wastes no time. “Yes,” she said. “You’re Patrick’s . . .”
“I’m Patrick’s mother,” said Cynthia. “Yes. And you are Cat’s aunt, I believe. I must say that you look rather young for that.”
Isabel smiled. There had been no declaration of war yet, but she thought it would probably come soon; indirectly, she thought, but then she looked again at the haughty nose and the firmness of the lips and decided that it might not be all that indirect.
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“Cat was born when my brother was quite young. That makes me a young aunt,” Isabel said pleasantly. “And Patrick came to my place for dinner. I liked him.” She uttered the lie without thinking, and immediately said to herself:
She had not intended that the comment should impress Cynthia, nor ingratiate her with the older woman, and it did neither. Cynthia took a sip of her coffee and stared into her cup, as if the compliment was so obviously true that she was not required to acknowledge it.
“Patrick’s doing very well in his firm,” she said. “He was with Dickson Minto, you know. Bruce Minto—I don’t know if you know him, but he’s one of the most successful lawyers in the country—he trained him. Personally. Then Patrick was offered this new job and he took it. He left with Bruce’s blessing.”
“It’s always better that way,” said Isabel.
Again there was no response to her remark. Isabel felt awkward. So far in the conversation she had uttered platitudes, and she felt foolish and ill at ease, as one does in a conversation where the other party has the advantage. There was no reason for her to feel this way, she was at least the intellectual equal of this political
