Isabel could not understand why Cat should have abandoned Jamie. In her view, he was everything, and more, that a woman could want. He was striking in appearance, with his high cheek-bones, his dark hair that he tended to wear short, and his Mediterranean, almost olive complexion; unusual colouring for a Scotsman, perhaps, but one which in her eyes was fatally attractive. And he was gentle too, which added to his appeal. Yet Cat spelled it out to Isabel in unambiguous terms: I do not love him, Isabel. I do not love him. It’s as simple as that.
If Cat was not prepared to love Jamie, then Isabel was.
There was a gap of fourteen years between them, and Isabel realised that at Jamie’s age this was significant. Would a young man in his twenties want to become involved with a woman who was in her early forties? Some women of that age had younger lovers—and there was nothing shameful about it, but she suspected that it was the women who started such affairs, rather than the young men. Of course, there might be some young men who would be looking for the equivalent of a sugar daddy, and who would seek out an older woman who could pay the bills and provide some diversion, but most young men were not like that, unless, as sometimes happened, they were looking for their mother.
Isabel could never have Jamie; she could never possess him, precisely because she loved him and she wanted what was best for him. And what was best for him was undoubtedly that he should meet somebody his own age, or thereabouts, and make his life with her. Of course that was best for him, she told herself. He would be a good father, he would be a good husband; he did not need to anchor himself to somebody older than him.
He did not. But she still loved Jamie, and at times she loved him 1 8
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h achingly; but she controlled that, and only occasionally, in private, did the tears come for what just could not be. At least she had his friendship, and that was something for which she felt grateful. She did not have his love, she thought. He is fond of me, but he does not return what I feel for him.
She would not interfere, but who was this new boyfriend?
She looked up at Eddie. Could he be jealous? she asked herself.
The tone of his voice had sounded resentful, and she supposed that it was quite possible that he saw the arrival of a new man as being in some way a threat to his relationship with Cat. She was kind to him; she encouraged him; she was the ideal employer.
Eddie could not expect to amount to much in Cat’s eyes, but at least he was there, in her life, somehow, and he would not want that to come to an end.
“Well, Eddie,” said Isabel. “That’s interesting news. I hadn’t heard. Who is this new man?”
“He’s called Patrick,” said Eddie. He put his hand a good six inches above his head. “He’s about so high. Maybe a bit less.
Fair hair.”
Isabel nodded. Cat inevitably went for tall, good-looking men. It was all very predictable. “This Patrick,” she asked, “do you like him?”
She studied Eddie’s reaction. But he was watching her too, and he grinned. “You want me to say that I don’t,” he said.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it? Because you won’t like him.”
We all underestimate Eddie, thought Isabel. “I’ll try to like him, Eddie,” she said. “I’ll really try.”
Eddie looked sideways at her. “He’s not bad, actually. I T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
1 9
quite like him, you know. He’s not like the others. Not much, anyway.”
This interested Isabel. Perhaps Cat was breaking the pattern. “Why?” she asked.
The door opened and a woman with a shopping bag came in. Eddie glanced over his shoulder at the customer and gave his hands a last wipe on his apron. “I’m going to have to go,” he said.
“I’ll make you a coffee, if you like. After I’ve served this person.”
Isabel glanced at her watch. “I’m going to have to go too,”
she said. “But I’ve got time for a quick cup. And then you can tell me about him. You can tell me why you like him.”
A S I S A B E L WA L K E D B AC K along Merchiston Crescent, back to her house in one of those quiet roads that led off to the right, she thought about what Eddie had told her. In their brief conversation he had opened up more than he had ever done with her before. He had told her why he had disliked Toby, who condescended to him, who made him feel . . . “Well,” he said, “he made me feel not quite a man, if you know what I mean.” Isabel did; she knew precisely what Toby would have thought of Eddie and how he would have conveyed his feelings. And then Eddie had said, “Patrick is more like me, I think. I don’t know why, but that’s what I feel. I just feel it.”
That intrigued Isabel. It told her something—that Patrick was an improvement on Toby—that was information of some significance, but she still could not visualise him. Eddie had thought that Patrick was more like him, but she found it difficult to imagine that Cat would deign to look at somebody really like Eddie. No, what it did convey was that there was more of 2 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h the feminine in Patrick than there had been in Toby, or any of the others. Another possibility, of course, was that Patrick was simply more sympathetic than the others, and Eddie had seized on this. One can be masculine and sympathetic, and that, perhaps, was what Patrick was.
She turned the corner and started to walk down her road.
Walking towards her, having just parked his car in the street, was one of the students who attended lectures in Colinton Road nearby. Isabel caught his eye as they passed. He was masculine and sympathetic. But then she
