back at the house, she laid out the provisions she had bought. Grace was about to leave, but before she did she showed Isabel the rearrangement she had made of the spice cupboard. “The nutmeg was all mouldy,” she said accusingly. “I had to throw it out.”
Isabel would not be held responsible for mould and she ignored Grace’s remark.
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“And as for the pepper,” Grace went on, “you had three opened jars. That makes pepper dry and dusty. I put everything into one jar and sealed it.”
Isabel accepted the reproach. “I’ll try to remember to finish each one before I open another,” she said.
They finished with the spice cupboard, and Grace gathered her things in readiness to leave. Isabel asked her about her plans for the weekend and was told that there was a session at the spiritualist centre that night. “A
“She’s very direct, and she doesn’t hesitate to warn us.”
She looked challengingly at Isabel, as if expecting contradiction. But Isabel said only, “How useful.” She was wondering when she should speak to Grace, when she should tell her; next week perhaps.
Then Grace said, “I’ve not said thank you properly. For the flat. I’m very grateful to you, you know.”
Isabel looked away. She felt awkward about thanks; she knew that she should not, but she could not help it. She knew how to show gratitude; it was harder to accept it, and she would have to learn.
“I’m glad that you like it,” she said. “I took to it straight away.”
Grace nodded. “Shall I pay you the rent monthly?”
Isabel frowned. “There’s no rent,” she said.
“But I must,” said Grace. “You can’t . . .”
“I can.”
“I won’t accept it,” said Grace. She could be stubborn, as Isabel knew well.
“In that case we’ll agree on a peppercorn rent,” said Isabel, pointing to the spice cupboard. “A jar of peppercorns.”
The matter was left at that; they would discuss it later.
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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Grace left Isabel in the house shortly before five. Jamie would be coming at seven, and she had things to make ready. But although she had things to do, she could not do them. She sat down at the kitchen table, feeling suddenly weepy; she rested her head in her hands, staring at the stripped pine surface. The table—a long one—had been bought by her father when it was no longer required by a psychiatric hospital on whose board of trustees he had served. It had seen sorrow, she thought, confusion, unhappiness. And she remembered, as she sat there, a short film she had seen about the life of a man, a quiet, gentle man, who had been taken from his small farm on one of the Hebridean islands and had been detained in that hospital for seventeen years. He had been a weaver, and had made figures out of reeds and rushes; she realised, as she watched the film, that her father had known this man and had brought back for her one of these small figures, a corn dolly, and she had kept it on her window sill amongst her other dolls. When he had been allowed to go back to his croft, after all those years, he had been looked after by a sister, who had waited for him to return and was ready to care for him again, as she had done before.
That was all that the film was about: exile and return, and the small needs of quiet people. She had wept then, as she watched the film, as she wept now, for very different reasons.
S H E M E T JA M I E in the front hall and led him through to the kitchen, where she had been preparing their supper. He yawned, stretched and said, “I’m really tired, you know. We had a party last night—the people from the workshop. I didn’t get to bed until two.”
“We can eat early tonight,” she said.
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“I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“No, I know that.” Her heart was beating hard within her; her stomach felt light, topsy-turvy. She walked over to the fridge and took out the opened bottle of New Zealand white wine which she had put in to chill. She poured Jamie a glass of wine and a glass of ginger ale for herself.
He took the wineglass from her, looking at her glass as he did so. “Ginger ale?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to steady the glass in her hand, which was shaking.
He raised an eyebrow. He knew that Isabel enjoyed a glass of wine in the evening, particularly at the end of the week.
“Why?”
She closed her eyes. Her glass was chilly on her fingers, moist. Now was as good a time as any, perhaps the best.
“Because I’m pregnant,” she said.
He dropped his wineglass. It fell to the floor, to the Victorian stone flags; it shattered, although the stem remained intact, a little glass tower catching the light from the window. There was the sharp smell of wine, released in a sudden rush of bouquet.
She looked at him. “Oh, Jamie.”
He fell to his knees and began to pick up the glass. He cut a finger, just a small cut, but there was blood, and
