simply because a member of my family had it, and then died. What sort 8 8
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h of moral right did that give? Not a very convincing one, she felt.
But so much of life turned out that way—things were gained and then handed on; not just physical things but tastes, qualities, insights. Would Mozart have written what he did had it not been for Leopold Mozart, who had placed his tiny son on the piano stool? Presumably not; the genius, the particular capacities of the brain might have been there but could well have remained locked away, had there been no musical father to bring them out. And Mr. Getty, a rich man—and a very generous one too—had received his oil fields from Mr. Getty before him; he might never have found oil by himself. She smiled at the thought; of course he might not have
Her train of thought was interrupted by a noise from within the house. Grace was not there that morning—she had a dental appointment and Isabel had told her not to bother coming in. That was more than just concern for Grace’s welfare on Isabel’s part; Grace was undergoing root canal treatment on a tooth, and Isabel knew from experience how miserable this made her feel. Grace did not like dental anaesthetics, and preferred to endure the pain rather than to experience the lingering numbness that went with the local anaesthetic, a bizarre preference, in Isabel’s view, but one which was firmly held. Isabel thought that this might be understandable, just, when it came to minor treatment, but root canal treatment, with its deliberate engagement with the nerve, could be an exquisite agony.
She had found out that Grace loved to give a blow-by-blow account of her visits to the dentist and she did not feel in the mood to listen to a long story about root canals punctuated by the sort of grumpi-ness that Grace could, on occasion, muster. By tomorrow the memory of the pain might be less vivid, and Grace’s mood might be restored.
So Isabel was now in sole charge of Charlie, and the sound T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S
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from within the house was of Charlie waking up and crying. She put the papers on the philosophy of taxation to one side and went through to the room at the back of the house where Charlie had his afternoon naps. He stopped crying when he saw her and looked up with that strange expression of astonishment that makes parents feel that their child has forgotten them entirely and is seeing them now for the first time.
She picked him up and cuddled him. He felt warm, his skin slightly damp. He started to niggle again.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” she asked. And answered on his behalf, “Of course. Of course. Feeding time.”
He took his formula hungrily, sucking strongly at the bottle.
Then she winded him, holding him over her shoulder, patting his back gently. This usually comforted him and brought up the wind in an audible burp, but today he seemed to resist her min-istrations, squirming in her hold, as if wanting to escape.
“Not right?” she muttered. “You’re not feeling right?”
Charlie answered with a wail, screwing up his features into an expression of minor rage, his face colouring from the exer-tion. He did not need changing, and Isabel felt a momentary twinge of alarm. She knew that she should not imagine things, that the flushed expression was not normally a sign of meningi-tis, that diarrhoea was not typhoid, but all parents had their anxieties and would think just that, even if only until reassured by somebody else. It’s normal, she thought. He’s been feeling a little hot—and that room was a bit warm when I went in—so he’s registering his displeasure. All quite normal.
She took Charlie through to the kitchen. He liked it there, picking up, she thought, the bright colours—the red of the Aga stove, the glowing yellows of a large print of flowers framed above the refrigerator, the chequered blues of the tea towels; but now he continued to whine, ignoring the distractions of colour.
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“Come on, Charlie,” she said. “It’s not all that bad! Surely not.”
But it was, and he began to cry again, at full lung. Once again she put him over her shoulder and patted his back, hoping to dislodge the wind that she suspected was causing his discomfort. This appeared only to add to his unhappiness and she stopped. Gripe water.
She laid Charlie down on the floor of the small playpen that she kept in the corner of the kitchen. He protested, screaming at the outrage, and was unconsoled by Isabel’s placatory cooing.
Then she went upstairs, momentarily leaving Charlie to his anger, and opened the door of the bathroom cabinet.
The bottle of cough syrup was there, as was the tin of sticking plasters, the aspirin, and the thermometer, but there was no gripe water. Isabel was puzzled. She had put it there, behind the cough syrup; she was sure of that. But it was definitely not there, which meant that Grace had discovered it and moved it.
Isabel felt angry. Grace must have searched for the gripe water and taken it upon herself to move it. She had no right to do that, she thought, no right. This was her cabinet, not Grace’s, and she and she alone would decide what it contained.
She went downstairs. Charlie was still protesting, his wail drifting up from the kitchen. “I’m coming, Charlie,” she called out as she made her way down the stairs. “I’m coming.”
The sound of her voice seemed to calm Charlie, and he fell silent. Or had he choked? Isabel asked herself, and began to run, taking the steps two at a time. He had not, and when she reached the kitchen he started crying again, waving his arms in impotent fury, his face flushed red with the force of his tears.
He calmed down a bit when she picked him up but was still obviously uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong, my darling? What’s wrong?”
T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S
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Charlie seemed to listen to her, paused briefly, and then continued with his sobbing. There was so much wrong, he seemed to be saying; and it is all your fault, all of it.
