the image came to her of quantities of that author’s latest novel being spread before an advancing steamroller. “Anything will do,” she said. “Even copies of the
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als, as I expect they have wanted to do for a long time.” But then she wondered: How many people actually read her editorials?
Fifty? One hundred?
“I wouldn’t,” said Peter. “I would feel very bad about driving over you.”
They went into the hall, to meet Susie coming down the stairs. Susie smiled warmly and held out a finger for Charlie to grip. He accepted firmly and, cross-eyed, stared at the new person.
“He likes you,” said Isabel. “Look, he’s smiling.”
“A secret joke,” said Susie.
“Which he probably won’t share with us for a few years yet,”
added Peter.
They went into the kitchen, a comfortable, long room at the back of the house. It was a warm day, and the windows were all open, letting in the smell of newly mown grass from outside.
The usual faded green tea cups and plates were laid out on the kitchen table, the surface of which was marked with numerous dents and scratches from years of children’s homework. Susie took Charlie and perched him, supported, on her knee, while Peter attended to the tea.
“You’re so lucky,” said Susie.
Isabel wondered what aspect of her luck was being singled out, and realised that it was Charlie, the sheer fact of Charlie.
Yes, she was lucky, doubly so. She had been blessed with Jamie, and following upon that she had been blessed with Charlie.
“I am,” she said simply. “And I know it.”
Peter poured the tea. “Now, the painting,” he said, as he handed Isabel her cup. “It was bought by Walter Buie—I did tell you that, didn’t I? I was standing near him during the auction.”
“Yes, you did tell me,” she replied. “I had forgotten the 1 0 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h name, but you did tell me something about him. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?”
Peter nodded. “Yes he is. He lives just round the corner in Hope Terrace. He has a rather nice house which belonged to his parents before him. Walter is one of those people who’s destined to die in the house in which he was born. Or that’s what he says.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Isabel. The thought occurred to her that she was one of them too. She had been away, of course, but she had come back to the house in which she had lived as a child. Would Charlie do the same? It seemed unlikely, now that the world was so fluid, so open. She glanced at her son and thought, For the first time in my life it matters to me, really matters, that the world should not change too much.
Peter smiled at Charlie, who was throwing his hands about enthusiastically. “Anyway,” he continued, “I met Walter Buie in the street yesterday. I was taking our dog, Murphy, for a walk when I saw him coming along on the other side of the road.
Walter has a horrible dog, a scruffy brown creature that has a criminal record with the local cats. I’ve always kept Murphy away from him but, surprisingly, Murphy and Basil, this dog of Walter’s, started wagging their tails as if they were old friends.
So I could stop and have a word with Walter while the dogs exchanged news with each other. I told him that I had seen him at Lyon & Turnbull and asked him how he was enjoying his new picture.
“Walter made some remark about not having put it up yet, and I then happened to mention that you had been after it too.
I told him that I thought it interesting that there were two people I knew who were going so strongly for the same thing.”
Peter paused as Susie handed Charlie back to Isabel so that she could refill the teapot.
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“A happy baby,” said Peter, looking at Charlie. “You must be thrilled.”
Isabel settled Charlie on her lap. “Thank you. He is. And I am.”
“But back to Walter,” said Peter. “When I told him that you had been after that painting, he went quiet for a moment. He was obviously going over something in his mind and it took him a minute or so before he came up with his response. And what he said was this: ‘She can have it, if she wants it. She can have it for what I paid, which is not very much above her last bid.’
That’s what he said. So I told him that I would pass on his offer.”
Isabel frowned. What intrigued her about this was the question of why Walter Buie should want to get rid of something which he had just made some effort to obtain. That seemed strange, and again the thought occurred to her that there might be something wrong with the painting. Or could it be that once he saw it in his house, he decided that he didn’t like it for some reason, possibly because it clashed with something else, the wallpaper perhaps?
“I can see what you’re thinking,” said Peter. “I also wondered why he should want to get rid of it so quickly. So I asked him whether he had gone off it, and he simply shook his head and said no, not really. But he had realised
