course there was the small legacy he had received from his aunt, and the flat, which had come from her too, but even then he had to watch his money carefully, as most people did. He knew that Isabel was not hard up, but to be able to spend twenty-five thousand pounds on a painting astonished him. People paid that, of course; some considerably more. But these were not people
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assuredness that sometimes hung about the rich, an air of power, of being able to take things for granted. Jamie had noticed that in the parents of some of his pupils. They were often well-heeled for the simple reason that the bassoon was an expensive instrument and there were many parents who could not afford to buy one. Most of these people were modest in their manner, but some condescended to him or showed a general arrogance in the way they expected everyone to fit in with their whims. The mothers in the expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles were the worst, he had decided. Why did they need these fuel-hungry contraptions in their urban lives? To barge their way past other, smaller cars, or to make a statement about who they were and what they had?
One of these mothers was interested in him. He had noticed it because she had made it so obvious, arriving early to collect her son from his lesson in the flat—the boy could easily have gone downstairs to meet his mother on the street, as the others did, but she came up, rang the bell, and waited in the kitchen until her son’s lesson was finished. Then she engaged Jamie in conversation, quizzing him about her child’s progress, while the boy himself lurked in the background, clearly embarrassed, eager to leave.
She stood close to Jamie while she spoke to him; the sort of invasion of the unspoken limits of bodily space that can be so disconcerting. He moved away slightly, but she followed him, inching nearer. He glanced at his pupil, as if for rescue from that quarter, but the boy looked away, his embarrassment compounded by the complicity that had now arisen between them.
Jamie’s deliberate distance seemed only to spur this woman on, and she had invited him to join her for coffee after the lesson. He had replied that he could not, as there was another 2 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h pupil, and then he added, “And I don’t think it would be a good idea anyway.” She had looked at him mischievously, and then, as if oblivious to the presence of her son on the other side of the room, had said, “It may not be a good idea, but it’s always fun.”
After that, he had asked her not to come up to fetch her son, but to wait for him downstairs.
She had been outraged. “Who exactly do you think you are?”
she had hissed.
“Your son’s bassoon teacher,” he said.
“Ex–bassoon teacher,” she said, and she had withdrawn her son from further lessons.
Isabel had laughed when she heard of this. “I can see her,”
she said. “I can just see her saying that.”
“But I haven’t told you who she was,” Jamie protested.
“But of course I know,” said Isabel. “Remember that this is Edinburgh. I can work it out. It’s . . .” And she had named the name, and got it right, to Jamie’s astonishment.
“Too much money,” Isabel went on. “She’s incapable of handling it. She thinks that it buys bassoon lessons— and the bassoon teacher.”
Isabel was not like that at all. But now this talk of spending twenty-five thousand pounds on a painting made Jamie feel vaguely uneasy.
“Should you spend that much?” he asked, but he went on to answer his own question immediately. “Of course, if you can afford it, then that’s your business.”
Isabel detected a note of disapproval in his tone; she had not expected this reaction. They had never discussed money; the subject simply had not arisen between them. And if there was a yawning disparity between their respective financial positions—which there was—it seemed to her that it was quite 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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irrelevant. Isabel had never judged people by their means; it simply was not an issue with her. But at the same time, she realised that it could be difficult for Jamie. Money gave power over people, no matter how tactful one was about it. With money you could get the attention of others; you could ask them to do things.
“I can afford it,” she said quietly. “If I want it. But the problem is . . . well, I feel guilty.” She paused. “And you’re not helping much.”
He frowned. “Not helping? I don’t know what you mean.”
“You disapprove of the fact that I can buy that,” said Isabel.
“You’re making it rather obvious.”
Jamie’s surprise was unfeigned. “Why should I disapprove?
It’s your money. What you do with it—”
“Is my business,” Isabel interjected. “If only that were the case. But it isn’t, you know. People watch what other people do with their money. They watch very closely.”
Jamie shrugged his shoulders. “Not me,” he said. “I don’t. If you think that I do, then you’re wrong. You really are.”
Isabel watched his expression as she spoke. She had misjudged him; what he said was true—he had no interest in what she did with her money; there was no envy there.
“Let’s not argue,” she said. “Especially in front of Charlie.”
Jamie smiled. “No. Of course.” The discussion had made him feel uncomfortable, as it had raised something
