“Anyway,” Jamie continued, “I’m going to tell you. I’ve been working on a piece for you. An Isabel piece. For the second anniversary of our…our getting together. That’s what.”
JAMIE’S RESOLVE to carry the bassoon all the way back weakened at the edge of the Meadows, when they reached the point where the drive bisected the park. In the distance, the reassuring yellow light of a taxi wove its way towards them, and he made the decision; Isabel, who was herself tired, did not object. Within five minutes they were back at the house and Jamie paid off the taxi while Isabel went to open the front door.
Grace was full of indignation. She had been watching a television programme in which the expenses claims of a random group of parliamentarians had been scrutinised. One claimed, quite within the rules, a substantial sum for the removal of algae from his garden pond. Another had employed a number of relatives, none of whom struck her as being particularly qualified for their jobs.
“Our money,” snapped Grace.
“I think the removal of algae sounds ridiculous,” Jamie said.
“Of course to admit to algae is something,” Isabel mused. “I’m not sure that I’d actually admit to having algae.”
Jamie’s face broke into a smile. It was a typical Isabel remark, and he found it very funny. He had no idea why it should be in the slightest bit amusing, but it was. Grace did not think so.
“It wasn’t him that had the algae. It was his garden pond.” she said. “But I don’t see why the taxpayers should pay for that.”
The conversation switched to Charlie. He had been as good as gold. She had read him the story about the caterpillar that consumed everything in sight, and he appeared to have understood it. He had grabbed the book and torn one of the pages, but she had stuck it together again. Then he had gone to bed and went off to sleep without protest.
Isabel said good-bye to Grace at the front door and returned to the kitchen, where Jamie was standing in the middle of the floor, his arms stretched up, yawning. He lowered his arms and embraced her.
“I was having a stretch,” he said. And then, “You’re the most wonderful woman, you know.”
She felt his arms about her. He was lithe, like a sapling; spare. He was everything she desired; so beautiful in this, and every, light; so tender.
He kissed her and ran his hand down her back.
“Upstairs,” she said.
He switched off the kitchen light and they moved, hand in hand, to the foot of the stairs. Then Charlie started to wail, the sound drifting down from upstairs, a piercing, insistent howl.
She looked at Jamie and began to laugh.
“As between the claims of passion on the one hand,” she said, “and on the other the claims of a child’s crying —which are we programmed to respond to first? Which is the most urgent?”
“Passion?” ventured Jamie, but not seriously.
“I’m afraid not,” said Isabel. Her answer was the one that any woman would give, but not, she thought, any man.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OF ALL THE TASKS involved in running the delicatessen, Isabel most enjoyed preparing Cat’s Special Mixture. This was convenient, as Eddie disliked anything to do with fish—“Why don’t they close their eyes when they die?” he had said, in serious objection—and Cat’s Special Mixture involved that fishiest of fish, anchovies. It was largely composed of olives, though: green olives that were pitted, chopped in half, and then mixed in colourful promiscuity with strips of red and yellow pepper. The whole was then marinated, with the anchovies, in extra-virgin olive oil, and the resulting mix was placed in a large bowl. It was not to everyone’s taste—and certainly not to Eddie’s—but Isabel enjoyed both making and eating it. And it helped her to think, she decided, sitting there with her hands covered in oil and the smell of anchovy in her nostrils.
It was now Wednesday, and she had three more days in the delicatessen, including Saturday, which was always extremely busy. Cat would be back late on Sunday and, feeling guilty, would insist on returning to work on Monday morning. She had already been in touch from Sri Lanka, having sent a message to Isabel telling her that the villa had exceeded her expectations and that she would not be coming back. That’s a joke, she added, but yes, I could stay here forever. Did you know, Isabel, that this country was called Serendip? I suppose you did, as you know so much. I didn’t. But imagine living in Serendip.
Isabel wondered what would happen if Cat for some reason really did fail to return. Would she be landed with responsibility for the delicatessen, or would Eddie somehow rise to the occasion? Cat was adamant that he could not run the business by himself, but had anybody ever asked him? Even Isabel had assumed that he would be too anxious to manage by himself, but did these assumptions only serve to reinforce whatever anxieties he felt? She wondered whether it was not a bit like learning to swim: if one was expected to hang on, then one did; if one was expected to strike out by oneself, then that is what one did.
She thought of this as she pitted the olives. On Friday she had planned to meet Stella Moncrieff for lunch. She had not yet determined what she was going to say to her, but she had a day or two to decide on that. Travelling to and from lunch, and the lunch itself, would take about two hours out of her working day. She had no compunction in asking Eddie to run the shop single-handedly for that length of time, but if he could manage for a couple of hours, then why not make it the whole day? There were other things that she wanted to do on Friday, which was an important day for her. Edward Mendelson, Auden’s literary executor, was delivering a lecture at the university in the late afternoon, and he was due to have dinner at the house after the reception that followed the lecture. Isabel had written to him on several occasions, and they had met briefly in Oxford, when he had been giving lectures at Christ Church, and she had been at a conference of women philosophers at Somerville. Isabel had felt awkward about the meeting of women philosophers: Would men have been allowed to convene a similarly exclusive meeting? She thought not. Nor were men allowed to have men’s colleges anymore, and yet Cambridge maintained three women- only colleges, even if Somerville had now decided to admit men.
