The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

“The audition he’s arranged for you.” She paused and their eyes met, but only briefly. “So if they like you, presumably you’ll go and work there. Live there.”

Slowly the look on Jamie’s face changed from incomprehension to understanding. “That audition’s not for me,” he said quietly. “And the message wasn’t for me either. I think he dialled the wrong number.”

“Yes, he did,” said Isabel. “He thought this was your flat.”

Jamie took her hand. She tried to take it away from him, but he held on, tightly. “No, don’t. Don’t. Just listen to me, Isabel. That audition is for Will. You know, the oboist. The one you heard play that solo at the Queen’s Hall last time. He and Nick have been hitting it off rather well recently, and Will said that Nick was arranging for him to have an audition over in Boston. I only half listened at the time, but it was something to that effect.” He stopped. He was trying to work out why Nick had telephoned the house. “And so I think what happened is that he meant to phone Will but phoned us instead. He’s got this number. I gave him both. He must have looked the wrong one up.”

He felt Isabel stop trying to release her hand. She did not care how the error had come about; the important thing was that it was an error. “So you’re not going to Boston,” she said.

“Of course not. And I certainly wouldn’t go anywhere at Nick’s suggestion.” He paused. “There’s something about him that makes me uncomfortable, you know. He’s sarcastic about other people. Belittles them. But I don’t want to be rude to him.”

Isabel gave him her other hand. He was cold, from the walk up from Haymarket, and she squeezed his hands to warm them up.

“You’re kind,” she said. “You’re kind to him. To me. To everyone.”

“I’m not…” He was embarrassed, and turned away. It was now sinking in that she had believed him to be about to desert her. How could she think that?

Isabel put her arms around him. “Please,” she said. “Please forgive me…forgive me for even thinking that you could hide something from me. I’m so sorry.”

“I wouldn’t…I really wouldn’t even think…”

“Of course you wouldn’t. It’s all in my mind. I’m the stupid one.”

They stood in silence, and then, after a few minutes, he reminded her that they were due to go out to dinner; that he needed to take a shower and that she would want to get dressed. “Also,” he said. “Also, I’ve got a little present for you.”

Her heart gave a leap; the picture of Brother Fox, and she had almost spoiled the occasion of its presentation by accusing him of being about to desert her…and Charlie.

He left the room and came back with something in his hands. A small bunch of flowers, freesias, carefully done up in the florist’s thin printed foil, their strong, sweet scent rising from the packaging; a simple bunch of flowers.

She kissed him on the cheek. “A real surprise,” she said, adding, “in more ways than one.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. Why had she added anything? Thank you would have been enough. “I was expecting something else, I suppose. These are very nice, but I was expecting something else.”

It was too late to withdraw the remark, and she found that she did not have the heart to lie. So when he asked her what she had been expecting, she told him what she had thought that it might be.

“I thought you were going to give me a picture,” she said, and, seeing his surprise, added, “a picture of a fox.”

“A fox?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I saw it more or less by mistake.”

“I thought that you would like these flowers,” said Jamie.

“Of course I do,” she said. “And I should never have said that I was expecting something else.”

Jamie began to smile. “On the other hand…Or, shall I say, in the other hand…” He had been holding the painting in his other hand, concealed behind his back, and now he gave it to her, a small parcel wrapped in green paper, about which a silver ribbon had been inexpertly tied. Men are not good at tying ribbons, thought Isabel; but she would not have it otherwise—she would not change this inadequately tied ribbon for anything else.

“I knew that you knew about it,” Jamie said. “Robin showed it to you, as I’d asked him to. I had forgotten to tell you about it, and so I decided to add an element of anticipation. And wrap it too.”

“You’re very romantic,” she said.

He laughed. “I try.”

She slipped the ribbon off and eased the painting out of its wrapping. “Brother Fox,” she whispered.

“Or one of his close relatives,” said Jamie. “Perhaps his grandfather.”

She looked at the painting more closely. Jamie was beside her, looking over her shoulder; she felt his breath against her neck, and every nerve ending down her spine seemed to tingle. The fox looked back at her; at the centre of his eyes a cleverly positioned tiny spot of white paint was light from the sky, reflected back towards the onlooker. How does an artist capture that electric moment of life, she asked herself; render it permanent in oils? “How does he do it?” she said, half to herself, half to Jamie. “How does he manage to make him…make him look so much like a fox?”

“He’s very real, isn’t he?” said Jamie. He reached forward to touch the painting with a forefinger. She saw the brown of his skin, so dear to her; he did not need the sun, as Cat did. Jamie’s face, his hands, were a natural light brown, his Mediterranean colouring.

“You’re touching him,” she said. “I half expect him to turn round and nip you. But, look, he’s quite unconcerned.”