The Lost Art of Gratitude

Isabel nodded her agreement. “She has her faults,” she said. “But I don’t want her to be unhappy.”

Jamie swallowed. “Of course not.”

“Here goes.”

There were a couple of customers in the delicatessen, but they were engrossed in an examination of the shelves, scrutinising the list of contents of a packet of pasta. Pasta, thought Isabel; it was simple enough, but for some there was much to be said about the ingredients, sodium, potassium, trace minerals, fats and so on.

Eddie greeted them from behind the counter. “She’s in there,” he said, nodding towards Cat’s office.

Isabel took the lead, knocking gently. “Cat?”

She pushed the door open. Cat was seated at her desk; in front of her was a fridge manufacturer’s brochure. She greeted Isabel warmly enough, and then, seeing Jamie behind, gave him a greeting too, although less enthusiastically, thought Isabel.

“You aren’t busy, are you?” Isabel began.

Cat shook her head. “Not specially. One of the fridges is on the blink though, and I’m going to have to replace it.”

“Can’t it be fixed?” asked Jamie.

Cat glanced at him, as if he had asked an unnecessary question. “No, not economically. These days everything is so expensive to fix that it’s cheaper just to replace it.”

Like your men, thought Isabel, irresponsibly. But what she said was quite different. “I wanted you to know that …”

“I was thinking of a red one next,” Cat went on.

A red man?

“Is something funny?” asked Cat.

“No,” said Isabel. “I’m sure that a red fridge would do the trick very well. But what I wanted to tell you was that Jamie and I are engaged.”

Cat stared fixedly at the fridge catalogue. For a few moments nothing was said, and Isabel glanced nervously at Jamie. He smiled back, and then looked at Cat.

“We’re really pleased,” he said.

Cat pulled herself together. “Of course. Well, that’s very nice.” Her voice was flat; it was not very nice. It was certainly not very nice. “Actually, it’s rather a coincidence. So am I.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

ENGAGED TO a tightrope walker!” Jamie exclaimed as he and Isabel walked back to the house.

“So it would seem,” said Isabel. “I hope that … well, I hope that he’s all right.”

“We’ll see when she brings him round for a drink this evening,” Jamie continued. “What do you think tightrope walkers drink?”

“Very little, I’d hope,” said Isabel. “One wouldn’t want to be under the influence of anything while on a tightrope. One has to be able to walk absolutely straight.”

They both laughed. But Isabel was concerned: Cat had been engaged before, although not so soon after meeting the man in question. She was not sure how long Cat had known this new fiance, but it could not have been very long.

“So he’s called Bruno,” she mused. “It seems quite suitable, doesn’t it? It’s a bit exotic. One wouldn’t expect a tightrope walker to be called something like Eric, or Jeff.”

Jamie grinned. “I’m sure that he’s very nice,” he said.

Isabel looked at him sharply. “Are you?”

“Sure that he’s nice? Yes.”

“But look at her recent boyfriends,” she said, mentally adding, not you. “The bouncer from that club. That other one whose name I can’t even remember. Toby—who was a cheat. No, I’m afraid I have less faith in Cat than you do.”

“She said that he’s really a stunt man,” Jamie reminded her. “Remember. Tightrope walking is only part of what he does.”

“We all have to diversify,” observed Isabel. She paused. “And I suppose that applies to funambulists as much as anybody else. What worries me in all this is that she may not be telling the whole truth.”

Jamie seemed shocked. “I don’t think Cat’s a liar. She’s not exactly straightforward, but she’s not a liar, surely?”

Isabel reassured him. No, she did not think that Cat was lying, but she wondered whether this announcement of her engagement to Bruno was not perhaps just a little bit in advance of the event. She might have been thinking of becoming engaged to Bruno but he might not yet have proposed, or he might have proposed but not yet been accepted. And then, hearing the news of Isabel’s engagement, Cat might have felt that she could not let her aunt get engaged before she did. And so this might have been a defensive engagement rather than one which had been entered into after due deliberation.

Jamie listened to this, but it struck him as fundamentally unlikely, given that Cat had suggested bringing Bruno round for drinks that evening. “She’d realise that we’d talk about it,” he said. “And she would hardly have time to set it up by tonight.”