went to bed, waved them about a bit and then put them back under the pillow before she got into bed. Stupid girl.”
Jamie burst out laughing. “How touching.”
“She was so stupid,” said Isabel. But then she thought: Was she? People fell deeply in love, and the clothing of a lover can so easily become symbolic of the object of that love. She glanced at Jamie. She could easily talk about him, just as Jenny had talked about Martin. Just as easily. And would she sleep with his boxer shorts under her pillow? Yes, she thought, I could. Yes. Like a silly schoolgirl, I could.
“Actually, she wasn’t stupid,” she said. “Not really. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Jamie reached out and touched her gently. “I have an old pair of boxer shorts if you’d like them,” he said, in mock seriousness.
“But I have
“Of course.”
SHORTLY AFTER THREE that morning, Jamie woke up and slipped out of bed. Half- awakened, Isabel watched him drowsily from her side of the bed. He had gone to the window and had drawn back a curtain sufficiently to look out on to the garden.
“What are you doing?”
He replied in a low voice, not much more than a whisper. “I wonder how he is.”
“He’ll be off. Simon said a few hours.”
Jamie moved back from the window. “I’m going to go and check.”
She said nothing, but watched him as he moved naked across the room.
“I’ll just be a minute.” And he was gone.
She sat up in bed, suddenly and for no reason concerned. What if something happened to him? What if he were taken from her? Boxer shorts. She would have just his boxer shorts. Absurd! Don’t even think like that. You think like that just because it’s dark—that’s all.
She got out of bed and crossed the room to the window. She looked out. He was there, on the lawn; there was nobody to see him, just her. She watched. He was so beautiful—she kept telling herself this, and now she told herself again. This was a neoclassical painting—a Poussin perhaps—with the naked athlete in the sylvan setting. She drew back from the window. She should not think in this way because it was … No, there was no reason why she should not think it, because beauty was to be celebrated, and that it occurred before her eyes, that it dwelt within her tent, was the greatest of possible good fortunes; like being vouchsafed a vision for which others are waiting but which has come to you of all people, descended to you.
He returned shortly, and she was back in bed.
“Gone?”
“Yes,” he said. “He’s off on his fox business, whatever that is.” He slipped under the sheets. “Will you tell me a story about a fox?”
“I’m so tired. It’s three. Do you really …”
He took her hand. “Please. I do.”
“All right.” She thought for a moment. “Fox went out; prowled about.”
“Yes,” he prompted. “I can just see him.”
“Moonlight night; quite all right.”
He pressed her hand. “Yes. All safe.”
“Shadows dark; foxes bark. Saw the moon; above the toon. Fox went home; shouldn’t roam. Warm as toast; tasty roast. Fox, good night; moon night-light.”
Her voice had become drowsier, and now she was silent. Jamie held her hand gently, and then moved it, laid it carefully by her side, and lay still, looking up at the ceiling in their shared darkness.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ISABEL’S DREAMS that night might have been about Brother Fox, or foxes in general, but it was Minty Auchterlonie of whom she dreamed: Minty in her garden, talking about something that she could not quite make out; Minty at a table in a restaurant pointing a finger at her, jabbing at the air to emphasise her point. And then, quite suddenly, Minty was no longer there, and Isabel found herself in a place that she thought might be Mobile, Alabama. She was with an aunt in a garden shaded by oak trees, and her aunt, whom she hardly knew, was talking about her sister, Isabel’s mother: “Such a pity she had an affair and your poor father was so upset by it.” Isabel felt embarrassed, and ashamed for her mother, and was about to protest that the affair was long ago and should not be talked about, when her aunt suddenly and severely said, “We must finish what we begin, Isabel. Your mother should have taught you that, but clearly has not. Too busy having an affair perhaps.”
Jamie touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Isabel?”
The garden in Mobile disappeared. “Oh.”
“You were having an unpleasant dream.”
“Yes.”
“You were muttering, you know. It was quite loud.”
She sat up. There was light flooding into the room through the chink in the curtains. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was almost seven; Charlie would have had Jamie up already. She looked at Jamie, who was standing beside the bed, having leaned over to touch her; he was already dressed, in dark trousers and a lightweight navy-
