The Lost Art of Gratitude

“No?” she pressed.

“It’s different,” said Jamie. “I don’t have … well, I don’t have much money.”

She looked steadfastly ahead. She regretted her remark, and turned to him to say sorry. He was looking at her, smiling. “What a ridiculous conversation,” he said.

She was relieved. “Isn’t it? One should never let spreadsheets come between one and one’s …”

“Friends,” he supplied quickly.

“Exactly.” He was more than that, of course, but she had not used the word lover to his face, nor he to hers. Significant other, she thought, and smiled—if some others were significant, then were the other others insignificant? Teenage argot, she knew, had a word for them: randoms, who were the people one did not really know. Eddie, Isabel’s niece Cat’s young assistant at the delicatessen, had used the term to describe the other guests at a party he had attended. “I didn’t know anybody,” he said. “The place was full of randoms.”

“Randoms?” said Isabel.

“Yes,” said Eddie. “Just randoms. Who could I talk to? So I left.”

“You couldn’t talk to the randoms?”

He looked at her with amusement; one did not talk to randoms.

They crossed Heriot Row. “Robert Louis Stevenson’s house,” Jamie said, pointing to one of the elegant Georgian terraced houses that ran along the north side of the street. “I went to a party there once with …” He stopped, and Isabel knew what he had been about to say.

“With Cat,” she prompted.

“Yes. With Cat.”

“I hope she enjoyed it.”

He shook his head. “She didn’t. We fought.”

Isabel thought, It wouldn’t have been his fault. But she did not say it; instead she made a remark about the Queen Street Gardens, which Stevenson would have seen from his window, and about how you never saw anybody in them, except ghosts, perhaps.

They went into Glass and Thompson, the place they both favoured for lunch, leaving Charlie’s pushchair outside. Charlie was wide awake and showing a close interest in his surroundings, delighted by the colourful display of olive oils and pastas that dominated the shelves on one side of the cafe. He was easily pleased by colour or movement and waved his little arms in approval and a desire to embrace the things he saw.

It was just before the lunchtime rush and there were several free tables at the back of the cafe. While Isabel settled Charlie on her lap, Jamie went up to the counter and ordered—mozzarella salad for him and Isabel, and a piece of quiche for Charlie. In the display below the counter he saw a bowl of olives, and he added some of these to the order as a treat for Charlie. They were large and unstoned, and he would have to dissect them for Charlie, but they would add to his already considerable delight.

Their order came quickly. Charlie saw the olives from afar, or smelled them perhaps, as he started to gurgle in anticipation even before they arrived.

“He has some sort of sixth sense when it comes to olives,” said Isabel. “An intuitive knowledge of olives.”

Jamie laughed. He took an olive from the plate and cut the flesh from the stone with his knife. A small drop of oil fell from his fingers; Charlie watched intently.

“Olive,” said Charlie.

Jamie dropped the knife, which fell on the plate below with a clatter. Isabel’s mouth opened wordlessly, and she reached out to grasp Jamie’s forearm. “Did he?”

Jamie beamed at his son. “Olive, Charlie?”

Charlie looked at his father briefly, and then transferred his gaze again to the fragments of black olive on the plate. “Olive,” he said again. It was unmistakable.

“At last,” said Isabel, and bent her head to plant a kiss on Charlie’s forehead. “You spoke, my little darling. You spoke!” They had been waiting for Charlie to say something and, although they had been reassured that first words at eighteen months, even if late, were still within the range of normality, they had been concerned. His gurgles were expressive, but they were impatient to hear Mama or Daddy; olive was a surprise, but a welcome one.

Jamie grinned with pleasure. “I wouldn’t have guessed it would be olive,” he said. “What a clever little boy.”

They tried to coax more out of him, but Charlie, now engrossed in the large quartered olive passed on to him by Jamie, was having none of it.

“He doesn’t need to say olive again,” said Isabel. “He has what he wants.”

They began their own lunch, while Charlie investigated his quiche, quickly reducing it to a pile of sodden fragments.

“I don’t want to spoil the party,” said Isabel, “but there was a rather unpleasant surprise in the mail this morning.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “A bill?”

“Well, there were two of those. One for much more electricity than I think we’ve actually used, but that’ll be sorted out. No, something to do with the Review.”

Jamie frowned. He enjoyed reading the Review, or the readable bits of it, and he took pride in Isabel’s ownership of it, but he was concerned about the burden it represented. Isabel worried about her Review—he knew that from her occasional muttering in her sleep—fragments from