The Charming Quirks of Others

“I don’t remember that one about Goliath,” she mused. “But what about Skinny Malinky Long-legs, Big Banana Feet? Did you hear about his misfortunes?”

Jamie remembered. “Of course. He went tae the pictures, didn’t he? And couldnae find a seat.”

“Poor man,” mused Isabel. “Imagine him—a lanky, rather socially inadequate figure, going to one of those old- fashioned Glasgow cinemas all by himself because he has no friend to go with him. And then that business with the seat, and people laughing at him.”

“He probably had Asperger’s,” said Jamie.

Isabel nodded. “Possibly. I suspect many of the victims of nursery rhymes had Asperger’s, or something similar. There was a lot of pathology in nursery rhymes. Georgie Porgie, for instance, who kissed the girls and made them cry but who ran away when the boys came out to play. He obviously couldn’t maintain mature relationships with women.” She paused; she was remembering the old copy of Struwwelpeter that she still kept somewhere in the attic but that she had decided she would not show to Charlie. The old German children’s book had been written in an age when it was considered quite permissible to scare small children with threatening and admonitory tales.

“Augustus and his soup,” she said. “Remember: we talked about this before. Augustus was a chubby lad / Fat, ruddy cheeks Augustus had. But then I’m afraid he developed an eating disorder. ‘Take, O take that soup away / I won’t eat any soup today!’”

“And died?” asked Jamie.

“Yes,” said Isabel. “Wasted away. And Belloc took a similar line, come to think of it. Remember his Cautionary Tales? Matilda, who called the fire brigade out without reason and was not believed when the house really did go up in flames? For every time she shouted ‘Fire!’ / They only answered ‘Little Liar!’ Or Henry King? The chief defect of Henry King / Was chewing little bits of string. And the consequence? Intestinal blockage. Which is another great thing to give children to worry about.”

“What other defects do you think Henry King had?” asked Jamie. “If eating string was his chief defect, it suggests that there were others, doesn’t it?”

“I have no idea,” said Isabel.

“Cross-dressing, perhaps,” suggested Jamie. “Wearing women’s jewellery. The other defect of Henry King / Was dressing up in female bling.”

They both laughed. “How did we get to this?” asked Isabel.

“By thinking,” said Jamie, leaning forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek. He loved the way that Isabel’s mind could pursue such odd lines of enquiry. She was unpredictable; she was clever. He loved her so much for both of these qualities, and for being who she was. I could not love anybody else, he thought; not after her, not after Isabel. Really? enquired an unsettling internal voice. Are you sure about that?

CAT AGREED TO BABYSIT CHARLIE the following evening, when they were due to accompany Grace to the Danish parapsychologist’s lecture.

“Of course,” she said when Isabel phoned her. And then, after a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “It’ll be all right, will it, if I bring somebody with me?”

Isabel had not expected this, but tried not to show her surprise. Since the disappearance of Bruno, Cat’s singularly unsuitable last boyfriend, there had been no talk of anybody else. And yet the post was vacant, as Jamie had put it, and judging by Cat’s previous behaviour it would not be long before it was filled.

“Of course. That’s absolutely fine. I’ll leave something out for the two of you. A couple of salmon steaks? You could …”

“Not fish, please,” said Cat. “He doesn’t like fish.”

He, thought Isabel.

“All right. A stew. How about a venison stew—I’ve got some in the freezer. And some …” She was still thinking of Cat’s boyfriend, trying to picture him—on the basis of no evidence at all. He could not be worse than Bruno; nobody could be worse than Bruno, with his elevator heels and his habit of leering. “Puy lentils.” It was the first thing she thought of, and she was not sure whether she had any. But Puy lentils went with everything, she believed, and she had yet to come across anybody who said, “No Puy lentils, please.”

“Not venison, I’m afraid,” said Cat. “I’m not so keen on eating venison. Bambi’s mother, and all that. No, he …”

Isabel interrupted her. “Who is he?” she asked. “I can’t really just call him him.”

Cat seemed to ignore her question, at least at first. “I’ll just make an omelette,” she said. “Gordon likes that. I’ll bring mushrooms—if you could leave out some eggs, that’ll be fine.”

Gordon. Isabel savoured the name. A Gordon would be utterly reliable; a bit solid, perhaps, in an old-fashioned Scottish way, the product of any number of possible homes in the hinterland of Edinburgh—Peebles, perhaps, or somewhere like Kelso, one of those Border towns that produced such reliable rugby players, bank managers, engineers.

“Gordon,” she said. “Have I met him?”

“No, I don’t think you have.”

“Ah.”

There was a silence. Then Isabel spoke again. “Have you been … Have you known him long?”

A defensive note crept into Cat’s voice. “Not all that long. A couple of months. He’s from just outside Kelso originally.”

I knew it! I knew it! It was difficult for Isabel not to feel a certain pleasure at having guessed so accurately the origins of Cat’s new boyfriend. We like predictability, she thought, and we are always satisfied when people behave as we think they will. It makes us feel … well, powerful; the world is not as complex a place as some might think—at least it is not complex for us. She stopped herself.