smiled. “You’re behaving as if you’re going on a first date,” he said. “Calm down. It’s just another of Cat’s boyfriends, after all.”
She was aware of being nervous, and when she was nervous she felt fidgety. “You’re right,” she said. “I just have a feeling about this one. I think that somehow he’s going to be different from the others.” She blushed, and corrected herself. As a former boyfriend of Cat, Jamie was one of the others himself. “By that, I mean people like Bruno.”
He reached out and touched her arm gently. “I know you don’t mean me. Don’t worry.”
“I didn’t. You were different. Although I must say that I’m glad that things didn’t work out between you and Cat. Otherwise—no me, no Charlie.”
“I’m glad too.”
There was something else she wanted to ask him, and she decided that this was the time. “How do you feel about her now? Is there still any awkwardness … any difficulty?”
He took time to weigh his reply. “I don’t think so.” He hesitated. “There used to be, yes. Not now.”
“So in your eyes she’s just like anybody else?” Isabel was interested in this. She was not sure that she understood how people could feel indifferent to former lovers. She understood lingering love for somebody who had rejected one, intense love perhaps; reproach; she could even understand hate and detestation; she did not understand indifference.
Yes,” said Jamie. “She’s just like anybody else now.” He paused. “Mostly, that is. If I start thinking about her, then … well, then I get all confused, I suppose.” He looked at Isabel almost apologetically. “That’s the way it is. I’m sorry—it just is. So I don’t think about her in that way. I just don’t.”
“You put the past out of your mind?”
“Yes, I suppose I do.”
Her gaze dwelled upon him, upon the face that seemed to her so perfect. How was it, she wondered, that character could reveal itself so clearly in the structure of human flesh and bone? Jamie looked kind, and intelligent, and gentle, and that was what he was. Could it be otherwise? Could the faces of the wicked look like this, have this light behind them? Perhaps there could be a book of photographs exploring face and character. Goebbels and Mussolini—they could be there to illustrate the proposition at the beginning: Goebbels with his pinched, rat-like features; Mussolini with his thuggish bully’s face; both perfect illustrations of the proposition that character shines through. And from the other end of the spectrum? She wondered about that. Nelson Mandela, perhaps, would be a good candidate: his face was suffused with kindness, with a sort of joy that was unmistakable; or Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whose lined, careworn features were so transformed when she smiled. She could look severe sometimes, but that was the effect of suffering and the day-to-day toll of caring for those for whom nobody else would care. And then there were the politicians, some of whom so neatly illustrated pride, ambition and cunning; the various types of bullies; soldiers whose faces often seemed trained into hard, wooden expressions; sleek bankers to remind us of the face of human greed; gentle doctors … It would be a book of cliches, she decided, demonstrating that stereotypes—for all that they be derided—are so often true.
“Isabel?”
“Sorry, I was thinking.”
And then the bell sounded and Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to let them in?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll do that.”
She walked to the front door and opened it. The self-closing lock was stiff—it behaved like that in certain weathers—and she had to tug. But then it swung open and she saw Cat standing in front of her with Gordon a pace behind on the front step. Cat had half turned when Isabel opened the door and was addressing a remark to Gordon. What is said about ourselves on our own doorsteps, thought Isabel, is probably as revealing a judgement as we are likely to hear.
“Well,” said Isabel. “Here you are.”
Cat moved to one side to effect the introduction. “I don’t think you’ve met Gordon.”
Gordon stepped forward and offered his hand. Isabel glanced at him quickly and then back at Cat. She’s reverted to type, she thought. Bruno, with his elevator shoes, was an exception: Gordon was tall, with the easy confidence of the good-looking. She resisted the temptation to look at his legs—Cat had views on men’s legs, she was sure of it. In fact, Cat herself in an unguarded moment had said something about how important legs were. She liked legs to be strong; Toby, the skier, several boyfriends ago, had well-muscled legs, Isabel seemed to remember. Stop it, she told herself. Don’t think this way. Stop it.
She invited them into the house, feeling as she did so a stab of guilt over the advantage she enjoyed. This was their first meeting, and yet she knew Gordon’s age from the documents in the study, and the university where he had done his first degree: Aberdeen. President of the Students’ Union. Scottish Universities’ rugby team (captain, tour of South America). In respect of all of this he looked the part; but there was something else—something that she had noticed immediately. Presence.
Jamie was in the kitchen, and she took them there. I feel like a spy, she thought. I feel like one of those people who does the positive vetting of applicants for posts in the secret services; who know everything about the people they meet because they have pored through their records beforehand; absorbed the intimate secrets of a life, stripping away the armour that privacy affords, rendering the other naked.
“We’ve left the eggs out for your supper,” said Isabel. “Jamie and I were thinking of going out for a bite to eat after this talk we’re going to. Would that be all right?”
Cat glanced at Gordon, as if for confirmation. “Fine,” she said. “Take as long as you like.”
Isabel wondered what they would do. Babysitters usually watched television, or that is what householders assumed. But when they came in pairs … She recalled reading somewhere about a babysitter who was found taking a bath when the parents returned. Why not? Student flats, in which many babysitters lived, had uncomfortable baths and not enough hot water. Visiting a house with a good supply of hot water and clean towels might be just too much of a temptation. And yet there was an element of trust involved: one did not imagine that a person left in one’s house would open drawers, for example, or read one’s correspondence, or even run a bath. That was what the story of Goldilocks and the three bears was all about: breach of trust.
She would have to look at this for the
