The Charming Quirks of Others

Isabel reached out. “I meant what I said. I really like him.”

Cat softened. “Well, thank you. I’m glad about that.”

She wants to share him, thought Isabel. It was a lover’s pride. A lover wants others to see the beloved in exactly the same light as she does. And that was true of how Isabel felt about Jamie; she assumed that others would see him as she saw him. Yet she knew that this was an illusion: the light that surrounds the one we love is not always as bright to others. Indeed, they were often unaware that it was there at all.

ISABEL FINISHED THE LAST of her coffee and then crossed the room to relieve Eddie of Charlie. The marzipan pig, slightly bigger than usual this time, had been produced and was being flourished enthusiastically by Charlie. “Pig! Pig!” he shouted. And then, exactly as anticipated, he bit off its head.

Eddie laughed. “Olives and pigs. His two big things.”

“And the fox in our garden,” said Isabel. “He loves him.”

Eddie bent down and ruffled Charlie’s hair. “Their hair is always so soft,” he said. “Like an owl’s feathers. Have you ever felt an owl’s feathers, Isabel?”

Isabel said that she had not.

“I have,” said Eddie. “There was a guy who had a little barn owl on a sort of string. The string was tied around its leg. He was a falconer, and he brought it to the Meadows Festival.”

Isabel smiled encouragingly. Increasingly, Eddie spoke of things he remembered, whereas in the past he had been largely silent about his life outside the delicatessen. It seemed to her that he was reclaiming something, piece by piece, assembling a life.

“He let me stroke the feathers on the top of its head,” he continued. “I had never felt anything so soft. It was like … like Charlie’s hair. Even softer, maybe.”

Eddie touched Charlie’s hair again, and the little boy looked up appreciatively.

“He likes you,” said Isabel. “I think you’re one of his favourite people.”

The compliment had a marked effect, and it seemed to Isabel that Eddie grew in stature before her, swelling with pride. He straightened up; his head moved back. Like a soldier on parade, thought Isabel; but how strange that mere words should do that to people—inflate them, deflate them too.

Eddie looked at his watch. “I’d better get on with things,” he said. “I have to slice some Parma ham and people will be coming in soon. It’s always busy around lunchtime—as you know.”

Isabel picked up Charlie to put him back in his pushchair. “Of course. And Charlie will need his sleep, won’t you, darling?”

“Pig,” said Charlie, examining the marzipan animal.

“Insults won’t help,” said Isabel.

Eddie laughed. “He said pig and you thought …” He looked at his watch again. Then he seemed to remember something, and turned to Isabel. “Did you enjoy the film?”

Isabel looked blank. She had not been to the cinema in two months, and she could not remember what it was that she and Jamie had seen last—something at the Dominion, she thought. But what was it? It had not been memorable. “What film?”

“That Italian film,” said Eddie, reaching for a large Parma ham. “The Parma ham made me think of it. Remember that scene where …”

Isabel frowned. “Italian film?” She could not remember when she had last seen an Italian film.

“La Famiglia,” said Eddie. “Remember? Last Wednesday. I saw Jamie when I went out to get something to drink. Weren’t you there too?”

Isabel was fastening the straps that held Charlie in the pushchair. She did so very slowly, listening carefully to what Eddie was saying. His voice seemed to echo, for some reason. It was loud in her ears.

“Where was it?” she asked. “The Dominion?”

“Never go there,” said Eddie. “No, it was at the Filmhouse in Lothian Road. I love going there. My friend used to work there. He sometimes gave me tickets. Maybe he shouldn’t have—I don’t know.”

Isabel would normally have said that he should not, but her mind was preoccupied. Eddie had seen Jamie at the cinema. Jamie had not said anything about seeing a film. Why?

“Are you sure it was Jamie?”

“Yes. Of course. It’s not as if I don’t know Jamie.” He paused. “We said hello. He said ‘Hello, Eddie’ and then he went back in.”

“Oh … Oh. Well.”

She finished securing Charlie and turned to go. She said goodbye to Eddie, and he made a cheerful remark about keeping another marzipan pig for Charlie. “It’s not that I want to ruin his teeth. It’s just that …”

Isabel did not hear the rest of the remark. She had pushed Charlie out on to the pavement and now, for a moment, she had no idea which way to turn. Was she going to walk back to the house—in which case she would turn left—or was she going to go back into Bruntsfield—in which case she would turn right? She felt completely lost. She felt empty, scoured out; as if somebody had taken a great knife and hollowed her.

She turned left, and began to walk back along Merchiston Crescent. A woman was approaching her on the pavement, going the other way. It was a woman she recognised but did not know—one of those nodding acquaintances that one builds up in a city even if in many cases one never finds out who they are or where they live. She was a small, bird-like woman who wore a scarf over her head, like an old-fashioned French farmer’s wife. Isabel did know a little bit about her. She lived in a flat in Merchiston Crescent and Grace, who knew her too, had been told that she was a singing teacher. “I saw somebody going to her place,” Grace once said. “He was standing outside her front door, about to ring the bell. A very round man with slicked-down hair and highly polished shoes. He must be learning to sing.”