The Charming Quirks of Others

it.”

Isabel rose to her feet. Now she felt angry. “I don’t know what to say either. What can one say? This is … well, it’s blackmail, moral blackmail—if there’s such a thing. It’s terrible. She’s trying to get you to sleep with her because you feel sorry for her—and who wouldn’t feel sorry for somebody in her position. But it’s an awful thing to do to anybody.”

Jamie nodded his head miserably. “Yes, it is. I should have felt angry with her, but …” He shrugged. “How could I? How can you feel angry with somebody in her position.”

Isabel looked out of the window. What Jamie said was right: you could not be— should not be—angry with somebody who was dying; or … or could you? The fact that somebody was suffering from an incurable disease did not give them licence to behave as they wished; that was absurd. And presumably there were people who knew that they were dying who did things for which they could quite properly be censured. One might feel sympathy for them; one might exempt them from punishment; but one could still be angry with them and tell them that their actions were unacceptable.

She turned round to face Jamie again. He was sitting on the edge of her desk now, looking at his hands. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk to her.”

He answered bluntly, “What should I say?”

She felt slightly irritated that he had asked this question. Everybody should know how to let a would-be lover down gently. Did she have to spell it out for him?

“Say that your relationship can be a friendship, but nothing more. Tell her that you’re fond of her, but that’s as far as it can go.”

He nodded. “Yes, you’re right.”

“So when will you do it?”

He looked away. “Sometime. I don’t know.”

“But you will do it?”

He looked hounded. “It’s not going to be easy …”

She felt a growing sense of frustration. “Of course not. But life isn’t necessarily easy, Jamie. It’s messy.” A further possibility occurred to her; not an obvious one, and she barely thought about it before she expressed it. “Unless I do it myself.”

He did not think this a good idea. “You can’t do that,” he protested. “I don’t want her to know that I’ve spoken to you about this. And anyway, why should you do my dirty work for me?”

“Because I’m not sure that you’re going to do it,” Isabel challenged. She did not see why Prue should not know that they had discussed what had happened. Engaged people shared secrets with their fiances; did Prue not know that? Perhaps not: Jamie had said that she had never had a proper boyfriend, and it could be that she simply did not understand the emotional intimacy of such relationships.

“I suppose I’m just putting it off,” said Jamie.

He was, she thought, but only because he had no desire to hurt. “Kindness is holding you back. You don’t want to hurt her, but I’m afraid she has to be hurt here—even if only a little.” She paused. Perhaps it was not such a bad idea for her to take this matter in hand. “And it might be easier if I were to do it, rather than you. That way she may still be able to idealise you—she won’t blame you; she won’t think that you’ve turned against her.”

It was not his fault. Some people attracted others to them through flirtation, implying availability even when they were not. She had encountered that type before, and they were dangerous. There had been somebody like that in her undergraduate philosophy class, a girl who timed her entrances into the lecture theatre with calculated precision, so that the men were already mostly seated and she could brush past them on her way to her place, smiling coyly, invitingly. And there was another such person she had met in Cambridge, a good-looking young man from Yorkshire, avowedly heterosexual, who had nevertheless picked up at his expensive boys’ boarding school the habit of fluttering his eyelids at other males without understanding the confusion that this could cause. These people asked for a particular sort of attention—and got it. Jamie, with his matinee-idol looks, turned eyes—and heads—but did not contrive to do that and never encouraged it. No, it was not his fault that this unfortunate girl had been drawn to him, moth-like; and while a flirt who got what he asked for might reasonably be expected to dig himself out of a self-created hole, that did not apply to an innocent victim like Jamie.

She seemed to be convincing herself, even if Jamie’s expression betrayed his continued doubts. If she spoke to Prue—gently, of course—she could make it quite clear to her that Jamie was unavailable. Not only that; she could go further and tell her that she, Isabel, had asked Jamie not to see her, other than in a professional context. Isabel would come across as the ogress, the possessive woman, and the poor girl could continue to harbour whatever romantic notions she liked of Jamie, keeping him unsullied. And that, thought Isabel, was surely kinder. Prue would spend her last days in the knowledge that there had been somebody, and he had been fond of her, but another woman prevented him from showing just how fond he was. It was an easier version of the truth; a better conclusion to a life.

They left it unresolved between them, although in Isabel’s mind, at least, it was clear that she would save Jamie the discomfort of a showdown with Prue. What was an awkward half hour or so tactfully explaining to a much younger woman the boundaries over which she should not cross? Nothing; and she would do it soon.

But first she had to make it up to Jamie. She had said that she had hated him, and while it did not seem to her that he was taking her words seriously, they had to be withdrawn.

She put her arms about him. “I didn’t mean what I said.” She kissed him. “I wasn’t thinking.”

He smiled at her, touching her cheek gently. He had a way of doing that, as if he was confirming the reality of something he could not quite believe. It was a flattering gesture, and one that made her weak with pleasure. “I didn’t hear you,” he said. “What did you say?”

She thought quickly. An apology for something forgotten or not heard was not always helpful. “Oh, I said something silly.”

He smiled again. “You? Something silly? I don’t believe that. Anyway, what was it?”

“I was cross with you. It made me …”

“I know you were cross. But I wasn’t listening. You didn’t say that you hated me or anything like that?” He