The Charming Quirks of Others

no sense of who we are, of where we are placed, and of what we owe to those with whom we have bonds of fellow feeling. There were of course many such people: many who hated the local, who hated the sense of identity that people had, who wanted us all reduced to the servitude of anonymity, living in vast impersonal states, governed from a distance by people whose faces we never saw, whose names we would never find out. They thought this somehow better. Let them think that; she would not. She would not be ashamed of loving her place, her city, and of doing her utmost to ensure that the things that gave it a sense of itself, the small, personal things that bound its people together, would survive. No, she would not.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE FOLLOWING DAY, a Saturday, was a delicatessen day. It had been planned some weeks before and although Isabel had other things to do, she did not feel that she could ask Cat to change the arrangement. Cat was going to London for the day, leaving on the six o’clock train from Waverley Station and coming back on Sunday morning. The occasion was a lunch for a school friend who was getting married to an army officer.

They had discussed this couple a few weeks earlier, when Cat had first said that she hoped to go to the wedding. “He’s drop-dead gorgeous,” said Cat. “He’s called Jon, without an aitch.”

“Dropped his aitch?” asked Isabel. “Or born without one?”

Cat did not think this funny. “Who cares?”

“I don’t,” said Isabel. “But you did mention it. You said that he didn’t have an aitch. Usually Johns do.”

“I think it’s sexier not to,” said Cat. “Jon’s a really sexy name.”

Isabel said nothing. John Liamor spelled his name with an h and he was … well, he was sexy, which was why she had married him. That had been her conclusion; after all that soul-searching and wondering where she had gone wrong, she had come to the conclusion that she had been seduced by his looks.

“I don’t think that one should concern oneself with the sexiness—or otherwise—of a person’s name,” she said. “And I don’t think that you should marry somebody because they’re drop-dead gorgeous.” She paused. Cat was turning red.

“I didn’t say—”

Isabel tried to calm her. “No, I didn’t say you did. I’m sure that your friend is marrying Jon for a whole lot of other reasons. All that I’m saying is that in general it’s a bad idea. Don’t go for a good-looking man just because he’s good-looking. Men make that mistake all the time. They go for looks and they end up with a woman they can’t stand, or who bores them rigid.”

Cat stared at her. “And you?” she said.

“What about me?”

“You’re hardly one to talk, are you?”

Isabel opened her mouth—wordlessly.

“Well, you aren’t, are you?” Cat went on. “Jamie. Look at him.”

Isabel gasped; Cat, though, was adamant. “I’m sorry, but you can’t criticise others for something you yourself do.”

“Are you suggesting that I have taken up with Jamie because of his looks? Are you really accusing me of that?”

Cat looked down at the floor. “I’m not accusing you of anything. However … forgive me for wondering whether you and Jamie would have got together if he had been … well, podgy and shorter than you. Or had halitosis and terminal dandruff. Do you think you would have? Do you really think so?”

“Looks are nothing to do with it.” Isabel spat the words out.

“People tell themselves that. But who really believes it?”

“I do. People love others who are not at all prepossessing. Are you saying they don’t?”

Cat shook her head. She was not saying that; what she was saying, she explained, was that people made do with what they could get. Of course an unattractive person can be loved, but it is harder and they have to earn it. Whereas an attractive person is loved immediately and by any number of others. It was obvious, she said; obvious. Just look at couples. The beautiful fell for the beautiful, and got them; everybody else made do.

You silly, shallow woman, thought Isabel. You superficial … But her anger faded away in seconds; it was not real anger. Isabel would have been more outraged if it had not occurred to her at that moment that Cat was probably right. If Jamie had been as Cat described him, then it was at least possible that she would not have become involved with him; she might as well be honest with herself. But what a bleak conclusion that was: that it was the accident of looks that determined affection. Surely she was above such shallowness.

“Maybe not,” she said.

“Well, there you are,” said Cat.

They had moved on from the topic of looks, and Isabel had asked whether Cat’s friend was worried about her husband-to-be being sent off on active service. “We have so many small wars now,” she said. “The life of an army officer is not what it used to be. They used to play polo and go skiing; now they … well, they have to go out and get shot at. I suspect that not all of them appreciate that when they join the Army.”

“She says that she isn’t worried,” said Cat. “But I don’t believe her. Maybe these wars will end.”

Isabel doubted that. “There will always be another one, and another one after that. There’ll be no shortage of wars, I’m afraid. Has there ever been?”

At least these wars seemed increasingly to be fought by volunteers, she reflected, which was some consolation, even if not very great; and it was not a consolation that stood examination, being based on the assumption that they were real volunteers. Poverty and limited options were powerful recruiting sergeants, and neither of those burdens was exactly voluntary.

CAT WENT OFF to the wedding in London. Isabel left Charlie with Jamie and made her way to the delicatessen shortly after eight-thirty; that would give her time to grind coffee and make other preparations before she opened the front door at nine. There was always a busy period immediately after opening, during which regulars would snatch a morning cup of