The Charming Quirks of Others

coffee. If she and Eddie had everything ready in advance, they could dispense coffee at the rate of one cup a minute; she had timed it once, in a time-and-motion mood, and announced the results to Cat, who had seemed unimpressed.

“But if you serve them so quickly,” Cat said, “then they won’t buy anything else. Their eyes will have no time to linger on chocolate and other essentials.”

“We could ask them whether they wanted any chocolate,” suggested Eddie. “That’s what they do in that place round the corner. They say: ‘Do you want a muffin this morning?’ And you shake your head and they look all disappointed.”

“I hate that,” said Isabel. “I hate people asking me if I want something else. If I wanted it, I would have asked. And quite frankly, I think it’s wrong in principle to implant muffin ideas in the minds of the public. For one thing, it undoes all the anti-muffin work of the government. They spend all that money on persuading us to eat healthy food and then along comes somebody asking whether we wouldn’t like a muffin.”

“What has the government got against muffins?” asked Eddie.

The discussion had proved inconclusive; Cat was aware of the fact that Isabel was unpaid for her help in the delicatessen, and you could hardly instruct somebody who was working for nothing, and who was, anyway, your aunt. So Isabel was left to serve coffee at the pace that she determined, and did so.

That morning, Eddie was in talkative mood. He supported a small football team from an obscure town in Fife— an arrangement that was the result of his father’s having been brought up there. This team, which bumped along the bottom of a secondary league, was of little distinction but could count on the near-fanatical loyalty of its supporters. Now, though, this support was being tested by a scandal that had even made the national papers. The team’s goalkeeper had been found to have taken a bribe to allow a goal through. The bribe had been sexual rather than monetary, the understanding being that if he allowed the goal he would be rewarded with the sexual favours of the girlfriend of one of the players in the opposing team. He had accepted this offer, but had not been duly rewarded—the girl in question said that she had never intended to carry out her side of the bargain. This had so outraged the goalkeeper that he had told his friends that he had been duped and that the young woman in question should feel ashamed of herself.

Isabel listened to this story with fascination. “He was perhaps a bit naive,” she remarked. “And talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Presumably that’s the end of his goal-keeping career.”

Eddie agreed. “He wasn’t much good anyway. But he shouldn’t have trusted her, should he? He should have made sure that she … well, that she carried out her part of the deal before he let the goal through. He was really stupid.”

Isabel, who was grinding coffee, momentarily stopped the machine. “But, Eddie, he shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

“No, he shouldn’t. But since he did, he should have done it differently.” Eddie paused. “And now everybody’s laughing at us. That’s what really gets me.”

“I’m very sorry.”

Eddie acknowledged the expression of sympathy. “It’s her fault,” he said. “No man can be expected to resist an offer like that, can he?”

Isabel shook the ground coffee into a jar. She glanced at Eddie. Was he suggesting that men are incapable of controlling themselves? She frowned: Was that what he really thought?

“Do you mean that?” she asked. “Do you really think he couldn’t have said no?”

He blushed. “I don’t mean that men shouldn’t say no to women like that. What I mean is that I blame the woman—I really do.”

Isabel said nothing. Perhaps that was the way Eddie saw the world, with women as temptresses, circling about vulnerable goalkeepers. She looked at her watch and signalled for Eddie to open the door. They could return to the subject later on—or perhaps not. Of course men could control themselves, and did so. Jamie did; the girl, Prue, who had set her sights on him had found that out. Poor girl … No, she thought; unfortunate, maybe, but calculating and prepared to steal a married, or almost married, man. But then so many people seemed utterly ruthless when it came to getting the person they wanted. Would she stand back if there were one person she wanted above all else, if she felt that this person was the only person in the world for her? Would she deny herself if it happened that the person she wanted belonged to somebody else? She was not sure. And that realisation depressed her as she served coffee that morning. When it came to those currents of the heart, who amongst us would not be prepared to do virtually anything to achieve what we wanted? People behaved like that all the time; reason, restraint, conscience —these were all small defences against the onslaught of passion, small defences against the tides of raw emotion that we all knew could so easily overwhelm us. And that had always been well understood by human society, which had put up all sorts of barriers against what it saw as destructive forces. Marriage, disapproval, self-denial: all cautionary responses to our human weakness, to the inescapable facts of human biology.

She glanced at Eddie. Eddie was no philosopher, but he understood perfectly well. She, by contrast, was a philosopher, yet she did not think she understood the world any better than he did: she knew the technical terms for life, he knew how life was when you suffered from it. And when you considered the views he expressed, it would be easy to pick holes in his remarks, in particular what he had said about blaming the woman. But perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was that young woman’s fault. Perhaps Eve was far guiltier than Adam.

No, she could not accept such a conclusion. Eve was framed: everybody knew that by now.

THEY WERE PARTICULARLY BUSY that morning, and it was not until well after two that they were able to take a break. The hour between two and three was usually quiet, and now there were no customers at all. Isabel looked at Eddie and wiped her brow. “Heavens! That was busy.”

“You can sit down,” said Eddie. “I’ve got some stuff to clear up.”

“No,” said Isabel. “You take a break. Then me. I’ll …” She was going to clear up for Eddie when the door opened. Her heart sank. They would be on the go until six, when they closed. She would be exhausted.

Eddie nudged her. “It’s him,” he whispered.

Isabel turned to see Gordon Leafers closing the door behind him. For a moment she did not take in who it was, but then Eddie picked up her hesitation, whispering, “Her man. Him. Cat’s man.”

Gordon came up to the counter. “Is Cat around?” he asked. He had clearly not expected to see Isabel, and he looked puzzled. “I hadn’t expected you …”