The Charming Quirks of Others

Isabel wiped her hands on her apron. “A family firm. We all help out.” She gestured to Eddie. “Eddie and I are a long-established team. He’s the boss.”

Eddie looked nervous. “Not really. She is. I’m just …”

Isabel helped him. “The assistant manager, then. And a very good one. Cat, I’m afraid, is in London.”

Gordon suddenly remembered. “Of course. There was a wedding. She told me.”

Men never remember, thought Isabel. Women tell them things and they never remember. “I’ll tell her that you dropped in.” And then she added, “A coffee? Or tea?”

He looked at his watch. He would have time, he said, for a quick cup of coffee. “I’m meant to be turning up at a cricket match. I’m not all that keen, but it’s an important match for the school.”

Isabel gestured to a table. “I’ll join you.” She turned to Eddie. “Would you mind taking the second break, Eddie?”

He shook his head. “No. Go ahead.” He looked unhappy, though.

She made two cups of coffee and took them over to the table at which Gordon was sitting, looking at a copy of The List, the magazine that set out forthcoming events in Edinburgh and Glasgow. She glanced at the heading of the page he was reading: Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transsexual. There was a boxed advertisement for gay athletic games in Queen Street Gardens. He turned the page quickly. She watched him. Was it possible that he was … transsexual? If he were, then would he be attracted to Cat? Surely if he was in the course of becoming a woman then he would, as a woman, in the normal run of things be more attracted to men. Unless he planned that his new identity as a woman would be lesbian, in which case Cat was an entirely appropriate choice, although she, of course, might not be prepared to convert a heterosexual relationship with a man into a lesbian relationship with a former man, now a woman, even if, as a man, he had already been her lover.

She discreetly studied his features as she took a sip of her coffee. Her eyes went to his chin, where there were signs that he needed a shave; perhaps he did not bother on Saturdays. And then she saw his hands, with their thin covering of dark hair; again not a feminine feature.

He must have noticed her staring, as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Sorry,” said Isabel. “I was thinking about how we are what we are—biologically—and how difficult it must be to escape that identity.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Oh? What prompted that?”

She could not tell him. “I find my mind wanders off at a tangent. I think of something—some odd question or hypothesis—and then my train of thought seems to acquire a direction of its own.”

He relaxed. “Daydreaming. Everybody does it. I find I have to fight it in the classroom. Boys start looking out of the window and they’re just not there any more. They’re off somewhere altogether different.”

She met his eyes. “Do you enjoy your job?” she asked.

He shrugged. “At times it’s tremendously rewarding; at other times … well, I could strangle the boys. I really could.”

She thought: What if he had? But she said, “You never would, of course. You can’t raise a hand to them any more, can you?”

“Strangling was never exactly encouraged,” said Gordon, smiling.

She changed the subject. “You told me that you were applying for another job. Have you had any news?”

“No. Not yet. As I said, I probably don’t have much chance of getting it.”

She lowered her cup. “And why’s that?”

“Because of the competition. I happen to know who else is on the shortlist.”

She touched the side of her cup lightly with a forefinger, tracing a tiny pattern in the crust of milk foam. She spoke very casually. “Oh? How did you manage that? I imagined that these lists would be confidential. Other candidates …”

“Might not want it to be known that they were applying. Yes, they should be confidential. But people talk. You know how they are.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes.”

She thought: The person who wrote the letter knew who was on the list. He knew … She put it syllogistically: (1) The writer of the anonymous letter knew the names of the candidates; (2) Gordon knows the name of the candidates; (3) therefore Gordon is the writer of the anonymous letter.

That was fallacious, of course. The major and the minor premises were true, but the conclusion made a massive and unjustifiable leap. What it should have said was: therefore Gordon falls into the category of people who might have written the anonymous letter.

She wondered whether he really knew. Information from the rumour mill was not always reliable. “Who are they?” she asked.

He looked at her teasingly. “You won’t know them.”

“I might. In fact, I’ve heard …”

He cut her short. “I doubt it.”

“John Fraser,” she said. “He’s one. And Tom Simpson.”

He looked at her in complete astonishment. Isabel laughed. “Perhaps I listen to rumours too,” she said. I said perhaps, she thought; I have not lied to him.