She invited them in and the introductions took place in the hall. Jamie did not give Louise’s other name, an endemic social failing which Isabel had stopped remarking upon; so many people now gave only their first names. In this case, though, there might be a reason. Was Louise openly in Jamie’s company, or was discretion still required?
Isabel looked at Louise and smiled. She saw more or less what she had expected to see—a woman in her late thirties, of average height, wearing a longish red skirt and a soft padded green jacket of the sort which became perversely fashionable in the West in the days of Madame Mao—peasant chic. The skirt and the jacket were expensive, though, and overall there was a feel to this woman, Isabel thought, which suggested that she was accustomed to wealth and comfort. Material security brought a particular form of self-assurance—an easy confidence that things would simply be there if one wanted them, and this F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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woman had that assurance. The wealthy, thought Isabel, fit in.
They are never out of place.
And as for the face—high cheekbones and wide, dark eyes—it was a face which she had seen used in the faux nativities which artists painted when they tried to capture the spirit of Renaissance Italy. It was inarguably a beautiful face, and it could beguile any man, even a young man, thought Isabel. This was not a charitable thought, and she reminded herself to smile as she shook hands with Louise, who looked back at her, smiling too, and undoubtedly performing her own calculations as to who Isabel was and what she meant to Jamie. Was she a threat?
Well, Isabel was attractive too, but she was a philosopher, was she not, buried in her books, a bit above all that sort of thing (young men, affairs, and the rest).
They went into the drawing room and Isabel offered them white wine. Jamie said he would pour it, and Isabel noticed that Louise had picked up this sign of familiarity. Isabel found herself pleased at this: it would do her no harm to know that she and Jamie had been friends for years.
“Your health,” said Isabel, raising her glass to Jamie first and then to Louise. They sat down, Louise choosing the sofa, where she patted a cushion beside her, discreetly, almost as one would give a secret signal, for Jamie to sit beside her, which he did.
Isabel sat opposite them and looked at Jamie. Nothing was said, but Louise noticed the exchange of glances and frowned, almost imperceptibly, which was noticed by Isabel.
“I have to go out to Balerno to look at a bassoon,” said Jamie.
“One of my pupils lives out there, and he has been offered an instrument which he can’t bring into town. I’m going to tell him if it’s worth buying. It’s a bit complicated.”
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Isabel nodded. Jamie was always looking at bassoons. “I thought perhaps Louise lived out there.”
Louise looked up sharply. “Balerno?”
Isabel smiled disarmingly. “My mistake,” she said. “Do you live in town?”
Louise nodded, and although Isabel waited for her to say something else, no further information was forthcoming.
“Louise has a job with the National Gallery,” Jamie said.
“Part-time, but quite interesting, isn’t it, Louise?”
“Most of the time,” said Louise.
“Well, you get around with it,” said Jamie. “Didn’t you have to accompany a painting to Venice the other day? Sitting on the seat beside you, in its little crate?”
“Yes,” said Louise. “I did.”
Jamie looked nervously at Isabel, who said, “I suppose you can’t put paintings in the hold when you’re lending them for an exhibition.”
“We can’t,” said Louise. “The small ones travel with us in the plane. They get tickets.”
“But no meal,” said Jamie, weakly.
For a few moments there was silence. Isabel took a sip of her wine. She wanted to say to Louise, And what does your husband do? It was a delicious thought, because it was such a subversive, tactless thing to ask in the circumstances—to bring up the husband, the ghost at this banquet. She could ask the question disingenuously, as if she had no idea of the nature of the relationship between Jamie and this woman, but of course Jamie would know that she had asked it mischievously, and would be mortified. But then he could hardly complain if he brought her here, to flaunt her. Could he not understand that F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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this whole meeting would be painful for her? Was it too much to expect that he should sense her unhappiness over all this?
Isabel raised her wineglass and took another sip. Opposite her, Louise had begun to fiddle with a button on her jacket.
This, thought Isabel, is because she is uncomfortable. She does not want to be here. She has no interest in me. In her eyes she is the adventuress, the passionate one, fashionable, a woman who can get a young man so very easily while this other woman, this philosopher woman, has nothing. She watched her, and she saw the eyes go to the mantelpiece and to the pictures with a look on her face that was utterly dismissive, though she had no idea that Isabel would see it. I am nothing to her, she told herself; I am beneath her notice. Well, in that case . . .
“What does your husband do?” asked Isabel.
C H A P T E R S E V E N
E
SHE HAD DECIDED to apologise, of course, at least to Jamie, but the next day she had neither the time to feel guilty nor to make the telephone call that would assuage her guilt. Shortly after she arrived in the morning to open up, a consignment of cheeses was delivered from a cheesemaker in Lanarkshire, and they had to be unwrapped by hand, priced, and put on display.
Isabel did this while Eddie prepared the coffee, and then there was a spate of talkative customers who took up her time with long-drawn-out conversations. There was an elderly customer who thought that Isabel was Cat, and addressed her accordingly, and a shoplifter whom she saw eating a bar of chocolate, unpaid for, while he stuffed a can of artichoke hearts into a pocket. At least we have discerning thieves, she thought, as she watched him run down the street; artichoke hearts and Belgian chocolate.
At one o’clock she signalled to Eddie that he should take over at the till while she took a break. Then she helped herself to a bagel and several slices of smoked salmon before moving over to the table area. The tables were busy, with all the chairs taken, except for one, where her lunching companion of the previous day sat, a frugal tub of salad before him, reading a F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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newspaper. He had not seen her, and she hesitated. She was not sure if she wanted to sit at his table uninvited, and was about to go back to the office, to eat her lunch amongst the calendars and the catalogues, when he looked up and smiled at her, gesturing to the unoccupied chair.
He put the newspaper to the side. “You’re busy.”
She looked about her. “I prefer it that way. I find that I quite like being busy.”
“I used to,” he said. “I used to be busy and now I mark time, reading the papers, doing the shopping for my wife.”
She had not anticipated the reference to a wife; men who sat by themselves in delicatessens were likely to be single.
“She works?”
“Like me, a psychologist. Or at least, I used to be a psychologist. I gave it up just before the operation.”
Isabel nodded. “A good idea, I suppose, if one has been very ill. There’s no point—”