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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 broke the silence. “The bonnie earl of Moray was murdered, alas,” she said. “The earl of Huntly slayed him, and then laid him on the green, as the words have it.”
“It’s very sad,” muttered Angie. “Very sad . . . very sad for his family.”
Jamie caught Isabel’s eye. He was daring her to laugh, but she looked down at the keys of the piano, and depressed one, a B-flat, gently, not enough for it to sound.
“Yes,” said Isabel. “He was a much-loved man, I believe.
And there’s a line there, you know, which is very intriguing. He was a braw gallant, and he played at the glove. Apparently that means that he played real tennis—not lawn tennis, but real tennis. That’s the game with those strange racquets and the ball that you hit off the roof. At first they played it by hitting the ball with their hands. Then they started to use a glove. Racquets came much later. There’s still a real tennis court at Falkland Palace.”
“We went there,” said Tom, “didn’t we, Angie? Over on the way to St. Andrews. Falkland Palace. There was an orchard—
remember?—and that peculiar tennis court was there. That’s where James V died, just after Mary, Queen of Scots, was born.
Remember? He just turned his face to the wall and died because he thought that everything was lost. They told us about it—that woman who showed us around.”
Angie frowned. She looked confused. “Which woman?”
Jamie came to her rescue. “I’d like to sing another song,” he said. “This is by Robert Burns, and is one which you all will know. ‘My love is like a red, red rose.’ ”
While Isabel paged through the book, Tom said, “That’s a beautiful song. Really beautiful.” He was sitting next to Angie on the sofa near the fire and now, as Isabel played the first bars T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
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of the introduction, he took Angie’s hand in his. Isabel, half watching, half attending to the printed music, thought it was possible that Tom knew exactly what Angie had in mind when she accepted his offer of marriage, but had decided that she might grow to love him because love can come if you believe in it and behave as if it exists. That was the case, too, with free will; with, perhaps, faith of any sort; and love was a sort of faith, was it not?
But then she glanced at Angie, and she changed her mind again. She would prefer him not to be around, she thought. That is when she would love him. She would love him much more then.
C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N
E
SHE AWOKE in the small hours of the morning, barely three, and heard him breathing beside her, that quiet, vulnerable sound, so human. Her pillow had slipped off the side of the bed and her head was against a ruffled undersheet. She was turned away from him; away, too, from the window through which the dim light of a sky that was never truly dark in the summer made its way through the gaps in the curtains. She was immediately wide awake, her mind clear, but she closed her eyes and drew the sheet up. It was warm; there was no need of blankets in that still air.
She went over what had happened. After the music the evening had come to an end. Mimi had been tired and said that she and Joe would go upstairs; Angie had looked at her watch and said that she, too, wanted to go to bed. Jamie had said, “I’m going to have a walk outside. Isabel? What about you?”
It was not an invitation that included Tom, and Isabel felt embarrassed, but then she thought that Tom would imagine he had been spoken for by Angie, who had declared that she was heading for bed. She said goodnight to Angie and saw that the T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
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other woman was looking at Jamie, and then at her, and was smiling. For a moment she wondered whether she knew what Isabel felt for him. Mimi had divined it; perhaps it was glaringly obvious.
She and Jamie had gone out together. It was half past ten and there was still enough light to see the details of the trees that clung to the side of the hills. And they could see, too, the sheep still grazing beside the dry-stane dyke that intersected the field at the bottom of the slope. There was a path that ran off the driveway beside the rhododendrons, which they had followed, Jamie leading, gravel underfoot, and twigs, too, pine nee-dles, cones.
She had shivered, not because it was cold—it was not, and she did not feel the need of a coat—but because she was with Jamie and she felt that she would have to speak to him now, before they went any further. He could hardly have forgotten about their room; had he thought about what might happen?
“Jamie.”
He was a few paces ahead of her on the path. Somewhere, not far away, there was a small burn descending from the hill above; there was the sound of water.
He turned round and smiled at her. “What an odd evening,”
he said.
She looked up at him. It was not all that odd; different, perhaps, from evenings they had spent together in Edinburgh, but not odd.
“Don’t you think that we should talk?” she said. Her voice had a catch in it, out of nervousness, and she thought: I sound petulant. A philosopher in the countryside, where talking was not always necessary.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h He looked surprised. “We’ve been talking all night, haven’t we?” He paused, and his smile now was conspiratorial, as if he was about to confess a suppressed thought. “Or, should I say, Angie was. Did you hear her at your end of the table? That woman can talk. I hardly had to say anything.”
No, thought Isabel, not that. “I didn’t mean that. I meant that we should talk about what seems to be happening between us.”
He was standing very close to a branch of a pine tree that had grown across the path, almost obstructing it. Somebody else had snapped off part of it and the pieces lay at the side of the path. He suddenly reached up and broke off a twig. It was something for his hands to do, something to mask the awkwardness of the moment.
He hesitated for a while before replying. “I’m not sure that anything’s happening between us,” he said eventually. “Or nothing that wasn’t happening before.”
He seemed to be searching her face for a clue, and, watching him, Isabel felt a momentary impatience. He was not a sixteen-year-old boy. He was twenty-something. He had had affairs. He knew.
“Look,” she said. “Do you mind if I put it simply? Do you want to sleep with me? Do you?”
His eyes were downcast, looking at the path, at the litter of pine cones. Her words were hanging in the air, with the sharp scent of the pine cones and the sound of the burn somewhere near. I’ve shocked him, she thought; and she was secretly appalled.
He shrugged. “I . . .”
“You don’t have to.”
“No. I want to.”
“Yes?”
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“Yes. I said yes. Yes.”
They went back.
S H E T H O U G H T: How beautiful he is lying there. I have never seen anything as beautiful, never, than this young man, with his smooth skin and there, just visible, the shape of his ribs. I can place my hand there, against his chest, and feel the human heart beating.
He opened his eyes.
“You’re awake too.” She moved her hand upwards to rest against the side of his face. You are mine entirely, she thought; now, at this moment, you are mine entirely, but you will not be for long, Jamie, because I do not possess you. Oh my darling, darling Jamie, I wish I could possess you, but now, more than ever, I do not.