They looked at each other. “Well,” said Isabel. “Who’s to be believed?”
“Both?” asked Mimi.
Isabel considered this. It was true that people were inclined to rewrite their personal histories, like overly generous biogra-phers, so that they appeared in the best light. But even if there was no such rewriting here, it was quite possible that two people might feel threatened by each other and harbour fears that the threat might materialise; that was quite believable. It was also perfectly possible that Angie had made the first move to end the engagement, and that Tom, feeling guilty, had still offered her a financial settlement, and that she, out of pride, had turned it down. If this were so, then everything had worked out for the 2 6 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h best, for everybody. A loveless marriage was staved off, Angie’s pride was intact; and Tom, on mature reflection, might conclude that he had no need to feel guilty about anything.
She turned to Mimi to answer her question. “Perhaps,” she said. It was not much of an answer, but there were circumstances in which “perhaps” or “maybe” were the only answers one could honestly give.
She pondered, though. She pondered the question of whether she had done a wrong to Angie—a wrong which somehow needed redress. She had thought ill of her, and although Angie might never have been aware of what was thought of her, Isabel had gone further and actually spoken ill of her. That, in any system of reckoning, was a wrong against another. But she was not sure if she had the moral energy to pursue the matter and, besides, what could she do: write to her and apologise?
Only the most conscientious person would take moral duty to those lengths, and Isabel decided to leave matters where they lay. She had learned her lesson about leaping to conclusions and judging people unfairly, and that perhaps was enough. Again it was a question of a “perhaps.”
J O E A N D M I M I went to Skye, where it rained, and came back to Edinburgh, where it rained too, but not so persistently. Then, after a few more days there, they left for Oxford, where they planned to spend the rest of the summer. “Joe’s happy there,”
said Mimi. “He was a Rhodes Scholar, quite a few years ago now, and it’s full of memories. I’m not sure whether we’re happiest at that time of life, but we often think we were.”
I’m happiest now, thought Isabel. She wanted to say that to Mimi, but hesitated, because it seemed to her that one might so 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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easily slip into sentiment; and protestations of happiness could sound almost boasting to those whose happiness is incomplete.
One did not boast of perfect skin to one affected by dermatitis; for the same reason, perhaps, one should take care in proclaim-ing one’s happiness. Not that Mimi was unhappy in any way; she seemed equable, content and, indeed, Isabel need not have felt reticent, as Mimi, detecting Isabel’s state of mind, commented on it. Mimi had enough experience of life to sense the presence of love in the life of another, and to understand its transforming power. And she knew, too, how strong may be our wish to show off the object of our love, to say, Look, here he is, here!
“I know what’s happening to you,” Mimi said, reaching for Isabel’s hand. “Enjoy your good fortune.”
To her own surprise, Isabel did not feel any embarrassment.
“I have to pinch myself,” she said. “I have to persuade myself that it’s real.”
“It seems real enough to me,” said Mimi.
“And I know that it can’t last for ever,” said Isabel. “Auden said—”
Mimi smiled. “I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. Yes, we all think that. But don’t be too realistic about it.
Love can last an awfully long time. Even after the other person has gone away, one can still love him. People do that all the time.” She paused, and looked enquiringly at Isabel. “Is he likely to go away?”
They were sitting in Isabel’s study during this conversation, and Isabel glanced up at the shelves of books as she answered.
Her life was filled with baggage: a house; all these books, all these philosophers; a garden, a fox . . . Jamie’s life had none of that. He could go away at any time if a good job came up some-2 6 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h where in an orchestra. He had almost joined an orchestra in London not all that long ago, and he had also talked of living in Berlin as if it were a real possibility. She had never thought of living in Berlin, and would have no idea how to go about it; that was the difference between them, that and those fourteen years.
“He might,” Isabel said. “I think we’re at different stages of our lives. We really are. He might want to go off and work somewhere else. He’s just starting. He could do anything.”
Mimi reached for a magazine on the sofa beside her. She flicked idly through the pages, and then turned again to Isabel. “There’s an expression that people use these days—have you noticed it?—which is actually quite useful. They just say
‘whatever.’ It sounds very insouciant—and it is—but there are occasions . . .”
“And you feel that you want to say it now?”
“Yes,” said Mimi. “Whatever. There you are. Whatever. It more or less sums things up. Things will sort themselves out.
That’s what it means. Things will sort themselves out and we don’t really need to do anything.”
“Whatever,” said Isabel.
“Yes,” said Mimi, tossing the magazine aside. “Whatever.
And do take some advice from me on this, Isabel. You know that I don’t like to play the older cousin, but maybe just this once.
May I?”
Isabel nodded her assent. She could not imagine herself ever resenting advice from Mimi. “Yes. Of course.”
“Just let this thing evolve naturally,” said Mimi. “Stop thinking about it. Just for the moment remember that first you are a woman, then, second, you’re a philosopher. Can you do that, do you think?”
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It would be hard not to be a philosopher, because that is what she was, and, thought Isabel, you don’t easily forget what you are. But she could try, and she told Mimi she would. This satisfied her cousin, who only wanted Isabel to be happy, that was all. And Isabel wished the same for Mimi, and knew, too, that she would miss her when she went back to Dallas. They would write to one another, and speak on the telephone, but it was never the same as being in the same room, without three thousand miles of sea and half a continent between you.
On impulse she rose to her feet and bent down to plant a kiss on Mimi’s brow, which made Mimi smile, moist-eyed for a moment at this friendship between cousins, something one could never replicate afresh, even if one had the recipe, relying as it did on a long past, and so much that had been said and not said.
OV E R T H E N E X T T WO W E E K S Edinburgh basked in unusual warmth. Isabel found that she could sit out in her garden and work there, in a shady spot to avoid the heat in the sun. She had to water the lawn, which had started to dry out, and when she did so she caught the Mediterranean smell of settling dust, and the scent of thyme, too, wafting from her herb bed. It was a time of long afternoons and the humming sound of bees attracted by the low lavender hedge about her lawn. She and Jamie had several meals outside, lunches and dinners, sitting lazily on the grass itself or on the old canvas deck chairs which Isabel had taken from their dusty storage place in the garden shed. With his pupils away on holiday, Jamie had less to do than usual. He was working on a composition, he said, but it was going slowly: