The Comfort of Saturdays

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Cat hesitated. ‘Maybe. Maybe, a bit. After all, he’s much younger, isn’t he?’

  ‘Do you think I’m not aware of that?’

  Cat rose to her feet. ‘Look, I’m tired. And I don’t think this is getting us anywhere. I came to thank you for looking after the shop. I’m really grateful. And I’ve brought you something from Sri Lanka.’ She fished into a bag that she had brought with her and extricated a box of tea. ‘White tea,’ she said. ‘It’s a great delicacy. It comes from the smallest leaves of the tea plant, when they’re still buds.’

  Isabel took the box of tea and thanked her. Then Cat left, and Isabel sat on the rug with Charlie. She embraced him, gently, feeling his breath against her cheek. She had tied nobody down. Not Jamie. Not Grace. And she would not tie her son down either. They were all free and would always be. That’s what I believe in, she told herself. That, and you, Charlie, you, my darling.

  She went inside. It was Charlie’s lunchtime, and she prepared some minced lamb and vegetable puree for him, which he gobbled down with enthusiasm. Then it was time for his afternoon sleep; he rubbed his eyes in his struggle to remain awake. ‘No need to stay awake, my darling,’ she said. ‘Land of Nod for you.’

  ‘Nn,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Nn? Of course, you’re right. Nn.’

  He dropped off almost immediately, and Isabel made her way downstairs to her study. Jamie was in Glasgow for the day, playing with Scottish Opera in a walk-through of a new production. He would be back in time for dinner, he had said, and they would go out together; Grace had offered to babysit.

  She sat at her desk and had begun to write her letter to Dove – the restrained letter – when she saw that the small red light of her answering machine was blinking. She had cleared it of messages earlier that day; something must have come in while she was sitting out in the garden. She wondered whether it was Jamie; occasionally he got away in good time and caught an earlier train. Or Grace, to say that she could not babysit? She had an aunt in Leith who was unwell at the moment and she had warned Isabel that she might have to spend the evening with her rather than babysitting Charlie.

  Isabel pressed the play button.

  ‘Hi. I hope I have the right number. I’ve tried the other one you gave me and there was no reply. I hope you get this. Good news. That audition in Boston – I spoke to Tom, the guy I talked about, and he said that they’ll hear you. He says they’re in funds right now and they’ll pay your fare – economy, sorry – week after next, as planned. I’ll come too. Hold your hand, so to speak. But they need to know real soon. So call me when you get back and then I’ll call Tom. Okay?’

  Isabel’s finger stayed where it was, resting against the play button. Nick Smart. How easy to get numbers mixed up, even, it would seem, when you are a very self-possessed composer whose life, it appears to others, moves on well-oiled tracks.

  Jamie had said nothing to her about this. Nothing. And where was that picture of Brother Fox? Had she made a dreadful mistake? And did he really love her, or was she just labouring under some huge delusion?

  She looked at the beginnings of the letter to Dove on her computer screen, as if that might distract her from the cold dread that had suddenly come upon her. She moved her hands back to the keyboard. Why did people hurt one another? Why did we punish one another in all the inventive ways we had devised for the purpose? She stared at the screen through her tears and decided she would not bring disappointment; she would not be the agent of Nemesis, not this time, not now. ‘Dear Christopher,’ she wrote. ‘Thank you for sending me that piece on the Trolley Problem. Yes, we shall publish this. Not this issue but the next. Warmest wishes, Isabel.’

  She pressed the key that would print the letter on the headed note-paper of the Review. Then she stood up, but sat down again almost immediately. She did not know what to do. She felt as if she wanted to run out of the house, to get away from everything; but Charlie was upstairs, and she could not. She was tied down. Jamie was free, as she wanted him to be, but she was tied down.

  16

  Jamie was on the train that left Glasgow at six o’clock. He arrived back at the house shortly after seven, letting himself in by the front door and going straight upstairs to see if Charlie was still awake. The nursery was in semi-darkness, the shutters closed, the only light being that from the dim bulb that calmed Charlie through the watches of the night. He could tell from his breathing that Charlie was deeply asleep, and when he looked down he saw the small head on the mattress, his eyes closed, his mouth open in repose. He bent down and planted the lightest of kisses on his son’s forehead, or just above it, as he did not want to wake him. There was the smell of soap, of down, of washed wool blanket, of a tiny life.

  He found Isabel in the kitchen, leaning against the polished steel guardrail of the cooking range, paging through a magazine. She looked up when he came in, and he sensed immediately that something was wrong. At least Charlie was all right; it had nothing to do with that. The Review? She had been worrying over some business with Dove. Or that doctor and his troubles; Isabel could get caught up in the problems of others to the point where she allowed them to destroy her peace of mind. Maybe it was that.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  She shook her head, far too quickly, he thought.

  He crossed the room. ‘Yes, there is. Of course there is.’

  She avoided meeting his gaze, and that, he thought, was another sign. He was standing in front of her now and took the magazine from her hands; he saw that it was upside down.

  ‘What is it, Isabel? Please tell me.’

  She looked down at the floor steadfastly. ‘There was a message for you on the answering machine.’

  He frowned. ‘What about?’

  ‘About Boston,’ she said. ‘About . . .’

  He took her hand. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  She waited for him to continue, but he was silent.

  ‘Nick Smart,’ she said. ‘He telephoned to say that the audition was on.’

  Jamie looked at her uncomprehendingly. ‘What audition?’

  ‘The audition he’s arranged for you.’ She paused and their eyes met, but only briefly. ‘So if they like you, presumably you’ll go and work there. Live there.’

  Slowly the look on Jamie’s face changed from incomprehension to understanding. ‘That audition’s not for me,’ he said quietly. ‘And the message wasn’t for me either. I think he dialled the wrong number.’

  ‘Yes he did,’ said Isabel. ‘He thought this was your flat.’

  Jamie took her hand. She tried to take it away from him, but he held on, tightly. ‘No, don’t. Don’t. Just listen to me, Isabel. That audition is for Will. You know, the oboist. The one you heard play that solo at the Queen’s Hall last time. He and Nick have been hitting it off rather well recently, and Will said that Nick was arranging for him to have an audition over in Boston. I only half-listened at the time, but it was something to that effect.’ He stopped. He was trying to work out why Nick had telephoned the house. ‘And so I think what happened is that he meant to phone Will but phoned us instead. He’s got this number. I gave him both. He must have looked the wrong one up.’

  He felt Isabel stop trying to release her hand. She did not care how the error had come about; the important thing was that it was an error. ‘So you’re not going to Boston?’ she said.

  ‘Of course not. And I certainly wouldn’t go anywhere at Nick’s suggestion.’ He paused. ‘There’s something about him that makes me uncomfortable, you know. He’s sarcastic about other people. Belittles them. But I don’t want to be rude to him.’

  Isabel gave him her other hand. He was cold from the walk up from Haymarket, and she squeezed his hands to warm them up.

  ‘You’re kind,’ she said. ‘You’re kind to him. To me. To everyone.’

  ‘I’m not . . .’ He was embarrassed, and turned away. It was now sinking in that she had believed him to be about to desert her. How could she think that?

  Isabel put
her arms around him. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please forgive me . . . forgive me for even thinking that you could hide something from me. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I wouldn’t . . . I really wouldn’t even think . . .’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t. It’s all in my mind. I’m the stupid one.’

  They stood in silence, and then, after a few minutes, he reminded her that they were due to go out to dinner; that he needed to take a shower and that she would want to get dressed. ‘Also,’ he said. ‘Also, I’ve got a little present for you.’

  Her heart gave a leap; the picture of Brother Fox, and she had almost spoiled the occasion of its presentation by accusing him of being about to desert her . . . and Charlie.

  He left the room and came back with something in his hands. A small bunch of flowers, freesias, carefully done up in the florist’s thin printed foil, their strong, sweet scent rising from the packaging; a simple bunch of flowers.

  She kissed him on the cheek. ‘A real surprise,’ she said, adding, ‘in more ways than one.’

  ‘Why?’

  She hesitated. Why had she added anything? Thank you would have been enough. ‘I was expecting something else, I suppose. These are very nice, but I was expecting something else.’

  It was too late to withdraw the remark, and she found that she did not have the heart to lie. So when he asked her what she had been expecting, she told him what she had thought that it might be.

  ‘I thought you were going to give me a picture,’ she said, and, seeing his surprise, added, ‘a picture of a fox.’

  ‘A fox?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I saw it more or less by mistake.’

  ‘I thought that you would like these flowers,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘And I should never have said that I was expecting something else.’

  Jamie began to smile. ‘On the other hand . . . Or, shall I say, in the other hand . . .’ He had been holding the painting in his other hand, concealed behind his back, and now he gave it to her, a small parcel wrapped in green paper, about which a silver ribbon had been inexpertly tied. Men are not good at tying ribbons, thought Isabel; but she would not have it otherwise – she would not change this inadequately tied ribbon for anything else.

  ‘I knew that you knew about it,’ Jamie said. ‘Robin showed it to you, as I’d asked him to. I had forgotten to tell you about it, and so I decided to add an element of anticipation. And wrap it too.’

  ‘You’re very romantic,’ she said.

  He laughed. ‘I try.’

  She slipped the ribbon off and eased the painting out of its wrapping. ‘Brother Fox,’ she whispered.

  ‘Or one of his close relatives,’ said Jamie. ‘Perhaps his grandfather.’

  She looked at the painting more closely. Jamie was beside her, looking over her shoulder; she felt his breath against her neck, and every nerve ending down her spine seemed to tingle. The fox looked back at her; at the centre of his eyes a cleverly positioned tiny spot of white paint was light from the sky, reflected back towards the onlooker. How does an artist capture that electric moment of life, she asked herself, render it permanent in oils? ‘How does he do it?’ she said, half to herself, half to Jamie. ‘How does he manage to make him . . . make him look so much like a fox?’

  ‘He’s very real, isn’t he?’ said Jamie. He reached forward to touch the painting with a forefinger. She saw the brown of his skin, so dear to her; he did not need the sun, as Cat did. Jamie’s face, his hands, were a natural light brown, his Mediterranean colouring.

  ‘You’re touching him,’ she said. ‘I half expect him to turn round and nip you. But, look, he’s quite unconcerned.’

  She turned to Jamie, faced him. He was looking into her eyes, smiling. He bent slightly, for he was taller than Isabel, and kissed her, first on the cheek, then on the lips. He put his arms about her shoulders; his hands were warm against her. She let the painting slip from her fingers, but it was not damaged, as it fell on the cushion of the chair, face up, Brother Fox still staring at them, unperturbed.

  They went to the Café St Honoré, a small French restaurant off Thistle Street. It was a favourite of Isabel’s; intimate, but not so intimate as to inflict upon one the conversations of those at neighbouring tables. A perfect size, thought Isabel, mirroring the size of Edinburgh itself.

  ‘I should not like to be completely anonymous,’ Isabel remarked, looking about her. ‘Imagine living somewhere like Tokyo, with twelve million people, or however many it is.’

  ‘Perhaps Tokyo isn’t as anonymous as it seems if one’s Japanese. I suspect that people who live there don’t feel all that anonymous. And what about London or New York? Are they all that anonymous? At least for the locals?’

  Isabel thought about this. ‘No, you’re probably right. We carve out our little villages, even in big cities. There’s our little village up in Merchiston. And Cat’s village in the New Town.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jamie, picking up the menu which a waiter had placed before him. ‘And when I walk through town, I usually see at least one of my pupils. Or the mother of one of them.’ He paused, and smiled at a memory. ‘I went into a bar the other day, you know, and there was one of the boys from the school, bold as brass. He’s just sixteen, and I know which class he’s in. And there he was in a bar.’

  ‘Did he see you?’

  ‘I think so. He looked away pretty sharply, and then I think he left. He was with somebody.’

  ‘Boys will be . . .’ began Isabel. Of course a sixteen-year-old boy would try to get into a bar if he thought he could get away with it; one should not be too surprised. But then she thought: What was Jamie doing in a bar? And when did he go to bars?

  ‘Which bar?’ she asked.

  The question seemed to take him aback, and he hesitated before he answered. ‘Oh, just a bar in George Street.’

  ‘A wine bar?’

  ‘That’s what they call themselves.’

  She looked at him. Had he been evasive? Or was it just her imagining things? She knew that she should not be possessive, but she could not help wondering whether he had gone into the bar by himself, or whether he had gone with somebody, or to meet somebody. People seldom went into bars by themselves unless they really needed a drink, or needed to kill time. Jamie needed neither – he was a light drinker, and he was always complaining about never having enough time. So he had gone in with somebody.

  She looked down at the menu while she asked him. ‘And you? Were you with somebody?’

  She concentrated on the menu, reading the same line over and over, conscious of the fact that the question, in all its intrusiveness, lay unanswered on the tablecloth between them.

  Then he replied: ‘Sally. She used to play in the chamber orchestra. She doesn’t any more, but I know her from that.’

  Isabel did not look up. ‘Have I met her?’

  His voice was even, matter-of-fact. ‘No.’ He paused. ‘You’re wondering about her, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Isabel lied. But her voice betrayed the truth; she could not lie without her voice rising, breaking up, as if the words were clawed back and swallowed. They would never need a lie detector for her, she felt; the untruths would be so obvious to anyone with half an ear.

  ‘Sally is going through a difficult time at the moment,’ said Jamie. ‘Her husband has been diagnosed with MS and they’re taking it very badly. She needed a shoulder to cry on.’

  Isabel looked up from the menu. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  For a moment, Jamie looked at her with what might have been reproach, but then he looked down once more at the menu. ‘You mustn’t doubt me, Isabel,’ he said quietly.

  His words struck home. She reached out to take his hand. ‘It’s because I love you,’ she said. ‘I can’t help that. I just do. I love you so much that I sit here thinking . . . Well, I just sit here thinking, What if he goes off with somebody else? What if he suddenly goes off me? I can
’t help it.’

  He looked at her with astonishment. ‘You think that?’

  ‘That you’ll leave me?’

  ‘Yes. Do you really think that?’

  She nodded, almost guiltily. Would he understand? Would any man understand that that is what so many women felt? And they felt it even if their husbands or boyfriends showed no inclination to go off with somebody else. They felt that because they would all have met some woman who would have said to them, I thought that I knew him so well, and now this. And in her case there was that additional worry that came with the difference in their ages. She had kept her looks, she was still attractive, but the years would show, eventually. And would he still find her appealing when that happened? It was the fear that so many women had, and one could not dismiss it, because in so many cases it proved to be well founded. The younger woman came along, and male biology asserted itself.

  She had taken his hand; now he moved so that it was he who took hers. ‘Isabel, listen. I’m the one who proposed to you. Remember? In Queen Street, after we had been at Lyon and Turnbull. I asked you to marry me then and you’re the one who said no. So if anybody should do any worrying about the other leaving, then . . .’

  They had never discussed that occasion; it had been left where it stood, an awkward memory. Now she wondered whether she should say, Ask me again. And this time, she would say yes, and she would put all doubt behind her. She had declined the first time because she had not wanted to take his freedom from him; but that had been purely because of the difference in their ages. Had the time come to stop worrying about that? Peter Stevenson had told her to stop thinking about it; perhaps he was right.

  ‘All right, Isabel,’ he had said. ‘You have to stop worrying. We have. We thought when you began this that it might not last. But it has, hasn’t it? And Charlie changes everything. So even if it’s true that an age difference can lead to people drifting apart because they have different interests, that doesn’t need to happen. All that the age difference might do is to put a little bit of extra strain on things. That’s all.’