The Quiet Side of Passion

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “How kind of you to ask,” said Lettuce, recovering his composure. “She has settled well into Edinburgh. She has been working very hard in her garden.”

  “Il faut cultiver notre jardin,” muttered Isabel.

  “Hah!” exclaimed Lettuce. “Voltaire is right about so many things.”

  “Please give her my regards,” said Isabel. And then added, “I hope she isn’t too lonely.” She said this almost without thinking, but was aware of her cruelty as she spoke. It was like stepping on a worm, she thought, and felt immediate regret at her pettiness.

  Lettuce looked up sharply. “Why should she be lonely?” he asked. There was a peevish note in his voice, and she saw him look anxiously towards Claire, just as Claire, a few seconds ago, had sent a glance in his direction.

  “You must be away a lot,” said Isabel quickly, trying to explain herself. “And most of her friends must be down south, surely.”

  “We have made many friends since we came to Edinburgh,” said Lettuce.

  “Of course.”

  Lettuce was now looking at his watch. “I had better be on my way,” he said. He rose to his feet. The dent to his confidence brought by Isabel’s remarks seemed to have been short-lived. His manner was breezy now. “One thing, though—I was talking to Claire about the job she’s doing here and I suggested—and I’m happy to say she agreed—that I might pop in from time to time and help her with it. I assume you have no objection.” He paused. “All hands on deck, so to speak.” He smiled magnanimously. “Pro bono, of course.”

  Isabel said nothing. Lettuce looked at her. “Oh, another thing,” he said. “That paper I passed on to you. I see it over there.” He pointed to a place on a shelf where Isabel had put it, along with a number of other submissions.

  Isabel had not thought about the paper, but now it came back to her: “The Duty to Lie,” by Professor Kale.

  “I think we should publish it,” said Lettuce. “It’s very interesting. Claire can copy-edit it if you like.”

  Isabel seethed at his effrontery. We should publish it...We...She drew in her breath. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. Not of sufficient interest. Sorry.”

  Lettuce glared at her. “But surely...”

  Isabel was now more or less certain. Kale was a relative of Lettuce. That could be the only explanation.

  * * *

  —

  “YOUR DAY?” asked Isabel, standing before the stove that evening, watching a scattering of shiitake mushrooms sizzle in the frying pan. She added, “Should I be doing these mushrooms in butter? I’m using olive oil, and I don’t think it’s the same.”

  Jamie rose from his chair and looked over her shoulder. “They look nice,” he said. “You’re putting them in an omelette?”

  Isabel nodded. “I thought I would. I was going to do us omelettes since it was lamb last night and we shouldn’t eat too much red meat, should we?”

  “Not according to the government,” said Jamie. “The Department of Health, or whatever they call themselves, published new guidelines a few days ago. It was all over the papers. They said eat more fish and vegetables.”

  “The United Nations said the same thing, didn’t it?”

  Jamie corrected her. “That was bacon and processed meats. Very bad for us. The WHO said that, I think.”

  “It seems odd to be advised on bacon by the United Nations,” Isabel mused. “Or on fish by the government. I suppose it’s reasonable enough, it’s just that one might imagine they would be preoccupied with other things.”

  Jamie smiled, and put an arm around Isabel’s waist. “Those mushrooms tend to be quite tough, you know. They can be stringy.”

  Isabel gave the mushrooms a poke with a wooden spoon. “I’m giving them a lot of time in the pan. It should soften them.” She repeated her question about butter.

  “I think so,” said Jamie. “But don’t worry—they’ll be fine. And the government also says we should use more olive oil, although they’re discreet about that. They don’t come out and say it in so many words—olive oil is considered elitist, you see, and no government wants to be seen as elitist. It’s like saying ‘Let them eat cake.’ ”

  “No government wants a Marie Antoinette moment.”

  “No, it does not.”

  “So what do they say?” asked Isabel.

  “They say ‘Use more vegetable oils.’ That’s code for extra-virgin, cold-pressed olive oil, if you’re middle class and like shopping in delis; or sunflower oil, produced in France by the tanker-full, if you frequent the cut-price supermarkets. Tact on their part.”

  Isabel repeated her question about Jamie’s day.

  “Uneventful,” he said. “Teaching in the Academy all morning.” He stopped to think. “Actually, there was a major development. Seriously good news.”

  She waited. He leaned forward and examined the mushrooms more closely. “They’re taking their time, aren’t they?”

  “Your good news?”

  He gave her waist another squeeze. “Geoffrey Weir.”

  “He’s disappeared? Arrested for crimes against musicality?”

  “No, not quite—although that could have happened. He’s given up. Packed in the bassoon. Declared defeat. Bassoon, one, Geoffrey Weir, zero.”

  “Poor boy,” said Isabel. “You didn’t put him off, did you?”

  Jamie defended himself. “No, definitely not. I tried and tried. I did my best.”

  “But it wasn’t to be?”

  “Exactly.” Jamie reached forward to extract a fragment of mushroom from the pan. He blew on this to cool it before popping it into his mouth. “Meaty,” he said. “As advertised.”

  “What did he say?” asked Isabel.

  “He said that he thought it might be better if he tried something else. He said that it wasn’t his fault—it was his instrument. And there’s a bit of truth in that. It was useless.”

  “Oh well.”

  “That was the good news,” said Jamie. “Then there was the bad news. Apparently, Geoffrey wanted to sell his bassoon and use the money to buy a new laptop. But he said that his father vetoed this. He wants to keep the bassoon because Geoffrey has a younger brother. He’s only ten, this brother, and—this is the bad news—he’s expressed an interest in learning the bassoon.”

  Isabel laughed. “He’ll be coming your way?”

  “Probably.”

  “Not all Weirs are the same,” said Isabel. “The sins of the brother shouldn’t be visited upon the brother, so to speak.”

  Jamie agreed this was so. “I’ve seen the little Weir, and he doesn’t look as bad as his big brother. He has rather odd, sticking-out ears, which are endearing. Geoffrey fancies himself and has very disconcerting plucked eyebrows. Should boys pluck their eyebrows?”

  “Not traditional boys,” answered Isabel. “But apart from all that, what else happened?”

  Jamie told her about a rehearsal he had attended in the late afternoon. A consort with whom he played from time to time was playing a James MacMillan programme at St. Giles’ Cathedral. “An utter treat,” he said. “Not like work at all. Then I came home. That was my day.” He paused. “And yours? Where’s whatshername?”

  “Antonia.”

  “Yes, her. I take it she’s out.”

  Isabel explained that Antonia had stayed in the house until two in the afternoon and had then announced that she wanted to see something of the city. Isabel had encouraged her, and had given her a bus map. “I asked her whether she would be in for dinner, and she said no. She told me that she would be back some time this evening. She has her key and everything.”

  “And what else?” asked Jamie.

  Isabel put down the wooden spoon. The mushrooms were taking far too long. “I think we’re going to have a cheese omelette instead,” she said.

  Jami
e laughed. “I don’t really like shiitake mushrooms,” he said. “I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “You should have. We shouldn’t keep secrets from one another.”

  Jamie grinned. “That’s the only secret I’ve ever kept from you.”

  She kissed him. “And mine...” She kissed him again. “Mine is: I don’t really like potatoes dauphinoise.”

  It was meant as a joke, but Jamie’s face fell. “My potatoes...”

  “No,” she said hurriedly. “I love them. I love potatoes dauphinoise.”

  He said, feigning hurt, “You shouldn’t joke about potatoes.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  He retrieved a block of cave-aged cheddar from the fridge. “I’ll take over the omelettes. You sit down, have a glass of wine and tell me about your day.”

  He found the cheese grater. “Do you remember something you said about omelettes?”

  She did not. “I don’t recall saying much about omelettes,” she said. “Not that I don’t have my views...”

  He reminded her: “You were talking about naming dishes after tyrants. I think you said something about Omelette Ghengis.”

  Isabel remembered, but only vaguely. “Is that what you’re going to make?”

  Jamie nodded. “Smoked paprika is called for,” he said. “As well as cheese. It should be goat’s cheese, as Ghengis’s people kept lots of goats, I think. Or ewes, perhaps. You could use ewe’s milk. And while I’m creating this, you can tell me about your own day.”

  Isabel sighed. “Lettuce,” she said.

  “Not with Omelettes Ghengis. We’re having fennel.”

  “No, Professor Lettuce.”

  “Ah.”

  She told him about how Lettuce had appeared that morning, and how he had—preposterously, she felt—suggested that he should drop in from time to time to help Claire. She mentioned her suspicion that Lettuce was having an affair with Claire.

  Jamie was incredulous about both aspects of this: the affair and Lettuce’s presumption. “What a cheek!” he exploded. “I take it you said no.”

  Isabel looked at him apologetically.

  “You did, didn’t you?” Jamie pressed.

  “Not exactly,” she confessed. “I was at a loss for words, I’m afraid. And he didn’t give me the time to say anything, really. He just made the suggestion and then breezed out.”

  Jamie shook his head in disbelief. “How can he?”

  “Well, he did.”

  “Write to him,” he said. “Write and tell him that he’s not welcome.” He paused; a better idea had occurred. “Speak to Claire about it. That would be easier from your point of view, and she probably encouraged him. She can put him off.”

  Isabel was thinking of something else. “I didn’t treat him very well, I’m afraid.”

  Jamie frowned. “You?”

  “I scored a cheap point,” she said. “I talked about his wife in Claire’s presence. I knew it would embarrass him.”

  Jamie made light of this. “You don’t need to beat yourself up over that. He deserves everything he gets.”

  She did not think this was so. “It was petty of me.”

  He looked at her fondly. Isabel’s conscience was a marvellous thing, he felt; it was sharper, more insistent and more finely calibrated than an expensive scientific instrument. But it was also frustrating, causing her to stumble over the most inconsequential of matters—things that neither he nor anybody else he knew would pay much attention to. So she had offended Lettuce by drawing attention to the fact that he was a married man having an affair—but what could Lettuce expect? No, she did not need to reproach herself, but of course she would, and he knew there was not much he could do to dissuade her.

  Jamie repeated his suggestion that Isabel should speak to Claire and get her to tell Lettuce that what he was proposing was unacceptable. “You really must do that,” he insisted. “You have to nip it in the bud.”

  Isabel did not argue, and the subject was put to one side. As they ate the Omelettes Ghengis they talked about other matters. Then, after Jamie had done the washing-up, they read and watched a short, pointless television programme. At ten o’clock they went to bed. Jamie said, “She hasn’t come back yet.” Isabel replied, “She’s twenty-one. Did you go to bed at ten o’clock when you were twenty-one?”

  “It depends,” said Jamie, and smiled.

  * * *

  —

  AT ELEVEN-THIRTY, Isabel was woken by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. For a few moments she was confused, in a state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, but then she was wide awake and realised that this was Antonia returning. She lay still, eyes fixed on the ceiling, staring up at faint tracings of light from the moonlit night outside. Jamie was sound asleep, his right arm across his chest, his breathing just detectable, a sound like a whisper. She felt one of his feet gently touching hers under the bedclothes, a point of warmth.

  Both Charlie and Magnus were sound sleepers, but she wished she had mentioned to Antonia that she should be careful about making too much noise when she came in. Sometimes Magnus woke up if they talked too loudly or the telephone rang, and he could be slow to get back to sleep. And if he woke, then Charlie invariably woke up too and demanded a glass of milk or something inappropriate—an olive, perhaps.

  The house had three floors. Their bedrooms, as well as the bedrooms occupied by the boys, were below the attic floor, reached by a small back stairway, where Antonia’s room was located. Her bedroom, in fact, was directly above Isabel and Jamie’s room, with the result that now she heard the sound of Antonia’s door opening and footsteps crossing the floor. There was a thump, as if something had been dropped on the floor above—a shoe, perhaps—and then, quite unmistakably, the sound of conversation. There were two voices, and one was male.

  Isabel drew in her breath. Antonia had come back with a man.

  She sat up in bed and strained to listen. Yes, it was a male voice, and then there was laughter. There was another thump. That was another shoe.

  She turned to Jamie and placed a hand on his shoulder. He moved, as if to brush her hand away, but then he opened his eyes.

  “What is it?”

  Isabel replied in a whisper. “Antonia’s back.”

  Jamie grunted.

  “She has somebody with her.”

  Jamie rubbed at his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was thick with sleep. “Who?”

  “A boy.”

  Jamie turned on his side to face Isabel. Now there was the sound of more laughter from above.

  “We should have thought of this,” said Jamie, his voice lowered—if they could hear Antonia and her friend, then they might hear Isabel and Jamie just as well. “We should have given her the room at the back.”

  “She didn’t ask,” whispered Isabel. “I’m not sure that I like this.”

  “Her bringing somebody back?”

  “Yes. It’s our house. If you’re a guest in somebody’s house you don’t bring people back without asking. And besides...”

  “Yes?” asked Jamie. “Besides?”

  “She’s a quick worker,” said Isabel. “She’s been here one day and she’s picked somebody up in a club somewhere.” She paused. “Am I being old-fashioned?”

  Jamie made a non-committal noise.

  “I suspect I am,” said Isabel. “But I just don’t feel comfortable about this.”

  “I’m not sure if you can dictate to au pairs,” muttered Jamie. “Can you tell them how to behave when it comes to this sort of thing? Their sex lives are their own business, don’t you think?”

  Isabel lay back in bed. “Yes,” she said. “But surely we’ve got the right to know who’s coming into our house and spending the night. He could be anyone—absolutely anyone.”

  “True,” conceded Jamie, his voice becomi
ng sleepy again. “Speak to her tomorrow, although heaven knows...”

  “Heaven knows what?”

  Jamie did not reply. He had drifted off to sleep again, leaving Isabel to lie awake with her thoughts. Upstairs there was silence. Isabel closed her eyes. In the darkness, small problems can loom large, and Isabel now felt that in some strange way her house, her space, was being taken over by other people—by Claire, by Professor Lettuce, by Antonia and by a strange young man whose identity she had no idea of, who was now starting to laugh again just feet above her head, separated only by a ceiling of old pine joists, laths and the horsehair that the Victorians put into plaster.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AT BREAKFAST the next morning nothing was said to Antonia about the events of the previous night. There was no sign of the man, and Isabel assumed that the opening and closing doors that she had heard, rather vaguely, shortly after six was the sound of his departure. Antonia herself was bright-eyed and energetic. She had boiled an egg for Charlie and had patiently fed Magnus his baby muesli; now she was tackling the washing-up and asking Isabel what she could do for her that morning.

  “There’s a whole lot of ironing,” said Isabel. “I know it’s a thankless task, but it would be very helpful if you could make a start on it.” She paused. “And yesterday?” It would have been a bit too pointed to say “last night.” “Yesterday? How did things go?”

  “I went into the city,” Antonia replied. “I saw a lot. The Castle. The Royal Mile. The Scottish National Gallery.”

  Isabel expressed admiration. “Busy.” Quick worker, she thought, and then stopped herself.

  “Then I had something to eat in a pizza restaurant,” continued Antonia. “I thought it very funny—to come all the way from Italy, and then to eat in an Italian restaurant.”

  “Comfort food,” said Isabel. “What you’re used to can be very comforting when you’re far from home.”

  “Except we don’t eat pizza in my house,” said Antonia. “That’s a southern dish. We don’t eat southern food.”

  “And then?” asked Isabel, trying not to sound nosy. “What did you do after dinner?”