So if all this proved to be true, then John Fraser was out of the running for the post, and that meant that Cat’s new boyfriend, Gordon, would have a much higher chance of appointment, particularly if Isabel found something questionable in the background of the third candidate. And that, she reflected, was exactly the way she should not be thinking. If you play a part in a competition for a public job—and a principal’s post was a public job—you should not favour your friends, or the friends of your friends, or the friend of your niece. That was what she reminded herself, but then it occurred to her: Why not? The overwhelming majority of people would without question favour a friend or a relative, if they had the chance, and not think twice about it. Were all these people wrong? Yes, thought Isabel; but then she thought, No. Morality could not be a matter of counting heads; but counting heads was sometimes a useful way of seeing whether a system of morality suited human nature as it actually was. Moral rules should not be devised for saints, but should be within the grasp of ordinary people; and ordinary people preferred those they knew to those they did not know; everyone knew that, but most of all, ordinary people knew it.
THE NEXT MORNING, Isabel took Charlie out in his pram to go shopping in Bruntsfield. It was an outing that he particularly enjoyed, as it inevitably culminated in a visit to Cat’s delicatessen, where Cat would give him a marzipan pig from a small box she kept on a shelf behind the counter. He knew exactly what lay in store and would shout “Pig! Pig!” as they entered. Then, with the treat grasped firmly in his hands, he would bite off the pig’s head, watched in astonishment by Eddie and Cat.
“It’s almost indecent,” said Cat. “He has no sympathy for the pig.”
Isabel felt that she had to defend her son. “But it’s just sugar to him. It’s not a living pig.”
“Does he like bacon?” asked Eddie. “Would he eat it if he knew?”
Isabel sighed. It was the right question. If he knew that bacon had once been a pig, then he would probably not eat it. There were pigs in a book she read him; three of them, two feckless and one wise, and he clearly loved them. Yet how different were we humans from the wolf who persecuted the three pigs?
Pigs give us bacon. This was the way it had been put to her in a book she had herself possessed as a child: Farmer John. Farmer John, a bucolic character in blue overalls, took the reader round the farmyard and explained what was what. Hens give us eggs—we steal them, thought Isabel. Cows give us milk—ditto. And then, in an act of astonishing self-sacrifice, Pigs give us bacon.
Eddie was good with Charlie, and Charlie seemed fascinated with the young man, who lifted him high in the air and then pretended to drop him, to squeals of excitement. While this was going on, Cat made coffee for herself and Isabel and carried the cups across to one of the tables.
They talked briefly about the delicatessen. The mozzarella cheese was late, Cat complained; she was thinking of changing their supplier. And the Parmesan too, although that was never delayed for more than a few days. Isabel listened politely; she wanted to hear about Gordon. Had he heard anything further about the job? she wanted to ask, but it was difficult with Cat going on about mozzarella and Parmesan.
Cat paused, and Isabel seized her chance. “I like him a lot, you know.”
“Who?”
“Your new boyfriend, Gordon.”
Cat was cagey. “So do I.”
“But of course you do,” said Isabel quickly. “One would not dislike a boyfriend, surely.” As she spoke, she thought of Bruno, the stunt man with elevator shoes. Had Cat actually liked him, or had Bruno been more of a perverse fashion statement? A boyfriend or girlfriend could easily be thought of in those terms, she realised. Or Cat might be making another point altogether, showing that she was her own person; sometimes people needed to find somebody the diametrical opposite of their parents just to make a point about independence. That happened often. A boy with dreadlocks, or a hard rock musician, a member—in good standing—of a biker gang, perhaps; a girl with multiple piercings in the nose and tongue; how easy with such a choice to remind parents that one’s tastes, one’s attitude and one’s voting intentions were not to be taken for granted.
Cat tensed. “Of course not.” She hesitated, but then, relaxing, said, “Gordon is very popular.”
Isabel said that she was pleased to hear that. There was always some reason for popularity.
“Oh yes?”
“Yes,” said Isabel. “Have you ever met somebody who’s popular but unpleasant?”
Cat thought about this. “No, not really.”
“Well, there you are.” She took a sip of her coffee. “So he has no faults—as far as you know?”
Cat shrugged. “Everybody has faults.”
“So they do,” said Isabel. “We all have our quirks.”
Cat looked at her with interest. “And yours are? Your faults, I mean: What are they?”
“We don’t always see our own faults with crystal clarity,” said Isabel. “But since you put me on the spot, I suppose I would have to say that I tend to over-complicate matters—it’s my training. And I can be nosy—so Jamie tells me.” She noticed that Cat was nodding in agreement, and felt slightly irritated. What she wanted was for Cat to say, ‘You over-complicate things? You nosy? Surely not.’ ”
Isabel was about to ask Cat about her own faults, but Cat suddenly said, “He’s too generous with his time. That’s one of his faults. It can be misinterpreted.”
Isabel was careful not to appear too interested in this. “A nice fault to have,” she said. “And it’s better, surely, than being grudging with one’s time.”
“He’ll listen to anybody,” said Cat. “He lets them go on about things, and then they think that he’s more interested in them than he really is.”
Isabel said that she saw how this could be awkward: expectations could be raised, hopes dashed. While she said this, her heart sank. Gordon was not going to prove to be the flawless candidate she had hoped. Affairs: that was what Cat was alluding to.
“Tell me,” she said. “Was he … with somebody before you met him?”
Cat took the spoon from her saucer and retrieved a residue of milky foam from the bottom of her cup. “There was somebody.” She paused, as if uncertain whether to go on. “Not that it amounted to anything on his side. One of these one-sided things.”
Isabel looked out of the window. A one-sided thing. She saw a man waiting at the bus stop on the other side of the road; a young woman passed by and his head turned. She thought he said something; the woman stopped, half turned, and then walked on. A one-sided thing.
“You mean somebody fell for him, but not the other way round?”
Cat nodded.
“Well, that can be difficult,” said Isabel. “Yes, I see that. But all that needs to be done, presumably, is to indicate that it’s not on.”
“She was rather unstable,” said Cat. “And married.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not a big thing,” said Cat. “Women get infatuated. Remember what’s-her-name? Madame …”