She pushed the proofs to one side and waited. She could hear Jamie outside in the hall, and then the door of her study opened and he came in. She held her breath. She suddenly felt that she hated him; she hated this man coming into her study. It was so easy, so very easy.
He smiled at her. “Busy?”
How dare you smile? she thought. How dare you? She looked away.
“Isabel?” He sounded anxious.
“Yes.”
He immediately picked up the coldness of her tone. “Is something wrong?”
She opened her mouth intending to say that nothing was wrong, but that was not what came out. Instead, she said, “Did you enjoy that film?”
He looked puzzled. “What film?”
“That Italian film.” Her voice faltered.
The effect was immediate, and dramatic. “Oh God …” He moved quickly towards her, and then stopped. He had been carrying an envelope that he had picked up off the hall table, and now he dropped it. He did not bend down to pick it up. He said, “Oh God …”
He was now standing close to her. He reached out, but she avoided his touch.
“Eddie told you,” he said simply.
She looked up at him. It was true; there was no innocent explanation. If there had been one, he would not look like this: drained, guilty. The onset of conscience, she thought. Throwing a stone at a duck.
“I didn’t want you to know,” he admitted.
She turned on him angrily. “Evidently not.”
“Because I felt so awkward about the whole thing.”
Awkward? She shook her head in disbelief. “As one might,” she said. And then, almost under her breath, but audible none the less, she continued: “I hate you, you know.” The words were flat, were ugly, and she regretted saying them the moment she uttered them; she did not hate Jamie, she loved him, but she hated him too, wanted to harm him, to strike him, push him away from her. She closed her eyes. This isn’t happening. I don’t know what I’m thinking or doing. Go away.
Her eyes were still closed, but she felt his hands upon her shoulders. She tensed: it was not a lover’s touch, would never again be such.
“Isabel,” he whispered. “It’s not what you think. It really isn’t. Prue invited me there. The rehearsal finished early and she asked me to go to the cinema with her.” He paused. She heard his breathing; she felt his breath against her cheek. “What could I do? You know about her. She’s the one who’s ill. Dying.”
She opened her eyes. She looked at him; there were the beginnings of tears in his eyes.
“I only went with her because … because I couldn’t say no. She has nobody.”
She reached out and took his hand. Her relief made her feel almost dizzy. “Oh, Jamie …”
“And there’s something more,” said Jamie. “I wanted to talk to you about it, but I didn’t know how to.”
“I’m sorry,” said Isabel. “I thought …” She did not know how to say what she had thought. How could she tell him that she had not trusted him?
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t blame you for feeling as you did.”
She shook her head. “What’s this other thing?”
He looked away. “It’s very difficult to know how to put it. Prue asked me to go back to her flat with her after the film.”
Isabel was quite still. She felt her hand in his, but she did not press it as she normally would. “And?”
“Well, of course I said no. But I didn’t say to her what I should have said.”
“Which was?”
“That I can’t. She knows about you, but she behaves as if it makes no difference. She’s pretending that you don’t exist.”
Isabel tried to smile. “I do.”
“I don’t want to hurt her. She’s only got a few months to live.”
“Of course you mustn’t hurt her. Of course not.”
She felt a sudden tenderness; a return of tenderness really. He was so kind; he could never hurt anybody, even a persistent girl who needed, however gently, to be told that what she wanted could not be.
Jamie seemed to be preparing to say something more. Was there anything more? Suddenly it occurred to her that he might already have been unfaithful, and that the cinema outing was nothing important; a sequel rather than a prequel to something else. She felt herself tensing again.
“She said something to me,” said Jamie, his voice lowered. “She said that she had never had a proper boyfriend. Then she said that she did not want to die without ever having had a lover. That’s what she said. The implication was … well, I could hardly misread it.”
Isabel drew in her breath. “Oh …”
“What could I say? So I didn’t say anything. I called her a taxi and came home. But I felt … well, so awful about it.”
Isabel rose to her feet. Now she felt angry. “I don’t know what to say either. What can one say? This is … well, it’s blackmail, moral blackmail—if there’s such a thing. It’s terrible. She’s trying to get you to sleep with her because you feel sorry for her—and who wouldn’t feel sorry for somebody in her position. But it’s an awful thing to do to anybody.”
Jamie nodded his head miserably. “Yes, it is. I should have felt angry with her, but …” He shrugged. “How could I? How can you feel angry with somebody in her position.”
Isabel looked out of the window. What Jamie said was right: you could not be—should not be—angry with somebody who was dying; or … or could you? The fact that somebody was suffering from an incurable disease did not give them licence to behave as they wished; that was absurd. And presumably there were people who knew that they were dying who did things for which they could quite properly be censured. One might feel sympathy for them; one might exempt them from punishment; but one could still be angry with them and tell them that their actions were unacceptable.
She turned round to face Jamie again. He was sitting on the edge of her desk now, looking at his hands. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk to her.”
He answered bluntly, “What should I say?”
She felt slightly irritated that he had asked this question. Everybody should know how to let a would-be lover down gently. Did she have to spell it out for him?
“Say that your relationship can be a friendship, but nothing more. Tell her that you’re fond of her, but that’s as far as it can go.”
He nodded. “Yes, you’re right.”
“So when will you do it?”
He looked away. “Sometime. I don’t know.”
“But you will do it?”
He looked hounded. “It’s not going to be easy …”
She felt a growing sense of frustration. “Of course not. But life isn’t necessarily easy, Jamie. It’s messy.” A further possibility occurred to her; not an obvious one, and she barely thought about it before she expressed it. “Unless I do it myself.”
He did not think this a good idea. “You can’t do that,” he protested. “I don’t want her to know that I’ve spoken to you about this. And anyway, why should you do my dirty work for me?”
“Because I’m not sure that you’re going to do it,” Isabel challenged. She did not see why Prue should not know that they had discussed what had happened. Engaged people shared secrets with their fiancés; did Prue not know that? Perhaps not: Jamie had said that she had never had a proper boyfriend, and it could be that she simply did not understand the emotional intimacy of such relationships.
“I suppose I’m just putting it off,” said Jamie.
He was, she thought, but only because he had no desire to hurt. “Kindness is holding you back. You don’t want to hurt her, but I’m afraid she has to be hurt here—even if only a little.” She paused. Perhaps it was not such a bad idea for her to take this matter in hand. “And it might be easier if I were to do it, rather than you. That way she may still be able to idealise you—she won’t blame you; she won’t think that you’ve turned against her.”