“Do you mind if I come in?” Isabel moved forward as she spoke, and reached to close the door behind her. “I knew you were in, you see, because you telephoned Jamie a short time ago. You telephoned him at our house.”
Prue said nothing. She was staring at Isabel in unmistakable fear.
“I don’t think that it’s a good idea to …” Isabel searched for the right words, remembering that Jamie had said something about being gentle. She would be gentle. This poor girl was dying.
She started again. “Look, I know that you are very fond of Jamie. I understand that. But Jamie and I are together, you know. We’re going to get married. He likes you—don’t think that he doesn’t like you. It’s just that … well, he and I are together and that’s really all there can be to it. You do understand, don’t you?”
Prue seemed to be recovering herself. Her shocked expression was slowly changing; now she was beginning to smile. “Jamie is very fond of me,” she said. “Yes, you’re right. He is. He’s shown it.”
The words hit Isabel with an almost physical force. “Shown …”
The smile widened. “Yes. Jamie and I are … well, we’re lovers.”
Isabel stared at her. She could not speak.
Prue continued. “Has he not told you? I thought he had. He told me he was going to speak to you.”
“When?” It was a whisper, almost inaudible.
“When what?”
“When did you become lovers?”
“Oh, I forget exactly when. A month or so ago. May, I think. Yes, May.”
A door opened. They were standing in a small entrance hall, and the door gave on to a living room. There was another woman, slightly older than Prue. She shot a glance at Isabel and then addressed herself to Prue.
“Prue? Is everything all right?”
Isabel turned and opened the front door. She did not say anything to either woman, but simply left the flat. She felt her eyes stinging with tears. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and grasped the rail. She looked up, right up through the stairwell to a skylight. There was still a glow in the sky, which was empty, white in the evening, innocent of the insignificant tragedy happening below it.
She heard footsteps on the stone stairs; somebody was coming down. She looked up, prepared to see Prue, but it was the other woman.
“You’re Isabel, aren’t you?”
Isabel did not answer. She stared at the other woman, uncertain what her intentions might be. She remembered the catfight in Tollcross.
The other woman was before her, reaching out to place a hand on Isabel’s arm. “I’m Prue’s sister,” she said. “And I heard what was said up there. I came round when she telephoned me a few minutes ago—I live round the corner in Danube Street.”
She continued: “You have to forgive my sister. She’s not well.”
There was something in the other woman’s manner that reassured Isabel. She started to speak. “I’m shocked … I don’t know …”
“Of course you are. But listen: it’s not true. None of it. It’s all imagined.”
It took a few moments. There were words; now there was meaning, and eventually, slowly, there came relief. Isabel felt herself being plucked from the dark place into which she had fallen. “Not true about Jamie?”
The woman shook her head. “Certainly not. She’s done this before, I’m afraid.”
Isabel winced. “And she’s dying.”
The other woman groaned. “There’s nothing wrong with her—at least nothing physical. It’s a trick she plays. She tells people that she’s at death’s door. It gets sympathy.”
It took Isabel a moment or two to absorb this. Of course. Of course. It was an obvious trick: if you were dying you could get what you wanted. “It’s a sort of blackmail,” said Isabel.
“Exactly. Look, we’re trying to get her to have treatment. I think we’re getting there, but it’s not easy.”
Isabel felt weak with relief. “It never is.”
“You’ve been very understanding,” said the woman. “And I can promise you there’ll be no more of this. She’s going up to Aberdeen. Our parents are there, and they’re taking over. My father’s a doctor up there. He’s spoken to his psychiatrist friends.”
Isabel felt sympathy for both of them—for Prue and for her sister. There were apologies. The woman told her how embarrassed she was by Prue’s behaviour. Not everybody, she said, was as understanding as Isabel.
They made their goodbyes to one another and Isabel walked out into the street. She felt drained, and would need to get a taxi. She saw one at the end of the road, its yellow light glowing. She waved her arms. The taxi turned, the driver signalling with his headlights that he had seen her.
“You all right?” he asked, as she settled into her seat.
“Entirely all right,” she said.
Edinburgh taxi drivers were not just taxi drivers. They were social workers, psychotherapists and, like Isabel, philosophers. She caught his eye in the mirror.
“You seemed upset,” he said.
“I was,” she admitted. “A few minutes ago I thought my world was in ruins. Now I know it’s not.”
The taxi was making its way up the hill past the end of Ann Street. Down to the right, at the end of a wide road, was the Gothic bulk of Fettes College, another school.
“Well, that’s good,” he said.
“May I ask you something?”
He looked into the mirror again. “Of course.”
“Should we feel ashamed of believing ill of someone we love? When we ought to trust them?”
He thought for a moment before replying. “No,” he said. “That’s natural.”
“You think it is?”
“I know it is.”
She smiled. “I suppose you people see all of life in your cabs—and then some.”
“Aye, we do.”
They were now approaching the Dean Bridge; beyond it, the dizzy terraces perched on the edge of the ravine. Edinburgh was called a precipitous city, and it was.
“So I shouldn’t feel bad about thinking the worst of somebody I love?”
The driver was clear on the point. “Not in the least. As long as you’re ready to admit you’re wrong.”
“I was wrong,” said Isabel.
WHEN SHE RETURNED, she found Jamie at the piano. She came into the room behind him, quietly, and it was a few moments before he became aware of her presence. He turned round, his hands on the keys, and looked at her. She nodded.
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.” She crossed the room so that she was standing immediately behind him. She placed her hands gently on his shoulders. “I think it’s over.”
He sighed. “Poor girl. It’s very unfair, isn’t it?”
“What’s unfair?”
“That she’s so ill. That sort of illness—it’s unfair, isn’t it?”
Isabel wanted to laugh. “Yes, if it’s genuine.”
She felt him react. He twisted round to face her. “What?”
“Prue isn’t dying at all,” she said. “I spoke to her sister. There’s nothing wrong with her—at least not in the physical sense. Mentally, it’s a different matter.”
Isabel explained to Jamie what had happened and what Prue’s sister had told her. He listened in astonishment that slowly turned to anger.
“Forget all about it,” she said.
“I hate her for this.”
Isabel bent down to kiss him. “You mustn’t. Don’t hate her. I don’t think it’s ever the right thing to do to hate somebody.”
“Isn’t it?”
She thought. Righteous anger? Yes, there was a place for that. Hatred? Could that ever be right? “What’s hatred? Wishing ill for others? Wanting their utter negation, their death?”
“Yes. That, and …”
“And what?”
“Wanting to see them suffer.”
She stroked his cheek. “And do you want that for her? Do you really want her to suffer?”
He shook his head. He nestled against her. “No, I suppose I don’t.”