“Are you going by yourself?” Isabel asked.
Cat looked at her sideways. “Yes. Just me.”
There was a brief silence. “I wasn’t prying,” said Isabel softly.
Cat hesitated. Then, “You can pry if you like. I don’t mind. He’s called Martin, but I’m afraid that he’s not the one. We’re still seeing each other, but I just don’t know.”
“If your heart’s not in it, then what’s the point?” said Isabel.
Cat shrugged. “You’re right. But then it’s not all that easy breaking things off. Particularly if the other person is still keen.”
“Which he is?”
“Which he is.”
Cat was looking at her in a bemused way, and Isabel wondered whether she was expected to say anything more. But what could she say about this Martin, this man she had never even met, and about whom she knew nothing? She could assume, of course, that he was tall and well built, but beyond that she could only speculate. Martin: the name gave nothing away. At length she said, “You probably don’t want to hurt him, do you?” It was a trite remark, but it led to her adding, “So don’t string him along. Tell him it’s over.”
It appeared to be what Cat had wanted. “I will. I’ll tell him before I go to Sri Lanka.”
Isabel winced. Her advice had been seized upon, and this made her uneasy. She knew her niece, and understood that if Cat came to regret her decision to end her relationship with Martin, then she would lay the blame at Isabel’s door, even if subtly.
“It must be your decision, of course,” said Isabel. “I wouldn’t want to interfere.”
Again Cat looked at her in bemusement; her niece shared Jamie’s view that she interfered too readily and far too frequently. But this time Isabel had told her what she wanted to hear—that the relationship with Martin should be brought to an end. The decision taken, she felt a strong sense of relief. She was free.
CAT LEFT for Sri Lanka on a Sunday morning, and Isabel took over on that Monday, arriving at the delicatessen shortly before Eddie. Grace had come to the house early, pleased to be placed in sole charge of Charlie for the entire day. She had already mapped out his week; a journey on the bus to her cousin in Dalkeith; an outing to the café at the Chambers Street museum; several trips to the Botanical Gardens—“He loves the squirrels,” she said. “And the hot houses too.” Isabel knew from a friend’s report that Grace pretended that Charlie was hers. This friend had been standing behind her in a café at the zoo and had complimented her on Charlie’s Macpherson tartan rompers. Grace had replied that she was part Macpherson, as if that were the explanation for Charlie’s attire. She had not said that Charlie was hers, but had certainly implied it, not knowing, of course, that it was a friend of Isabel’s who was addressing her. Isabel had been saddened by the story; she could so easily have been in Grace’s position, had Jamie not turned up; and had it been she who was taking somebody else’s child to the zoo, she might well have wanted others to think the child was hers. Who amongst us was above such longing, such pretence?
Eddie came in and hung up his green windbreaker on the back of the office door. He always wore the same thing, Isabel had noted: a pair of blue jeans, blue sneakers with white laces, and a curious long-sleeved white tee-shirt. She had never seen him in anything different, although he obviously had several pairs of jeans and several tee-shirts, as his clothes were always clean.
“Will she be there by now?” asked Eddie, looking at his watch.
“Yes,” said Isabel.
Eddie looked thoughtful. “Where is it?” he asked. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never really known. Is it somewhere…somewhere near Egypt?”
Isabel’s eyes widened in surprise. “No,” she said. “Not really. It’s near India. It’s the teardrop off India.”
“Oh,” said Eddie.
Isabel watched him. There were so many people who knew very little about the world, and Eddie’s generation knew less than most. She wondered, in fact, what he did know. Would he know who David Hume was, or Immanuel Kant, or Aristotle?
“Aristotle,” she said, on impulse.
Eddie frowned. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “I’ve never sold any myself. Has Cat ordered any?”
Isabel looked away and muttered something about checking on it. She had not intended to expose him, and she knew that she should not laugh. There were plenty of people who would not know who Aristotle was, but there were not many who would think that he was…a cheese.
She entered Cat’s office and switched on the lights. Cat had left a list of things to be done, and Isabel now went through it. There were to be several important deliveries, including a large one of Parmesan cheese—two wheels of it. Could she cut that up, Cat asked, and vacuum pack it with the vacuum-pack machine? Eddie knew how to operate that, Cat explained, although sometimes it made him anxious. She thought about this: Why should anyone be anxious about a vacuum-pack machine? She remembered her psychiatrist friend, Richard Latcham, telling her that free-floating anxieties could settle on anything—anxiety, like love, needs an object, and that could be anything.
A tempting smell of freshly ground coffee reached Isabel through the open door of the office. She put down Cat’s list and joined Eddie at the counter. The coffee was for her.
“Do you eat breakfast, Eddie?” she asked, as she cradled in her hands the warm mug he had passed her.
Eddie shook his head. “No. Never. I have a cup of coffee when I come in here and one of those biscotti things.”
She looked at him. He was wiry, flat-stomached; there was no spare flesh. Eddie was good-looking, she thought, in a very boyish way, with his close-cropped light brown hair and the freckles that dotted his cheeks. He could have been a Scottish version of a boy from a Norman Rockwell poster, Isabel thought; one of those boys who delivered newspapers from his bicycle or dispensed sodas in the drugstore, open-faced Midwestern boys who belonged to an altogether more innocent era. There was an innocence about Eddie—a sense of being slightly surprised by the world. And the world had surprised him, she remembered—surprised him badly.
“You should eat breakfast, Eddie,” she found herself saying. “You need it.”
The young man shrugged. “I’m not hungry in the mornings.”
Isabel looked at him again. If he lost a few more pounds he would begin to look anorexic. But did young men suffer from anorexia, as young women did? She vaguely remembered reading somewhere that they did, although much less frequently. Perhaps that was changing as boys became more like young girls.
It proved to be a busy morning, and when Isabel next looked at her watch it was almost one thirty. Things slackened off slightly then, and they each took a quick lunch break. Then, in the early afternoon, a dishevelled man came in and stood in front of the counter, staring at the cheese. Eddie asked him if he could help him, but was brushed away. He looked to Isabel for assistance.
As Isabel approached the man he raised his eyes and met her gaze. “I want some cheese,” he said. “I want some cheese.”
Isabel smiled encouragingly.
“What sort?”
“That one,” he said, pointing to a large piece of Gorgonzola.
Isabel peeled on a plastic glove and reached down to extract the Gorgonzola.
“I haven’t got any money,” said the man.
She paused. Her hand was just above the cheese. Eddie, standing behind her, nudged her gently.
She hesitated. The man had a cadaverous, hungry look about him, but it was not her job to feed him. This is a delicatessen, she thought; it is not a soup kitchen. But then, on impulse, she lowered her hand, took hold of the cheese, and lifted it out of the cabinet.