Eddie watched her as she began to wrap the cheese in grease-proof paper. He was glowering at her. “Cat wouldn’t…,” he whispered. “Cat…”
“Don’t worry,” Isabel replied. “I’ll pay for it.”
“Don’t bother to wrap it,” the man said suddenly. “I want to start it now.”
She let the wrapping paper fall away. She had noticed that the man had the lilting accent of the Western Islands.
“Where are you from?” she said, as she handed the cheese over the counter.
“Skye,” he said. And then added, “A long time ago.”
She smiled at him as he took the cheese, and watched as it stuck to his fingers, which were stained and dirty. He licked at his fingers, and then took a bite out of the cheese. She watched him, and thought of the place from which he had come, a place of mountains and green pastures, of a green sea coming in from the Atlantic, the edge of Scotland, the outer limits of a world. What had brought him here, from that place—a failed croft, a mothballed fishing boat, enlistment in the army? And now this penury and hunger in a prosperous city that had no place for him.
“It’s better with biscuits,” said Isabel, reaching for a packet of water biscuits off the shelf behind her. “Take these too.”
He took the biscuits and stuffed them into the pocket of his coat.
“Thank you,” he said, and turned to leave the shop.
Eddie glared at Isabel. ”Cat wouldn’t like that,” he said.
Isabel remained cool. In the past she had hoped that Eddie would become more assertive, but she had not imagined that he would assert himself against her. “Oh yes?”
“Yes,” said Eddie. “You can’t give food away to just anybody who comes in and asks for it. This is a shop, you know.”
Isabel raised an eyebrow. She wanted to say: This is my business, and nothing to do with you. But it was not in her to be abrupt to Eddie; not to this injured boy. “How much should I put in the till?” she asked calmly. “Five pounds?”
Eddie turned away. Isabel could sense the anger in his voice. “I don’t care. It’s up to you.”
She quickly forgot about the cheese incident, but it appeared that Eddie did not. Halfway through the afternoon, Isabel suggested that he take a break; trade was light, and she could watch the counter. No, he said, he did not need a break.
“You’re still cross with me?”
Silence.
She waited, but there was no response. “Look, Eddie, I’m sorry. I know it was wrong of me. You have to work here all the time and you obviously can’t have people coming in and asking for free food.”
He glared at her. “No.”
Isabel tried to explain. At least he had said something, even if it was only no. And sometimes the word no is all that one will get, as at the famous occasion on which Proust and James Joyce had been brought together, and all that Proust had said was non. “I shouldn’t have done what I did,” she said. “I acted on impulse. You know how sometimes you do things without thinking much about the implications of what you do.”
“Yes.”
She persevered. “So now I’m saying sorry to you. I’m apologising. And…” She tried to look him in the eye, but his gaze slipped away, as it often did. “And I really think that you should accept my apology.”
A customer pushed open the door and made her way over to the pasta shelves.
“Eddie?”
“All right. I accept your apology.”
“Thank you.” Isabel dusted her hands on her apron. Another impulse seized her. “And why don’t you come and have supper with Jamie and me this evening? Nothing grand. Kitchen supper.”
At first he did not know how to respond to this suggestion. She saw him hesitating, and she pressed home the invitation. “Come on, Eddie. We’ve known one another a long time and you’ve never been round to the house. Not once. You like Jamie, don’t you?”
“Jamie? I like him.”
“Well then, say yes.”
“All right. I’ll come.” He paused. “And thanks. Thank you for inviting me.”
ISABEL SLIGHTLY REGRETTED the invitation, not because she did not want to entertain Eddie, but because it meant that she would lose an evening that she had mentally earmarked for work. There were still four weeks before she would need to send the next issue of the Review off to the printers, but she knew from past experience how quickly those weeks could pass. What she wanted to avoid was a frantic last few days during which she would have to deal with matters that could have been sorted out well in advance. But today could be written off—a day devoted to Cat’s interests, and Eddie surely came into that category.
Jamie was in the house when she got home. He had arrived at four and had taken over Charlie duties from Grace, though not without a battle, it seemed.
“She was very unwilling to go,” he complained to Isabel. “She more or less implied that I was being disruptive.”
Isabel grimaced. “You’re only his father, after all.”
Jamie smiled. He did not bear grudges. “That’s more or less what I said. Anyway, Charlie and I have been having a great time.” He pointed to a clutter of toy vehicles on the floor: a fire engine, a tractor. “He’s going to be a mechanic, I think. Or an engineer.”
Charlie started to crawl away, and Isabel intercepted him. “Not a musician?”
“Who would be a musician?” Jamie said, beginning to pick up the toys. “Years of practising. Awful hours. No money…”
Isabel was cuddling Charlie. “But you do what you love doing,” she said over her shoulder. “How many people can say that?”
“Quite a few, I suspect,” said Jamie. “Most doctors like doctoring, don’t they? And most lawyers like arguing—or at least the ones I know do. And you hear about pilots saying that they get a real high from being up there above the clouds. And you…”
He placed the toys in a large, open hamper filled with Charlie’s things—soft animals, a teddy in a kilt, building blocks in primary colours; a world of shapes, surfaces, textures. Then he stood up. Charlie was nestling into the nape of her neck, his back turned to his father, his mother’s arms about him. Jamie stepped forward; his face was close to Isabel’s and she looked at him in surprise. He kissed her suddenly, with an urgent passion. “I love you very much,” he said.
Her pleasure showed. “Well, thank you, and I love you too.”
“Let’s go away,” he said. “You, me. Charlie. Let’s just go away.”
His eyes were locked into hers. She bent forward again and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Where?” she asked. “Go where?”
It was as if he had expected her to say no and was excited to find her saying yes. “Anywhere you like,” he said. “Somewhere in the west. Ireland even.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
She moved away. Charlie was becoming heavy. “We can’t. There’s the delicatessen. Remember? And you’re busy this week, aren’t you? I thought you said that you had the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.”
“We’ve both got things,” he said. “But Charlie’s free.”
Isabel laughed. “They get social diaries at a very early age these days,” she said. “I was reading about some mothers in a fashionable part of London who keep social diaries for their children. The kids have dinner parties. Dancing lessons. And so on.”
“I want Charlie to learn Scottish country dancing,” said Jamie. “He’s almost old enough. Once he can walk properly.”
They both laughed. Then Isabel looked at her watch. “We’ll have to get Charlie settled in good time,” she said. “Eddie’s coming for dinner.”
Jamie took Charlie from her. The little boy held on to her blouse, reluctant to let go. She laid a hand gently over his tightened fist; the tension went out of it and his fingers opened.
“Bath time,” said Jamie. “Why do you think they love bath time so much?”