She saw the pupils of his eyes; dark dots, but with light in them. She noticed that he had a mole, a tiny mole, just below his ear. Otherwise, he was perfect.
His lips parted, a tiny bit of spittle. He mouthed the word yes.
She whispered, as she did not want Jamie to hear, and she suddenly knew that Jamie was listening from Charlie’s room, through the open door.
“Are you in trouble, Eddie?”
He said nothing, but his head moved slightly: a nod.
“And will you tell me what it is?”
Again a movement of the head, this time a shaking.
She made up her mind. Five hundred pounds was very little to her and would obviously make a big difference to Eddie in his difficulties, whatever they were. A fine? She thought that unlikely. Eddie was too timid to get into trouble with the law. Drugs? Debts to a pusher? There was no sign that he used anything, and she thought it unlikely; Cat had told her that he had expressed strong views against drugs some months before. So what did that leave?
She leaned forward. “Will you need more? If I give you five hundred pounds, will you come back and ask for more?”
He began to look indignant, but then stopped himself. “No,” he said quietly. “That’s all I need.”
She made her mind up. “All right. We can get the money from the bank tomorrow.”
She did not expect effusive thanks, and did not get them. But there was a whispered thank you as they went into Charlie’s room. Jamie was standing there, holding Charlie in his sleeper suit. He glanced at Eddie and nodded; then looked at Isabel. She let nothing pass between them, no acknowledgement of what had happened on the landing. It’s between Eddie and me, she thought. Private business. Eddie had told her not to give cheese away; would Jamie tell her not to give away money? It’s mine, she thought—although the cheese, strictly speaking, was not.
Charlie saw Eddie and gave a welcoming gurgle.
“He likes you,” said Jamie.
“Babies do,” said Eddie. “My mum says…” He trailed off.
“She says what?” asked Isabel.
“She says they go by smell,” said Eddie.
Isabel took Charlie out of Jamie’s arms and passed him over to Eddie. “Jamie smells good,” she said. “And I’m sure you do as well. Here.”
Eddie recoiled at first, in fright, but checked himself. He was awkward, uncertain precisely where to place his arms, but Charlie helped by latching on to his sweater.
“Support him,” said Isabel, taking hold of Eddie’s right forearm. Bony. Was he eating properly? If he lived with his parents, then surely his mother should watch out for that. Or Cat should. She was his employer; she should notice these things. And there was no shortage of food in a delicatessen.
“You’re nice and thin, Eddie,” she said, patting the arm she had briefly held.
“That’s because he walks everywhere,” Jamie chipped in. “You do, don’t you, Eddie?”
Eddie nodded. “It’s quicker,” he said.
“But you don’t want to be too thin,” said Isabel.
Jamie reached forward to tickle Charlie under the chin. “What do they say? You can never be too thin, nor too rich.”
“Isabel’s too rich,” said Eddie. “She just said so.”
There was a silence, and Charlie, surprised, looked over Eddie’s shoulder at the people standing around him: there had been gurgles, he thought, those sounds that they made, and now nothing.
Yet the dinner went well, at least until just before the end. Eddie was relaxed, and Isabel could tell that he enjoyed Jamie’s company. From the other side of the table, he looked at Jamie with a bright-eyed admiration, she thought, and this made her smile; many people looked at Jamie that way, and yet he did not appear to notice, or, if he was aware of it, did not think anything of it. The blessed will not care what angle they are regarded from, having nothing to hide: the line from “In Praise of Limestone” came to her unbidden—WHA again! But it was so apt.
They ate salmon terrine, followed by a risotto, from a recipe which Isabel had taken from Mary Contini’s book, and then grapes. Jamie wanted coffee, but Isabel and Eddie did not; so Isabel made a small espresso for Jamie, and while she was doing this, the two of them at the table and she at the worktop, Eddie said: “I can hypnotise people now.”
Jamie looked at him oddly, like an older brother looking at a younger sibling who has made a bragging claim. “Oh yes? Since when?”
“Since a week ago,” said Eddie. “Officially. I got my certificate then. My Part One certificate. I still have to do Part Two and Part Three.”
Jamie appeared puzzled, and Eddie explained about his course. “It’s hard work,” he said. “Quite a few people dropped out.”
“Well done, Eddie,” said Isabel. “You must be pleased—”
“Hypnotise me, then,” Jamie interjected.
Eddie looked at him anxiously. “You serious?”
Jamie glanced at Isabel. She wanted to shake her head, to say no, but could not; she was careful about telling him what he could or could not do. She was not his mother. He turned back to Eddie. “Yes, why not? It would be interesting, don’t you think, Isabel?”
“It’s not a game,” said Eddie.
Isabel was concerned. She did not want Jamie to be hypnotised. She did not want anybody to be hypnotised in her kitchen. She would change the subject. “Of course it’s not. Not like one of those games you play after dinner. You know, the six degrees of separation game. Things like that. Can you get to the pope through five friends?”
“Two,” said Jamie. “In my case.”
Eddie looked blank.
“Right,” said Jamie. “I know the cardinal, the one who lives over at Church Hill, in that house with the green copper dome. He must know the pope. Two degrees of separation from me to the pope.”
Isabel wanted to encourage this new line of discussion. “So you’re three degrees away from the pope, Eddie. You know Jamie. Jamie knows the cardinal. The cardinal knows the pope. Three degrees.”
“And the president of Bulgaria?” suggested Jamie.
Isabel frowned. “I suspect that he has a lot of friends,” she said. “So I suspect that we’d get there within six links.”
“He has a lot of friends?” asked Eddie. “How do you know?”
Isabel shrugged her shoulders. Eddie could be very literal. “In order to become president of anywhere, even Bulgaria, you have to have friends. You have to know lots of people and cultivate them. He’ll be a networker, the president of Bulgaria. A big networker.”
She looked to Jamie for support, but he was looking at Eddie. The president of Bulgaria was not getting the attention he deserved. “Go on, Eddie,” said Jamie. “Hypnotise me. I’m ready. What do I have to do?”
“The president of Bulgaria,” Isabel said. “Now let’s think. I know Malcolm Rifkind, and he used to be the foreign secretary. So, he may…”
“Do I just sit here?” asked Jamie. “Do we need to turn the lights off?”
Eddie shook his head. They were sitting at the kitchen table, where casual meals were taken, and the lighting was low anyway. “It’s best not to be distracted,” he said. “That’s why it’s sometimes a good idea to turn down the lights. But it’s not very bright in here.” He stood up and moved round the table to sit down on the chair next to Jamie’s. “I’m going to sit here. You turn round a bit, so that you’re looking at me.”
Isabel brought Jamie’s cup of coffee over and put it on the table beside him. “Are you going to drink this before you go under, or afterwards?”
He smiled, but said nothing, leaving the coffee untouched. She went back to her seat.
Eddie had fixed his gaze on Jamie. He leaned forward very slightly. “I want you to listen to my voice. Just listen. Hear nothing else. All right?”
Jamie nodded.
“And as you listen to me, you’re going to feel yourself getting drowsier and drowsier. Your eyelids will be getting heavier, like lead. That’s it. And all the tension is going out of you. Flowing away. You can feel it going down your arms and out your fingertips—draining away like water. That’s right. Don’t struggle against it.”