Isabel introduced herself. “I’m Isabel Dalhousie. We spoke on the phone.”
The woman smiled at her and then she looked at Jamie.
“My friend, Jamie,” Isabel said. She saw the woman’s eyes move to Jamie and then come back to her quickly. Something had crossed the woman’s mind—and it occurred to Isabel that she was wondering what the relationship was. She had experienced this before—in restaurants, in cafés—when people had let their curiosity become apparent, or masked it too slowly.
They entered the flat, following the woman into the hall.
Being on the top floor, the flat had an old-fashioned skylight, a small cupola, set into the roof, and this gave the hall an airy feeling.
“Falling light,” said Isabel. “Very nice, Mrs. . . .”
“Macreadie,” said the woman. “Or Florence, if you like.”
They left the hall and went into the kitchen. It was old-fashioned and a bit cramped, but there were useful cupboards built up against one wall and a well-used stone surface round 4 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h the deep-set sink. Jamie went to the window and peered out, down into the drying green below, a small square of communally owned grass.
“I used to sit out there in the summer,” said Florence. “In the days when we had a summer. A long time ago.”
“Global cooling,” said Isabel. “Everybody else gets warmer while Scotland gets colder.”
“That’s not true,” Jamie corrected her.
They left the kitchen and went into the living room. This was also not particularly large, and Isabel thought that there was too much clutter. She tried to imagine the room without the glass-fronted display cabinet with all its trinkets, without the table covered with framed family photographs, without the ungainly Canterbury stuffed with magazines.
“This looks out onto St. Stephen Street,” said Florence.
“There’s a pub opposite, isn’t there?” asked Jamie.
Florence nodded. “It can be a touch noisy on Friday and Saturday,” she said. “But the bedroom is round the back. That looks out over the green. That’s as quiet as the grave.”
“Of course it will be,” said Isabel. She liked the feel of the flat and she liked the owner. She had decided that Florence was a retired schoolteacher; she had that look about her and the bookshelves, she had noted, were those of an intelligent reader.
But what had decided it was the presence on a shelf of A History of Scottish Education.
As they walked back through the hall to inspect the bedroom, Isabel asked Florence whether she was leaving Edinburgh altogether. When buying a house it was useful to know what the sellers were doing: a sudden departure or a sideways move was a danger signal.
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“I was left a house in Trinity,” Florence explained. “I have been very fortunate. It was my aunt’s place.”
That, thought Isabel, settles that; at least it ruled out the sudden arrival of an impossible neighbour. But what about the cat? Could somebody else’s incontinent cat prompt a move?
“We saw a cat,” she said. “On the stairs . . .”
“That’s Basil,” said Florence. “He belongs downstairs. I’m very fond of him. He comes in here for a visit from time to time.”
“And the neighbours?” asked Isabel.
Florence reached out and touched Isabel on the arm. “I’d tell you,” she said. “I really would tell you if they were a problem. They’re angels, actually. All of them.”
Isabel felt embarrassed that her questions had been so transparent. Yet the way in which she had been gently reproached made Florence appeal all the more to her. She felt that there was a current of fellow feeling emanating from this woman to her. It was reassuring—and touching, though she wondered what lay behind it. There were occasions—and they were quite common—when two people met and instantly got along together; something happened, possibly at a subconscious level, some sensing of sympathetic chemicals, which led to a rapport. Grace, who believed in telepathy, would say it was that.
“I can tell what people are thinking,” she said. “I really can.”
And Isabel had said, “Oh yes, well, tell me what I’m thinking then.”
“You’re thinking that I can’t tell what you’re thinking,” said Grace. And in that she was right.
Jamie did not follow them into the bedroom, but returned to the kitchen, to peer again out the window. Florence pointed 4 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h out the cupboards, the old fireplace in which stood an arrangement of dried flowers and which, she said, could be opened up again if one wanted an open fire. “So many flats had their fireplaces taken out,” she said. “Beautiful old Victorian fireplaces.
Georgian too. Such a loss.”
Isabel looked at the dried flowers, dusty and pale, washed of colour. “Such a tucked-away bedroom,” she said. “So snug.”
Florence gave her a conspiratorial look. “Yes. I can see you in this place, you know. You and your friend.” She looked through the open door in the direction of the kitchen.
For a moment Isabel said nothing. She felt embarrassed by the misunderstanding, but she also felt flattered that Florence should imagine that she and Jamie were together in that sense.
Yes, she thought, it would be good to be living here with him, living together as lovers. But she could not let Florence continue to believe something that was false, and so she started to explain. “Jamie and I—” she began. But she did not continue, as Jamie had appeared in the doorway.
“The bedroom,” said Isabel, letting him look past her. “Isn’t it nice?”
Jamie nodded his approval. Again he went to the window and looked out, poking at the wooden frame as he did so. He had told Isabel about rotten window sills in New Town flats and the importance of knowing just what repairs one was letting oneself in for. This wood appeared to be solid, though, and he turned to face into the room. Florence was staring at him, a smile about her lips.
Isabel could not say anything about Jamie now, could not give the explanation that was needed, and so she looked at her watch and then at Jamie. “We should be getting along,” she said.
“We have to . . .” She left that unfinished. They did not have to T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
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do anything, but she felt that she had seen enough of the flat and she wanted to be out in the street. She would offer for it, she thought. She would talk to Simon Mackintosh, her lawyer, and make an offer.
They said goodbye to Florence, who saw them off in the hall. Then, on the stairway, on the way down, Jamie turned to her and said, “As nice as it gets around here.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Top floor, which will make a difference to the noise.
Bedroom at the back. Well maintained. And the wiring’s new. I had a quick look.”
Isabel smiled at him. “I knew that it was a good idea to bring you.”
They went out onto the street, closing the heavy, blue-painted communal door behind them. A young couple walked past them, going in the direction of Royal Circus, the woman’s midriff was exposed, the mottled white flesh shaking as she moved, and the man’s jeans were fashionably torn, affording a view from the rear of dark-blue undershorts. Display of the body, thought Isabel; changing conceptions of the private. It was no longer socially impermissible for men to show their undershorts, and perhaps that was not unreasonable. Was there anything inherently more private about one garment rather than another?
Jamie was going to Castle Street, and Isabel, who was returning home, had planned to go in that direction, so they walked together up Gloucester Lane towards the end of Heriot Row. Gloucester Lane was a narrow cobbled alleyway on both sides of which were mews houses. Jamie pointed out how much more expensive these were, although sometimes they were smaller than the flat they had just looked over.