The Quiet Side of Passion Read online

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “And you know what he likes?” Ellie said. “I shouldn’t tell you this, of course, but since you mentioned him—sardines. He likes fresh sardines. He says he does them in lemon juice—like they do in Portugal.”

  “Do you think the sardines make him happy?”

  Ellie frowned. “I think they do. He buys them every week. I keep them for him. I try to get really good ones for him from the fish market.”

  “It’s a nice thing you do.”

  Ellie looked puzzled. “No, I’m just doing my job.”

  “But I think it’s kind of you. I suspect that man doesn’t encounter much kindness in his average day. He’s very lonely, don’t you think?”

  Isabel took the neatly wrapped parcels of fish and put them in her shopping bag. As she paid the bill and turned to leave, she found herself facing Patricia, who had just walked into the shop.

  Patricia’s face broke into a smile. “Twice in one week,” she said. “Twice in one week in fishy circumstances.”

  Isabel was flustered. “I’m sorry...fishy circumstances?”

  Patricia was looking at her with a certain coolness. Her expression was not hostile, but neither was it friendly. “The Quayside. That seafood place.” She waited a moment before continuing. “We were both there the other night.”

  Isabel was aware of the fact that she was not saying anything in response and that Patricia was staring at her in a disconcerting manner, as if enjoying her discomfort. The possibilities went through her mind: she and Jamie had been spotted in the restaurant; Patricia had been aware of her interest and had noticed her looking at her in the mirror; afterwards, she had not gone up the street outside at all but had been standing somewhere in the shadows, unseen, and had watched the two of them in their inept attempt to follow her and her companion.

  At last she managed, “The Quayside?”

  “Yes,” said Patricia. “You were there with Jamie. So was I.”

  Isabel noticed: she said I. Why not we?

  Now the issue was clear: she could deny that she had seen Patricia, and rely on a lie to save her embarrassment, or she could tell the truth. She thought of Immanuel Kant. He spoiled the comfort of lies for so many people—or at least for those who had read some philosophy; Kant would never have lied. Never. And he was right, of course, although there were circumstances, as surely everybody would accept, where it was permissible to lie—to save a friend, for instance, when a murderer intent on killing him asks you his whereabouts. Not only could you lie in such a case, but you might have a moral duty to do so. Kant was wrong to suggest that one would have to tell the truth even in such a case; he was simply wrong. Or Kant himself was lying when he wrote that in the case of the enquiring murderer it would be wrong to lie. He was lying because he did not believe what he said. Had anybody ever suggested that?

  Isabel struggled. This was very far from the case of the enquiring murderer. She would have to tell the truth.

  “Yes,” she said, as evenly as she could manage, “I saw you there.”

  She left it at that. She had told the truth, without saying anything about thinking that Patricia hadn’t seen her.

  “Did you enjoy the meal?” asked Patricia.

  Isabel nodded. “We did. Jamie suggested that place; I didn’t really know it.” She was aware that in her anxiety she was squeezing the parcel of fish. The halibut would be flaky and damaged; she must stop. “And you? Enjoyed it?”

  Patricia was confident. “Yes, we did.”

  Isabel started to leave. “Good. Well, I must get back to the house. We have a visitor...” That was Claire—or Antonia; that, at least, was true, although perhaps to describe either of them as a visitor was misleading.

  But Patricia had more to say. “It was my birthday treat from my brother.”

  Isabel stood quite still. She was aware that in the background the woman behind the counter was telling another customer about their kipper fillets. They were less salty than many others, she said; kipper could be over-salted. “You can soak them in water before cooking them,” she said. “It lowers the salt level. People are concerned about salt these days...”

  “Your birthday?” Isabel stuttered. She meant to say your brother, but it came out as your birthday.

  “That’s right. My brother spoils me.”

  Did he just pay for it, Isabel asked herself, or was he there? She clutched at the possibility that the brother lived somewhere else altogether—in Ireland, probably—and might have sent the money for his sister to go out to dinner on her birthday. Patricia had then invited her lover to join her for dinner, which meant that the freckled man was not the brother, but a joint beneficiary of the brother’s largesse. But no, that was unlikely. A far more probable explanation was that the freckled man was the brother, and he had been taking Patricia out for dinner; freckles must run in the family, just like red hair, or aquiline noses, or a tendency to certain illnesses. If he looked like young Basil, then that was hardly surprising—like uncle, like nephew. She should have thought of that. There was no reason to think that every man having dinner with a woman was necessarily her lover; brothers went out to dinner with sisters, cousins did, friends did. Dinner was not just for lovers.

  Isabel now said, “So that was your brother you were with.”

  Patricia nodded. “Yes. My brother.”

  Isabel looked at her watch. “I really must...”

  “Of course you must.” And then, “I haven’t seen you at nursery for a while. Just Jamie—or Grace.”

  “I have a job,” said Isabel. “Things can get busy.”

  “Of course.”

  Isabel said goodbye and walked out. She felt flushed. She was angry with herself for making such a simple and obvious error. Once again she had jumped to conclusions, and had been completely wrong. Fortunately, she had said nothing to Patricia; fortunately, she had not accused her of effectively stealing from Basil Phelps. Fortunately, she had not put her nascent plan into action. Fortunately.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BY THE TIME she arrived home from the fishmonger, Isabel had largely recovered from the shock of Patricia’s casual disclosure. Shock, in fact, had been replaced with feelings of relief over the fact that she had not acted on her unfounded suspicions. This relief was touched, though, with guilt: Jamie had spoken to her about the difference between knowledge and a hunch. He had often raised this with her—gently, of course, as he never confronted her. She had listened to him, but not listened, and there was an important difference between the two sorts of listening. In one, while you heard what was said, while you paid attention to the words, you knew in advance that the words would not sway you, or at least you would not allow them the chance to do so. That was a very common form of listening—for some people, Isabel thought, it was the only form of listening they did. Then there was the other form of listening, in which you heard the words, you weighed them and you reached a view on the basis of what you had heard. That was listening in the real sense of the word—and that was what she had not done when Jamie had warned her about not acting on the basis of suppositions rather than proven facts. He was right, and she had been wrong.

  He was not yet back from his morning of teaching at the Academy, but Grace had returned from her outing with Magnus, who had recovered, she said, from his upset stomach and was busy demolishing a doughnut in the kitchen. Isabel did not entirely approve of doughnuts, although she loved their taste, their oiliness, their unashamed carbohydrateness. Magnus did too, although he did not have the words to express any of those sentiments, referring to doughnuts by the private word “not,” usually uttered with a heartfelt, close-to-irresistible sigh of longing.

  “He can’t have doughnuts all the time,” Isabel had said. “If he does, he’ll swell up like a Michelin baby.”

  Grace had been defensive. “I hardly ever give th
em to him,” she said. “And you don’t want him to disappear. Young children need bulking up.”

  “Well, let’s just be careful. The occasional doughnut is fine, but let’s keep them as a special treat.”

  “That’s what I already do,” said Grace.

  But here was Magnus, mid-doughnut, the tracings of sugar smeared across his face and fragments of doughnut on the table of his high chair.

  “There’s somebody in your study,” announced Grace—eager, perhaps, to deflect attention from the in flagrante consumption of the doughnut.

  “That’s Claire,” said Isabel.

  “No, it’s not. She’s there, yes, but I meant somebody else. There’s a man. I heard his voice.”

  Isabel was intrigued. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. A man. She was talking to him when I walked past the door.”

  Isabel tried not to smile. She knew that Grace’s curiosity was always aroused when it came to visitors.

  “And another thing,” Grace now added. “There was a big din upstairs. Clattering and banging.”

  “Clattering and banging?”

  “Yes, like an elephant. That girl...”

  “Antonia,” said Isabel quickly. “She’s called Antonia.”

  “Yes, her. She’s very noisy.”

  Isabel pointed out that Antonia appeared very keen, and was possibly merely being a bit too enthusiastic in her vacuuming. She almost added that vigour might be required there, as there had not been too much dusting or polishing in the house in recent months; but she did not say that, as the reproach would have caused offence.

  “She’ll have to stop when I take Magnus up for his rest,” Grace warned. “He’ll never sleep through all that.”

  “Londoners slept through the Blitz,” said Isabel airily. “We can’t tiptoe around children. They have to get used to the world, which is a noisy place.”

  Grace stared at her. “They’re noisy people, the Italians,” she said. “I went to Naples once, you know—years ago. The noise! I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t sleep at night because all those Italians were running around, blowing the horns of their cars, shouting at one another about heaven knows what. You should have heard the din.”

  Isabel was determined not to let Grace have the last word on Italians. “They enjoy themselves,” she said. “They’re lively. I find that attractive.”

  “Scottish people enjoy themselves too,” Grace countered. “But they don’t make so much noise when they do. That’s the difference, I think.” She looked at Isabel in a way that suggested that the point, such as it was, had been won, and there would be no further discussion of the volume at which Italians lived their lives.

  Isabel could not help but conjure up a picture of a group of Scots sitting quietly in a circle, enjoying themselves, knitting, perhaps, or reading improving literature, or possibly just silently reflecting on what a good time they were having. She imagined the conversation. “Nice weather we’re having.” “Oh yes, but we’ll pay for it later, we’ll pay for it.” Such was the reach of Knox and his reformers; such was the legacy, while all around the Catholic cultures danced and sang, raised high their idols and their plaster saints, unworried by Calvinism, and seemed, in general, to have a rather more enjoyable time. Of course there was the small question of the Inquisition, and the Jesuits, and the dead hand of ancient cardinals...

  The picture faded, as she remembered the man in the study. She was curious. Had anybody been expected? She did not think so; her editorial role was a lonely one; all her dealings with the editorial board or the printers were conducted on the telephone or by email. She very rarely saw anybody, least of all one of the authors she published. Then it occurred to her that this was precisely who it might be; one of her philosophers, visiting Edinburgh in advance of the Festival, perhaps, might have taken it into his head to pay a visit. It might even be the mathematics teacher from Sri Lanka—unlikely—or the man from Salt Lake City who submitted an article about the ethics of polygamy (he was in favour of it). How would Claire cope with that? The Sri Lankan would be charming, as they so often were, and the man from Salt Lake City would be very well mannered, in the way in which people from that part of America usually were. He would be mildly spoken and well turned out—having more than one wife would help in that respect, Isabel thought, as they would take good care of his clothes, if they were old-fashioned wives. And they would be, she thought, if they accepted polygamy—and if, too, he were a polygamist, which was unlikely, as the relevant authorities in Salt Lake City played down that aspect of their history. And yet, there was at least one man in Utah who was prepared to justify polygamy and speak in its favour. She had written back, tactfully, declining the paper and, in passing, observing that polygamous systems were invariably discriminatory, allowing men to have more than one wife, but not permitting women to have more than one husband. She had not expected a response, but there had been one, in which he pointed out that the explanation for this was that few women would actually want more than one husband. “All the experts agree on that,” he had said. “There is no doubt about it—lack of demand.” Then he had written: “May I ask you something: Would you like to have two husbands? Would it be fun, do you think?” She had not prolonged the correspondence.

  Isabel made her way out of the kitchen and into the hall. Pausing briefly outside the door of her study, she listened for voices within. There was silence. She hesitated. What if the male visitor reported by Grace was a boyfriend—the sort described by Tennessee Williams as a gentleman caller? Should she knock before entering, just in case? That could be tactful, but then again it was highly artificial: one did not knock before entering one’s own study, and to do so could be interpreted as distrustful, as if it implied that Claire could be up to no good—reading Isabel’s private correspondence or going through the drawers of her desk.

  Isabel decided that she would open the door without knocking, but would do so slowly, as if preoccupied with some other task while pushing it open. As she did this, she heard a faint noise inside the study—a step, a shifting of chairs?

  She went in. Professor Lettuce was sitting in the armchair midway between Isabel’s desk and the table at which Claire worked. Claire was on her feet, half beside the table, half behind it.

  Lettuce rose to his feet, grinning. “So here you are at last,” he said. He turned in Claire’s direction. “Claire has looked after me very well. She said you wouldn’t be long.”

  Isabel crossed the room to her desk. “How nice to see you, Professor Lettuce.” She hoped that her voice sounded normal, but she feared that it did not. She was beginning to feel something stir within her—strong resentment that Lettuce should be in her study when she was not there. She glanced at Claire to see if there was any trace of apology. She saw none, but then why should she? She could not assume that Claire shared her antipathy to Professor Lettuce—quite the opposite, in fact: she buttered his scones for him; she spoke of him reverentially. Lettuce was, after all, her patron—the man who could make or break her academic career.

  “I was in the vicinity,” said Lettuce breezily. “I thought I might drop in and see how Claire was settling in.”

  “I think she’s settled in very well,” said Isabel. Looking at Claire again, she went on, “You look happy enough, Claire.”

  “Hah!” interjected Lettuce. “A happy ship. That’s so important, I think.”

  Isabel sat down behind her desk. “I’m grateful to you for allowing her to take the job,” she said.

  Lettuce was clearly happy to be given the credit for Claire’s employment. “Not at all,” he said. “Delighted to help.”

  “Claire’s been showing me some of the recent submissions,” Lettuce continued.

  Again Isabel glanced at Claire, who looked away. Silence ensued until Lettuce broke it.

  “I know I’m no longer on the editorial board,” he
said. “I miss that, you know. But there we are. Seeing all this”—he gestured to the surroundings of the office—“seeing all this reminds me of how enjoyable editorial work is.” He folded his hands on his lap and looked directly at Isabel, his weak eyes, green in colour, like two...tiny lettuce hearts, thought Isabel; just like that.

  “It has its moments,” said Isabel.

  “It certainly does,” agreed Lettuce. “When I was editing the Manchester Journal of Philosophy I used to experience the most extraordinary elation once I put a new issue to bed. A sense of completion, I suppose.” He was looking at Claire as he spoke, and Isabel saw something pass between them. It was unmistakable.

  Isabel nodded mutely. She had been going over in her mind what had really brought Lettuce to her door, and the glance between them confirmed her suspicions: he was having an affair with Claire. It was so obvious now: Claire was not just his loyal acolyte—she was his lover. She turned to Claire, looking at her almost as if to say, How could you? Not only was Lettuce thoroughly disgusting, but there was a Mrs. Lettuce somewhere in the background; Isabel had met her in the Scottish National Gallery. That poor woman—to be married to a lettuce, and to an unfaithful lettuce into the bargain, was not a fate one would wish on anyone.

  Lettuce sat back in his chair. “I wonder if you’ve given further thought to my proposal of a public lecture?”

  Isabel looked away. Not only had she not thought about Lettuce’s vainglorious plan—the Robert Lettuce Lectures—but she did not want to think about it. And now, in an act she would later, on reflection, regret, she asked, “And how’s your wife, Professor Lettuce?”

  She held Lettuce’s gaze as she asked the question. At first he was impassive, his expression a set mask of self-satisfaction, but then, almost imperceptibly, he flinched. Isabel turned briefly to Claire; she had moved back behind her table and was sitting there, trying, and failing, to look indifferent. But at the mention of Lettuce’s wife she could not help it—she glanced nervously across the room at Lettuce.