The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds Read online

  Eddie glanced at the photograph accompanying the interview. “Oh, him. He’s the one who liked parties.”

  “He was very outgoing,” Isabel agreed.

  Eddie looked more closely at the picture. “Has he had cosmetic surgery?” he asked inconsequentially. “By the way, I’ve got some photographs I want to show you some time. I took them in Alaska—on the trip. You wouldn’t believe it. The mountains. They make ours look tiny.”

  Our tiny mountains, thought Isabel. We are a small country with tiny mountains.

  “I’d love to see them, Eddie. Maybe you could bring them round some time. Jamie would like to see them too. Have supper with us.”

  Eddie liked Jamie, she knew, because Jamie had always been kind to him. Eddie was used to being looked through—a shy young man behind the counter. Jamie smiled at him.

  “All right. I’ll bring them round. And …”

  He looked at Isabel hesitantly.

  “Yes?”

  “Could I bring somebody with me?”

  Isabel nodded. “Of course you can. Who is it?”

  Eddie blushed. “There’s a girl I’ve met.”

  Isabel waited for him to continue.

  “She’s called Diane. I’ve been seeing her for six weeks now.” He moved his right hand to rest it on the table. She saw that his nails were dirty. Cat had spoken to him about washing his hands thoroughly before handling food and had equipped the small washroom at the back of the shop with a stiff nailbrush, which Eddie had evidently not used, or used to inadequate effect.

  “It’s serious, Isabel. We’re going to live together now.”

  Isabel caught her breath. In her mind, Eddie was still very young, even if he was twenty-one.

  “That’s quite an important step,” she said.

  “I know that,” said Eddie. “But it’s what we want to do. If it works out, we’re going to get engaged.”

  Isabel’s smile was very tentative. “That’s … well, that’s also a big step, isn’t it, at your age?”

  Eddie looked at her searchingly. “What age were you when you first fell in love?”

  She had to think. Most of us first experienced love in our teenage years, sometimes when we were barely into our teens. The passionate friendships of those years were really love affairs even if they remained innocent. And they often focused on friends of the same sex—a rite of passage to heterosexuality, for some people, not all, of course. If people were honest with themselves, they would remember such friendships, but then people were far from honest when it came to things like that.

  She had fallen in love with a boy when she was sixteen. That had been her eye-opener. She had felt elated, excited and miserable in roughly equal measure. She had never dreamed that love could be painful, but it was. She had loved him so much that it hurt, and when it ended, as was inevitable, the pain had been even more intense—for three weeks. Then she had suddenly woken up one morning and realised that he was just a boy and that she no longer wanted to spend the entire day thinking about him. That was her cure.

  “I loved somebody when I was sixteen, seventeen,” she said. “And then again a few years later I fell badly for somebody whom I eventually married. It was a bad mistake on my part. I think I told you once, didn’t I?”

  Eddie remembered. “Yes. What was he called again?”

  Isabel had to make an effort: the uttering of names can be potent—and painful. “John Liamor. He was not a good man, I’m afraid to say.”

  “Then you’re best off without him,” said Eddie. “He’s history. Forget him.”

  “I did,” said Isabel, and felt, as she uttered the words, a pang of regret. “I had to teach myself not to think about him. It wasn’t easy.”

  “Then let’s talk about something else: Diane.”

  Isabel smiled at him. “You’re obviously head over heels in love with her. You’re lucky.” She paused. Eddie’s face had broken into a grin of sheer pleasure.

  “Yes,” Isabel continued. “You’re really lucky, Eddie. Love transforms everything, doesn’t it?”

  She assumed that he might be embarrassed by this talk of love, as any young man might be. But Eddie seemed to relish it. “Everything’s really great, Isabel. I feel really great.”

  She leaned forward, across the table, and kissed him gently on the cheek. He was surprised, and she heard his breath come sharply; but again he did not seem embarrassed.

  “I’m happy for you, Eddie,” she said. “Stay head over heels in love. Buy her flowers. Give her lots and lots of kisses. Worship her. Diane, Diana: they’re the same goddess, you know. Diana, the Huntress.”

  Eddie looked at her wide-eyed. “She’s a nurse.”

  Isabel laughed. “Don’t be too literal,” she said. “Being in love allows a certain poetic hyperbole.”

  Eddie remained wide-eyed.

  “What I mean by all that,” said Isabel, “is: go for it.”

  The translation was effective. Eddie beamed. “Thanks, Isabel.”

  WITH CHARLIE STILL at nursery school, Isabel and Jamie ate their lunch on the lawn, shaded by the large oak tree that dominated one side of Isabel’s garden. They sat on green canvas deckchairs that were nearing the end of their life but were still the most comfortable garden furniture that Isabel had ever known. The fabric, rotted in places by summer after summer of not being put away promptly enough when rain began to fall, had now ripped in several places, and it was only a matter of time, Isabel thought, before it would give way altogether and deposit the person sitting on the chair unceremoniously on the grass. She would not mind if that happened to her, or to Jamie—it seemed as if deckchairs were designed to humiliate their owners, to trap their fingers, to dump them on the ground—but she did not want it to happen to a visitor.

  Now, sitting in the shade on that particularly hot day, Isabel struggled to eat a slice of onion tart without distributing flaky crumbs of pastry or fragments of onion all over her clothes. Jamie did not have that problem. He had disposed of his shirt and had only an old pair of jeans to worry about. She glanced at him, and then glanced away. There was no spare flesh on him, she thought; just muscle. She had always felt that somehow it was unfair: Jamie never went to the gym. So did one get like that, she wondered, just from playing the bassoon? She glanced at him again; his skin was brown from exposure to the summer sun, and he was perfect. She wanted to touch him. But did not, and instead looked up at the sky, which was empty.

  “Do you believe in angels?”

  He had not been paying attention; a bee had landed on his foot and he had leaned forward to flick it off.

  “Do I believe in eagles? Of course I do. Who doesn’t? You can see them flying about in the Highlands.”

  “Angels.”

  “Oh, that’s another matter.”

  Isabel looked back up at the sky. “There is no evidence for the existence of angels, and I suppose we must reluctantly conclude that they don’t exist. It’s a pity, I think, because I can just imagine them floating across a sky like this one.”

  Jamie looked up.

  “What’s that poem you quoted to me once?” he asked. “Something about Italy.”

  Isabel closed her eyes. “ ‘Angels in Italy.’ Al Alvarez wrote it. He’s in Italy, in the country …”

  “Tuscany, of course.”

  “Of course. And suddenly he sees angels. He says something about how they make no sound, although their wings move. That’s how it starts.”

  Jamie was intrigued. “Their wings make no sound? That’s what he says?”

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “And then he goes on to say that people down below are doing all sorts of ordinary things—like cutting wood with a buzz-saw. And the leaves on the vine rattle like dice. All while the angels are crossing the sky, until the clouds take them.”

  Jamie whispered again, savouring the words. “Until the clouds take them.”

  Isabel was silent for a moment. Then she turned to face Jamie. He was watching her. His eyes were kind. She
reached out and laid a hand against his cheek and then let it slip down to his shoulder. His skin was smooth. If he had wings, they would sprout here, perhaps, right here; great wings; angel, angel.

  For a few minutes nothing was said. She felt Jamie’s shoulder move slightly as he breathed; she felt, she thought, his heartbeat. She willed him not to say anything, not to disturb the moment. They looked at each other. His lips moved almost imperceptibly into the slightest, the faintest of smiles.

  And then it seemed right to speak. “I saw Eddie this morning,” she said.

  He sounded drowsy. “Oh yes?”

  “He wants to get engaged to a girl he’s met.”

  Jamie smiled. “Good. Poor Eddie.”

  “He’s still very young.”

  Jamie thought that did not matter. “He thinks he’s old enough to set up home with her. That’s what he wants.”

  “Perhaps.” She paused. She had taken her hand away from his shoulder now. There had been a moment, an extraordinarily intense moment, but it had passed and they had begun to talk about Eddie. What had happened?

  The deckchair canvas protested—a tiny, ripping sound as a bit more gave way. And then it came to her: Auden’s poem. She had been thinking about “Angels in Italy” while all the time she might have been remembering Auden’s “A Summer Night.” Was that not about sitting outside, at night, in a deckchair in the company of friends; and with Vega “conspicuous overhead”? Auden had later described how during those few minutes sitting under the stars with his friends he had experienced a mystical understanding of agape, that non-sexual love of others. He had been vouchsafed a glimpse of agape and it had stayed with him for some time before it had faded. Had she felt something similar?

  “And I met somebody else,” Isabel said. “Martha Drummond.”

  Jamie raised an eyebrow. “That rather odd woman? The one who lives round the corner?”

  “Yes, her.”

  He shrugged. “And?”

  “We had coffee at Cat’s. She said that there was somebody who wanted to speak to me about something.”

  Jamie said nothing.

  “Do you remember reading about the theft of a painting from a house in Stirlingshire? A painting by Poussin?”

  Jamie said that he had a vague recollection of it. “It was quite valuable, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Not as valuable as that da Vinci that was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle—the one they eventually found in the safe of a Glasgow firm of lawyers. But it was still worth a few million.”

  Jamie began to lift himself out of his deckchair. The flimsy contraption started to wobble and then, with a sudden loud ripping sound, the canvas gave way. This had the effect of making him fall, causing the restraining bar on the chair to slip from its home and the whole chair to fold in upon itself.

  Jamie gave a howl of pain. His left hand had been unfortunately placed and had become trapped in the collapsing frame.

  “Jamie!” She struggled to get out of her chair. There was another ripping sound, but the canvas held and Isabel was on her feet. Jamie had extricated himself from the chair mechanism and was nursing his hand.

  “Painful,” he said.

  “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. “I knew that would happen.”

  They both laughed. “Why does anyone sit in dangerous chairs?” Isabel asked.

  “Why does anybody do anything dangerous?” Jamie asked, examining his hand for signs of damage.

  “I don’t know,” said Isabel. “Boredom, perhaps. Danger gives a bit of spice to our lives.”

  He turned to her, resuming the conversation that had been interrupted by the failure of the deckchair. “You were saying, this person—whoever it is—wants to speak to you. It’s going to be about the theft of the Poussin, isn’t it?”

  She looked down at the ground. “Yes.”

  He sighed. “You’ve done something like this before. That artist you traced. When we went to Jura. Remember?”

  “Yes. But this is different.”

  He reached out to take her hand. “Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you really think so?”

  She began to lead him back to the house. “Yes, I know. I know what you mean. It’s vaguely ridiculous that here am I, the editor of a philosophical review of all things, and I keep getting involved in the messes that people get themselves into.”

  Jamie agreed. “Yes, it is ridiculous. And yet it seems to go on happening.”

  Isabel sighed. “I don’t exactly advertise.”

  “Well, you know my views,” said Jamie. “I don’t think it’s a terribly good idea.”

  “No, it may not be a good idea, but some of the things we have to do are not particularly good ideas—but we have to do them anyway.”

  “You don’t have to do this. Nobody says you have to do this.”

  “No. But this poor man, this Munrowe man—apparently he’s pretty cut up about it. And all he wants to do is talk. I can’t really refuse to talk to him.”

  They made their way into the house. Isabel slipped an arm around his shoulder and asked him if he was cross with her.

  He hesitated. “No, I’m not cross. If anything, I suppose I should be proud of you—which I am. I’m very proud of you.” He paused. “But please be careful over this one. This isn’t just some minor issue you’re helping with—this is really serious.”

  Isabel sought to reassure him. “I’m only going to be speaking to him. That’s all.”

  It was as if he had not heard. “And the point about serious matters like this is that people get hurt.”

  “I shall be very careful. I promise you.”

  They went inside. She bathed Jamie’s hand, as the clash with the deckchair had broken the skin slightly. She patted it dry with a clean towel and then kissed it. He looked at the clock; Charlie would have to be fetched in half an hour or so. He put his arms about Isabel and embraced her, pulling her to him. Her hands were on his shoulder blades. It was warm in the house and the sound of a mower drifted in from over the road through an open window, bringing with it the smell of cut grass.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE ARRANGEMENT, made by Martha Drummond, and relayed to Isabel later that afternoon in a telephone call from Martha, was that Duncan Munrowe would come, as Isabel had suggested, to the German bakery in Bruntsfield at one o’clock the following day. Isabel’s housekeeper Grace had been on holiday but would be back in the morning and would be able to collect Charlie from nursery school in place of Jamie, who was recording in Glasgow.

  Grace had been in Stranraer, where she had a cousin who was married to a farmer. Each year she went to visit this cousin for a week, and inevitably came back sleep-deprived and vaguely grumpy as a result. “He snores something terrible,” she explained to Isabel. “I’m short of a week’s sleep. He goes to bed at ten every night—regular as clockwork. By ten-fifteen the snoring starts, and it goes on all night. You hear it throughout the house and it makes the walls shake. I’m not exaggerating—all night. Snoring and snorting.”

  “Poor man,” said Isabel.

  “Poor man? Poor us. My cousin hardly sleeps, she says, and no sooner do I drop off than I’m woken up by the sound of his snoring down the corridor.”

  “It sounds as if he might have sleep apnoea,” suggested Isabel. “My father had it. You stop breathing every so often and wake up. People who have sleep apnoea are usually chronically sleep-deprived.” She thought of the cumbersome mask her father had sometimes used to deal with the problem. “He could be helped.”

  “Not him,” said Grace. “He’s stubborn. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong.”

  This discussion of sleep led to the matter of Charlie’s afternoon nap. In Grace’s absence, Charlie had taken to resisting this period of rest, and yet he was clearly tired.

  “His mind seems very active,” said Isabel. “He wants to keep going.”

  She paused, remembering her conversation with Jamie about Charlie’s mathematical ability. “He seems
to be very keen on counting things at the moment,” she went on. “Have you noticed that?”

  Grace did not seem surprised. “Yes, of course I have. I’ve been teaching him, you see.”

  Isabel frowned. “Teaching him mathematics?”

  Grace nodded. “Yes. I’d noticed that he was quite good at counting and so I’ve been giving him lessons. I’ve taught him how to divide things, and some basic multiplication. I found a book in the library that tells you how to do this. It’s by a Korean woman who’s had two of her children win prizes in the Maths Olympiad. She explains how it’s done.”

  Isabel was not sure what to say. So that was how Charlie had been able to come up with what seemed to be naturally brilliant answers: he had been taught. For a few moments she was silent. She trusted Grace with so much of Charlie’s life, and she was not sure why she should feel concerned about her teaching him mathematics. At the back of her mind was a feeling that one had to be careful with method when it came to mathematics: she seemed to remember being told that if you developed the wrong way of doing mathematics when you were young, you could be lumbered with it for the rest of your life. It was the same with many activities—from typing to playing the violin: it was sometimes far harder to unlearn bad habits than to learn them in the first place. But the issue would have to be handled delicately; Grace was touchy and could take offence at the slightest reproach, even if unintended.

  “I suppose he must have natural ability,” said Isabel mildly.

  Grace looked thoughtful. “Probably no more than any other child of his age. It’s the teaching, I think. The book is really good. It says any child can be really good at calculating if you follow their method.”

  Isabel looked doubtful. “Surely not every single child. Genes must play some sort of role,” she said. “Mathematical ability and musicality often go together. Jamie’s a musician, after all, and maybe Charlie gets it from him.”

  Grace shook her head. “It’s the book, I think.”

  Isabel decided not to argue. This was not the time to voice her reservations—especially when Grace was feeling sleep-deprived as a result of the snoring Ayrshire farmer. “Oh, well,” she said.