Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander Mccall Smith

Author:Alexander Mccall Smith [Smith, Alexander Mccall]
Language: eng
Format: epub

“THAT WAS A DISASTER .”

Jamie nodded. “You can say that again.”

They were travelling home in a taxi. Going up the Mound, the lights of the Castle above them and the dark valley of Princes Street Garden to their right, they watched the late-night life of the streets—the groups of students, boisterous, heading for clubs and pubs, the couples arm in arm, the clusters of people under bus-stop shelters. Charlie had niggled and cried from the moment he had woken up at that early stage, and the atmosphere at the table had been tense and uncomfortable. They had left the moment the meal was over and had gone down the stairs in silence. Jamie was cross with her, Isabel thought, but she did not know what she had to apologise for. For disagreeing with him over new operas? For accepting the invitation in the first place?

“I’m sorry,” she said as the taxi crested the brow of the High Street and began to make its way towards George IV Bridge. “I’m sorry for whatever I’m meant to have done.”

“You didn’t do anything,” muttered Jamie. “It’s just that I hated the whole thing. I hated the way Cat behaved. I hated her attitude towards Charlie.”

Isabel sighed. “It’s very complicated,” said Isabel.

“Everything’s too complicated,” said Jamie. “The whole lot’s too complicated.”

“Why don’t we go away then?” said Isabel. She said this without thinking, but after she had said it she realised that it was a good idea. They needed to get away, with Charlie, to be by themselves. A few days would make all the difference.

Jamie did not reject the possibility out of hand.

“Go away where?” he asked.

Again Isabel did not think before she spoke. “Jura,” she said.

“All right,” said Jamie. He still seemed low, and she reached out and took his hand in hers. She sensed his tension, but he did not draw his hand away, and by the time they reached Bruntsfield Place and were travelling past the darkened windows of Cat’s delicatessen, he was stroking her wrist with his fingers, gently, tentatively, with the touch of a lover who has found out again that he is in awe of the person he loves.

Isabel thought of the outrageous thing that she had imagined Cat to have mouthed. True, she thought, and smiled to herself.

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