At the Reunion Buffet by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

subject that she had given him. He had learned the philosophical language—and the techniques, and now even read the
Review
with some interest.
    “
If
we become different people,” he said.
    She held her ground. “We do,” she said. “I’m not the same person I was at eighteen. I’m just not.”
    “But you are,” he insisted. “I’ve seen a photograph.”
    “Physically—yes. But it’s not just that. We aren’t just our bodies…” She paused. “I have different tastes in music; I think about things differently; the people I liked when I was eighteen are not the sort of people I like today. I’m very, very different.” She thought of John Liamor; she had been in love with him—in a way, in a foolish way—but she could never love him, or anybody at all like him, now.
    He shook his head. “That means your tastes have changed. It doesn’t mean that you’re a different person.”
    “Doesn’t it? What if I were to say to you that personhood is really a matter of attitudes and emotions and…”
    “And memories,” he interjected.
    “Yes, and memories too. And if all those things are different, then the person’s different. Oh, there may be some physical elements that are the same—I always imagine that we have pretty much the same skeleton that we started with, so to speak, at the beginning—a bit bigger, maybe, but the same bones.” She paused. “But I wasn’t going to get into a discussion of personal identity; we were talking about class reunions.”
    He nodded. “So you’re going to yours?”
    “Yes, or rather, it’s coming to me. I’ve agreed to host one of the parties. It’ll be on the Friday night—right at the beginning.”
    “Here?”
    She had meant to ascertain whether he had any objection, but had forgotten to mention it to him. She hoped that he did not mind twenty-five women, or whatever number it was, coming to the house. The others would not have their partners with them, and Jamie, if he attended, would be the only man. They would love him, of course, and at least some of them would feel envy towards her—unless they had grown up, and could cope with the sight of one of their number with a much younger man, even if all those years ago they had whispered amongst themselves that she—Isabel—would never find a man.
Too brainy, you know—it puts men off. I swear it does. That’s not what men are looking for
. She had overheard one such conversation, and the laughter that had followed it, and she had smarted over it. Who had said it? Even now she remembered: it was Claire Sutherland, whom she had disliked on that account; Claire, who always spelled out her name when introduced.
Claire with an
i
and an
e
, please, not the other stupid ways of spelling it;
Claire, whose uncle had married a minor film star, whose name she dropped into almost every conversation; Claire, who had had no shortage of boyfriends but had them, Isabel remembered thinking, because she had lived up to the nickname some sniggering boys had coined for her, as vulgar and unkind as it was clichéd:
Town Bicycle.
    Claire Sutherland’s name was on the list the organizer had sent—misspelled, as it happened—and Isabel had imagined with some satisfaction how she might introduce Jamie to her and how her eyes—and she remembered that Claire had small, piggy eyes—would narrow with jealousy when she laid eyes on him. And Isabel would say, “Claire, this is my
husband,
” which would cause a further narrowing of the eyes.
    She had stopped herself. This was not the way in which we should allow our thoughts to run, she reminded herself; class reunions should not be marred by feelings of jealousy or triumph; should not be, yes, but she suspected that they often were. Class reunions were about curiosity; about satisfaction at the avoidance of the mistakes of one’s contemporaries, now revealed in their emerging life histories; about reflecting on the ravages—and injustices—of time; and of realizing,