The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

they write.
    No, she did not want to appear foolish, and this was a subject on which she realised she knew very little about Jamie’s views. Did he believe in anything beyond the material? They had never talked about that, and she had no idea. But that was probably not unusual amongst couples—how many people these days, in her sort of society, talked to one another about that ? She thought of her friends, and wondered which of them believed in the existence of God. She knew one or two of them went to church, and they, she assumed, either believed in God or wanted to believe. That was probably true of many people in any congregation, of course: they were there not because they believed but because they felt the need for religion, for something beyond themselves. So what did Jamie believe in, if anything? Did he think that he had a soul? She watched him pick up his glass. He was looking at her, his eyes smiling. Of course he had a soul, she said to herself; that gentle, kind, loving part of him. That was there, and she could see it.
    â€œWe’ve had an invitation,” she said. And immediately she wondered why she had said this. She had not been thinking about it, and even if she had, she would not have thought about bringing it up right now. But it came out, unanticipated.
    â€œOh?”
    She swallowed hard. She had just had a vision of love, or something to do with love, and she had to go on in that spirit. “Cat has asked us to dinner.”
    She watched him closely. Sometimes words can be seen, she thought; one sees them travelling through the air and reaching their target as if an invisible wave had moved through the room. Isabel remembered how, as a young woman, she had once gone to sit through a trial in the High Court. She had a friend who was a junior advocate in the trial and she wanted to see her in action. It had been dramatic; she had seen the jury return its verdict and the judge had shifted in his seat to face the accused. Then he simply said, “Six years,” and she saw the man in the dock reel backwards as if he had been hit by an unseen hand, pushing him back.
    Jamie put down his glass and looked at her. The light that had been in his eyes, the smile, was no longer there; it had been replaced by something flat, something guarded. “That’s kind of her,” he said. “When?”
    â€œShe didn’t say. It was a message, actually. She left it with Grace.”
    â€œI see.”
    She toyed with her fork. “Do you want to go? We don’t have to.” She thought that Cat would understand; they had kept off the subject of Cat, by unspoken agreement, because they both knew it was a wound that should not be breathed into.
    He did not reply for a moment. “I’m over her,” he said, but he did not look at Isabel as he spoke, and she knew it could not be true. If Cat meant nothing to him anymore, then he would have looked at her; Jamie always engaged with people directly, looked them in the eye. But not now.
    Isabel stared at him. This hurt her. “I don’t think you are, Jamie. I really don’t think you are.”
    Now he looked up at her. “No. You’re right.”
    â€œSo do you still love her?”
    His voice was low. “Maybe I do. Maybe. You know how it is.”
    â€œOf course. I was in love for years and years. Even after John had left me I still loved him, went on loving him, so foolishly, pointlessly. But we can’t help ourselves, can we?”
    He suddenly pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. Something—his glass of water—toppled and was spilled, and made a long dark stain down the leg of his jeans. He came round to her and crouched down. He put his arm about her. His voice sounded hoarse; that was from emotion, she thought. “Don’t you think that it’s possible that we can…that we can end up loving lots of people? People we used to love, still love. Them. But they’re just