The Lost Art of Gratitude

CHAPTER NINE

ISABEL HAD DECIDED that the last thing one should do when one met a funambulist was to ask about tightrope walking. This exercise of tact was not particular to tightrope walkers; there were numerous situations, many of them much more mundane, in which one refrained from talking to people about what they did. One did not ask judges about how they felt when they sent people to prison; one did not enquire of airline pilots whether they had ever had a near miss; and one did not ask overweight chefs whether they found it difficult to keep from sampling their creations. In all of these examples such questions would stray into sensitive territory, and it was the same with tightrope walkers, who must feel, Isabel thought, the inherent absurdity of their profession.

“He may be proud of it, of course,” Jamie pointed out. “It may be exactly what he wants to talk about.”

Isabel suspected that even if Bruno were proud of being a tightrope walker, Cat would be cagey about it. “He’s in the theatre,” her niece had said opaquely, which gave the game away, in Isabel’s view.

“Let’s just not mention it,” she said to Jamie. “If he mentions it himself, then we can ask. Otherwise, let’s not say anything about it.” She paused. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong in being a tightrope walker. We need them.”

Jamie looked at her in amazement. “Do we?”

Isabel shrugged. “Perhaps not. But what I’m saying is that we must respect the dignity of all labour.”

Jamie shook his head. “But is it labour?”

“Oh, I don’t know. But let’s not raise it, anyway. Just don’t mention it unless she does.”

Jamie agreed, although reluctantly. “But I’m really interested,” he said. “I’d like to know how he trained for the job. I’d like to know what was the highest rope he’s ever walked on. Do you think he’s one of these people who walks across the Niagara Falls?”

“Nobody walks across the Niagara Falls any more,” said Isabel. “Waterfalls are very tightly regulated these days.”

Jamie burst out laughing. “That sounds very funny.”

“Or sad,” said Isabel, becoming thoughtful. She remembered reading about the visit of Pius XII to the Niagara Falls when he was a papal envoy to the United States. He had been taken to Niagara and had gazed out over the river. Then, presumably feeling that something was expected of him, he had proceeded to bless the falls. That had tickled her. What was the point of blessing a natural feature? Did he expect that the falls would behave better if blessed? Or would they just bring more pleasure to visitors if they had the benign disposition of blessed falls rather than unblessed falls? The irreverent thoughts gave way to more sober reflection. We all wished for places to be made special somehow; people had holy rivers, after all: the Ganges, the Brahmaputra. And Isabel was sure that there were others, even if she could not name them. Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. Auden again—he came back to her, at these odd moments; she could not help it.

When Cat rang the bell, Isabel was with Charlie in the sitting room, reading to him from a battered copy of Now We Are Six. A poem about the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace might not have been the most intellectual of fare, but for Charlie, not yet two, it was as metaphysically challenging as the most obscure lines of John Donne or Andrew Marvell. But whereas Donne and Marvell did not go tiddly-om-pom-pom in metrical terms, Milne did, and that was what Charlie liked. So it did not matter that Charlie had no idea why one of the sergeants should look after the guards’ socks or why Alice was about to marry one of the guards. Nor did it matter when Isabel read Hiawatha to him that he had no inkling as to what a wigwam or the shining Big-Sea-Water was; what counted was Longfellow’s use of metre, a monstrously repetitive business, which Charlie loved, and which could be counted upon to send him into a state of somnolence after fifty lines. Noticing this, Isabel had toyed with the idea of suggesting to some far-sighted publishers that they publish a book specifically targeted at insomniacs. This volume would not offer advice on how to tackle sleeplessness (there were far too many people advising us about everything, she thought); it would simply contain passages the reading of which could be relied upon to send the insomniac reader to sleep. Hiawatha would be there, but so would, for quite different reasons, excerpts from Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, and from one or two modern political memoirs.

Isabel put down the Milne and announced to Charlie that she would have to leave him for a moment to answer the door. She laid him down gently in his playpen, and then said, “Your cousin’s at the door, Charlie.”

Charlie looked up at her expectantly. “Olive,” he muttered.

“Not now,” said Isabel. “But well done.”

She went through to the front hall and opened the door. Cat was there, and immediately behind her was a man whom Isabel took to be Bruno. The evening sun, slanting in from the west, was in Cat’s hair, creating a halo effect.

Isabel stepped forward and gave the younger woman a light kiss. “And this, I assume, is Bruno.”

“Yes,” said Cat, moving aside to let Isabel reach out to shake hands with her new fiancé.

Bruno inclined his head. His expression was one of bemusement shading into condescension. It was the look of somebody who would rather be somewhere else but was there anyway and was prepared to be tolerant.

When he spoke, Bruno did so with a curiously high-pitched voice. “Pleased to meet you.”

It was entirely involuntary, but Isabel felt the muscles about her mouth tighten. She knew she should not feel that way, but she did. She did not like the tone in which Bruno said Pleased to meet you. There was a jauntiness to it, almost an irony, as if he were saying that he was pleased but was not, or was indifferent. He is here on sufferance, she thought; he has come here only because Cat has insisted. She disliked that intensely. It was like one of those occasions at a cocktail party when you find yourself conversing with somebody who is looking over your shoulder to see if there is anybody more important to engage in conversation.

She looked at Bruno, being struck by the fact that he was short; he was like a jockey—short and wiry. Every previous boyfriend of Cat’s had been tall, and here was Bruno, half a head shorter than Cat herself, and even that, she noticed as her eyes ran down his legs to his feet, was in his elevator shoes.

They went inside. Jamie appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea cloth. He embraced Cat quite easily, kissing her lightly on each cheek before shaking hands with Bruno.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Bruno said.

Again Isabel experienced an involuntary reaction, this time a slight wince. It was an ill-chosen remark—immediately embarrassing for the one to whom it was addressed. The knowledge that one is being talked about is not always welcome; it makes one wonder just what has been said, particularly in a case like this where relations between Jamie and Cat had not been especially easy.

Isabel could see that Bruno’s comment made Jamie feel uncomfortable, and she was on the point of making some anodyne remark on the weather when Jamie spoke.

“Oh yes?” he said. “And I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Bruno glanced at Cat. He was clearly annoyed. “Can’t imagine there’s much to be said about me,” he said. “Apart from my film credits, of course.”

Isabel seized the opportunity. “Now that’s something I didn’t hear. Nobody mentioned films.”

Bruno turned from Jamie to Isabel. “You’ve never seen me on the screen?”

“I watch so little,” Isabel said, waving a hand in the air. “I’d like to see more of … more of everything, but where’s the time?”

“I was in Oil,” said Bruno. “That was the last one. You know it?” This last question was addressed more to Jamie than to Isabel, since Bruno had obviously decided she knew nothing about films.

“Oil?”

“Yes. It was set on an offshore oil rig up near Shetland—or most of it was. Joe Beazley directed. You know him?”

Isabel looked thoughtful, as if trying to remember Joe Beazley amongst the many film directors of her acquaintance. “Joe Beazley? No, I can’t say that I know him.”

“What were you in Oil?” Jamie asked.

“Stunts,” said Bruno. “That’s what I do. I’m a stunt man.”

“I thought that you were a tightrope walker,” said Jamie.

Bruno laughed. It was a rather unpleasant sound, Isabel thought; more of a snigger really. “I do that as well,” he said. “It goes with doing stunt work. Know what I mean?”

“Sort of,” said Jamie.

They were still standing in the hall, and Isabel now gestured for them to move into the sitting room, where Charlie was enjoying his last few minutes before bedtime. Bruno bent down to tickle Charlie under the chin, calling him “mate” as he did so. “You fed up, mate? I don’t blame you. Tell you what: I’ll teach you to escape from that thing.”

Charlie looked at Bruno with distaste. He had not enjoyed having his chin tickled and his brow knitted into a frown. Isabel wanted to laugh: Cat had done it again. Bruno was worse, far worse, than she had imagined.

“Are you an escapologist as well?” she asked.

Bruno looked up at her. “Escape-how-much?” he asked.

“An escapologist. I wondered whether you were both a funambulist and an escapologist.”

Now Cat decided to intervene. Throwing a sideways glance at Isabel, she said, “Isabel can talk English. It’s just that sometimes she forgets.”

“Forgets what?” asked Bruno.

Jamie cleared his throat. “What stunts did you do in Oil?” he asked.

Bruno seemed pleased with the question. “I was covered in oil in one scene,” he said. “They used molasses, actually. It looks just like crude, but it’s easier to get off.”

“You must get yourself into some sticky situations,” interjected Isabel.

Cat threw Isabel a warning glance.

“And then, in another scene,” Bruno continued, “I had to do a fire job. Asbestos clothing, flames, the works. They had me toppling over and ending up in the drink. I almost hit the rescue boat when I went in, but it didn’t show up in the shot so the director didn’t make me do it again.”

Cat smiled appreciatively. “Bruno says that filming is very dull work. He says that they do the same thing over and over again, just to get it right.”

Bruno nodded in agreement. “It’s a tough business, even if you aren’t a stunt man. You work for the dough, you really do. Except for the body doubles. That’s easy money.”

Jamie was intrigued. “Body doubles?”

Bruno grinned. “They’re the people who stand in for actors’ body parts—an arm, maybe, or a foot—depending.” He hesitated, looking at Cat as if for a signal. She smiled encouragingly, and he was emboldened. “And nude scenes. You know, bedroom stuff. When they want to show a bit of flesh. You don’t have to show the face, and so they use the body double rather than the actor.” He turned to Isabel and winked. “Know what I mean?”

It occurred to Isabel that she should wink back, and she did. Jamie saw this, and his mouth opened as if he was about to say something. Then Bruno winked at Isabel again.

THEY BOTH HAD DIFFICULTY getting to sleep. Isabel knew that Jamie was still awake by the sound of his breathing; once he was asleep he breathed so quietly that it was as if nobody was there.

“Oh well,” she muttered.

Jamie turned. He put an arm gently about her shoulder, pushing the sheet and blanket aside. “You behaved,” he said. “In fact, I thought you behaved very nicely.”

She was relieved. She had made a supreme effort—for the sake of her relationship with Cat—and it was a relief to know that at least Jamie had been impressed. “That wink,” she said.

He chuckled. “Yes. I saw it. What did it mean?”

“A wink is usually a sign of complicity,” said Isabel. “It says, ‘We’re on the same side, aren’t we?’ ”

Jamie sighed. “It’s not going to work, is it? And do you know what? I feel rather sorry for him. He may be pretty keen on her.”

Isabel feared that he was right. “He’s rougher trade than her usual boyfriends,” she said. “I hope that when it comes unstuck he won’t be difficult.”

Jamie confessed that this had been worrying him too. “There’s something about him,” he said. “Something rather odd. You know how it is with some people, there’s a sense of their being on the edge. Wound up like a spring.”

Isabel knew what he meant. She had sensed it too, and it had worried her. “Do you think we should warn her?” She felt the weight of his forearm on her shoulder; it was a reassuring feeling

Jamie was silent for a moment. Then he spoke. “No. We mustn’t. She won’t take well to any interference. She’ll have to discover it by herself.”

Isabel knew that he was right. The decision not to interfere was counterintuitive though, and she knew that it was going to be hard. The arrival of Bruno was potentially disastrous; even saying his name was proving difficult now, so strongly negative were the associations.

“At least we won’t have to wait long. It probably won’t last,” she said, drowsily.

“Or he won’t,” muttered Jamie.

Jamie’s remark jolted Isabel back to wakefulness. “What?”

Jamie explained. “His job is pretty dangerous, isn’t it? Flaming jackets, oil, molasses … tightropes. All very dangerous. High life insurance rates, I would have thought. Poor chap.”

The last two words, thought Isabel, were vital. They converted a heartless remark into a sympathetic one, showing the power of small words to do big things.