At the Reunion Buffet by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

charge of Charlie.
    “Oh, another thing,” said Jamie. “I spoke to somebody called Barbara. She seemed to be rather isolated.”
    “Yes?”
    “I felt a bit sorry for her.”
    “She wasn’t very popular, I’m afraid. I’ve been surprised to find out what some people think of her. Feelings seem to be very strong.”
    Jamie was interested. “Really? Is that why she was by herself?”
    “I think so. One or two people seem to feel that she was a real bully. I don’t remember that myself—well, I remember a few incidents—but I don’t recall anything major.”
    “Bullying can be pretty invisible,” said Jamie. “Except to the victims.”
    “Yes, I suppose so.”
    Jamie shifted his position. He had been lying on his back; now he faced her. “She said something rather odd. She talked about the school as if it had been where it is now. The school hadn’t yet moved when you were there, had it?”
    “No, we were in the old buildings. The university took them over a few years after we left.”
    “That’s what I thought,” said Jamie. “But she spoke as if you had been at the new site.”
    Isabel said nothing. This was strange, and stranger still when considered along with Barbara’s remark about Philby. She wondered about amnesia—people became confused about the past because they simply had a bad memory or suffered from some neurological complaint: that was conceivable, but unlikely, given Barbara’s age. But there was another possibility, and it was as unsettling as it was unlikely: Barbara was not who she claimed to be. Isabel entertained that for a few moments before rejecting: it was patently ridiculous; such things simply did not happen. Real life, after all, was relentlessly prosaic: people always were who they appeared to be, except…She paused for thought. There were plenty of exceptions to that, she decided, starting with the late Kim Philby himself.

Chapter Five
    It preyed on her mind, and was there, as a question, when she opened her eyes the next morning. She had slept in and had been unaware of Jamie getting out of bed to attend to Charlie, who woke up at precisely the same time each morning and announced the fact by singing at the top of his voice.
    Yes, thought Isabel: the whole thing is clear. There were two Grant girls at school—Barbara and a sister who was younger than Barbara by a couple of years. Isabel remembered little about that younger sister, but last night, as she drifted off to sleep, she recalled one thing, and it was sufficient to jolt her wide awake: Barbara’s sister looked very like her—so like her, in fact, that the principal had once referred to the “Grant twins.” Of course, of course…Barbara had sent her sister in her place. Why she should do this was not clear, unless she had been unable to face meeting her victims—which was understandable—and had sent her sister to give the apology that she could not give.
    Isabel had drifted off to sleep with that possibility in her mind, but now, in the light of morning, it seemed absurdly fanciful. She wondered what Jamie would think, and she asked him when she went into the kitchen for breakfast. Charlie was halfway through his bowl of porridge, and Isabel, after kissing the boy on the top of his head, said to Jamie, “Do you think that Barbara Grant might be an imposter?”
    Jamie laughed. “Imposter? What have you been reading, Isabel? Girls’ school stories? The brave heroine unmasks…an
imposter
! Gasp.
You’re a cunning imposter, she hissed, and I shall now unmask you!
”
    Isabel blushed. “You may mock, Jamie, but —”
    He did not let her finish. “Hear that, Charlie? Mummy is going to unmask an imposter!”
    Charlie shouted out in delight. “Importer! Importer!”
    Isabel tickled Charlie under the chin. “Imposter.”
    “Not,” said Charlie.
    “Don’t spill your porridge,” warned Jamie.
    “I know it sounds ridiculous…”
    “Highly,” said Jamie.
    “…but I’m going to speak to