At the Reunion Buffet Read Online Free PDF Page A

when Isabel was still at her desk, reading proofs of the
Review of Applied Ethics
. It was a slightly disappointing issue, she thought—a ragbag of articles that she had been sitting on for too long and that she had to publish before their authors gave up all hope, retired or died. She had made a joke to herself of that, but even as she did so she remembered, with a pang, Gareth Crainie, an Irish philosopher. He had written a paper on the ethical implications of climate change; it had been a well-written paper and extensively footnoted, but it had failed to engage her interest. She had agreed to publish it, though, even if she had not given a firm commitment as to when it would appear. Later it had slipped into what she called her “deep guilt pile” and there it languished until in a fit of determination to clear the backlog she had brought it out, dusted it down and put it into the New Opinions section of a forthcoming issue.
    That done, she had written to the author to let him know that his article would be appearing and to apologize for the long time it had taken her to publish it, although she knew she had no real excuse. The answer to this letter came from the author’s partner, who informed her of the philosopher’s death. “Gareth died eight months ago,” he wrote. “It is such a pity that this will be a posthumous publication as he had been so looking forwards to seeing it in print. He spent a lot of time on it, you know, and he was thrilled when you agreed to publish it. Now he will never see it, although he did understand how long these things can take—too long sometimes. We were together for a long time, by the way: thirty-seven years, in fact. Of those thirty-seven years, many were spent in the shadow of disapproval and exclusion. Some of that was open, some of it was concealed; but it was always there, in the days when this country was so rotten and hypocritical. There was a bishop, you know, who actually tried to have Gareth removed from his teaching post at the university on the grounds that he would corrupt young people. A bishop! And now…Sorry, I shouldn’t talk about all that as it has nothing to do with you, but we felt—both Gareth and I—that when you wrote and told him that you would publish his paper you somehow became a friend. We liked the way you phrased your letter. It was kind. There we are: nothing more to be said, really, but thank you for what you did.”
    She had learned her lesson and now, in every fourth issue, she published the papers that were waiting in the queue. It worked, and the guilt pile largely disappeared, even if it made the contents of those mopping-up issues seem somewhat random.
    As she went up to the bedroom to change for the party, Jamie appeared. He had been putting Charlie to bed, Isabel having said good night to him after his bath.
    “He’s utterly exhausted,” said Jamie. “He went to sleep the moment his head touched the pillow. There was no time even for his story.”
    “The benefits of a clear conscience,” said Isabel. “That’s why children sleep so well.” She thought of the guilt pile. At least she had looked that in the face.
    Jamie asked her whether she had finished the proofs. “Get those out of the way and you can relax. Enjoy the reunion.”
    Isabel smiled. “I wonder whether anybody’s relaxing. I suspect that everybody’s on tenterhooks.”
    “Oh well,” said Jamie. “I’m sure it’s all going to go very smoothly. The caterers have been working like slaves all afternoon.”
    Isabel slipped out of her jeans and fingered the dress hanging on the wardrobe door. Too formal? “Slavery,” she mused. “As it happens we’re doing an article on that. Slavery and reparation. It’s in those proofs I’ve just been reading.”
    Jamie sat down on the bedroom chair, a low red armchair in need of reupholstering. It had been Isabel’s mother’s bedroom chair, and her grandmother’s before that. It had originally come from Mobile, she