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machine, of course, but a machine none the less. Do you mind if I ask—are you in some sort of trouble?”
    Jillian blushed. “No, good heavens, no. Not me. Not personally.”
    Isabel felt relieved. It had crossed her mind that Jillian was about to make some sort of personal disclosure—of an errant husband, perhaps, or some other domestic difficulty, and she would have to explain that she would like to be able to help, but … Jamie’s words came back to her, “Listen, Isabel, I know that you feel you have to help, but don’t get involved—please don’t—in other people’s matrimonial problems. It rarely helps.” He was right. People with matrimonial difficulties usually wanted allies, not advisers.
    “Well,” said Isabel, “I don’t know whether I can do anything, and of course I don’t know what the problem is. If you’d care to tell me.” She smiled encouragingly at Jillian; there was awkwardnessin the other woman’s manner and she wanted to reassure her. At the same time she thought,
I have enough on my plate. I have Charlie. I have the
Review.
I have Jamie. Brother Fox …
    Jillian signalled to Eddie, who came to take her order for coffee. As Eddie left, she lowered her voice and said, “That young man—there’s something lost about him, don’t you think?”
    Isabel was cautious. “Eddie?”
    “Oh, you know him?”
    “Yes. My niece owns this place, you see. I occasionally work here.”
    Jillian blushed again. “I’ve been very tactless. Sorry.”
    “Not at all. You’re right about Eddie. But I think he’s making progress. He’s more confident. He’s a nice young man.”
    This seemed to please Jillian. “Good. I see so many young people because of my husband’s involvement with a school. Teenage boys. And I think we sometimes don’t realise just how hard it is for them these days. It’s much easier for girls, I think. Boys are more confused. They’ve lost the role they used to have—you know, being tough and so on. Brawn means nothing now.”
    “Quite.”
    “So you often come across boys who are quite lost. They retreat into themselves or their cults. Skateboarders are an example of that. Or at least some of them are.”
    Isabel thought about skateboarders. It was not an attractive group, with their lack of interest in anything much except their repetitive twirls and gymnastic tricks. They tended to be teenagers, though, and teenagers grew up, although sometimesone saw older skateboarders, almost into their thirties, overgrown boys stuck in the ways of youth. She shuddered. Certain groups of people made her shudder: extremists, with their ideologies of hate; the proud; the arrogant; the narcissistic socialites of celebrity culture. And yet all of these were
people
, and one should love people, or try to …
    “Skateboarders are typical of the refuge cult,” said Jillian. “They retreat into the group and don’t really talk to anybody else.”
    Isabel said that she thought that many teenagers did that, and not just skateboarders. Yes, that was true, Jillian said, but skateboarders were an extreme example. “They block out the rest of the world, you know. They think that there are skaters and then there are the rest. It’s that bad.” She waited a moment, and then added: “I know about this, you see. Our son became one. He didn’t talk to us for two and a half years. Just a few grunts. That was all.”
    “But he came back?”
    “Yes. He came back. But he had wasted those precious years of youth. Think what he might have seen and done, instead of spending his time on streets, skating aimlessly. Just think.”
    “We all have our ways of wasting time,” said Isabel. “Think of golf … What’s your son doing now?”
    “He works for a hedge fund.”
    She could not help but smile. “Oh.”
    “Yes, it sounds ridiculous,” said Jillian. “But one’s children don’t always turn out exactly as one hoped. Do you …”
    “I have a son. Still very young. He has yet