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inclined her head slightly; she agreed.
    “It used to be very hard to be British,” Isabel continued. “The strain on the upper lip was pretty intense. Or American. All those short haircuts for the men and Betty Crocker cakes for the women. Identity was a straitjacket. Not any more.”
    They were both silent for a moment. Their conversation had started in the deep end, unlike most conversations, which launched themselves into the shallowest of shallows.
    Isabel had not finished. “Identity’s difficult. I suppose it brings about social cohesion, but it’s not much fun if you don’t quite fit. Being gay, for example, used to be pretty miserable. Or being a Protestant in a place like Ireland when the Catholic Church ruled the roost. Or being a woman in Ireland under the thumb of all those priests. Those big, dominant identities have been weakened, I suppose, but I think that might be a good thing, on balance. It’s allowed other identities to flourish.”
    Jane did not look convinced. “Yes, but if you weaken identity, people end up not knowing who they are. They end up living bland lives with no real content to them. No customs, no traditions, no sense of their past. And I think one needs to know who one is.” She hesitated. “I guess we’ve spent so much time feeling ashamed of ourselves, it’s made us rather apologetic about being what we are. As a result we don’t want to be anything.”
    Isabel was intrigued. “Ashamed of our history?”
    “Yes. After all, we forced ourselves on others. We despoiled and plundered the world. Destroyed cultures left, right and centre.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “But we did! No perhaps about it. We did!”
    “Well, at least Australia’s said sorry,” observed Isabel. “I’m not so sure that the West as a whole has. And even if we did all those things, we also invented penicillin and computers and human rights. We don’t need to be ashamed of any of that.”
    Jane sighed. “No, we can’t browbeat ourselves for too long.”
    As she toyed with the salt cellar, Isabel watched her. There was energy there; a controlled energy that was both intellectual and physical.
    “An identity can’t be founded on guilt,” Jane continued. “We have to decide who we are, what we represent, and then defend it.”
    “Enlightenment values? Defend those?”
    Jane nodded. “Probably. Because if we don’t, then all is lost. Hobbes’s nightmare.”
    “Of course.”
    “Self-interest, naked materialism, authoritarian government: all of these are alive and kicking in the undergrowth, ready to take over, ready to fill the vacuum created by the decline of Christianity.”
    The mention of religion stuck out. The laicisation of conversation—even about major things—had been so complete that religious references seemed inappropriate, almost gauche. And yet that was what had made us, thought Isabel. That had been at the heart of our culture; it had given our society its fundamental outlook. And could the Enlightenment have flourished in quite the same way in the absence of Christian sentiments of love and cherishing of others? Society may be post-Christian, but could hardly ignore its Judeo-Christian past; we did not, after all, come from nowhere.
    “I know this is a bit blunt,” Isabel said, “but do you mind my asking whether you have a particular religious position?”
    Jane looked at her directly. “Because I mentioned Christianity?”
    “Not just that—”
    Jane cut her short. “I sometimes envy those who have a strong faith. But in answer to your question, no, I can’t believe.”
    “So you’re like most of us today,” said Isabel. “I have misgivings about people not having a spiritual life. It’s so … so shallow. I sometimes think that life without a spiritual dimension must be like being made of cardboard—and as deep and satisfying.” She paused. “I feel that there is something there—some force, or truth, perhaps—to put it at its most general. I sense it, and I