A Distant View of Everything

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “Just as well.” Jamie was slightly abashed. “You know, I haven’t ever read it. Is that an embarrassing admission?”

  “Shocking,” said Isabel, buttoning the dressing gown. “Neither have I.”

  “Should we read it to one another?” asked Jamie.

  Isabel considered this. “At bedtime?”

  “Yes.”

  “A very good idea.” She thought the suggestion romantic; to read the Aeneid to one another in bed, by candlelight even…“In Latin?”

  “Not if we want to understand it,” said Jamie.

  The day began. Magnus awoke, and announced the fact gustily. This brought Charlie into their bedroom, his now somewhat threadbare soft fox dragging behind him. “There’s a noise coming from somewhere,” he said.

  Jamie and Isabel glanced at one another, hardly able to contain themselves. The denial of the obvious can involve heroic efforts, and Charlie was proving himself a master.

  “Could be from your brother,” said Jamie at last.

  But Charlie was far too young for irony.

  —

  ISABEL HAD NOT STOPPED helping Cat in her delicatessen altogether, but her sessions there had been curtailed in the later days of her pregnancy. Cat, Isabel’s niece, owned the delicatessen—with some financial help from Cat’s own father—and Isabel liked working there from time to time. Standing behind the counter in the final month had been painful, and she had eventually told Cat that much as she enjoyed it, she would have to stop.

  Cat understood, of course, although losing Isabel’s help placed extra strain on both her and Eddie, her young assistant.

  “We’ll manage somehow,” she reassured Isabel. “My friend Katy has offered to do some sessions, and Eddie doesn’t mind doing overtime.” She paused; not sure whether to ask the question she really wanted answered. “Do you think you’ll come back once the baby’s settled? I don’t want to press you, of course.”

  Isabel saw no reason why she could not, even if her hours would have to be limited. “Grace will be helping me—and Jamie will be around a lot. He’s pretty hands-on.”

  Cat was relieved. “Of course he is,” she said. “But two small children could drive anybody to drink.” There was a brief pause. “Not that your children would do that to anybody, of course.”

  Isabel smiled. “We’ll see. One shouldn’t tempt providence.”

  Now, on the morning of their discussion about latitude—and Virgil, and, it seemed, so much else—Isabel went back to the delicatessen for the first time, leaving Jamie to take Charlie to the nursery round the corner and Grace to fuss officiously round Magnus. Her decision to spend a few hours working with Cat was not entirely inspired by a desire to help—although that was part of it; it seemed an attractive alternative to sitting down to the editorial duties that awaited her at her desk. She knew, of course, that she would have to do that sooner or later, but she felt the need for just a few more days away from the demands of the Review. No doubt the emails were mounting up—she had not even dared to open her mailbox—and she could see, from the pile of envelopes in her study, neatly stacked there by Jamie, that paper correspondence was keeping pace with the electronic flow. She would carry out a blitz on these in due course, but not just yet; surely having a child—going through all that—was excuse enough for a brief break from one’s desk…

  Eddie, Cat’s young assistant, was surprised to see her.

  “She didn’t tell me,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of Cat’s office at the rear of the shop. He always referred to his employer as she; not in any disrespectful sense, but in a tone that almost, but not quite, capitalised the pronoun.

  “I expect she forgot,” said Isabel. “And I didn’t give her much notice. I phoned her last night to tell her.”

  Eddie wiped his hands on his apron. “Where’s your new baby?” he asked.

  Isabel explained that Grace was in charge. “It’s good to get out now and then,” she continued. “Babies tie you down a bit. Bear that in mind, Eddie, before you have any yourself.”

  When Eddie blushed furiously, Isabel quickly said, “I’m sure you’d be a wonderful father, Eddie.” She rubbed her hands together in a businesslike way. “Still, here I am. What needs to be done?”

  Cat emerged from her office to thank Isabel for coming in. “I have to go to see one of our suppliers,” she said. “It’ll probably take all morning. Are you all right with that?”

  Isabel knew that from Grace’s point of view, the longer Isabel stayed out the better. She enjoyed her time with the children; it made her feel needed.

  “Take as long as you need,” said Isabel. “Eddie and I will cope.”

  They set to work. There was a brief spike in activity immediately after the delicatessen opened in the morning, but this was always followed by a quiet period during which routine tasks could be tackled. Today there was stock-taking to be done in between attending to customers. The dried-food section—a region of porcini mushrooms, of flageolet beans and seaweed—needed to be checked, as did the refrigerated display, where sell-by dates could so easily creep up on one unless one was vigilant. Isabel started this, while Eddie busied himself with slicing parma ham for their filled lunchtime rolls.

  At ten o’clock Eddie made them both a cup of coffee, which they drank together, standing behind the counter.

  Eddie looked at Isabel admiringly. “Is having a baby…” He looked for the right words. “Is having a baby really sore?”

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “It is.”

  Eddie absorbed the information. “I’m glad that women have them…not men.” He paused, becoming momentarily confused. “Of course I knew that men can’t.”

  “No,” said Isabel. “I’d noticed that too.”

  “Because if men could have babies, then they’d…”

  “Be a bit more careful?” suggested Isabel.

  Eddie looked down at the floor. “Do you think Cat will ever have a baby?”

  Isabel smiled. It was easy to forget just how young Eddie was. Very early twenties?

  “Most women would like to have a baby,” she said. “Not all of them, but probably most of them. It’s just something that women feel—a mothering instinct, I suppose.”

  “But Cat’s never said anything about wanting a baby.”

  Isabel smiled again. “Have you talked to her about it?”

  He shook his head. “Never. But when babies come in here, she doesn’t go all soppy like some women do. You know how they coo and tickle the baby under the chin and so on? She doesn’t do that. She just stands there, and you can see her thinking, Another baby. That’s all she thinks.”

  Although Isabel might not have expressed it the same way, she knew what Eddie meant; she had seen Cat’s body language in the presence of babies.

  She chose her words carefully. She was aware that Eddie spoke openly, with a certain disingenuousness, and Cat could take offence if their conversation were reported back to her. At the same time, Eddie needed to understand. “It might be that Cat wants to have a baby,” she said. “Deep down she may want it, but the fact that she doesn’t have one makes her a bit…how should we put it?”

  “Anti-baby?”

  “No, she’s not anti-baby. Maybe she’s just a bit uncomfortable when she’s with babies. She might react that way because she’s trying to control her feelings. People are like that, you know.”

  Eddie looked thoughtful. “We had a teacher at school who was like that. He was called Mr. Macgregor. He always wore the same suit every day—a sort of grey-blue suit made of that stuff that won’t snag—you know, that heavy cloth.”

  “Thorn-proof tweed?”

  “Yes, thorn-proof. And he wore this tie, you see—a blue tie with thin red stripes going across it. People said it was something to do with the army. He’d been in the army, they said, before he became a teacher. He always stood very straight. And his shoes…you should have seen his shoes. They were polished so much you could see your face in them. I’m not
exaggerating. You really could.”

  “I can just see him,” said Isabel.

  “He was pretty stiff,” said Eddie. “He never smiled, or only just a little bit—like this.” Eddie stretched his lips into a straight line. “And when he talked, he kept his lips together. He talked through them. I don’t know how the words got out, but they did. It made them sound a bit…a bit tight.”

  “Poor man,” said Isabel. “Were you unkind to him?”

  Eddie looked surprised. “Me?”

  “No, not you in particular. The students in general.”

  Eddie shook his head. “Some were, maybe. Not everybody. They gave him a nickname. He was called the Captain. But nobody dared to be rude to him to his face.” He finished his coffee and put the mug down on the counter. “But then…”

  Isabel waited. She had a perfect mental picture of Mr. Macgregor in his thorn-proof tweed suit and his military tie.

  “But then he retired,” Eddie said. “And he came round to every classroom to say goodbye. He stood there and started to say something about how much he had enjoyed working in the school and then…” Eddie looked at her intently. “Then he started to cry. In front of everybody. He started to cry.”

  Isabel stared at Eddie. She saw that the memory had caused him pain.

  “Poor man.”

  “I never thought of him as having feelings,” said Eddie. “None of us did.”

  “You don’t at that age. Adults are just these remote beings. They don’t have any of the feelings that teenagers have.”

  Eddie smiled ruefully. “When we were teenagers, we thought we were the only ones who felt—or knew—anything.”

  Isabel looked at her watch. “We should get the rolls made for lunch,” she said. “You know how Cat likes to have everything ready by twelve.”

  They busied themselves with the rolls. Isabel sliced tomatoes and prepared lettuce leaves; Eddie peeled boiled eggs.

  “Well, well!” said a voice. “What a hive of industry!”

  Isabel looked up sharply. She had not seen the front door open and Beatrice Shandon come in from the street. Now she stood before her, on the other side of the counter; Bea, as they called her, a friend from schooldays—the girl Isabel and her classmates had unanimously decided would be the first one to get married. The prophecy had been correct, as the predictions of those with whom we are brought up so often are: Bea had married at nineteen, while still studying at Aberdeen University. Her husband, who was the same age, was a fisherman on one of the boats that went out into the North Sea from Fraserburgh—a hard, cold job, full of danger. Her parents had been appalled, and in their desperation had resorted to asking Beatrice’s schoolfriends if they could persuade her of the folly of her actions. If she wouldn’t heed parental advice, then perhaps she would listen to her peers.

  Isabel remembered the conversation. “She doesn’t know her own mind,” said Bea’s mother. “And that boy won’t know his either.”

  “It’s nothing to do with his being a fisherman,” added her father, the proprietor of two hotels. “It’s a perfectly honourable job.”

  “Nothing to do with that,” chimed in her mother. “Except he’ll be away for long periods of time—weeks, perhaps—and, well, they’ll not have much in common, I expect.” She looked at Isabel for support. “What on earth will they talk about?”

  Isabel had suggested they could be in love, which had brought forth a dismissive snort from Mrs. Shandon. “My dear, love is a very fragile plant; we all know that. Its blossom is often brief.”

  “Very brief,” agreed Mr. Shandon.

  Mrs. Shandon glanced at him. “We know this isn’t going to last. So all we want to do is protect our daughter. And you wouldn’t want your friend to make a bad mistake, would you?”

  “No.”

  “Well there you are. Maybe you can tell her that. Maybe you can get her to see that she’s in for a big disappointment once…”—she looked away—“once the physical side of things wears off.”

  Isabel had felt obliged to talk to Bea. “Your parents don’t think it’s a great idea,” she said, as casually as she could.

  “What do they know?” challenged Bea.

  “I suppose they’re worried you might change your mind.”

  Bea brushed this aside. “The real reason why they’re against this is that Davey is a fisherman. They can’t stand the fact that he left school at sixteen, you know. They think he smells of fish.”

  Does he? wondered Isabel. It would not be surprising if he did, and to find oneself faced with a son-in-law who reeked of fish might be a bit of a shock if you owned two hotels in Edinburgh…

  “He makes me feel good,” said Bea. She looked intently at Isabel. “You know what I’m saying.”

  Isabel thought she did, but found it hard to report this to the parents.

  “She’s in love with him,” she said simply.

  “At least you tried,” said Mrs. Shandon. “And we’re grateful for that.”

  That was Bea’s first husband, and he lasted for barely five months, much to the relief of her parents. They at least had the good grace to express regret on the divorce, but Bea did not believe them, and nor did anyone else.

  Almost immediately, Bea met a young Englishman who was studying rural economy. They were together until he graduated and went off to work in a small property business in Suffolk, ending the relationship when he left Aberdeen. Bea did not mind. She had met an army officer, who lasted for three months, and a helicopter pilot, whom she saw for a slightly longer period. Then she returned to Edinburgh and took a job in a public relations firm in the city. There she married the junior partner in the business, rapidly became pregnant with the first of her four children, and never looked back.

  “I’ve always needed somebody,” she had once confided to Isabel. “From the age of seventeen, I have always had a man. I couldn’t conceive of a situation where there was no man—I just couldn’t.”

  “You’ve been lucky,” said Isabel. She thought of the army officer and the helicopter pilot, both of whom had been handsome to the point of being considered dashing. The PR man by comparison was dull and unadventurous, but that in no sense made him undesirable. A dull man, Isabel thought, was exactly what she needed. She tried to remember Bea’s husband’s name. It was something old-fashioned; something redolent of ill-fitting cardigans and domesticity. It came to her in time. Arnold…“You have Arnold.” She thought: It’s your destiny. Men are your destiny. We sensed that all those years ago.

  “We’ve been so happy,” said Bea. “Right from the moment I set foot in that office, I knew that he was the one. From the very first day.”

  Isabel imagined the scene, with Bea entering the office on her first day, surveying the scene for men, and immediately finding one. Sometimes she wondered whether men fully realised the peril they were in. A man might innocently enter the room unaware of the eyes that were upon him, of the calculations being made. Good husband material? Of course women entering a room might be the subject of exactly the same sort of assessment by men—it worked both ways. Men and women, it seemed to Isabel, were just as bad as one another.

  “I’ve never felt tempted to look at another man,” said Bea. “Not once. And Arnold has always averted his eyes from other women.”

  He always averted his eyes from other women. It was, thought Isabel, a striking expression. Again her imagination got to work, and she saw Arnold at a party, a hand over his eyes to ensure that he did not accidentally set eyes on another woman, rather in the way that someone trying to give up alcohol will look anywhere other than at the tray of drinks.

  Isabel rarely saw Bea, as they moved in rather different circles. Isabel disliked cocktail parties and large gatherings where strangers shouted at one another over a background of hubbub. By contrast, Bea was always keen to attend such gallery openings and fund-raising dinners as were on offer. Scottish Field, the magazine that recorded such occasions in pages of photographs at the end of each issue, duly no
ted her presence at this or that charity ball—with Arnold, of course, alongside her, obediently wearing his formal kilt and smiling obligingly at the photographer. Isabel found that such people could be superficial, only concerned with being seen in public, secretly desperately anxious that their popularity might be on the wane. But not Bea: she believed in the good causes behind such events and was at her happiest meeting other people who enjoyed having their photographs taken. Arnold, though, was another matter: Isabel suspected that he was there under duress, dragged along like a consort obliged to accompany his wife, all the while averting his eyes in his much-vaunted loyalty.

  She did not have a great deal in common with Bea, their friendship being in the category that Isabel described as “historic.” Relationships entered into at high school were a classic example of historic friendships, as might be any of those made in circumstances where people were brought together because they were all in the same boat—metaphorically, of course. Mind you, thought Isabel, there must be friendships brought about by being in the same, non-metaphorical lifeboat after one’s cruise liner goes down…

  Yet although they did not share many interests, on the occasions when they did meet, Bea always treated Isabel as an intimate, quickly taking the conversation beyond the limits prescribed by mere acquaintanceship.

  “How do you feel about things? Do tell!” was a favourite opening gambit of hers—as if inviting a frank outpouring of pent-up doubts and misgivings. This would have been irritating—and intrusive—had Isabel not realised that Bea meant well, and that she was ready to disclose her own inmost thoughts.

  Isabel knew more about Bea’s activities than Bea knew of hers. There were, of course, the events recorded for all to see in the social pages, but there were other things too. She knew that Bea was a good golfer, and frequently won the ladies’ cup at the golf club of which she and Arnold were members. That had been reported to Isabel by another old schoolfriend who had struggled for years to improve her game, but without success. And there was another talent, one that was more unusual and perhaps not admitted to with the same readiness: Bea was a matchmaker—enthusiastic, calculating and incorrigible.