A Distant View of Everything

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “You may know that he does charitable work in North Africa—in Morocco, to be precise. He runs a clinic there that does operations on kids with hare-lips and so on.”

  “I’d heard that,” said Isabel.

  “But of course that eats up money. So last year he came to see me and told me that they needed some new piece of equipment and that he was going to sell a painting he owned to fund that. His father was something of a collector and had a few fairly valuable Scottish Colourist paintings. Peploe, Cadell and, of course, Fergusson—no relation. Tony inherited these, and still has most of them.

  “Anyway, he had a very nice Peploe—quite a small painting, but a lovely one nonetheless. He was going to put that up for auction. He said that he had had it valued by Guy Peploe himself, and Guy had said it was worth fifty thousand. The auction house agreed, but of course if it went up for auction, then he would have to pay fifteen per cent seller’s premium, and so he would get less. If it were sold privately, though, he would get the full amount. So the clinic would get more if he sold it privately.

  “Tony then said to me, ‘That’s all very well, but I don’t know anybody who wants to buy a Peploe.’ I said nothing at first, but then I had an idea. I love Peploe’s work—so I would buy it directly from Tony. He’d get the full amount, I’d not have to worry about auction prices being upped by other bidders, and I’d have my Peploe. Everybody would win.”

  Tricia rose to her feet. “Come with me. I’ll show it to you. It’s in the dining room.”

  Tam made his relief apparent. “Well, there you are,” he said. “That explains it.”

  They stood in front of the Peploe.

  “It’s very lovely,” said Isabel. “Mull, from across the Sound of Iona?”

  “I think so,” said Tricia. “And yes, it is lovely. Look at the green of the sea—that lovely, almost emerald green. It’s like that, you know. I was there earlier this summer. We drove through mist on Mull, and then suddenly we were there and could see the abbey and the sea beyond the abbey, and the water was that green, that green that stops the heart for its sheer beauty.”

  Isabel remembered what Tam had said about Graeme’s sailing. “You must have sailed through there many times.”

  Tricia continued to stare at the painting. “We did,” she said. “Our last sail together, in fact. We spent the night anchored off Erraid, where Robert Louis Stevenson had David Balfour shipwrecked in Kidnapped. Then we went up through the Sound, although you have to be careful to keep well to the east because it’s so shallow in the middle. You’d run aground.”

  Isabel saw Tam reach out and lay a hand gently on Tricia’s forearm. He gave it a squeeze, and she turned to him in appreciation of the gesture. This is what a lawyer should be, thought Isabel.

  “Tony loved this painting,” said Tricia. “It must have been a real wrench for him to part with it, but I think the clinic means more to him than anything else.”

  “I think I’ve done him a great injustice,” muttered Isabel.

  “And so have I,” said Tam.

  “We all get things wrong,” said Tricia. It seemed to Isabel that Tricia was deriving a certain amount of pleasure from allaying Tam’s concerns about the payment. It was, she felt, a “told you so” moment, and everybody enjoyed those. There’s no greater pleasure, she thought, than being shown to be right.

  Now in a position to be magnanimous, Tricia proposed a cup of tea; she had made her point. “Have you got the time, Tam?”

  “Always,” he said. “Priority number one is tea, then clients.”

  “That would make a good motto,” said Tricia, smiling. “You know, I’ve never liked that ‘Preserve’ thing, Tam. ‘Tea first, then clients’ would be far better.”

  “More Brechtian,” said Isabel.

  “Yes, that too,” said Tricia.

  “I shall speak to the partners,” said Tam. “But I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  —

  WHEN SHE ARRIVED back at the house, Grace had put Charlie down for his nap. Magnus, though, was wide awake, and Isabel picked him up, embraced him tenderly and then carried him in her arms to look out of the window.

  “I don’t know how far you can see,” she murmured. “But that’s the world out there.”

  “He can’t see very far,” said Grace from behind her. “Babies can’t.”

  Isabel nodded. “I know. They see in three dimensions only after about five months.”

  “He’ll be able to see the trees,” said Grace.

  Isabel bit her tongue. She did not need to be lectured on these matters by Grace, but then she thought: I am the fortunate one here; I am the one who is blessed. “You’re right,” she said.

  They were in the kitchen, and Grace now attended to some dishes that had been stacked in the sink. As she did so, she spoke over her shoulder to Isabel. “Charlie went on and on about his little brother today. There was no stopping him. My baby brother this; my baby brother that.”

  Isabel was surprised. “Oh?”

  “Yes. And he even asked if he could make him some porridge.”

  “Well, that’s progress.”

  Grace laughed. “And you know what he said? He suddenly announced that he had a list of people he loved. He said he loved Magnus best, and Jamie was second, and then—”

  Isabel frowned. Why had Grace broken off? Because it was Grace who came third. Isabel was sure that Charlie had said he preferred Grace to herself.

  “And then?”

  “And then you,” said Grace.

  “I was third?”

  “Yes,” said Grace. “I didn’t want to upset you—just in case you didn’t want him to love Jamie more than you.”

  Isabel laughed. “Oh, heavens, no—I don’t mind. Children say ridiculous things. And they don’t know their own minds half the time. Only a few days ago he was very resentful of Magnus. Now that all seems to have changed.”

  “They’re very fickle, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” agreed Isabel. “But what a privilege to have them in our lives. You, me…we’re both so lucky.”

  She could tell that Grace was touched by being included, and she was pleased that she had made the remark.

  Grace was staring at her. “You know, I’m not sure if I ever thanked you for sharing your children with me.”

  Isabel shook her head. “You don’t have to thank me.”

  “I do,” said Grace. “I have to thank you for lots of things, and that’s one of them.”

  Isabel smiled. There was nothing more to be said, she felt.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BEA ANSWERED the telephone breathlessly. “I can’t talk for long, Isabel,” she said. “I have sixteen people coming to dinner—sixteen!—and I haven’t done a thing yet. I’ve got hardly any of the stuff I need, and I’ll have to go to Mellis for some cheese and then…”

  At the other end of the line, Isabel gave a silent sigh. “And I’m about to add to your list.”

  This was greeted with silence.

  “I’d like to meet you for coffee,” said Isabel. “We’d need fifteen minutes—no more.”

  Bea struggled. She was, as she had explained, extremely busy, but as a socialite in her inmost being, she had very rarely, if ever, turned down an invitation. “It’s not the best of days for that…”

  “I know,” said Isabel. “But a break will help you to catch your breath.

  “Oh, all right. But where?”

  Isabel asked her whether she needed to go to the fishmonger, and Bea replied that she did. “I’m planning scallops for the first course, and I haven’t checked up to see whether anybody’s got them in. What am I going to do if there aren’t any? I’ll have to think of something else for the starter, and I’m having sixteen people in—did I tell you that? Sixteen.”

  “Take a deep breath, Bea,” said Isabel. She remembered how when they were at school together, there was a gym mistress, Miss Gilchrist, who told them to take a deep breath before they did anything. “Anything at al
l, girls—take a deep breath before you attempt it.”

  One of the girls in the back, a sultry girl called Frances McMannion, sniggered, as she often did.

  “And you, Frances McMannion,” the teacher responded, “can go and stand in the corridor until the end of gym, and while you are there, you may contemplate what a disgrace you are to Edinburgh.”

  A disgrace to Edinburgh…it was Miss Gilchrist’s strongest condemnation, a reproach reserved for a few fitting targets: from the lazy, who put insufficient effort into vaulting, or whose efforts on the ropes and bars were desultory; to the sloppy, who tucked in their blouses without due care; to those who walked rather than ran the cross-country course, hoping not to be noticed; to those who were caught smoking or arranging clandestine meetings with boys. It went without saying that most boys were, in Miss Gilchrist’s eyes, a disgrace to Edinburgh unless proven otherwise.

  Bea said, “Take a deep breath…Now who said that? Miss Gilchrist, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” replied Isabel. “So, how about eleven o’clock? At the deli? You can go to Hughes the fishmonger beforehand. He’ll have scallops, and it’s just a few doors down the road. You can kill two birds with one stone.”

  “What’s it about?” asked Bea.

  “Connie,” said Isabel.

  “Oh no,” said Bea. “I’d forgotten all about her.”

  “You haven’t been worrying? I thought you were worried sick.”

  “Oh, I was worried sick, but then you know how it is, you go on to the next thing to worry about.”

  Isabel struggled with her feelings of resentment. Bea, it seemed, had simply transferred her anxiety onto Isabel’s shoulders. As she rang off, she wondered whether she would say anything to Bea about that. It was tempting, but she decided against it. Reproach and censure were powerful weapons, and should only be used when there was no alternative, as their effect could so easily be to cut the ties of good will that kept people together. A relationship that had taken years to establish, built up through a thousand acts of encouragement and support, could be irretrievably damaged in an instant by an unduly harsh word.

  When Isabel arrived at the delicatessen, fifteen minutes before the time arranged for her meeting with Bea, she was greeted by Eddie.

  “Cat and her new friend have gone off for coffee elsewhere,” he said. “Our coffee’s obviously not good enough for Miss Pi…” He stopped himself. “I mean for Peg.”

  Isabel ignored this. “I’m meeting somebody at eleven. I can give you a hand until then if you like.”

  “I’ll be all right,” said Eddie. “It’s very quiet. I’ll make coffee when your friend comes in.”

  She sat down at the table with a copy of that day’s Scotsman. There was an article about research that had rehabilitated eggs: we could eat them again, she read. Not only that, but if we ate several eggs a week, our risk of a range of conditions would diminish significantly. She glanced up at Eddie.

  “Eggs are good for you, Eddie,” she said.

  “You can choke on an egg,” he said. “I knew somebody who did that. And I knew somebody who swallowed an olive the wrong way. It went into his lung, and they said it was too dangerous to remove. He still has it. I’m always very careful with olives.”

  “Oh well, everything has its dangers, I suppose.”

  “I knew somebody who ate too many green olives,” Eddie continued. “He really loved them. He ate jars and jars of them. He turned a sort of green colour—I saw him. He was actually green.”

  “And what happened to him?”

  “He went to live in Glasgow, I think,” said Eddie.

  Isabel looked at Eddie. It was a very odd thing, she thought: Eddie inhabited a slightly different universe. It was one populated by people who choked on eggs and turned green through eating too many olives; it was one that was full of strange beliefs, half-truths and the occasional superstition. It was not dissimilar, in a way, to Grace’s world, with its pillars of spiritualism and the belief that just beyond this world there was a dimension—the other side, as she called it—to which we would all in due course cross over and busy ourselves with sending enigmatic messages to people still on this side. What united Grace and Eddie? Was it a lack of formal education? Eddie had not distinguished himself at school and had left at the age of seventeen, as far as Isabel had been able to establish. He was literate and numerate, but he had had very little exposure to history or science, and his geographical knowledge was shaky, to say the least. Isabel had mentioned Malta in the course of a conversation a few weeks ago—it had to do with an order of Maltese olive oil, as it happened—and it had been apparent that Eddie thought Malta was in the Caribbean. But then there were probably many people who thought Malta was in the Caribbean, and indeed many who had never heard of it, who thought it was a hot milky drink or even an illness. People came down with Malta; they were healthy enough, and then they got Malta—such a pity.

  Not being able to locate Malta, of course, was not Eddie’s fault. That was the schools, thought Isabel. It seemed to her that they taught less and less. Children were not taught to recite poetry, or learn capital cities, or commit to memory the names of the principal rivers of the world. How could people sit through years of education and at the end of it know practically nothing? One in five Britons, she had read, were functionally illiterate. This meant that they had difficulty reading the instructions on a medicine bottle—and that could be as dangerous as swallowing an olive the wrong way.

  “What are you smiling at?” Eddie asked from across the room.

  “I was thinking about olives,” said Isabel.

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re very odd, Isabel. You know that? You’re very odd.”

  She wanted to say: That’s exactly what I think of you, but did not.

  Eddie took off his apron and came to join her at her table. Leaning forward, he whispered, “I know it’s got nothing to do with me—like you said the other day. I know it’s none of my business, but I think that Cat’s gone off her rocker.”

  Isabel glanced in the direction of the closed office door. “Why do you think that, Eddie?”

  His eyes brightened at the prospect of disclosing the secret. “I’ll tell you. The other day I was stacking that shelf over there—the one near her door. I wasn’t eavesdropping—I swear I wasn’t—but I couldn’t help hearing what they were talking about. Cat was reading something to her and every so often she—that’s Peg—said, ‘Oh, that’s so true,’ and things like that.

  “Okay, so I thought, Well, they’re sitting in there looking into one another’s eyes, and it’s none of my business, like you said. So I didn’t do anything, but when they went out at lunchtime, I went into the office just to have a look around. I found the book they were reading, and it was really weird. It was called The Prophet, by somebody with a really odd name—Cowhill Gibron, or something like that.”

  “Kahlil Gibran,” said Isabel. “He was a Lebanese mystic. People used to love reading him.”

  “Maybe, but why sit around and read it to your friend? Don’t you think that’s odd?” He tapped the side of his head. “Don’t you think it’s mental?”

  “No, I don’t, Eddie. I think that people have different tastes. There are some people who like reading Lebanese mystics to other people. It’s just the way they are.”

  He looked at her incredulously. “She used to read trade catalogues. She used to read those all the time. Articles about cheese and cured meat and so on. Now it’s this Kahlil character.”

  “Well, perhaps that represents progress.”

  “I think she’s in love with her. I think Cat’s gone nuts over her. That’s what I think, Isabel.” He seemed slightly surprised by his own directness, and blushed.

  Isabel looked down at the floor. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe they’ve found one another, and if they have, then I’m pleased.”

  “I’m not,” said Eddie.

  “You’re not pleased that Cat’s happy?”

  Eddie de
fended himself. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Is it because you don’t want her to be happy in that way? Is that it?”

  Eddie replied with a sullen look.

  “Because if that’s the way you feel,” Isabel went on, “then you’re wrong, Eddie. People have to be happy in the way they want to be happy. We can’t set out the conditions of their happiness.”

  Eddie was on the point of answering this when the main door of the shop opened and Bea appeared. She was carrying several large shopping bags, which bulged under their load, and she looked flustered.

  “Your friend,” said Eddie. “I’ll make coffee for both of you.”

  “We can talk later, Eddie,” said Isabel. “You and I can talk later.”

  “Don’t tell me to take a deep breath,” said Bea, as she took her place at the table. “Just don’t. In eight and a half hours sixteen people—sixteen!—are going to turn up for a meal that I haven’t even started to prepare.”

  “I shan’t,” said Isabel. “All I shall say is that I’m sure you’ll be ready in time—as you always are. You were never…” She paused to allow for greater effect for her next pronouncement. “You were never a disgrace to Edinburgh.”

  Bea’s mouth dropped open, and then broke into a smile. “She said that, didn’t she? She was always saying that. ‘You’re a disgrace to Edinburgh!’ ”

  “Yes, I hadn’t thought about it for years until earlier this morning, when I told you to take a deep breath.”

  “Well I did,” said Bea. “And now I’m here.” She glanced at her watch. “But I’ll have to watch the time. This is about Connie, isn’t it? Connie and that MacUspaig man.”

  Isabel nodded. “Connie is not in any danger,” she said. “You can stop worrying about her.”

  Bea frowned. “Are you sure?”

  Isabel explained about her visits to Andrea and Tricia. “Both of them had nothing but praise for Tony MacUspaig. Only one of them had an affair with him—that was Andrea. Tricia said that she and he were just good friends.”