The Novel Habits of Happiness

by Alexander McCall Smith

  She cut him short. “I’m sorry, but that sounds awful.”

  He was abashed. “I promise you—that’s not what I meant.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t. I suggest that we both keep an entirely open mind. The only question in my mind is this: Is this man likely to make Cat happy? That’s it, as far as I’m concerned. I just want her to meet somebody who will treat her well. I want her to stick with somebody.”

  “But that’s precisely what she doesn’t do,” countered Jamie. “Cat doesn’t do constancy.”

  Isabel sighed. Jamie was right about Cat, perhaps, but why was she like that? Was she an unhappy perfectionist, never satisfied with what she had because she thought there might be something better just round the corner? Or did she suffer from sexual boredom? Was that it? There were so many apparent failings that had, at their heart, a simple sexual explanation. Sex, thought Isabel, makes moral failures of us all. That thought came unbidden, as a completed aphorism. But what a terrible one, she thought, because sex was also such a positive force: indeed, the positive force.

  Perhaps Cat was a sex addict. In the past, nobody had said much about this, but people seemed to be more prepared to talk about it now. Isabel knew that she could never talk about so intimate an issue with Cat—their relationship was just not close enough to allow of that. Others might know and might reveal the truth—her previous boyfriends, for instance, and this meant that Jamie might know. He had been one of Cat’s short-lived boyfriends and presumably he knew what she was like “in that department,” as the biology teacher at school had referred to it.

  Yet just as she could not speak to Cat about such a thing, so too could she not discuss it with Jamie; the emotional past of a spouse or lover is normally, and by unspoken understanding, an area of privacy, and rightly so. But she could at least imagine a conversation, in which she might ask, “Is Cat—how shall I put it?—demanding in that department?”

  He would answer with delicacy, “Very.”

  And Isabel would exclaim, “Why, what a saint you must have been!”

  “More of a social worker,” Jamie would say.

  In reality, had the conversation occurred, Jamie would have blushed and looked away. “I can’t talk about that,” he would have said. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

  And she would say, “Of course. You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  Isabel glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes. And at that the doorbell sounded. Cat always gave it four short bursts, which she did now, announcing her presence in the same short-short-short-long rhythm with which Beethoven began his Fifth Symphony. It amused Isabel; it always had. That motif was said to be the sound of Fate knocking at the door; in which case Fate, and her friend Mick, had arrived.

  ISABEL’S FIRST REACTION was one of shock, and it was this shock that made her stand quite still, her hand resting on the doorknob, before she composed herself again. The effect lasted only for a few moments, but it was long enough for Cat to pick it up. And Cat’s reaction, she noticed, was one of pride—barely detectable, but nonetheless there: a momentary smirk. It was a reaction that said: You didn’t expect this, did you?

  “Here you are,” said Isabel, saying the first thing that came to mind. “Here you are—on time.”

  “Actually, we’re a bit late,” said Cat. “My fault—not Mick’s.”

  Isabel told her that it did not matter. She had recovered, but her gaze had returned to Mick, who met it, and smiled in a modest, diffident way.

  Jamie’s double, thought Isabel. Almost his double.

  Cat had moved on to introductions while they still stood on the doorstep. “Isabel, this is Mick. Mick, this is my aunt, Isabel.”

  Isabel felt a tinge of resentment. I may be your aunt, she thought, but there are not that many years between us. Don’t make me feel ancient.

  Mick offered her his hand, and she shook it. His skin was smooth—just as Jamie’s was. She looked into his eyes; they had the same look as Jamie’s, the same light. And his chin, and his teeth, and the shape of his nose…Could two people completely unrelated to one another look so similar? Presumably they could. There was a television presenter in Glasgow who looked remarkably like the woman who ran the dry-cleaning depot in Bruntsfield; so much so that Isabel had heard that the dry cleaner constantly—and wearily—had to tell people that she was no relation, not even a remote one, of the woman on television.

  Isabel remembered a conversation about physical resemblance with her friend Alistair Moffat, who had written a book on the population genetics of Scotland. Of course people looked like one another, he said; Scotland’s gene pool is the size of a footbath. “Big it ain’t. I could probably call you Cousin Isabel if I really looked into it.”

  “Meaning?” she had asked.

  “Meaning we’re all more or less related. Only a few hundred years ago the population of Scotland was very small: you could fit them all in a rugby stadium. So the odds are that people with Scottish blood have a common ancestor or two.” He paused, looking at her as he might at a newly discovered relative. “It’s purely a question of numbers.”

  Isabel knew enough to add, “And genetic markers too.”

  “Exactly,” said Alistair. “They just prove the point that people with the same name can trace their lineage—if they feel so inclined—back to some early holder of that name. Macleods are an example of that.”

  Isabel thought of Macleods she knew. There had been a girl at school who was always breaking things. She was never allowed in the science lab unsupervised…Peggy Macleod. And that man in the bakery in Bruntsfield—she knew he was a Macleod because she had asked him what his tartan tie was and he had replied that it was Macleod; he had spoken with such pride, as if the memory of some feat in some ancient Highland battle still meant something. She might have said to him, as people did when they established remote and tenuous connections between those they met, “I knew a Peggy Macleod,” and, in the way of things in Scotland, he might have said, “Of course, Peggy Macleod; her mother, I think, was a cousin of my…”

  And so it went on, because, thought Isabel, none of us likes the world to be composed of strangers.

  Alastair had more to say about Macleods. “An awful lot of them have something called the M17 marker on the Y chromosome. That’s a Viking gene, by the way. If you want to find out whether you’re of Viking descent, look for the M17. Up in Orkney, twenty per cent of men have that; in Norway, it’s thirty per cent. Vikings, you see.”

  “I’m not sure that I’d like to discover I had Viking roots. All that pillage…”

  Alistair laughed. “The Vikings were children of their times. They wouldn’t have exactly recognised the European Convention on Human Rights.”

  “Although perhaps they didn’t deserve their fearsome reputation.”

  Alistair thought for a moment. “Maybe not. The problem was that they were so much taller than the people they…they visited.”

  Isabel laughed. “Visited? I didn’t realise their rehabilitation had gone so far.”

  “No,” said Alistair. “It hasn’t, and I’m not being entirely serious. The Vikings were like any invaders: badly behaved and unwelcome. But the disparity in size encouraged all sorts of stories about invincible giants making life difficult for much smaller Picts and Scots. But that’s not the point I wanted to make: the point is that we’re all pretty much connected.”

  “A nice thought.”

  Alistair nodded. “Yes, if one’s feeling universalist.”

  Now Cat said, “I take it you’re going to invite us in.”

  Isabel took a step back into the hall. “Of course. Come in.”

  She watched Mick, whose bearing, she noticed, so reminded her of Jamie’s. Under the light in the hall his hair, though, seemed to be lighter than Jamie’s and she saw, too, that his shoulders were slightly narrower. It was the face that bore the most striking similarities.

  “Jamie’s in the kitchen,” Isabel said. “We can go and say hello to him. H
e’ll join us a little later; he still has a few things to do.”

  “Jamie cooks,” Cat said, glancing at Mick.

  Isabel detected the barb. Jamie cooks—you don’t. Mick, though, gave no indication of being aware of the criticism.

  “I like your house,” he said.

  It was the first time he had opened his mouth, and there was a further surprise. Only a few words were needed for the appraisal to be made; it was that quick. Mick’s voice was measured—and cultivated. Isabel blushed; social expectations were all tied up with stereotypes and prejudices. She did not like to categorise others, and yet so many people did precisely that, expecting people to behave in a particular way, to have a certain look, to use language in a way that revealed who they were and where they came from. And this applied not just at the creaking edges of British society, where the remnants of caste, although weakened and rejected, somehow survived, but in open, egalitarian countries as well. Australia and the United States distanced themselves from all this, but they were not exempt from the canker of class: the Wall Street broker and the Melbourne socialite could be distinguished by speech patterns from the man who tossed hamburgers in the highway diner or the Outback sheep shearer; of course they could, no matter that the official ideology said that those below could join the ranks of those above if they worked hard enough. And of course many did, but that did not obscure the gulf that still existed between those at the bottom and those at the top, and the subtle differences of clothing, speech and attitude that this produced.

  People felt uncomfortable even just talking about this, Isabel found, and they preferred to pretend that it was not there. But the differences themselves were not the problem: the real issue, she felt, was that of the significance one attached to these differences. In her view there was no moral difference between people—or at least no moral difference based on ability to use the language or to claw one’s way up a social cliff. People should be treated with scrupulous equality whatever their background, and it was never right, she felt, to think the less of somebody who spoke ungrammatically or who did not know which knife to use at table, or how to use it.

  That was what we should think. And yet, in practice, no matter how committed people were to avoiding prejudice, they all made assessments of others—they summed them up in an instant, or so psychologists claimed. Thinks only of himself, or She’s a man-eater, or I don’t trust you an inch: such snap judgements, they said, were part and parcel of the way we coped socially. The world was too complex to be looked at afresh every other moment: we needed categories of the familiar, the understandable. Of course that deprived us of a more subtle understanding of the situations in which we found ourselves and could close off possibilities that would only emerge if we approached the world with an open mind.

  I have been wrong, thought Isabel. I’ve judged Mick before I set eyes on him. I had put him down as a dishwasher-repairing type, and I’ve imagined all sorts of qualities that go with that without having a clue as to what he was like, or indeed what other people who repaired dishwashers were like. I have quite simply been wrong.

  I like your house. She considered her reply. Thank you? Was that how one responded to that sort of compliment; the same reply one gave to somebody who liked one’s shoes or necklace or…or husband? And if one said thank you, what exactly was one acknowledging? Perhaps it was a matter of appreciating the compliment that one would have such good taste as to wear such shoes or such a necklace, or choose such a man as a husband. But she had not chosen her house in the same way as she had chosen the things she wore or, for that matter, the husband she had married. She lived in the house because her parents had lived there, and the things we do because our parents did them are not really so much about us as they are about them. So any compliments for such things should be paid to our parents rather than us…

  “I’ve lived here for ever,” she said. “It’s just…it’s always been here.” It was an odd thing to say—she realised that—and it reminded her of what Mallory had said about why he had attempted Everest: because it was there.

  They were standing in the hall and as Isabel spoke, Cat looked at her sideways, as if trying to make sense of what she had just heard. “Sometimes Isabel makes opaque remarks,” she said suddenly. “She’s a philosopher too, you see. You go in for enigmatic statements, don’t you?”

  “No more than necessary,” said Isabel quickly. “The razor is applied there, as elsewhere.”

  Mick laughed. “I’ve always wondered if Ockham himself was clean-shaven.”

  Isabel could not help herself from spinning round. “Oh,” she said. “You’re familiar with…” She realised immediately that this sounded rude. One should presume that people know about William of Ockham, she thought, although, in practice, how many people did—.001 per cent of the population?

  “Who’s he?” asked Cat. “One of your philosophers? Schopen-what’s-his-face and so on?”

  The question was not addressed to Isabel, but was directed to Mick. Isabel smiled tolerantly. Schopen-what’s-his-face. Cat was not stupid, but she sometimes sounded like an ill-informed seventeen-year-old. Mick noticed Isabel’s smile and looked, for a moment, almost apologetic. “Yes,” he said. “But very different.”

  “Ockham’s razor,” said Isabel. “An important logical tool.”

  Isabel thought: Cat had said “one of your philosophers…” She looked at Mick again, and saw Jamie. Now she thought: Do I see myself? “You’re interested in philosophy?” she asked Mick.

  He smiled. “A bit. I don’t know much about it.”

  “Well…” She was not sure what to say.

  Cat interrupted. “Is Charlie asleep?”

  Isabel nodded. “I’m afraid so. But if you wanted to go up and have a peek…”

  “Yes. I’d like Mick to see him.” She turned to Mick. “He’s utterly cute.”

  Mick grinned. “I’m sure he is.”

  Isabel was perplexed. Cat had always been slightly distant when it came to Charlie. She was good enough with him when he was in her presence, but she rarely asked after him. It was something to do, Isabel thought, with the fact that Charlie was Jamie’s son; perhaps Cat had never fully forgiven her for taking up with Jamie, even if it had been she who had brought their relationship to an end. The ways of the human heart were Byzantine in their complexity, Isabel thought, and one should never underestimate the resentments it could harbour. “I’ll take you up,” she said.

  She led the way upstairs. Mick paused before one of the paintings on the stairs and looked at Isabel enquiringly. “Who did that?” he asked.

  It was a study of a woman washing clothes in a tub; through the window behind her were hills and a slice of sky.

  “It’s by a painter called Adam Bruce Thomson,” said Isabel. “It belonged to my father. He liked his work.”

  “Look at her face,” said Mick, leaning forward. “Look at the character in it.” He turned to Isabel. “When was it painted?”

  “Nineteen-thirty-something,” said Isabel. “And it has that feel to it, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely,” said Mick. “It’s a bit like Bawden or Ravilious, don’t you think?”

  She had thought that; she had always thought that. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, you’re right.”

  “I love it,” said Cat. “I really like that woman’s face. She’s so strong.”

  “It’s the opposite of a contemporary face,” said Isabel. “Contemporary faces are so indulged, so pampered. This is a face that’s had some work to do.”

  Mick clearly agreed. “A working face.”

  “Let’s go and see Charlie,” prompted Cat.

  They continued upstairs. Isabel thought: Cat has never expressed an interest in any of my paintings before this—never. I love that face. It was the first time she had said anything about anything in the house; the first time.

  Charlie’s door was always left a few inches ajar, for the sense of security it gave him. As they stood before it, Isabel put a
finger to her lips in a gesture of silence. Cat nodded; Mick smiled.

  “There he is,” whispered Isabel as she quietly pushed the door open.

  He was lying on his back, one arm under the duvet, the other above it. His lips were slightly parted—a tiny bow of a mouth, the teeth just visible. His hair was ruffled, a bit spiky even, as if it had been washed and then not properly dried before he went to bed. Beside him, half propped up against the pillow, were a teddy bear and a stuffed fox, the bear’s jacket a bright blob of red against the white of the bedclothes.

  “See,” whispered Cat. “See him.”

  The remark was addressed to Mick, and Isabel drew back involuntarily, as if she had suddenly found herself eavesdropping on a moment of intimacy between two others.

  Then Cat continued: “Isn’t he just…delicious?”

  Mick nodded. “He’s a great lad,” he whispered back.

  Charlie stirred slightly in his sleep and then turned over on his side, pulling the duvet up towards his chin. Isabel gestured that they should leave; he was a light sleeper and she did not want him to be woken.

  They crept out, returning the door to its barely open position, and began to make their way downstairs.

  “You must be very proud of him,” said Mick.

  “Well, we are, I suppose,” said Isabel.

  “I’ve got a young nephew not much older than him,” Mick continued. “Robbie. You met him, Cat—remember? He’s always…well, he always seems very dirty.”

  Isabel laughed. “They are. Boys have a special affinity for mud and dust. It sticks to them.”

  “And to men,” said Cat.

  “I don’t think so,” said Isabel. “Jamie’s very clean. He showers every day without fail. You should know…” She cut herself off. She had been intending to say that Cat should know because she had, even for a brief time, lived with Jamie. But it was the wrong thing to say in the circumstances, and she tried now to cover it up. “We should be careful what we say about men,” she said, in mock conspiratorial tones. “They might be listening.”