The Novel Habits of Happiness

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Isabel struggled with her disappointment. She had been prepared for this, but somehow she had hoped that it might have turned out differently. “Do you think I could see the place?”

  “I see no reason why not. Would you want to meet them?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that. I was mainly interested in the house. But I see no harm.” But then she thought again. “No, I don’t think I should meet them. There’s no point. They’re not the people. And the whole thing is absurd, anyway.”

  He was impassive. “So you just want to go and look at the house from the outside?”

  “That would be enough. Yes.”

  He smiled. “People are hospitable round here,” he said. “And I think you should meet them, you know.”

  She gave a shrug. “If you think it’s a good idea.”

  He did. “Look, why don’t I come with you? I can phone Willy McAndrew’s wife and ask her to show us round. I’m sure she’ll be happy to give us a cup of tea.”

  Isabel hesitated. “If you…”

  “I don’t mind at all,” he said. “I have all the time in the world now.”

  “You’re fortunate,” she said.

  He nodded. “But lots of people have all the time in the world, and yet don’t know it. They fill their time—that’s the problem; they clutter their lives. Then they discover they have none. But they once did, even if they did not know it.”

  “Yes,” said Isabel, and in the car, on the way back to the hotel, she said to Jamie: “He’s right about time.”

  Jamie was not so certain. “A bit. He’s a bit right.”

  Isabel wondered aloud: “Can you be a bit right about something?”

  A voice from the back of the car came up with an answer. “No.”

  Grinning, Isabel turned round to look at Charlie in his car seat. “No,” he repeated.

  “So you can’t be right and wrong at the same time, Charlie?” she asked.

  Charlie looked at her solemnly, and then shook his head. “Yes,” he said.

  Jamie laughed. “Are you a little philosopher now, Charlie?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Ice cream,” said Charlie. “Please may I have some ice cream. I want ice cream.”

  “Don’t we all?” asked Jamie. “That’s a bit of philosophy right there. We all want ice cream in this life. That’s what we want. And that tells us an awful lot about human nature and the way we feel—which is what philosophy is all about, I would have thought.”

  “Vanilla, please!” shouted Charlie from the back.

  “And that,” Jamie continued, “is where aesthetics comes into it. Taste. Preference.” He slowed the car down to avoid a small family of sheep that had wandered off the verge. “Don’t you think it would be a good thing if there were a book called Philosophy for Babies?”

  “But of course,” said Isabel. “Of course. I’d buy a copy. Everybody with a baby would.”

  “It would have very simple stories for parents to read to their baby. Minimal text, of course: Kindness is nice. Don’t throw toys at other babies. That sort of thing.”

  Isabel warmed to the theme. “Actually, it would have to be Don’t throw toys out of your pram. That’s the big issue with babies.”

  “Would they understand?”

  “They understand more than we imagine,” said Isabel.

  “Look! Sheep!” shouted Charlie from the back of the car.

  Jamie encouraged him. “Yes, lots of sheep.”

  “Ham,” said Charlie.

  “No, pigs give us ham,” said Jamie. “Sheep give us mutton.”

  “Involuntarily,” muttered Isabel.

  “Let’s maintain a few illusions,” whispered Jamie in response. “Along with Santa, and the Tooth Fairy, of course.”

  Isabel smiled. “What do you think the Tooth Fairy looks like?” she asked.

  “I think of him as…”

  “Him?” she interrupted. “I thought the Tooth Fairy was female. I’ve always thought of her wearing a tutu, sprinkling fairy dust and so on.”

  Jamie shook his head. “Oh, I pictured him as a him. I just did. He’s a rather theatrical type, I thought.”

  Isabel smiled. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

  He was surprised. “Like what?” And then it dawned on him. “No, I didn’t mean it that way. I really didn’t.” He shook his head again, apologetically now. “I never thought of the Tooth Fairy as being gay. I really didn’t.”

  “He might be,” said Isabel.

  Jamie conceded that. He grinned. “Of course he might. I don’t think it’s an issue, that’s all.” He paused. “More to the point: Why does he collect all those children’s teeth?”

  “When I was a little girl, I was told that he built castles out of them.”

  “Bizarre,” said Jamie. “Perhaps he’s just one of those people who can’t resist filling their houses up with stuff—all sorts of stuff. Hoarding.” The idea appealed to him. “That’s it. He’s a hoarder.”

  Isabel considered that for a moment. They were approaching the hotel, and the afternoon sun had painted its rooftop, its white harling, its chimneystacks, with red. “I’ve got news for you,” she whispered to Jamie, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that Charlie could not hear, but resorting, nonetheless, to their language of confidentiality, useful as long as Charlie never learned French. “La fée des dents—or le fé des dents—n’existe pas.”

  Jamie pretended hurt. “Il n’existe pas? Vraiment?”

  “Vraiment.”

  —

  LATER THAT NIGHT as they lay in bed in the hotel, the curtains opened to admit the light that was still there at eleven, though faint, Jamie turned to Isabel and said drowsily, “You told me earlier—when we were coming back here—you told me that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist…And I said really? or vraiment? And you replied with a nod of your head. So what else doesn’t exist? Little green apples? Purity of heart?”

  He was unclothed, as was she; the night was warm, and not even the top sheet, kicked down to the end of the bed, was needed. She reached out to lay a hand on his hip; his skin was smooth, and she thought, You have no blemish, of any sort. And you’re pure of heart; of course you are—I could never love anybody who was rotten in his heart, as some are; who hate others or wish them ill; who are jealous and mean; who are unkind. Yet people—plenty of people—love people like that; in spite of all the evidence of their flaws, they love them. They love those whom they really should not love; are drawn to these objects of their affection, perhaps, like those unfortunate insects attracted to insect traps or the mantis that believes in a future with a female mantis and then discovers that he is the next meal.

  “Purity of heart does exist,” said Isabel, her voice low, though there was nobody for them to disturb; Charlie was in the room next door, reached by a connecting but now closed door, and the two other rooms off the corridor were unoccupied. But it did not seem right to talk at all loudly in this semi-darkness, in this air that smelled of the sea and the gorse in the fields; air that had come here from far away, from the Outer Hebrides, from the Atlantic, from Canada itself.

  She continued, “Mind you, I’m trying to think of anybody I know who’s pure of heart.”

  “There are people without guile,” said Jamie. “They do exist, I think. But I’m not sure if being without guile is the same thing as purity of heart.” He stopped, and she wondered for a moment whether he was drifting off to sleep; sometimes their conversations in bed ended that way—a dialogue slowly became a monologue, and then silence reigned. But he had more to say. “They could be a bit dull, couldn’t they?”

  He turned, and his back was to her. She took her hand away, to let him move, and then she placed it gently against the small of his back; it was an act of possession, she thought, this touching. He rolled over again, now lying on his back; his head turned slightly towards her. She saw that his eyes were open.

  “You think the pure of heart are dull?” She did not want to reach tha
t conclusion, but she realised he had a point. He was thinking of the same person as she was thinking of, she suspected, a completely worthy acquaintance who thought the best of everybody she encountered and never had a bad word to say about anything. Yet Chesterton had said, she remembered, that tolerance went with having no convictions. Was that true, or just a bit true? “Maybe. Yes, maybe you’re right. They can end up having nothing to say, I suppose.”

  “Or just plain boring,” said Jamie. He smiled. “I’m reading something at the moment…”

  “That makes you smile?”

  “Yes,” Jamie continued. “It’s that history of late-medieval Scotland that Hector MacQueen wrote. He gave me a copy when we played that game of cricket over at Broomhall, at Lord Elgin’s. There’s something in it about a fourteenth-century character called Hugh the Dull.”

  She giggled. “Hugh the Dull? Wonderful—such an expressive epithet by comparison with all those predictable ‘So-and-so the Great.’ ” More odd descriptions came to her. “Wasn’t there a Charles the Fat, who was the Holy Roman Emperor at some point—not to be confused with Charles the Bald, another Carolingian?”

  Jamie had heard of neither. “Hugh the Dull was a member of the Douglas family. The rest of them were rather more colourful than he was. His brother was known as the Black Douglas and the Black Douglas’s son was called Archibald the Grim. Hugh, by contrast, did not cut much of a figure—hence the name. History doesn’t record his deeds because apparently they were too dull.”

  “I love the thought of Archibald the Grim…”

  He reached out to place a hand against her cheek. “So do I.”

  “And Archibald the Grim must have been so dismissive of his father’s brother, his uncle. Can’t you hear him saying, ‘Uncle Hugh is just so dull, so very, very dull?’ ”

  He moved towards her and kissed her gently on the mouth. She closed her eyes. She could hear her heart beating within her.

  “You know something,” he whispered. “I’m feeling uneasy. I’m scared.”

  For a while she said nothing. How could Jamie be scared—here, of all places?

  She was solicitous. “My darling, you can’t be. You can’t.”

  “Not that sort of scared,” he said. “It’s just that I feel uneasy, I suppose. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  NEIL HAD TELEPHONED the McAndrews and made the arrangements.

  “Willy’s wife Fiona told me they’ll both be in,” he said as they set off the next morning. “He was out when I phoned, but she said that he’s on holiday this week. He might be going fishing, though, depending on the weather.”

  “Like his father?” said Isabel. “You said that he had a trawler.”

  Neil pointed through the car window towards the expanse of blue that was the sea. “Some of them still go out there from time to time. They don’t do it for a living, but they have prawn creels that they keep going. The old ways cling on.”

  The road they were following dipped down towards the sea. Isabel looked out at what seemed like an unruffled field of blue; towards the horizon the reflected sunlight made the surface a stretch of spilled quicksilver. A fishing boat, tiny at this distance, ploughed its way across this field, its wake a white trail behind it. These plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted…It was Auden’s description of the sea in his “Journey to Iceland.” These were the same plains, she thought—the place where the fish were hunted, now, even in their diminished numbers, as they had been by the people who first lived in these same small white houses along the coast.

  She caught Jamie’s eye, and he smiled at her, as if to reassure her. He had mentioned his feeling of foreboding last night, and she had tried to reassure him. Now, though, she was herself feeling something of the same thing. There was something strange in this quest. It was, in one sense, ridiculous, almost risible—the pursuit of an imaginative child’s dream—but in another she felt as if she were touching on something dark and dangerous. Reincarnation was about rebirth, but it was also about death. The child must die before he can become somebody else.

  She remembered the phrase her father had used: best left alone. He said that about so many things, but particularly about the private affairs of others. He did not like gossip, and if Isabel should mention the misdeeds of another, he would reply firmly, “Best left alone, I think.” Her father had been a good judge of people, but he was charitable too, and the things that were best left alone were those that could hurt others.

  She could say to Neil that she had changed her mind and that she did not want to see the house after all. Best left alone. Jamie would be surprised, but he would back her up; he always did.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but it was Neil who spoke. “You can just see it from here,” he said. “You see those two houses down there—the white ones? The one on the left is what I had in mind. The one on the right is of much more recent construction—it was only built three years ago.”

  She felt committed now. “It’s a magnificent setting.”

  “Yes, in the summer,” said Neil. “I’m not so sure that I’d like to spend the winter there. It’s exposed to the north-east, and if the wind comes from that direction, one knows all about it.”

  He gave instructions to Jamie, who was driving. Isabel, who was seated in the back with Charlie, pointed to the house, now only a few hundred yards away. “We’re going to see some people,” she said.

  “Will there be toys?” asked Charlie.

  “Possibly,” replied Isabel. “These people have got big children—really big. But they may still have some of their toys. We can ask.”

  —

  FIONA McANDREW came out of the house to meet them. She was casually dressed, in blue denim jeans and a white linen top. Her shoes, green working clogs, were badly scuffed. She greeted Neil warmly, and the two of them exchanged a few words about some local issue—a matter of road repairs, Isabel noted—and then she led them into the house. Isabel felt in her pocket for the slip of paper she had brought with her. Kirsten had given it to her: a rough map of the layout of the rooms of the house, as explained to her by Harry. She could not bring it out—one could not walk into somebody’s house and immediately produce a floor plan—but she remembered what it showed. There was a small hall and then the living room. That was what was here; but then many houses have entrance halls and living rooms off them. Kirsten had said that he had given a description of a fireplace made of white stone. She hardly dared look as she entered the living room, but when she saw it she gave a start. Jamie noticed. “You all right?” he whispered.

  She felt curiously empty. “Yes.” She pointed to the fireplace briefly, and then turned to Fiona, who had addressed her.

  “My husband isn’t here,” she said. “Sorry about that. He had to go into Fort William today because there was a crisis at his work. He’ll probably be there all day, although he’s meant to be on holiday. They don’t care, do they?”

  Isabel assumed that it was the employers rather than the employees, or husbands in general, who did not care. “No,” she said, her voice shaky from the shock of what she had seen. “They don’t.”

  Fiona picked up her anxiety, and frowned. “Are you okay?”

  Isabel shook her head. She was not.

  Jamie looked concerned. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling ill?”

  She suddenly wanted to cry. She felt ridiculous; there was no call for tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You must sit down,” said Fiona. “I’ll get a glass of water. It’s this heat, maybe. I felt a bit odd yesterday—we’re not used to it.”

  Isabel shook her head. “Thanks, but it’s nothing like that. It’s just that I’m feeling a bit shocked.” She paused, trying to pull herself together. “Did Neil tell you what this is all about?”

  Fiona turned to Neil. “You said something about a boy who stayed here some time ago. That was it, wasn’t it?”

  Isabel took it upon herself to answer. “It was. But it’s a rather more compl
icated story. I’d like to tell you myself, if I may.”

  Jamie offered to take Charlie outside. “He’s going on about ducks,” he explained to Fiona. “He said that he saw some ducks.”

  She laughed. “They’d like a visit, I think. They’re round the back. You’ll see a black bin we use for their feed. You can let him give them something, if you like.”

  There was a pot of still warm tea on a tray near the hearth, and Fiona poured a cup for Isabel. Then she sat down and listened, along with Neil, to Isabel’s explanation. Halfway through, a door opened and a teenage boy came in. He was introduced as Matthew.

  “You’re the runner, aren’t you?” said Neil.

  “High jump,” corrected Matthew.

  “He’s going to compete for Scotland next month,” said Fiona, proudly.

  “Mum! We don’t know yet whether I’m going to be picked. We don’t.”

  “You will be,” she said. “It’s as good as done.”

  Isabel was struck by Matthew’s ginger hair. She noticed his skin, which was so pale as to be almost translucent; it was a colouring that one often found in the north-western part of Scotland—Viking colouring.

  “I have to go,” said Matthew. “Jimmy’s coming to pick me up.”

  He left, giving Isabel and Neil an open, friendly smile.

  “He’s a great lad,” said Neil as the door closed behind the boy.

  Fiona thanked him, then urged Isabel on. “But I’ve got to hear the end of this story. Please carry on.”

  Isabel finished, and there was a silence. She had ended the story with a reference to the fireplace, which had brought forward an exclamation of astonishment from Fiona. “But we put that in,” she said. “Two months ago. There was one of those gas heaters there before—but we got fed up with changing the cylinders. We decided to go for wood—there’s any amount of that round here.”

  Neil raised an eyebrow. “Two months ago? Well, that settles that.”

  Isabel felt almost relieved. “I suppose so,” she said.

  “Maybe he saw a photograph,” said Neil. “Has this house been in any published photographs?”