The Novel Habits of Happiness

by Alexander McCall Smith

  She had been unsettled, too, by the trip to the McAndrews’ house. She was not quite sure what she had expected to find there—nothing, really, and so it was not a question of having experienced an anti-climax. There had been a note of sadness to the whole affair, right from her first meeting with Kirsten, and the Ardnamurchan trip had seemed to crystallise that. She realised, of course, that she would have to visit Kirsten and tell her what she had found out, and she was unsure how the news would be received.

  She had made an arrangement to meet Kirsten for lunch at Glass and Thompson’s in Dundas Street, and she would tell her there. Before that, she decided that she would call in on Guy Peploe in the Scottish Gallery, a few doors down the hill. Guy was mounting a small Scots Colourist exhibition and had promised to show her some of the pictures before they were hung. After lunch, she would buy something for herself. She was not sure exactly what it would be, but the prospect improved her mood, lifting the slight sadness she had been feeling. Of course she knew that retail therapy was about as useful as a sugar rush, and about as long-lasting; but the anticipation, at least, had some effect.

  She decided to walk into town, rather than to catch a bus. The cooler temperature seemed perfect; it was not so low as to chill, but low enough to make it pleasant to stroll down the Mound and through the crowds thronging Princes Street. In normal circumstances, Princes Street in the high summer induced a feeling of being trapped, but it did not do that now, and even as she was almost barged into by a group of self-engrossed teenage girls on a shopping trip, she could not bother to feel irritated. None of us as a teenager, she thought, really believes in the existence of others—not really; at that age we were as close to perfect solipsism as we ever came.

  Guy Peploe, who ran the Scottish Gallery, met her at the door. She was slightly early, but Guy had finished what he was doing and was ready to show her the paintings, stacked against the wall in the lower gallery, ready for hanging in the main gallery above.

  “You mentioned you’d been over in Argyll,” he said as they went downstairs. “Business or pleasure?”

  She found it difficult to answer in those terms: it had not been business in a sense that anybody would normally recognise, and yet it had not been for pleasure. Perhaps I should say I was interfering, she thought.

  He noticed her smile. “Did I say something amusing?”

  She shook her head. “I was thinking. Some of the things I do are clearly business—things to do with the Review. But then there are other things I do that are rather difficult to classify. You could call them interferences. That’s what made me smile.”

  Guy laughed. “I don’t think you interfere. I get the impression that you help people. That’s not the same thing, surely.”

  “Well, I think I’ll use the term interference. I was over there on an interference.”

  “And?”

  “I found what I was looking for.”

  She did not want to think about it just yet. Lunchtime was not much more than an hour away, and she would have to speak to Kirsten then. She hoped the other woman would be relieved to hear that a rational explanation had been found, but she was not sure of that. What would Kirsten do? She could try to explain to her son that his memory had played a trick on him; she might even show him the Scotsman article. But that would probably make no difference—a child’s imagination, and the convictions it spawned, would surely be beyond the reach of rational deflation. And as Jamie had pointed out, there was something ineffably sad about this whole affair; an unhappy little boy would be made no happier by anything that his mother chose to tell him.

  Guy led the way down to the lower gallery. “Here we are,” he said. “Fifteen Colourist paintings. Seven borrowed; eight for sale—some of them real gems.”

  “Peploes?” she asked. Guy was the grandson of the great painter and had recently written a book on his work.

  “Three,” said Guy. “But they’re all on loan.” He paused. “A lovely Fergusson—if your walls are feeling bare.” He reached down to extract a painting from the stack. “This is a later post-war Fergusson, and as you will see…”

  “Fecundity,” said Isabel.

  “Precisely.”

  “And a certain erotic element,” she added.

  Guy inclined his head. “Both of those. But isn’t it rather lovely?”

  Isabel stared at the picture of the woman painted against a lush background of greenery. The curves of the woman’s body were suggestive, as were the twisted forms of the plants. “I couldn’t live with that,” she said. “It’s magnificent, but you almost feel that the painting’s going to insinuate its way out of its frame.”

  Guy laughed. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

  Fecundity. She thought: Will I have another child? She had tried not to think about it, but the Fergusson painting had touched something within her. Am I that woman?

  “And this,” said Guy. “What do you think of this.”

  She recognised the style. “Cadell?”

  “Yes. But clearly not one of his women in hats.”

  She leaned forward to examine the painting more closely. It was a picture of a male bather sitting on a rock; the face, though, was indistinct.

  “That’s probably a picture of Charles Oliver,” said Guy. “Bunty Cadell had a friend whom he had met during the First World War. He took him on as a companion and man-servant. He used to give elaborate dinner parties when he was living in Ainslie Place, and Charles would act as butler. But he would also act as his sales agent and would sell pictures for him.”

  “Close friends?”

  “I assume so,” said Guy. “But the people at the dinner parties would have understood.”

  Another painting caught her eye. “And that?”

  “Hunter. But not one of his best. That painting has been looking for a home for rather too long, I think. We show it for the owner, who wants to sell it, but the problem is that Hunter ruined it. He never knew where to stop. It’s important for an artist to know when a painting is finished. I’m not sure that Hunter always got that right.”

  “Whereas James Cowie stopped rather early,” said Isabel. “Some of his paintings were deliberately unfinished. He just stopped in a corner, and rather faded away. I have one like that.”

  They spent half an hour looking at the other paintings. Then Guy said, “Is something troubling you? You seem a bit distracted.”

  Isabel sighed. “Yes. Frankly, Guy, everything’s troubling me. I’ve got myself mixed up in a rather sad little matter and I don’t feel comfortable about it. And then…”

  He waited.

  “And then Cat has got herself in tow with another man, and that always worries me. He lives near here, by the way.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “In Drummond Place. He’s called Mick. I’ve met him and…”

  Guy stopped. “Tall? Dark hair? A bit like your Jamie?”

  Isabel gave an exclamation of surprise. “Exactly. Jamie’s double, in fact.” She paused. “You know him?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Guy. “He’s very interested in art.”

  “He recognised my Thomson.”

  “Well, there you are. He’s extremely nice.”

  She said nothing for a moment, and Guy continued, “Is it serious?”

  “I think so. But, then, you can never tell with Cat. In general, she has awful taste in men and has had the most appalling boyfriends. She always gets rid of them; she can’t seem to stick to one man. Now there’s this one. I also thought he was nice, by the way.”

  “Well, he is. So where’s the problem?”

  “Because he’s too nice for her,” said Isabel. “And I wonder whether I should tactfully make sure he knows what he’s getting into.” She frowned. “No, did I really say that?” As she spoke, she thought too about Lettuce. Lettuce was about to get a job in Edinburgh. She may have reassessed her attitude to him, but she was still deeply suspicious of Christopher Dove. Should she warn somebody in the University about
the possible manipulation of Lettuce by Dove? But if she did that, and Lettuce’s appointment did not go ahead, then she would be causing grave disappointment to Clementine Lettuce, for whom she harboured no ill feeling.

  There was a note of concern now in Guy’s voice. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t think you should. You don’t have to go round warning others about the people they’re getting involved with.”

  “Don’t you?”

  He seemed certain of his answer. “No. It’s not your business. People have to make their own mistakes.”

  “So we’re not our brother’s keeper?”

  “Sometimes, but not in a case like this.”

  She gazed at the Fergusson picture of the woman. “Does art make us feel better? Is that its role, do you think?”

  “One of them,” said Guy. “It can give us answers. It can promote happiness.”

  “Happiness? Is that what we want?”

  Guy looked surprised. “I thought that’s what you philosophers believed in. Aren’t you meant to help us know how to be happy?”

  “I don’t know,” said Isabel. “Perhaps that’s what philosophy is meant to do. To show us that we don’t really know.” She looked at her watch. “Sorry, I have to go. And I’m sorry, too, that I burdened you with my doubts. Your paintings, by the way, have made me feel a bit better.”

  “Then they’ve worked,” said Guy.

  “But I still don’t know what to do about Cat,” said Isabel.

  “Then do nothing.”

  She smiled weakly. “Maybe.”

  “Not maybe,” said Guy, more firmly this time. “Definitely. Keep out of it.”

  “Best left alone,” muttered Isabel.

  “Precisely,” said Guy.

  She realised that his advice was sound; doing nothing was the right thing to do. She began to thank him. “You’re right, you know, I have a tendency to…”

  She was interrupted by the ringing of her mobile phone. She glanced at it. She could ignore the call—another instance of doing nothing—but something prompted her to answer.

  “Isabel Dalhousie?” The voice seemed familiar, but she was not sure why. “Neil Starling. Is this a good time?”

  Guy signalled that he would leave her to take the call in peace, and he left the room. She moved over to the window.

  “As good as any. Thank you, by the way, for all your help the other day. I’ve written you a note.”

  “Well, that’s what I’m phoning you about,” Neil said. “A development.”

  She caught her breath. “Yes?”

  “Fiona McAndrew phoned me. She said that her husband had reminded her of something. She was apologetic for not having remembered it. A Campbell family did stay in that house, apparently.”

  Isabel closed her eyes. “Oh, I see.” She waited for him to continue.

  “You’re still there?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Please carry on.”

  “They rented out the house from time to time. They did it for a couple of months each summer—to holidaymakers—to raise a bit of money. They would go and stay with her parents at Ardgour. One year the house was rented by a family called Campbell—it was about six or seven years ago. They had two young sons, as she recalled.”

  Isabel’s heart turned. She knew that she had been looking for something precisely like this, but now that it had turned up, this information was far from welcome. This disturbed the neat, rational solution she thought she had found. So there had been a Campbell family, and this meant that what Harry said was confirmed. A coincidence? Of course it was; it had to be, it simply had to be.

  “She had an address for them,” Neil continued. “She wasn’t sure if they’d still be there, but they had an address on the lease agreement—fortunately, they kept all of those. She gave it to me. Would you like it? It’s in Edinburgh—or just outside. Near Roslin.”

  There was a note of satisfaction in his voice—a suggestion of excitement.

  “This is quite extraordinary, isn’t it?” he said. “I hadn’t imagined we would find anything like this, and yet there it is. Amazing, I think.”

  Her response was flat. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  He picked up her tone. “I’m sorry…I hope I’ve done the right thing in getting in touch again.”

  She realised that she must have sounded churlish; he was doing her a favour, and her response must have sounded almost rude. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I’m just a little bit shocked by this.”

  “Oh, I can understand that. I felt very odd too. I suppose it’s how you feel when you come across something inexplicable like this. It’s disturbing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is. But I’m very grateful to you and, yes, I’d like their address. A long shot perhaps, but yes.”

  She reached into her bag for a pencil. There was a leaflet on a table by the wall, and she used this to note down the address he gave her. She thanked him, promising to keep him informed about what happened.

  “My curiosity is well and truly aroused,” he said. “If you could let me know what happens I’d be interested.”

  “Of course.”

  They rang off, and she replaced the phone in her pocket. She looked at her watch. She would be a few minutes late for her meeting with Kirsten, and now that meeting would have to be quite different and, she suspected, rather more difficult.

  —

  KIRSTEN WAS ALREADY THERE when she arrived at Glass and Thompson’s. Seated at one of the tables towards the back of the bistro, she was engaged in conversation with Russell, the proprietor, who was leaning nonchalantly against one of the chairs, a cloth in his hand, emphasising a point with his free hand. He smiled as he saw Isabel.

  “I’m telling your friend how to use Stilton in soup,” he began. “She was being very unadventurous. You can put anything in soup, I said.”

  Isabel smiled. Russell was known for his ability to make conversation on any subject, with anyone. “I take it that there’s Stilton soup on the menu.”

  “Order the soup and find out,” said Russell. “It’s our mystery menu day. We bring you something and then you identify it. It’s a challenge.” He laughed. “Not really, but an idea, don’t you think?”

  He left them with the real menu while he went to fetch the sparkling water that Isabel had ordered.

  “I’m late,” she said. “I took a phone call.”

  Kirsten hesitated. “About…”

  Isabel nodded. “Yes, it was.” She paused. “How’s Harry doing?”

  Kirtsen’s reply was perfunctory. “He’s fine. Fine. The call…”

  Isabel plucked up her courage, and remembered something that her moral philosophy tutor had said in that very first year at university: There are very few circumstances—very few—when paternalism is justified. You should not keep the truth from people. She had forgotten virtually everything else that he had said to her, but she had remembered that, probably because at that stage in her life she still thought that it was all right to keep things from people. But he was right. Poor bumbling Dr. Fordewell, with his dreadful dress sense—he wore a moth-eaten cardigan and brown corduroy trousers—had been right about that, just as he was right about so many other things. She tried to remember the book he had written that had been published during that first year, and how impressed she had been. Here was somebody who had written a book on philosophy—an actual book! She had viewed him with awe, ignoring the cardigan, which, in the circumstances, seemed so utterly appropriate; anybody could look smart, but only a moral philosopher who had written a book could wear a cardigan like that with pride.

  You should not keep the truth from people.

  “The call was from a man called Neil Starling. He helped us find the house that Harry’s been talking about.”

  Kirsten drew in her breath. “You’ve looked for the house?”

  Isabel nodded. “Yes, I decided to do what I could to…to verify, I suppose, Harry’s story.”

  Kirsten was staring at her.


  “You did ask me,” said Isabel. “You did ask me to help.”

  “Of course, of course. I’m sorry, it’s just that I didn’t know that you had actually done something so quickly.”

  “Well, we found a house that matched the description, and we went up there. I had an introduction to this Neil Starling, who was very helpful.”

  Kirsten was listening intently. “And?”

  Isabel explained about the article. “To begin with, I thought we had stumbled over the solution. There was an article in the press that mentioned the house. There was a picture of it.”

  Kirsten looked puzzled. “But how…”

  “I thought that Harry must have seen it. You know how children pick up things.”

  Kirsten looked unconvinced. “Do you really think so? I’ve not seen him reading the papers.”

  “The author of the article was called Campbell.”

  This had its effect on Kirsten. “Oh,” she said, sounding deflated.

  “But I no longer think that,” Isabel went on. “Since then I’ve found out that there actually was a family called Campbell who stayed there—for a short time—a few years ago. They had two sons, apparently.”

  It had been easier than she anticipated to deliver the news. Now she watched Kirsten’s reaction.

  At first the other woman seemed not to react, but sat quite still, her eyes fixed on Isabel but betraying no emotion. Then, quite suddenly, she crumpled. “So it’s true,” she said quietly.

  “Well, we don’t know, do we? All we know is that there is a house that looks like the place Harry’s been talking about. Then we know that a Campbell family spent some time there. But Campbell, as you know, is a very common name in Scotland—probably one of the most common names there is.”

  Kirsten agreed. “I know hundreds. Half my family are Campbells.”

  “So how can we explain this?” Isabel continued. “Coincidence, I’d say. An astonishing coincidence, yes, but then coincidences are, by their very nature, astonishing.”