The Lost Art of Gratitude

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ISABEL TOOK A TAXI to the other side of town, getting out at the top of Learmonth Terrace and walking down the hill to the point where Ann Street joined the larger road. It was a part of town that she knew quite well; her art historian friend Susanna Kerr lived there, as had her father’s cousin, a clever, bird-like woman who had been an expert in palaeography and Celtic place-names. Cousin Kirsty had spoiled Isabel as a child with overly generous presents and regaled her with sanitised snippets of Edinburgh gossip, which her father claimed were exaggerated, or even untrue, but which he liked to have passed on to him anyway. When Isabel had been eleven, Cousin Kirsty had slipped on her highly polished kitchen floor and lain there unattended, in the cold, and died, which meant the end of Isabel’s visits to Dean Terrace. She had sobbed and sobbed over Kirsty’s death, her first real loss; and the second, and much greater one, had come not long afterwards, with the loss of her mother.

  She found the house almost at the end of the street. The front garden was well tended, as were all the neighbouring gardens, and colourful too: there was California lilac, climbing roses and a small square of lawn at the side of which a stone bench had been placed. The bench was covered with silver-grey lichen; it did not look well used.

  George Finesk was slow to answer, but eventually the front door opened. Isabel found herself standing before a grey-haired man wearing a loose-fitting white jacket, a pair of gold-framed spectacles tucked into the top pocket. He looked her in the eye briefly, but then his gaze fell away. He was a tall man, somewhere in his fifties, she thought, with an aquiline nose and blue eyes that seemed to be a small area of space, an area of nothing. She had seen such eyes before, in the north of Scotland; eyes that seemed to reflect the sky and its emptiness.

  The drawing room in an Ann Street house would not be on the ground floor, she realised, and George Finesk, without speaking, motioned for her to follow him up the flight of narrow stairs that gave directly off the entrance hall. As they went up, Isabel noticed the paintings on the staircase walls and on the landing at the top. A portrait by Henry Raeburn, a woman against a background of rich greens and reds; a still life by Cadell; and a mezzotint print of a great Indian durbar.

  “I have a Cadell too,” she said. “Rather different. One of those women in hats.”

  He was still in front of her, and he did not turn round. She felt snubbed, and angry. She would not accept this rudeness; she would not.

  “Mr. Finesk,” she said sharply. “You are clearly not at all happy to see me. However, may I remind you that I am a guest in your house. You said that you’d see me and you owe me the basic decencies that a host should offer.”

  He stopped immediately, and spun round. He looked at her for a moment, as if speechless. “How dare you?” he said.

  She held his gaze. There was outrage in the pale eyes.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “What do you mean, ‘How dare you?’”

  He narrowed his eyes. As he spoke, he spluttered slightly, as if the indignation he was experiencing was too much for him. “You write to me with that crude threat—a threat I was almost minded to take to the police—and then you have the audacity to come to my house. That is why I said ‘How dare you’? And I would say it again. You …” Isabel’s astonishment must have made an impression on George Finesk, as he faltered towards the end of his tirade.

  “I think we need to talk about this,” said Isabel. “There’s obviously been a very major misunderstanding.”

  He led her into the drawing room and gestured to a chair. A subtle change had occurred in his manner now, and a natural politeness seemed to be reasserting itself.

  “Now, what is this letter?” Isabel asked. “I have never written to you, you know.”

  He stared at her. “But you …”

  “I repeat what I said. I have never written to you.”

  “Then …”

  “Then any letter purporting to come from me will be a fake.” She felt in command of the situation now, and was able to glance at the paintings on the wall. Another Cadell, she observed, and a Redpath Mediterranean hillside, viewed through a window.

  Her gaze reverted to her host. “What did this letter say?”

  “That you have been engaged by Minty Auchterlonie to look into incidents at her house. You went on to say that you have photographic evidence linking me with these incidents and that you would be passing these on to Minty’s solicitors for action unless …”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless what you call ‘commercial disagreements’ are brought to an end.”

  “What I call ‘commercial disagreements’?”

  Isabel’s irritation had a yet further effect on George Finesk’s manner. Now he became apologetic. “Sorry. It’s what the letter said. Maybe not you.”

  “Certainly not me,” said Isabel forcefully.

  “Very well.”

  It interested Isabel that George Finesk should have been so quickly mollified. He did not know her, and he had no means of telling whether she was speaking the truth—and yet he appeared to have made that assessment remarkably quickly. And then she realised what it was: they both belonged. The thought made her feel slightly uncomfortable: it was precisely the sort of assumption that led to unfairness in society, to that state of affairs where social cosiness brought special consideration and the conclusion that somebody who belonged would be incapable of lying or cheating, or, as in this case, writing a letter like the one that George Finesk had received.

  They talked. Isabel told him about the approach from Minty and the request that she should help her in “another matter”—she did not reveal what it was. Minty had misrepresented her on that matter, she said, or so she suspected; and now it seemed that she had done it again.

  “It’s clear to me what happened,” she said. “And I must say I find it hard to believe. Minty wanted to scare you off. She used me to do that by cooking up this letter.”

  “But why?” asked George. “What’s the point?”

  “It covers her tracks,” said Isabel. “If you’re threatening somebody, it’s usually better, I’d have thought, to get somebody else to do your threatening for you. It’s more sinister, of course, but safer. You’re not implicated in the paper trail, so to speak.”

  George Finesk looked down at the floor. Isabel waited for him to speak, but he merely gazed mutely at his feet. “Could you tell me what happened between you and Minty Auchterlonie?” she asked.

  He looked up. His face had coloured. “She’s a thief,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  Isabel waited for him to continue.

  “You evidently don’t believe me,” he said.

  “You haven’t told me much,” she said. “It’s difficult to reach a conclusion when you don’t have the facts.”

  George stared at her, as if in disbelief that she could be unaware of something very obvious. “You know that she runs an investment bank?”

  Isabel nodded. “She’s quite high-powered, I’ve been told.”

  He cast his eyes upwards. “So is an electric chair. And about as pleasant.”

  Isabel smiled. She was picturing Minty wired into the mains, sparks of malice coming from staring eyes.

  George now began to explain. “I bought shares in that bank of hers. Quite a lot. The shares were part of her own holding in the bank. Then, a few weeks after I had agreed to the purchase, she went and sold some of the bank’s assets. Some of the things she got rid of were pretty ordinary investments, but one of them was a major holding in a company that had a renewable energy licence. This was quite valuable.”

  Isabel asked what a renewable energy licence was.

  “In this case, it was the right to position turbines on a bit of seabed,” George said. “The coast of Scotland has very strong tides.”

  Isabel remembered the Corryvreckan whirlpool. “Jura,” she said. “The Corryvreckan.”

  “Exactly. Not that anybody was proposing to put a generator there. But think of the energy�
�just imagine it.” He paused. “It’s a big thing these days. If we could get even a quarter of our energy needs from renewable sources, then …”

  Isabel prompted him to return to the subject of Minty. “Yes, of course. But should she not have sold that company?”

  George coloured again. “Oh, you can sell assets all right. Banks are doing that all the time. But if you sell them to yourself, you have be very careful. You have to sell them for the proper value, for a start.”

  Isabel frowned. “She sold them to herself?”

  “Yes, using the money she had raised from the sale of her shares in the bank. In other words, the money I’d paid her. And then it transpires that the company in question had a licence that nobody knew about. Or so she claimed. That licence suddenly became very valuable and so Minty Auchterlonie ended up with something that was worth a lot of money. It would have been completely different had she told me that she was going to dispose of those particular assets. But she didn’t.”

  He gazed out of the window, over the garden, as if searching for some visible manifestation of the outrage he was describing. Then he turned to face Isabel again. “She claims, of course, that she was unaware of the licence when she bought the shares. Lies.” He spat the word out. “Lies.”

  For a few moments neither said anything. The word lies hung in the air between them, infecting the room with vituperation. Anger serves no point, thought Isabel. It happened—of course it did—and it was humanly understandable, but it disfigured us.

  Then Isabel broke the silence. “Do you have a legal claim?”

  George sighed. “We took counsel’s opinion. And the answer was that it would be very difficult to prove that she knew of the licence. So I was advised not to pursue it. The advocate told me, though, that he felt I had a strong moral claim. Some consolation. A moral claim means nothing to a woman like that. Less than nothing.”

  “Moral claims depend on a shared sense of morality,” observed Isabel. “And that is something we do not share with psychopaths.” She paused. “Do you mind if I see the letter?”

  He did not, and he went to fetch it, returning a few minutes later with a folded piece of cream-coloured stationery. Isabel read the letter quickly and stared for a moment at the signature at the bottom of the page. It was hers. She looked away, then looked at it again and thought: the visitors’ book. Minty showed attention to detail—even unnecessary detail.

  “And this came with it,” said George, handing Isabel a photographic print of a shot from a security camera.

  Isabel studied the photograph. It showed George Finesk against a background of lawns and trees. There was a time printed at the bottom of the picture; the camera recording the moment that he had crossed its line of vision.

  “Where is this?”

  George Finesk glanced at the photograph. “Taken outside her house. I admit I did go there—but I went to see her. I wanted to ask her about the transaction. She wasn’t there. That’s all.”

  “And this date?”

  “It was the day on which one of the incidents occurred. I chose a bad day to go.”

  Isabel nodded. “So it seems.”

  She saw the pulse in his throat; a small movement under the skin. His eyes were fixed on hers. “But I didn’t set fire to her greenhouse, or whatever it is that she accuses me of doing.”

  “Of course not.” Isabel paused. “But she’s persuaded you to give up your … campaign against her?”

  “Yes. I can’t risk the scandal of a police investigation—even if it’s for something I didn’t do.”

  Isabel told him that she could understand that. Edinburgh was a small place when it came to reputations; what was said at dinner parties would be believed by some, and repeated, even if it was untrue—and demonstrably so.

  She rose to her feet. He stood up, his natural politeness fully restored. “Please let me get you some tea,” he said.

  She thanked him, but explained that she had to get on her way.

  He demurred. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Please forgive my rudeness.”

  “Of course. I can understand how you felt.”

  She began to walk to the door, and as she did so a woman appeared from the landing outside the drawing room. She was a tall woman and Isabel noticed immediately that she had very similar eyes to George’s—sister, she thought.

  George introduced them. “My wife, Angela,” he said.

  Angela shook hands with Isabel. “I think I know who you are,” she said, and mentioned a mutual acquaintance.

  “When we lived in India, we lived outside a village,” George Finesk said. “Now we come home and we find ourselves living in a village.”

  “Yes,” said Isabel, smiling. “It sometimes feels like that, doesn’t it?” She felt the other woman’s eyes upon her. There was something disconcerting about her gaze. It was not hostile, or even reserved; rather it was a look that indicated that there was something that she wanted to say.

  “I’ll show Isabel out,” Angela offered. She spoke in a slightly peremptory way, to which George meekly acceded. Isabel thought, She makes the decisions.

  They left the room and made their way downstairs, Angela leading the way.

  “Are you married?” Angela asked in the downstairs hall.

  It was an unexpected question, posed out of the blue, almost rude in its suddenness. “Engaged, as it happens,” Isabel replied.

  Angela nodded. “Then you’ll understand what I mean when I say that there are certain faults that one just has to live with. You feel that, I think, with a fiancé as much as with a husband. You see your way past them.”

  Isabel nodded. “I suppose that you find out more about them as you go along.”

  “You do.” They were at the front door now, and Angela fumbled with the lock. “I must get this thing attended to. It’s always catching.” She gave the door a tug and it opened.

  Outside, in the garden, Isabel was struck by the musky scent of a flowering shrub. The fragrance lay heavy on the air, like a coating. They began to walk down the path; Solomon’s Seal, Isabel said to herself, looking down at the delicate rows of suspended white flowers.

  The older woman took Isabel by the arm, pressing hard. Isabel looked down at the other woman’s hand: there was an aquamarine set in a wide ring; a bracelet too—gold. There were sunspots on her hand—the Indian sun, presumably.

  “I know why you came,” Angela said. “I know about your letter.”

  Isabel started to explain. “Well, that’s not what it seems—”

  Angela cut her off. “Please. Please let me tell you something. George didn’t really intend to do what he did. That’s just not his style—it really isn’t.”

  She was puzzled. “To do what he—”

  Angela interrupted again. “He should never have caused that damage—or done any of the other things he did. It’s just that he was so livid over what that woman did. He is a fair-minded man, and he couldn’t bear the thought of that woman sitting there with impunity. I think something snapped inside him. Of course he knows that violence and threats are no solution, but … well, he’s human—as are we all.”

  She looked at Isabel. There was pleading in her eyes.

  “Please don’t do anything that will cause difficulties for George,” she whispered. “I’m asking you woman to woman. Please don’t. He won’t do anything like this again—I promise you that.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IN HER DREAM, her aunt from Mobile had told Isabel to finish what she began. Isabel realised that this was wise advice, of course, of the sort that we started to give to children the moment they understood what the words finish and begin meant. She realised, too, that the advice given to us by people inhabiting our dreams was really advice from ourselves to ourselves. Somewhere within herself, then, was a self that wanted to advise another self about what to do—which suggested that the self was bifurcated, split between the wise self, cautious and prudent, and another self, lazy, flawed, headstrong perhaps.r />
  No, she thought, I shall not be drawn into that. There were conflicting desires—that was all; there was only one Isabel Dalhousie, one self, but it had to weigh options and make choices. Any other view would take one down some ridiculous and dangerous path of multiple personalities, and Isabel was not going in that direction. Although … although how convenient it would be to have two personae and to be able to choose to inhabit one at this time and another at that time. We are all compartmentalised to an extent: there was the private self, the person we were when there was nobody about, and then there was the public self, the person we were when others were watching. For most, the differences between the two were small—ideally the two selves should be exactly the same—but for others there was usually some distinction. Even a saint might in private be irritable, or might swear sotto voce should he stub his toe; even the great and dignified might be silly at times when not in the public eye, might give the inner child the chance to romp.

  Driving out that evening to Minty Auchterlonie’s house off the Biggar Road, Isabel told herself that at least she was finishing what she had started—or planning to do so. She knew that not only was this the correct thing to do, it was what Jamie wanted as well. He was right about that, as was her aunt in her dream; Minty was a ghost that had to be laid to rest. And yet she was not quite sure what she should do. Should she tell Minty that she knew that she had been used, and then demand an apology? Or should she simply upbraid her, thus showing her that she—Isabel—would not tolerate being implicated in whatever proxy lies or threats Minty might resort to in order to get out of difficulties? A third possibility presented itself—that she should drive as far as Nine Mile Burn and then turn round and head back to Edinburgh, forgetting about the whole thing. She almost did that; almost, but then Nine Mile Burn flashed past and she had not even slowed down very much and a new stretch of country revealed itself; at the edge of it was Minty’s house, now to be glimpsed, just, in the distance, a small block of white put down amongst the folds of the landscape, and beyond it the blue of the distant hills, and more blue.