The Careful Use of Compliments id-4

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Charlie remained behind with Grace—one did not take babies into a war zone—and Isabel walked, sunk in thought, along Merchiston Crescent to the delicatessen in Bruntsfield Place. Cat was behind the counter when she entered; there was no sign of Eddie or of any customers.

  She received a reasonably warm welcome—the Dove effect, Isabel thought—and Cat offered to make her a cup of coffee. “Eddie’s gone to the dentist,” she said. “I asked him when he had last been and he said two years ago. I made the appointment myself.”

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  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h

  “You shouldn’t have to,” said Isabel. “One’s own teeth are enough to look after. One should not have to worry about the teeth of others.”

  Cat smiled. “But we do, don’t we? I can imagine that you worry about others’ teeth. It’s exactly the sort of thing you worry about.”

  “ ‘The loss of one tooth diminishes me,’ ” mused Isabel.

  “ ‘For I am involved in mankind.’ ”

  “John Donne,” said Cat, looking triumphant. “You think that I don’t know anything. But I do know about John Donne.”

  “Well done. But I have never thought of you as one who knows nothing about Donne.”

  “Good.”

  They looked at one another for a moment and Isabel saw in Cat’s eyes a yearning that they should return to their previous, easy ways with each other; when jokes like this, absurd, silly, could be made without thinking. For there was love there—of course there was—and it was a canker of resentment that had obscured it, a canker that could so easily be put out of the way, altogether excised. But now she had to risk provoking it again, by deliberately rubbing in salt, and she had no alternative, she thought. She had to warn Cat about Dove. She had warned her before about a man; now she had to do it again.

  She looked down at the counter. There was a fragment of cheese that had been caught at the edge, a tiny bit of blue cheese, a miniature colony of organisms detached from its polis. She reached forward and wiped it away. “Christopher Dove,” she said.

  Cat smiled at her. “Christopher. Yes.”

  Isabel was not sure what to make of that. But now she had to say it. She could not put it off. “You know he’s married?”

  Cat stood quite still, her eyes fixed on Isabel, who looked away; she could not bear this. Oh Cat, she thought. Oh Cat.

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  “Married?” Cat’s voice was small, and Isabel’s heart went out to her.

  “Yes. There’s a Mrs. Dove, I’m afraid.”

  Cat closed her eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Isabel reached out across the counter. She wanted to take Cat’s hand; if her voice could not show how she felt, her touch would. But Cat withdrew her arm.

  “I’m telling you this because you ought to know it. You’d tell a friend, wouldn’t you? You’d tell her if you knew that some man—some married man—was going to deceive her.”

  Cat opened her eyes again. “You think he’s deceiving me?”

  It had not occurred to Isabel that Cat might know that Dove was married. She had assumed that Cat would not get involved with a married man, but that assumption she now realised—

  and it was a sudden, shocking realisation—was perhaps unjustified. Cat belonged to a generation that did not feel particularly strongly about marriage, in that many of them did not bother about getting married, and so perhaps they did not regard married people as being off-limits. I have been so naïve, she thought; so naïve.

  She struggled to find the words. “Well . . . I thought that . . .

  I thought that you might have believed that he was single. It’s difficult sometimes if . . .”

  Cat interrupted her. “It’s just fine for you,” she said. “You come here and tell me this . . . You’re not content with taking Jamie from me; now you come along and . . . and spoil this. Why can’t you just . . .”

  Isabel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Took Jamie from her? She drew in her breath; there was so much to be said, as there always is in the face of an outrageous accusation. “I did not take Jamie from you. You can’t say that. You got rid of Jamie.

  You got rid of him. He wanted you to take him back for ages, 2 2 0

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h ages, and you wouldn’t hear of it. Then you stand there and tell me that I took him from you. ”

  “No,” said Cat. “It wasn’t like that.”

  Isabel reached out again, but Cat turned away. “Cat!”

  “Just leave me. Please, just leave me.”

  The door of the delicatessen opened. Isabel looked round and saw that it was Eddie. He came over to the counter and smiled at her. Then he started to address Cat, whose back was turned. “My teeth are fine,” he said. “The dentist didn’t have to do anything, except polish them. Look.”

  He opened his mouth in a wide grin. Isabel made a gesture towards Cat. “I’m going,” she said. “Look after Cat, please.”

  She left the delicatessen and began to walk down the street in the direction of Chamberlain Road. The brow of Church-hill rose gently in front of her, and at the end, beyond the rise, were the Pentlands, blue at this distance, with a mantle of low cloud. She had once read a poem somewhere, by an Irish poet she seemed to recall, which suggested that we could all be saved by keeping our eye on the hill at the end of the road. What he meant by being saved was not clear. We could not be saved, she thought, from anything just by looking at a hill; certainly not from the raw pain that came from divi-sions between people, between brother and brother, sister and sister, aunt and niece. Then it occurred to her: one might be saved from taking one’s petty concerns—and one’s petty feuds—too seriously if one looked up at the hills. That must have been it.

  WA LT E R B U I E ’ S D O G , a Staffordshire terrier, mesomorphic, muscle-bound in the way of a small pugilist, growled at IsaT H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S

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  bel, baring stumpy, discoloured teeth. Such was his halitosis that even from where she stood, a good three feet from the unfriendly animal, she could smell him.

  “Now then, Basil,” said Walter, reaching down to pull at the dog’s collar. “We must not be unfriendly.”

  He pulled the dog away and it slunk off, with the air of a small-time thug whose plans for a fight have been defeated, but only temporarily.

  “Such a nice dog,” said Isabel. “Staffordshires have such character.”

  The compliment pleased Walter Buie, who beamed back at her. “How kind of you to say that. Some people find Basil a bit . . . a bit difficult to get to know. But he’s got a good heart, you know.”

  Isabel raised an eyebrow involuntarily. “Every dog has something to offer,” she said. She was going to say something more, but could not.

  “Exactly,” said Walter. “But look, do come in. I didn’t mean to keep you on the doorstep.”

  They made their way into the drawing room.

  “My mother,” said Walter. “I don’t believe you’ve met her.”

  Isabel had not expected to find anybody else in the room and was momentarily taken aback. She recovered quickly, though, and moved over to the window where the elderly woman was standing. Walter’s mother had half turned round and extended a hand to Isabel. Taking it, Isabel felt the dry skin, the roughness. She looked at Mrs. Buie and saw the recessed eyes, the folds dotted with liver spots.

  “I was going to make tea,” said the older woman. “Walter, let me do that. You stay and talk to . . .”

  “Isabel.”

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  “Of course.” The eyes were fixed on Isabel, but they were still. There was little light in them. “I knew your mother, you know. We played bridge now and then.”

  Isabel caught her breath. Her mother; her sainted American mother.

  “She was such an attractive woman,” sa
id Mrs. Buie. “And amusing.”

  Isabel thought: Yes, she was. So many people said that—

  that she made people laugh.

  “And your poor father,” Mrs. Buie added.

  Isabel said nothing. She wondered what would follow. Did Mrs. Buie know about her mother’s affair—the affair that Isabel herself had found out about only when her cousin had revealed it to her, on being pressed to do so by Isabel herself? Perhaps she did, but it seemed strange that she would mention it on a first meeting, unless, of course, she had become disinhibited.

  Age brought that sometimes, with the result that all sorts of tactless things might be said.

  But Mrs. Buie had nothing more to add and made her way out of the room to make the tea.

  Walter Buie gestured to a sofa near the window.

  “The painting?” he said as they sat down. “You said you had some information for me.”

  Isabel looked past him to a picture on the wall above his head. It was, she thought, a McTaggart. He caught her eye.

  “McTaggart,” he said. “My mother’s.” He gestured around the room. “These are all hers. She’s the one with the collection.”

  “But you bought the McInnes?”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  She decided that she should wait no longer. “I don’t think it’s a McInnes,” she said.

  She watched him very closely. At first it seemed that he had T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S

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  not heard her, or had mistaken what she had said. He had been smiling when their conversation had started, and he was still smiling. But then it was as if a shadow had passed over his face.

  The face has a hundred muscles, she thought; even more. It has such a subtle surface—like that of water, sensitive to changes of light, to the movement of wind—and as indicative, every bit as indicative, of the weather.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “You don’t know that it’s a forgery?” She felt her heart beating within her; she was accusing him now, and she was suddenly aware that it was the wrong thing to do. But the accusation had slipped out.

  “Are you suggesting—” He broke off. He was looking down at the carpet, unable to meet her eyes. But it was not guilt, she decided; it was pain.

  “Please,” she said, impulsively reaching out to lay a hand upon his sleeve. “Please. That came out all wrong. I’m not suggesting that you tried to sell me a forgery.”

  He seemed to be puzzling something out. Now he looked up at her. “I suppose you thought that because I wanted to sell it quickly.”

  “I was surprised,” she said. “But I thought that there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation.” That was a lie, she knew.

  I am lying as a result of having made an unfair assumption. And I lied, too, when I paid a compliment to that unpleasant dog of his. But I have to lie. And what would life be like if we paid one another no compliments?

  Isabel thought now that he was debating with himself whether to say something. When he spoke, it was with hesitation, and his voice was lowered. “I have to sell it,” he said. “Or, rather, had to. If what you say is true, then . . .”

  “You need the money?” It seemed unlikely to her. This was 2 2 4

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h an expensive house and the furniture, the paintings, the rugs on the floor—none of these suggested financial need.

  He stared at her. He had the look of one who has said enough and is reluctant to say more. But there was more.

  “I need to raise slightly more than one hundred thousand pounds,” he said. “I didn’t need to when I bought the painting.

  Then I did.”

  Isabel waited, and he continued. “It’s my own fault,” he said quietly. “I gave a personal guarantee for a friend who was involved in a management buyout of the company he worked for.

  It all seemed very solid when I agreed to back him, but an accountant somewhere along the line had deliberately misrepresented the liabilities. My friend goes under if I don’t come up with the money. He loses his house—everything. And I’m god-father to his son.”

  She was silent. It was utterly convincing, and it was while she was thinking of how unjust she had been in her assump-tions that she heard Mrs. Buie behind her. She was standing in the doorway, holding a tray. She took a step forward and put the tray down on a side table. She looked at Isabel.

  “That painting is not a forgery,” she said.

  “Mother . . .”

  Mrs. Buie raised a hand. Her eyes flashed angrily at her son, who was silenced in the face of her disapproval. “Do you imagine that we would attempt to sell a forgery? Is that what you think, Miss Dalhousie?”

  Isabel felt the power of the older woman’s disapproval. Her reply was conciliatory. “No. I’m sorry—I didn’t suggest that. But it’s quite possible, isn’t it, that one might in good faith sell something which is not genuine? I could imagine that happening to me. I might sell something which I thought . . .”

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  Miss Dalhousie, that would happen only when one didn’t know much about the artist. I’ve known Andrew McInnes for a long time. I’m very familiar with his work. There’s probably nobody else who’s as familiar with it.”

  “Knew him,” said Walter Buie. “Knew him, Mother.”

  This intervention was ignored. “And I assure you that the painting that Walter bought is absolutely genuine. It is the work of Andrew McInnes. There’s just no question about it.” She paused. “And there’s another thing. That particular painting of Walter’s is really very good. It’s far better than anything that he painted ten years ago. Far better.”

  “It’s unsigned,” said Isabel. “And it’s unvarnished.”

  “That’s because he didn’t have the time,” said Mrs. Buie.

  “There’s nothing more to it than that.”

  There was a silence. Isabel frowned. She was intrigued by something that Mrs. Buie had said. What did she mean when she expressed the view that the painting was better than anything painted ten years previously? She decided to press the point. “So you know when it was painted?” she asked.

  The question took Mrs. Buie by surprise, and for a moment she seemed flustered. “I’m not sure . . .”

  “But you said that he didn’t have time to varnish it,” pressed Isabel. “Forgive my asking, but how do you know?”

  Then it dawned on her. It was so obvious. Andrew McInnes was not dead. I’ve known Andrew McInnes for a long time. People like Mrs. Buie, with her precise speech, did not mix up their tenses.

  “He’s alive, isn’t he?” Isabel spoke so softly that she barely heard her own voice, but Mrs. Buie heard it, as did Walter; he gave a start and spun round to stare at his mother.

  “No,” said Mrs. Buie. “Andrew died. He was drowned off Jura.”

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  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Isabel watched her as she spoke, and saw the lie. It was evident, exposed; a person of Mrs. Buie’s nature, she thought, finds it hard to lie, impossible even.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Buie,” she said quietly. “I know that it’s rude of me, but you did seem to imply that you knew when the picture was painted. And then you said that you know Andrew McInnes, not knew. Forgive me for thinking that he is alive, and that you are finding it really rather difficult to continue to claim that he isn’t.”

  Mrs. Buie looked away. When she spoke, her voice was distant. “Yes. You’re right.”

  Walter glanced at Isabel. “Mother is perhaps not well,” he muttered.

  Mrs. Buie turned to look first at Walter and then at Isabel.

  There was irritation in her voice. “I’m perfectly well,” she said.

  “And yes, Andrew is alive. You believe that you know a great deal, Miss Dalhousie, but I’m sorry to say that from my perspective you don’t really know very
much at all. If you had bothered to go to the library and read the papers, you would have seen the reports. And you would have read that the body of Andrew McInnes was never recovered. It was assumed that he had been devoured by that whirlpool, but he was not. He made it to the shore after his boat capsized and it was then that it occurred to him that he had the ideal opportunity to make a fresh start—as somebody else. And who can blame him?”

  There was silence. “Well?” prompted Mrs. Buie. “Can you blame him?”

  “No,” said Isabel. “I can understand.”

  Mrs. Buie appeared pleased. “Well, that’s something,” she said. She turned back to face her son. “That painting, Walter, which you so foolishly bought, was sent down to Lyon & Turnbull by me. Yes, by me.”

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  “You should have told me. You should have told me about that . . . and about Andrew.”

  Her answer was snappy. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you something that I had given my word not to reveal. Nobody was to know that Andrew survived.”

  Walter was shaking his head in disbelief. “And you let me offer the painting to somebody else—to Miss Dalhousie here—

  although you knew full well that it was not what I thought it was. You let me carry on.”

  “It is exactly what you said it was,” said Mrs. Buie. “You were deceiving nobody. And if you had told me that you were going to buy it, instead of going off by yourself, then you wouldn’t have found yourself in this mess in the first place. Why did you suddenly get it into your head to buy a McInnes? Why didn’t you discuss it with me? I would have told you then. I would have put you off.”

  Isabel thought she knew the answer to this. Walter Buie was trying to lead his own life, which was difficult, she imagined, with Mrs. Buie still being in the house. She felt a momentary surge of sympathy for him; he did not seem a weak man, but he was still a boy as far as his mother was concerned. The pictures on the wall were his mother’s, bought by her; perhaps he wanted something of his own.