A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h spondence and with a set of proofs that she had neglected over the last few days. She did not regret the time she had spent away from her desk, particularly the previous day’s trip to West Linton. As far as she was concerned, she had done her duty by Ian and had brought the whole matter to its resolution. On the journey back from West Linton Ian had been loquacious.
“You were right,” he said. “I needed to say thank you. That was probably all there was to it.”
“Good,” said Isabel, and she had mused on how strong the need to thank may be. “And do you think that will be the end of those . . . what shall we call them? Experiences?”
“I don’t know,” said Ian. “But I do feel different.”
“And we’ve laid to rest all that nonsense about cellular memory,” said Isabel. “Our faith in the rational can be reaf-firmed.”
“You’re sure that I met him, or had him pointed out to me, aren’t you?” Ian asked. He sounded doubtful.
“Isn’t that the most likely explanation?” replied Isabel. “It’s a small village. People would have known about the death. They would have talked. You probably heard it, even if indirectly, from your hosts—a chance remark over breakfast or whatever. But the mind takes such things in and files them away. So you knew—but didn’t know—that Euan was the man you wanted to thank. Doesn’t that sound credible to you?”
He looked out of the window at the dark fields flashing by.
“Maybe.”
“And there’s another thing,” said Isabel. “Resolution. Musicians know all about that, don’t they? Pieces of music seek resolution, have to end on a particular note, or it sounds all wrong.
The same applies to our lives. It’s exactly the same.”
F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
2 5 9
Ian said nothing to this, but thought about it all the way back to Edinburgh, and continued to think about it for the remainder of that evening, in silence and in gratitude. He was not convinced by Isabel’s explanation. It could be true, but it did not seem true to him. But did that matter? Did it matter how one got to the place one wanted to be, provided that one got there in the end?
JA M I E WA S I N V I T E D for dinner that evening and accepted. He should bring something to sing, Isabel said, and she would accompany him. He could choose.
He arrived at seven o’clock, fresh from a rehearsal at the Queen’s Hall and full of complaint about the unreasonable behaviour of a particular conductor. She gave him a glass of wine and led him through to the music room. In the kitchen, a fish stew sat on the stove, and fresh French bread was on the table. There was a candle, unlit, and starched Dutch napkins in a Delft design.
She sat down at the piano and took the music which he handed to her. Schubert and Schumann. It was safe, rather gemütlich, and she felt that his heart was not in it.
“Sing something you believe in,” she said after they had reached the end of the third song.
Jamie smiled. “A good idea,” he said. “I’m fed up with all that.” He reached into his music bag and took out a couple of sheets of music, which he handed to Isabel.
“Jacobite!” exclaimed Isabel. “ ‘Derwentwater’s Farewell.’
What’s this all about?”
“It’s a lament,” said Jamie. “It’s been dredged up out of 2 6 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Hogg’s Jacobite Relics. It’s all about poor Lord Derwentwater, who was executed for joining the rebellion. It’s all about the things that he’ll miss. It’s very sad.”
“So I see,” said Isabel, glancing at the words. “And this is his speech here—printed at the end?”
“Yes,” said Jamie. “I find that particularly moving. He delivered it a few minutes before they put him to death. He was a loyal friend to James the Third. They had been boys together at the Palace of St. Germain.”
“A loyal friend,” mused Isabel, staring at the music. “That greatest of goods—friendship.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Jamie. He leant forward and pointed to a passage in the printed speech. “Look at what he says here. Near the end—minutes from death. He says, I am in perfect charity with all the world. ”
Isabel was silent. I am in perfect charity with all the world, she thought. I am in perfect charity with all the world. Resolution.
“And over here,” said Jamie. “Look. He says, I freely forgive such as ungenerously reported false things of me. Then he goes to his death.”
“They acted with such dignity,” said Isabel. “Not all of them perhaps, but so many. Look at Mary, Queen of Scots. What a different world.”
“Yes,” said Jamie. “It was. But we’re in this one. Let’s begin.”
He sang the lament and at the end of it Isabel rose from her piano seat and closed the cover of the keyboard. “Fish stew,” she said. “And another glass of this.”
At the table, the candle lit, they used the French bread to soak up the fish stew at the edge of their plates. Then Jamie, who was facing the window, suddenly became still. “Out there,”
he whispered. “Just outside the window.”
F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
2 6 1
Isabel turned in her seat. She did so slowly, because she had guessed what it was, who it was, and did not want a sudden movement to scare him off.
Brother Fox looked in. He saw two people. He saw them raise their glasses of wine to him, liquid that for him was suspended in the air, as if by a miracle.
A B O U T T H E A U T H O R
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.
This novel is the second in The Sunday Philosophy Club series. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and was a law professor at the University of Botswana and at Edinburgh University. He lives in Scotland.
Document Outline
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
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Alexander McCall Smith
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