A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h which access would be gained by an imposing front door. These doors were usually locked, but could be opened from the flats above by the pressing of a button. Isabel looked at the range of bells at the front door and found one labelled “Duffus.” She pushed it and waited. After a minute or so a voice sounded through the small speaker of the intercom and asked her what she wanted.
Isabel bent to speak into the tiny microphone on the intercom box. She gave her name and explained that she would like to speak to Miss Duffus. It was in connection with the accident, she added.
There was a brief pause, and then the buzzer sounded. Isabel pushed the door open and began to climb up the stairs, noting that stale, slightly dusty smell which seemed to hang in the air of so many common stairs. It was the smell of stone which has been wet and now has dried, coupled with the slight odour of cooking that would waft out of individual flats. It was a smell that reminded her of childhood, when she had gone every week up such a stairway to her piano lessons at the house of Miss Marilyn McGibbon—Miss McGibbon, who had referred to music which starred her; which meant she was stirred. Isabel still thought of starring music.
She paused, and stood still for a moment, remembering Miss McGibbon, whom she had liked as a child, but from whom she had picked up, even as a child, a sense of sadness, of something unresolved. Once she had arrived for her lesson and had found her red-eyed, with marks of tears on the powder which she applied to her face, and had stared at her mutely until Miss McGibbon had turned away, mumbling: “I am not myself. I apologise. I am not myself this afternoon.”
And Isabel had said: “Has something sad happened?”
Miss McGibbon had started to say yes, but had changed it to T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
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no, and had shaken her head, and they had turned to the scales which Isabel had learned and to Mozart, and nothing more had been said. Later, as a young adult, she had learned quite by chance that Miss McGibbon had lost her friend and companion, one Lalla Gordon, the daughter of a judge of the Court of Session, who had been forced to choose between her family (who disapproved of Miss McGibbon) and her friendship, and who had chosen the former.
T H E F L AT WA S O N the fourth floor and by the time that Isabel had reached the landing, the door was already slightly ajar. A young woman was standing just within the hall, and she opened the door as Isabel approached. Isabel smiled at her, taking in at a glance Hen Duffus’s appearance: tall, almost willowy, and wide-eyed in that appealing, doelike way which Isabel always associated with girls from the west coast of Scotland, but which presumably had nothing to do with that at all. Her smile was returned as Hen asked her to come in. Yes, Isabel thought as she heard the accent: the west, although not Glasgow, as Cat had said, but somewhere small and couthy, Dunbarton perhaps, Helens-burgh at a stretch. But she was definitely not a Henrietta; Hen, yes; that was far more suitable.
“I’m sorry to come unannounced. I hoped I might just find you in. You and . . .”
“Neil. I don’t think he’s in. But he should be back soon.”
Hen closed the door behind them and pointed to a door down the hallway. “We can go through there,” she said. “It’s the usual mess, I’m afraid.”
“No need to apologise,” said Isabel. “We all live in a mess. It’s more comfortable that way.”
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“I’d like to be tidy,” said Hen. “I try, but I guess you can’t be what you aren’t.”
Isabel smiled, but said nothing. There was a physicality about this woman, an air of . . . well, sexual energy. It was unmistak-able, like musicality, or asceticism. She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.
The living room, into which Hen led Isabel, looked out to the north, over the trees that lined the southern edge of the Meadows. The windows, which were generous Victorian, must have flooded the room with light in the day; even now, in the early evening, the room needed no lights. Isabel crossed the room to stand before one of the windows. She looked down. Below them on the cobbled street, a boy dragged a reluctant dog on a lead.
The boy bent down and struck the dog on the back, and the animal turned round in self-defence. Then the boy kicked it in the ribs and dragged on the lead again.
Hen joined her at the window and looked down too. “He’s a wee brat, that boy. I call him Soapy Soutar. He lives in the ground-floor flat with his mother and a bidie-in. I don’t think that dog likes any of them.”
Isabel laughed. She appreciated the reference to Soapy Soutar; every Scottish child used to know about Oor Wullie and his friends Soapy Soutar and Fat Boab, but did they now? Where do the images of Scottish childhood come from now? Not, she thought, from the streets of Dundee, those warm, mythical streets which the Sunday Post peopled with pawky innocents.
They turned away from the window and Hen looked at Isabel.
“Why have you come to see us? You aren’t a journalist, are you?”
Isabel shook her head vigorously. “Certainly not. No, I was a witness. I saw it happen.”
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Hen stared at her. “You were there? You saw Mark fall?”
“I’m afraid I did.”
Hen looked behind her for a seat and sat down. She looked down at the floor, and for a moment she said nothing. Then she raised her eyes. “I don’t really like to think of it, you know. It’s only a few weeks, and I’m already trying to forget about it. But it’s not easy, when you lose a flatmate like that.”
“Of course. I can understand.”
“We had the police round, you know. They came and asked about Mark. Then we had his parents, to come and take his things away. You can imagine what that was like.”
“Yes I can.”
“And there were other people,” Hen went on. “Mark’s friends. Somebody from his office. It went on and on.”
Isabel sat down on the sofa, next to Hen. “And now me. I’m sorry to intrude. I can imagine what all this is like.”
“Why did you come?” asked Hen. It was not said in an unfriendly way, but there was an edge to the question that Isabel picked up. It was exhaustion perhaps; exhaustion in the face of another interrogation.
“I had no real reason,” Isabel said quietly. “I suppose it’s because I was involved in it and I had nobody to talk to about it—
nobody connected with it, if you see what I mean. I saw this thing happen—this horrible thing—and I knew nobody who knew anything about him, about Mark.” She paused. Hen was watching her with her wide almond eyes. Isabel believed what she was saying, but was it the whole truth? And yet she could hardly tell these people that the reason why she was here was sheer curiosity about what happened; that, and a vague suspicion that there was something more to the incident.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Hen closed her eyes, then nodded. “I understand,” she said.
“That’s fine with me. In a way I’d like to hear about what actually happened. I’ve imagined it enough.”
“You don’t mind then?”
“No, I don’t mind. If it’s going to help you, then that’s all right with me.” She reached out and touched Isabel’s arm. The sympathetic gesture was unexpected, and Isabel felt—unworthily, she thought—that it was out of character. “I’ll make some coffee,”
Hen went on, rising to her feet. “Then we can talk.”
Hen left the room, and Isabel leant back into the sofa and looked about her. It was well furnished, unlike many rented flats, which quickly develop a well-used look. There were prints on the wall—the landlord’s taste, presumably mixed with that of the tenants: a view of the Falls of Clyde (landlord); A Bigger Splash, by Hockney, and Amateur Philosophers, by Vettriano (tenants); and Iona, by Peploe (landlord). She smiled at the Vettriano—he was deeply disapproved of by the artistic establishment in Edinburgh, but he rema
ined resolutely popular. Why was this? Because his figurative paintings said something about people’s lives (at least about the lives of people who danced on the beach in formal clothing); they had a narrative in the same way in which Edward Hopper’s paintings did. That was why there were so many poems inspired by Hopper; it was because there was a now-read-on note to everything he painted. Why are the people there? What are they thinking of ? What are they going to do now? Hockney, of course, left nothing unanswered. It was very clear what everybody was about in a Hockney picture: swimming, and sex, and narcissism. Had Hockney drawn WHA? She remembered that he had; and he had captured rather well the geological catastro-phe that was WHA’s face. I am like a map of Iceland. Had he said that? She thought not, but he could have. She would write a book T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
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one day about quotations which were entirely apocryphal but which could be attributed to people who might have said just that.
I’ve reigned all afternoon, and now it’s snowing. Queen Victoria.
She had been staring at the Vettriano and now looked away and through the door. There was a mirror in the hall—a long dress mirror of the sort more usually found on the back of wardrobe doors. From where she was sitting she had an unimpeded view of it, and at that precise moment she saw a young man dart out of a door, cross the hall, and disappear into another room. He did not see her, though it seemed as if he was aware of her presence in the flat. And it seemed, too, that he had not intended that she should see him, which she would not have done, save for the strategically placed mirror. And he was quite naked.
After a few minutes Hen returned, carrying two cups. She placed the cups on the table in front of the sofa and sat down next to Isabel again. “Did you ever meet Mark?”
Isabel was on the point of saying yes, for it seemed to her, bizarrely, as if she had, but shook her head instead. “That was the first time I saw him. That night.”
“He was a really good guy,” said Hen. “He was great. Everyone liked him.”
“I’m sure they did,” said Isabel.
“I was a bit unsure to begin with, you know, living with two people I hadn’t met before. But I took the room here at the same time as they got it. So we all started off together.”
“And it worked?”
“Yes, it worked. We had the occasional argument, as one would expect. But never anything serious. It worked very well.”
Hen picked up her cup and sipped at the coffee. “I miss him.”
“And Neil, your flatmate? They were friends?”
“Of course,” said Hen. “They sometimes played golf together, 9 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h although Neil was too good for Mark. Neil is almost a scratch player. He could have been a professional, you know. He’s a trainee lawyer with a firm in the West End. Stuffy place, but they all are, aren’t they? This is Edinburgh after all.”
Isabel picked up her coffee cup and took her first sip. It was instant, but she would try to drink it, out of politeness.
“What happened?” she said quietly. “What do you think happened?”
Hen shrugged. “He fell. That’s all that could have happened.
One of those freak accidents. He looked over for some reason and fell. What else?”
“Might he have been unhappy?” said Isabel. She made the suggestion cautiously, as it could have been met with an angry response, but it was not.
“You mean suicide?”
“Yes. That.”
Hen shook her head. “Definitely not. I would have known. I just would. He wasn’t unhappy.”
Isabel considered Hen’s words. “I would have known.” Why would she have known? Because she lived with him; that was the obvious reason. One picked up the moods of those with whom one lived in close proximity.
“So there were no signs of that?”
“No. None.” Hen paused. “He just wasn’t like that. Suicide is a cop-out. He faced up to things. He was . . . You could count on him.
He was reliable. He had a conscience. You know what I mean?”
Isabel watched her as she spoke; the word “conscience” was not one which one heard very much anymore, which was strange, and ultimately worrying. It had to do with the disappearance of guilt from people’s lives, which was no bad thing, in one sense, as guilt had caused such a mountain of unnecessary unhappiness.
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But there was still a role for guilt in moral action, as a necessary disincentive. Guilt underlined wrong; it made the moral life possible. That apart, there was another aspect to what Hen had said.
The words were uttered with conviction, but they could only have been spoken by one who had never been depressed, or gone through a period of self-doubt.
“Sometimes people who are very clear about things on the outside are not so sure inside . . . they can be very unhappy, but never show it. There are . . .” She trailed off. Hen clearly did not appreciate being spoken to in this way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture you . . .”
Hen smiled. “That’s all right. You’re probably right—in general, but not in this case. I really don’t think it was suicide.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” said Isabel. “You obviously knew him very well.”
For a few moments there was a silence, as Hen sipped at her coffee, apparently deep in thought, and Isabel looked at the Vettriano, wondering what to say next. There seemed little point in continuing the conversation; she was not going to learn much more from Hen, who had probably said as much as she wanted to say and who was, in Isabel’s view, not very perceptive anyway.
Hen put her cup down on the table. Isabel moved her gaze from the oddly disturbing picture. The young man whom she had seen in the corridor was now entering the room, fully clothed.
“This is Neil,” said Hen.
Isabel rose to shake hands with the young man. The palm of his hand was warm, and slightly moist, and she thought: He’s been in the shower. That was why he had been dashing naked across the hall. Perhaps that was not unusual these days; that flatmates, casual friends, should wander about unclothed, in perfect innocence, as children in Eden.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Neil sat down on the chair opposite the sofa while Hen explained why Isabel was there.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” said Isabel. “I just wanted to talk about it. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No,” said Neil. “I don’t mind. If you want to talk about it, that’s fine with me.”
Isabel glanced at him. His voice was very different from Hen’s; from the other side of the country, she thought, but disclosing an expensive education somewhere. He was Hen’s age, she thought, or perhaps slightly older, and like her he had a slightly outdoors look to him. Of course, he was the golfer, and what she was seeing was the effect of time spent on blustery Scottish fairways.
“I don’t think I should burden you much more,” said Isabel.
“I’ve met you. I’ve talked about what happened. I should let you get on with things.”
“Has it helped?” asked Hen, exchanging a glance, Isabel noted, with Neil. The meaning of the glance was quite clear, Isabel thought: she would say to him afterwards, “Why did she have to come? What was the point of all that?” And she would say that because she was nothing to that young woman; she was a woman in her forties, out of it, not real, of no interest.
“I’ll take your cup,” said Hen suddenly, rising to her feet. “I have to get something going in the kitchen. Excuse me a minute.”
“I must go,” said Isabel, but she remained on the sofa when Hen had gone out of the room, and she looked at Neil, who was watching her, his hands resting loosely on the arms of the chair.
“Do you think that he jumped?” Isabel asked.
His face was impassive, but there was something disconcert-ing in his manner, an uneasiness. “Jumped?”
T
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“Committed suicide?”
Neil opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again. He stared at Isabel.
“I’m sorry to ask you that,” she went on. “I can see that you think the answer is no. Well, you’re probably right.”
“Probably,” he said quietly.
“May I ask you another thing?” she said, and then, before her question could be answered, “Hen said that Mark was popular.
But might there have been anybody who disliked him?”
The question had been uttered, and now she watched him. She saw his eyes move, to look down at the floor, and then up again.
When he answered he did not look at her, but stared out the door, into the hall, as if to look for Hen to answer the question for him.
“I don’t think so. No. I don’t think so.”
Isabel nodded. “So there really was nothing . . . nothing unusual in his life?”
“No. Nothing unusual.”
He looked at her now, and she saw in his eyes a look of dislike. He felt—and who could blame him for this?—that it was none of her business to go prying into his friend’s life. She had clearly outstayed her welcome, as Hen had made apparent, and now she would have to leave. She rose to her feet, and he followed her example.
“I’d just like to say good-bye to Hen,” she said, moving into the hall, followed by Neil. She looked about her quickly. The door out of which he had darted when she had by chance looked into the mirror must be the door immediately to her right.
“She’s in the kitchen, isn’t she?” she said, turning and pushing open the door.
“That’s not it,” he called after her. “That’s Hen’s room.”
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h But Isabel had taken a step forward and saw the large bedroom, with its bedside lamp on and its closed curtain, and the unmade bed.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“The kitchen’s over here,” he said sharply. “That door there.”
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