The Sunday Philosophy Club id-1

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The argument, which was taking place in the kitchen, was like all their discussions. Grace defended a proposition and did not move, and they usually ended with a vague concession by Isabel that the matter was very complicated and would have to be thought about, but that Grace was certainly right, up to a point.

  Isabel rose to her feet. It was almost ten past nine and the morning crossword called. She picked up the newspaper from the kitchen table, and leaving Grace to continue with the folding of the washing, she made her way to the morning room. Right and wrong. Boys need fathers to teach them the difference between right and wrong. This was true, but like many of Grace’s observations it was only half true. What was wrong with mothers for this role? She knew a number of mothers who had brought up sons by themselves, and brought them up well. One of her friends, deserted by her husband six weeks after the birth of her son, had made a magnificent job of his upbringing, against all the odds which single mothers face. He had turned out well, that boy, as had many others like him. Boys need a parent is what Grace should have said.

  Toby had a father, and yet here was Toby two-timing Cat.

  Had his father ever said anything to him about how one should behave towards women? It was an interesting question, and Isabel had no idea about whether fathers spoke to their sons about such things. Did fathers take their sons aside and say: 1 1 0

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

  “Treat women with respect”? Or was that too old-fashioned? Perhaps she could ask Jamie about this, as he certainly knew how to treat women with respect, unlike Toby.

  Isabel suspected that the way men behaved towards women depended on much more complex psychological factors. It was not a question of moral knowledge, she thought; it was more a matter of confidence in self and sexual integration. A man with a fragile ego, unsure of who he is, would treat a woman as a means of combating his insecurity. A man who knew who he was and who was sure of his sexuality would be sensitive to women’s feelings. He would have nothing to prove.

  Toby seemed confident, though; in fact, he oozed confidence.

  In his case, at least, it was something else—perhaps the absence of a moral imagination. Morality depended on an understanding of the feelings of others. If one had no moral imagination—and there were such people—then one simply would not be able to empathise with them. The pain, the suffering, the unhappiness of others would not seem real, because it would not be perceived.

  There was nothing new in this, of course; Hume had been talking about much the same thing when he discussed sympathy and the importance of being able to experience the emotions of others. Isabel wondered whether it would be possible to communi-cate Hume’s insight to people today by talking about vibrations.

  Vibrations were a New Age concept. Perhaps Hume could be explained in terms of vibrations and fields of energy, and this would make him real to people who otherwise would have no inkling of what he meant. It was an interesting possibility, but like so many other possibilities, there was no time for it. There were so many books to write—so many ideas to develop—and she had time for none of it.

  People thought, quite wrongly, that Isabel had time on her 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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  hands. They looked at her situation, that of a woman of independent means, living in a large house, looked after by a full-time housekeeper, and with a part-time job as editor of some obscure journal that presumably had flexible deadlines. How could such a person be busy? they thought. Their own lives, in jobs which made more and more demands, were quite different, they imagined.

  Of course, none of these reflections, relevant though they were to the moral issues which informed her life, addressed the quandary in which she now found herself. She had, by indulging in vulgar curiosity, discovered something about Toby of which Cat was presumably ignorant. The question before her now was that utterly trite one, which must have graced the columns of countless problem pages: My best friend’s boyfriend is cheating on her. I know this, but she does not. Should I tell her?

  It may have been a familiar problem, but the answer was far from clear. She had faced it before, a long time ago, and she was not sure whether she had made the right decision. In that case, the knowledge had not been of unfaithfulness, but of illness. A man with whom she had worked, and with whom over the years she had become reasonably friendly, had developed schizophre-nia. He had been unable to continue working, but had responded well to treatment. He had then met a woman, to whom he proposed, and she had accepted. Isabel had decided that this woman was very keen to get married, but had never before been asked.

  She was unaware of his illness, though, and Isabel had debated whether or not to tell her. Eventually she had said nothing, and the woman had been dismayed when she subsequently found out what was wrong with her husband. She had borne it well, though, and they had moved to a house on the edge of Blairgowrie, where they led a quiet, protected life. She had never said that she regretted the marriage, but had Isabel told her, she could have 1 1 2

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h made a more informed choice. She might have said no to the marriage, and been happier by herself, although that would have deprived the man of that measure of contentment and security which the marriage provided.

  She often thought about this, and had decided that noninter-vention was the right course of action in such a case. The problem was that one just did not know enough about what would happen afterwards, either if one did nothing or if one did something. The answer, then, was to keep one’s distance from those situations in which one is not directly involved. But this was surely wrong. Cat was no stranger to her, and surely a close relative was entitled to warn? What if Toby were not Toby at all, but some impostor, a life-sentence prisoner released on licence, who even now pondered some further crime? It would be absurd to say that she could not warn in such a case. Indeed she would have more than a right to speak, she would have a duty to do so.

  As she sat in the morning room, the unsullied crossword before her, her mug of coffee steaming in the slightly cooler air of the glassed-in room, she wondered how she would put the matter to Cat. One thing was certain: she could not tell her that she had been following Toby, as that would, quite rightly, provoke accusa-tions of unwarranted interference in his, and Cat’s, affairs. So she would have to start the whole disclosure on the basis of a lie, or at best a half-truth.

  “I happened to be in Nelson Street and happened to see . . .”

  What would Cat say? She would be shocked at the outset, as anyone would be on the news of a betrayal of this nature. And then perhaps she would move to anger, which would be directed against Toby, and not against the other girl, whoever she was.

  Isabel had read that women usually attack their partners on discovering infidelity, while men, in the same position, will direct 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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  their hostility against the other man, the intruder. For a moment she allowed herself to imagine the scene: Toby, unsuspecting, facing an angry Cat, his self-confident expression crumbling before the onslaught; blushing as the truth was outed. And then, she hoped, Cat would storm out, and that would be the end of Toby. A few weeks later, with her wounds still raw, but not so raw as to require privacy, Jamie could visit Cat in the delicatessen and suggest a meal together. He would be sympathetic, but Isabel would have to advise him to maintain some distance and not to be too quick to try to fill the emotional void. Then they would see.

  If Cat had any sense, she would realise that Jamie would never deceive her, and that men like Toby were best avoided. But there the fantasy ended; the likelihood was that Cat would make the same mistake again, and more than once, as people always did.

  Unsuitable men were replaced by unsuitable men; it seemed inevitable. People repeated their mistakes because their choice of partner was dictated by factors beyond their control. Isabel had imbibed sufficient Freud—and more to the point, Klein—to know tha
t the emotional die was cast at a very early age. It all went back to childhood, and to the psychodynamics of one’s relationship with one’s parents. These things were not a matter of intellectual assessment and rational calculation; they sprang from events in the nursery. Not that everybody had a nursery, of course, but they had an equivalent—a space, perhaps.

  C H A P T E R E L E V E N

  E

  IT WAS THAT EVENING, after a day which she regarded as utterly wasted, that Isabel received a visit from Neil, the young man with whom she had had such an unrewarding conversation on her visit to Warrender Park Terrace. He arrived unannounced, although Isabel happened to be gazing out the window of her study when he walked up the path to the font door. She saw him look upwards, at the size of the house, and she thought she saw him hesitate slightly, but he went on to ring her bell and she made her way to the front door to let him in.

  He was wearing a suit and tie, and she noticed his shoes, which were highly polished black Oxfords. Hen had said, quite irrelevantly, that he worked for a stuffy firm, and the outfit confirmed this.

  “Miss Dalhousie?” he said superfluously as she opened the door. “I hope you remember me. You came round the other day . . .”

  “Of course I do. Neil, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  She ushered him into the hall and through the drawing-room door. He declined her offer of a drink, or tea, but she poured herself a small sherry and sat down opposite him.

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  “Hen said you were a lawyer,” she began conversationally.

  “Trainee lawyer,” he corrected. “Yes. That’s what I do.”

  “Like every second person in Edinburgh,” said Isabel.

  “Sometimes it seems like that. Yes.”

  There was a momentary silence. Isabel noticed that Neil’s hands were clasped over his lap, and that his position, in general, was far from relaxed. He was tense and on edge, just as he had been when he had spoken to her last time. Perhaps that was how he was. Some people were naturally tense, coiled up like springs, suspicious of the world about them.

  “I came to see you . . .” He trailed off.

  “Yes,” said Isabel brightly. “So I see.”

  Neil attempted a quick smile, but did not persist. “I came to see you about . . . about what we talked about the other day. I did not tell you the whole truth, I’m afraid. It’s been preying on my mind.”

  Isabel watched him closely. The muscular tension in the face aged him, making lines about the corners of his mouth. The palms of his hands would be moist, she thought. She said nothing, but waited for him to continue.

  “You asked me—you asked me quite specifically whether there was anything unusual in his life. Do you remember?”

  Isabel nodded. She looked down at the sherry glass in her right hand and took a small sip. It was very dry; too dry, Toby had said when she had given him a glass. Too dry and it gets bitter, you know.

  “And then I said that there was nothing,” Neil went on.

  “Which was not true. There was.”

  “Now you want to tell me about it?”

  Neil nodded. “I felt very bad about misleading you. I don’t know why I did it. I suppose I just felt annoyed that you had come round to talk to us. I felt that it was none of your business.”

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  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Which it isn’t, thought Isabel, but did not say it.

  “You see,” said Neil, “Mark said to me that there was something happening. He was scared.”

  Isabel felt her pulse race. Yes, she had been right. There had been something; Mark’s death was not what it had seemed to be.

  It had a background.

  Neil unclasped his hands. Now that he had started to speak, some of the tension appeared to dissipate, even if he still did not appear relaxed.

  “You know that Mark worked for a firm of fund managers,” he said. “McDowell’s. They’re quite a large firm these days. They handle a lot of big pension funds, and one or two smaller people.

  They’re a well-known firm.”

  “I knew that,” said Isabel.

  “Well, in that job you see a lot of money moving. You have to watch things pretty closely.”

  “So I believe,” said Isabel.

  “And you have to be particularly careful about how you behave,” Neil said. “There’s something called insider trading. Do you know about that?”

  Isabel explained that she had heard of the term, but was not sure exactly what it meant. Was it something to do with buying shares on the basis of inside information?

  Neil nodded. “That’s more or less what it is. You may get information in your job which allows you to predict the movement of share prices. If you know that a firm is going to be taken over, for example, that may send up the share price. If you buy in advance of the news getting out, then you make a profit. It’s simple.”

  “I can imagine,” said Isabel. “And I can imagine the temptation.”

  “Yes,” agreed Neil. “It’s very tempting. I’ve even been in a position myself to do it. I assisted in drafting an offer which I 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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  knew would have an effect on the value of the shares. It would have been simple for me to get somebody to buy some shares on my behalf. Dead simple. I could have made thousands.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “You go to prison if you’re caught,” Neil said. “They take it very seriously. It’s because you’re getting an unfair advantage over the people who are selling the shares to you. You know something that they don’t. It undermines the market principle.”

  “And you say that Mark had seen this happen?”

  “Yes,” said Neil. “He told me one evening, when we were in the pub together. He said that he had discovered insider trading going on in the firm. He said that he was completely sure of his facts, and he had the means of proving it. But then he said something else.”

  Isabel put down her sherry glass. It was obvious where this disclosure was going, and she felt uncomfortable.

  “He said that he was worried that the people who were doing it knew that he had found out. He had been treated strangely, almost with suspicion, and he had been given a very strange little pep talk—a pep talk about confidentiality and duty to the firm—

  which he had interpreted as a veiled warning.”

  He looked up at Isabel, and she saw something in his eyes.

  What was it saying? Was it a plea for help? Was it the expression of some private agony, a sadness that he was unable to articulate?

  “Was that all?” she asked. “Did he tell you who gave him this talk, this warning?”

  Neil shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He said that he couldn’t say very much about it. But I could tell that he was frightened.”

  Isabel rose from her chair and crossed the room to close the curtains. As she did so, the movement of the material made a soft noise, like the breaking of a small wave on the beach. Neil watched her from where he was sitting. Then she returned to her chair.

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

  “I don’t know what you want me to do with this,” she said.

  “Have you thought of going to the police?”

  Her question seemed to make him tense once again. “I can’t do that,” he said. “They have already spoken to me several times.

  I told them nothing about this. I just told them what I told you the first time I spoke to you. If I went back now, it would look odd. I would effectively be saying that I had lied to them.”

  “And they may not like that,” mused Isabel. “They could start thinking you had something to hide, couldn’t they?”

  Neil stared at her. Again there was that strange expression in his eyes. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Of course,” said Isabel quickly, although she knew that this was not tr
ue; that he was concealing something. “It’s just that once you don’t tell the truth, then people begin to think that there may be a reason.”

  “There was no reason,” said Neil, his voice now slightly raised. “I didn’t talk about this because I knew very little about it.

  I thought that it had nothing to do with . . . with what happened.

  I didn’t want to spend hours with the police. I just wanted everything to be over. I thought it might be simpler just to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Sometimes that is much simpler,” said Isabel. “Sometimes it isn’t.” She looked at him, and he lowered his eyes. She felt pity for him now. He was a very ordinary young man, not particularly sensitive, not particularly aware. And yet he had lost a friend, somebody with whom he actually lived, and he must be feeling that much more than she, who had only witnessed the accident.

  She looked at him. He seemed vulnerable, and there was an air to him that made her think of something else, another possibility. Perhaps there had been a dimension to his relationship with Mark that was not immediately obvious to her. It was even 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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  possible that he and Mark had been lovers; it was not all that unusual, she reflected, for people to be capable of sexual involvement with either sex, and although she had glimpsed him in Hen’s room, that need not mean that there had not previously been different permutations in that flat.

  “You miss him, don’t you?” she said quietly, watching the effect on him of her words.

  He looked away, as if studying one of the pictures on the wall.

  For a few moments he said nothing, and then he answered, “I miss him a great deal. I miss him every day. I think of him all the time. All the time.”

  He had answered her question, and answered her doubts.

  “Don’t try to forget him,” she said. “People sometimes say that. They say that we should try to forget the people we lose. But we really shouldn’t, you know.”