A Distant View of Everything

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “I didn’t snigger.”

  “You did.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Isabel sighed. “I think we should both leave it right there. There’s no point trading insults. You did, I didn’t, and so on.” She took a deep breath. “I said: friends. Remember? I’m going to say it again. Friends?”

  Eddie hesitated. “Will you stop laughing at me?”

  “I never laughed at you, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll promise not to laugh at you.”

  “Promise?”

  “Of course—I’ve just said it.”

  “All right then.”

  She tried to recall the last time she had had such a juvenile exchange. There had been a girl at school who’d accused her of trying to steal her boyfriend. It had been a completely unjustifiable accusation but had resulted in a screaming match that had escalated until both of them had suddenly seen how ridiculous the argument was and had both lapsed into giggles. The memory made her smile…

  “There you go.”

  She tried to sound firm. “I’m not going there, Eddie. I’m not going to have to justify my every facial expression. I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

  And they had left it there. Peg had slipped out to the chemist, and they could see her crossing the street on her return.

  “Try to be nice to her,” said Isabel. “It won’t cost you anything, Eddie. Be kind.”

  Eddie said nothing, and Isabel decided to try a parting shot. “You might remember, Eddie, that people were kind to you when you first came here. Cat was, and I think I did my best to help you too. Think about that.”

  The point struck home. He stared at her open-mouthed, and Isabel left him in that state as she untied her apron and prepared to leave the delicatessen.

  —

  THE ADDRESS that Rob had given Isabel was in Colinton. This had originally been a village on the south-western outskirts of Edinburgh, now partly overtaken by the outward march of the city but still retaining much of its village feel. It was, in fact, next door to Isabel’s own suburb, described, whenever it was mentioned in the press, as “leafy Merchiston.” There were trees, Isabel accepted, but other places had trees too and were not always called leafy.

  She decided to walk and to make the journey back by bus. It was a fine afternoon, and after being cooped up in the delicatessen all morning, she wanted the fresh air. The quickest route was also the one with the most traffic; a slower route would take her along the canal towpath, across the aqueduct over the Water of Leith and then along the river banks to Colinton itself. It would take her a good forty minutes, but she had no need to be back home until late in the afternoon, as both Grace and Jamie were there to look after Charlie and Magnus.

  She felt, though, a slight pang of guilt at being away from Magnus for so long. But then she reminded herself that there were plenty of working mothers who spent the whole day at work while their children—some even younger than Magnus—were looked after in a crèche or nursery. She was a working mother too, although her job did not require her presence in some distant office or factory; she did her editing in her study, within earshot of Magnus, and could intersperse working sessions with childcare. Her spells in the delicatessen, of course, were different—she could be recalled if there were an emergency—but there she was out at work in a proper sense. And that led to another thought: in the last week or so she had put in three sessions at the delicatessen; that day, in fact, she had been there for a full morning. It seemed to her that the centre of gravity of her working life was subtly shifting in favour of the delicatessen—to the point that she should perhaps describe that as being her principal occupation. Shop assistant…she liked the sound of that because it was suggestive of a simpler life. A shop assistant would not have to worry about printers’ deadlines, nor demanding authors, nor people who seemed intimidated when she revealed that she was a philosopher. There was something appealing about merging into the anonymity that came with very ordinary occupations. Had Lawrence of Arabia not signed up as an ordinary aircraftman at the height of his fame? There was more to that, she thought, than a simple desire to escape attention, but there were other examples of people who had left challenging or distinguished positions for a simpler existence—Horace, she thought, had done that when he retired to his Sabine farm, to raise cattle and make wine and do the other things that Roman farmers did—or, rather, ordered their slaves to do. Of course all of this involved the romanticising of simplicity: assistants in shops worked long hours, had to endure the rudeness of customers and had to accept the diktats of management; farmers lived with crop failure, with drought, with poor prices at market. She imagined they would love to edit philosophical reviews and spend the occasional morning in their niece’s delicatessen.

  Some might sneer at the way in which she exchanged her study for her place behind the counter at the delicatessen. Everyone, she thought, should bear in mind Marie Antoinette playing at being a milkmaid in the grounds of Versailles…She blushed at the thought that there might be those who looked at her delicatessen work in the same way; but let them think what they liked—the judgement of others was often more about them than the one they were judging.

  —

  THE CANAL TOWPATH was busy. People were walking dogs, runners were working up a sweat, and here and there young mothers crouched with their children as over-indulged ducks gobbled up pieces of dry bread flung in their direction. There were a few cyclists too, mostly well behaved, although Isabel was almost forced into a clump of nettles by an aggressive young man who shot past with scant attention to other users of the pathway. Her displeasure was quickly replaced by reflection on what actually went through the mind of somebody like that. She wondered how they thought of their act: Did they see their actions for what they were—selfish, thoughtless, hurtful—but did that understanding have no impact on them? You could harm another, knowing that you were harming somebody, but just not care. That was a failure of something very deep and essential in the psyche—sympathy. It was what psychopaths lacked—they simply did not feel regret or shame—and yet it was unlikely that the young man on the bicycle was a psychopath. So what was he? Thoughtless, perhaps; inattentive to her existence rather than hostile—inattentive because he was too consumed by himself or by his own projects, as eighteen-year-olds can be. At that age you were immortal, you were at the centre of the universe, you were…

  There was a sudden cry, and then a splash. She spun round; a few hundred yards behind her the cyclist had veered off the path and had ended up in the canal, the top of his bicycle showing above the surface, a twisted wheel, a set of handlebars. The canal was not deep, and he was standing, soaked and muddy, chest deep in the water, holding on to his bicycle with one hand.

  On the towpath a dog barked, unattended by any owner, and Isabel realised that this must have been the cause of the accident: the dog must have run out of the bushes, dashed across the path and caused the cyclist to swerve. Once on the slippery verge, he must have lost control and plummeted over the edge into the canal.

  She ran back towards him. The cyclist was already clambering up onto the bank, dragging his damaged cycle behind him. Isabel reached out to offer him a hand.

  “Are you all right?”

  He looked up at her. “Yes. I’m all right.”

  He took her hand. The rise from the water to the bank was only a couple of feet, but she was able to help him negotiate it.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He looked shaken and did not answer immediately, but as he rose to his feet, the water dripping off him, he shook his head. “That dog.”

  She looked round; the dog had disappeared back into the undergrowth.

  There was a small frond of weed on his shoulder; Isabel took this off. He moved away as he felt her hand brush against him. “I’m all right,” he muttered.

  She stood for a moment, uncertain what to do. His bicycle was still in the water, although he had moved it to the side. She noticed that he was staring at its bu
ckled front wheel, and that his expression was one of pain and regret. She thought: This bicycle was his pride and joy; now it’s wrecked, and he may not be able to afford a new one.

  “That’ll be expensive,” she said.

  He turned to her and spoke in a tone that was close to a snarl. “Of course it’s expensive; what do you think? And I don’t know where I’ll get the money.” He swore, coarsely, and without inhibition.

  Isabel spoke on impulse. “From me.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “I said you can get the money from me. I’ll pay for your bike to be fixed.” She paused, noticing his expression of astonishment. “You said that you would find it hard to find the money—well, I can pay for it. I can easily do this for you.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came.

  “I really do mean it,” said Isabel.

  “But it wasn’t your fault,” he stuttered.

  “No, I know that. But I happen to be able to afford it.”

  The young man scratched his head. “But why?”

  “Because I want to,” she said, smiling. “I just want to.” She did not explain the theory behind her offer—it was far too complicated, and he might not understand if she started to talk about moral proximity. But that was what lay behind it: Isabel’s private theory of moral proximity, the basis of those obligations that came into existence when we found ourselves close enough to others to be able to witness or feel their needs, or when we were in some other way linked to their plight. We could not deal with all the suffering or need in the world, but we could—and should—deal with that sliver of suffering that was reasonably close to us. We could not ignore the needs of our immediate neighbour, with whom we would obviously be in moral proximity; when it came to the needs of people whose identity we did not know, with whom we had no dealings and whom we did not actually see, then any moral obligation to them would be harder to justify—other, of course, than a general duty not to harm them.

  Jamie had been intrigued by the notion of moral proximity when she had explained it to him one afternoon on the lawn.

  “All right,” he said. “There are those beggars who sit on George IV Bridge or on the pavement in Bruntsfield. You know the ones—they have a few blankets, and they sit on these and mutter, ‘Any loose change?’ to passers-by.”

  Isabel saw them whenever she went into town. Many of them came from Eastern Europe—from Romania, in particular. She nodded. “Yes, I know which ones you’re talking about.”

  “Am I in a relationship of…what do you call it? Am I in a relationship of moral proximity with them?”

  It was not a simple question to answer. She had walked past a beggar earlier that day and had been troubled by it. “Not necessarily,” she said.

  “So what does that mean? That I can ignore them?”

  Isabel sighed. “These things are never simple.”

  “No, but we still have to know what to do. Can I ignore them, or does the fact that I can see them make a difference?”

  “It might.”

  Jamie was not going to let it go. “But if I switch on the television and see a picture of a person in need in, say, an obscure corner of China, do I have a duty to help? Is there moral proximity there? Remember, I can see the person, even if it’s only a picture.”

  She was sure that there was no duty to help a person that far away. And anyway, China was rich; they had money in abundance, and first and foremost it was the duty of wealthy Chinese people—rather than outsiders—to do something.

  Jamie returned to the case of the Romanian beggars. “You know how they’re always sticking their legs out? They lean against the wall of the building and stretch their legs out in front of them.”

  Isabel nodded. “Some of them are intrusive.”

  “Well,” continued Jamie, “what if I stumble over a beggar in the street. What then?”

  “I would say that you could be morally engaged,” said Isabel. “Moral proximity might exist in such a case.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of physical closeness.”

  Jamie looked doubtful. “But why? What difference does physical closeness make?”

  “It’s just one way of restricting the number of situations in which we have to act. It may be arbitrary, but it acts as a sort of filter. You can’t do everything—but you still want to do something. So you say, ‘I only need act in cases that arise close to me.’ That cuts it down to manageable proportions.”

  And now she had been present when the young man fell into the canal. She had spoken to him, and he had revealed his need. She had responded because of moral proximity.

  He was staring at her. “What makes you think I need your money?” he asked. There was an edge to his voice, an edge of resentment.

  “You said…,” she began, but did not finish.

  “You’re all the same,” he muttered. “You can keep your money.”

  He turned his back on her, leaving Isabel standing, shocked by the rejection and the unasked-for hostility. You’re all the same…She wondered what that meant—liberal do-gooders, busybodies, the middle class, women, pedestrians who got in the way of cyclists? It was impossible to tell.

  She drew back. There was something in the young man’s demeanour that worried her—the dangerousness that one senses in those on a short fuse. Such people could lose their self-control very easily and explode in anger. They were the ones who escalated the minor disagreement into a fracas, who suddenly produced knives—and used them.

  She began to retrace her steps but had not gone more than a few yards before she heard him call out after her, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She did not turn around at first, but continued to walk.

  “I said: Where do you think you’re going?”

  She stopped and assessed her situation. She was beyond the busy part of the towpath and was now on a relatively deserted section, not far from the bridge that would take her over the canal into Colinton Dell. The bank to the right sloped down sharply, through a tangle of brambles, nettles and dock leaves, until it reached the fence that marked the rear of a suburban garden. There were several houses, in fact, but they were all a few hundred yards away, and she was not sure whether any cry for help would be heard. In one of them she noticed a tall aerial structure rising at the back of the garden, a rickety, wire-rigged tower. She recognised it as a ham-radio enthusiast’s aerial, and she thought, inconsequentially, that its owner could send his signals thousands of miles, but she could not send a plea for help a few yards.

  She was surprised at her own calm. She would turn around and try to take the heat out of the situation; an apologetic tone might achieve that—provided, of course, his anger abated. He was humiliated by his undignified accident; he was looking for somebody other than himself to blame; this was like being a metal pole in a lightning storm.

  And then, from around the corner, she heard a voice shouting something unintelligible. Cutting sleekly through the water, a rowing scull appeared, its crew of six moving backwards and forwards in their sliding seats, their oars dipping in and out of the water in perfect unison. On the towpath, wobbling as he held his megaphone in one hand and steered his bicycle with the other, was the coach.

  Isabel did not wait, but swiftly resumed her journey. The young man would not follow her, she thought, and she would, anyway, soon be off the towpath altogether. Behind her, conveniently, the scull slowed as the crew took a rest. That was perfect from her point of view. Under the eyes of six muscular young men—all students at the university, judging from the crest on the boat—the disgruntled cyclist would not try anything.

  Her heart was still beating faster than usual. It had been a shocking incident, and she felt curiously dirtied by witnessing this display of threatening behaviour. This was not the Edinburgh she normally inhabited; this was a city that concealed crude violence under the surface; a city she barely recognised, but that she knew existed.

  She tried to
put it out of her mind. That was the only way to deal with things that would derail her from her ordered life. If she pondered them, then such things could consume her, dragging her down, ending the equanimity that prevailed at the centre of her world. She had a firewall, and she would keep it in good repair. This young man and his threatening talk had not penetrated it; it was still intact.

  —

  BY THE TIME she reached Colinton Village she had largely recovered from the incident. Her walk along the Water of Leith had been calming, and there had only been one moment of anxiety when, in the disused railway tunnel through which the path led, she had imagined footsteps behind her. That had been illusory, although there was somebody coming towards her in the tunnel—a woman with a small, snuffling dog. The woman had greeted her and made a comment about the wild garlic that was growing in profusion in the woodlands at either end of the tunnel.

  “It scents the whole glen,” the woman said. “And it makes my mouth water.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Isabel, grateful for this comfortable exchange after the encounter with the cyclist. “I must pick some.”

  “So must I,” said the woman. “I must pick some before it goes.”

  “Things go so quickly,” said Isabel.

  She had not intended to prolong the conversation, but this last remark seemed to interest the woman. She opened her mouth to say something more—perhaps about the transience of life—but the snuffling dog was tugging hard on his chain, and she had to continue her walk.

  Ten minutes later, Isabel was at the end of Andrea Murray’s street. It was a quiet road that followed the contours of the hill overlooking the river’s course. The houses that lined it on both sides were substantial, mostly Edwardian but with here and there a more modern example of twentieth-century domestic architecture. One of them, she thought, looked as if it was the work of Robert Lorimer, whose influence was felt extensively in that part of Edinburgh as well as in numerous country houses in the Highlands.

  She checked that she had the right road—Ardkinglass Road—and then confirmed the number: 23. From the numbering of the first two houses, she could tell that this would lie on the north side of the street, the side overlooking the river, some fifty yards below. She located number 23; it was set back from the road, and had an impressive set of wooden gates for vehicle entrance along with a small pedestrian gate to the side. This gate opened readily, and she found herself on a short path leading up to the house. The surface of the path was covered with fragmented tree bark that gave a pleasant, soft feel underfoot.