The Geometry of Holding Hands

by Alexander McCall Smith

“I suppose this is pretty much your turf,” said Hamish. “But when George got in touch to say he was giving a lecture in Edinburgh, we had to be here. We met him in Nepal, you see, when we were on the country-dancing trip.”

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “I remember your telling me.” How could one forget? she asked herself, and she smiled at the thought of the two lawyers and their group of similarly minded friends, all bekilted, performing their dances in those unlikely and remote locations. The world was a strange and varied place, she reminded herself, and the odd things that people did in it should not surprise us.

  It seemed that the lecture was about to begin, as the director was now showing George to a seat on a small, slightly raised podium at the front of the room.

  “By the way,” whispered Hamish. “I gather you spoke to Cat about…” He made a vague movement with his right hand, suggestive of complication.

  “Yes,” replied Isabel. “Or rather, Jamie did. I was going to have a word with her, but he did it.”

  Hamish looked at her enquiringly. “And?”

  “It went very smoothly, apparently. She said that it was her idea and that she thought she’d just give it a try.”

  Hamish’s face registered his surprise. “Well! I hadn’t anticipated that.”

  “Nor had I. So, it seems there’s no problem.”

  Hamish dusted a few crumbs of his sandwich off his trouser leg. “Maybe. Maybe not. Because…” He paused. On the podium, the director had turned to face the audience.

  “Well, everybody,” he said, “regulars and visitors: I hope you’ve enjoyed your lunches. Since you brought them with you, that is a matter for yourselves, of course.”

  There was a polite ripple of laughter.

  Hamish leaned towards Isabel. “Because we received this morning another application to the trust from Cat. This time for a Land Rover.”

  Isabel caught her breath. “A Land Rover?” she whispered back.

  “Yes, a Land Rover.”

  “Oh,” she said. But that was all, as George van Driem had stood up now and had started his lecture on the classification of the Himalayan languages.

  “Where do the Himalayan languages come from?” he asked. “Is this an important question? Very, I would say. Very.”

  Isabel listened. It was an engaging talk, and over the hour that followed, she was caught up in the complex issue of how the languages of the Himalayas are classified. But even as Professor van Driem spoke, from time to time she found her mind straying to thoughts of Land Rovers. Jamie had reported Cat’s claim that Leo had had nothing to do with the Porsche, and that what he was really interested in was Land Rovers. And now they had an application for a Land Rover; ostensibly, no doubt, for use in the deli business.

  Isabel fumed. Did Cat think she was so naïve as to not be able to work out what was going on? If Cat did think that, then she would have to be disabused of the notion. Isabel reached this conclusion reluctantly; after Jamie’s conversation with Cat, she had thought confrontation had been side-stepped. It appeared that this was not the case. It would not be so easy to reject a request for a Land Rover, a more practical and appropriate working vehicle than a Porsche. Should they simply accede to this request—which would be the least troublesome course of action—or should they stand up to Cat and say that they thought it was really an attempt by Leo to get his hands on something at somebody else’s expense?

  She listened to Professor van Driem and to what he had to say about the Himalayan languages. She stared at the map he revealed on the board behind him, with its wavering boundary lines snaking vast swathes of high Himalaya. She followed his account of the manipulation of linguistic evidence for political purposes: languages and states were sometimes coterminous, and sometimes not. Behind languages there might be empires and armies. She looked out of the window behind the speaker: the sky was clear; there were birds in a nearby tree, and they sang. She thought: Why do there have to be such layers of complication behind the simplest of our human activities? She thought of Brother Fox, who slipped through her garden at night, sometimes spotted, sometimes unseen, and of the apparent simplicity of his existence, which would not really be simple at all, even without language to complicate it. Was that the problem? Had language changed everything for us—so irredeemably that it would prove to be humanity’s downfall? Had we remained largely dumb, occupying a world of only a few sounds, as most animals do, would it have been easier for our bruised and battered world? Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly. She looked at Hamish, who was staring at the floor, concentrating on the Himalayan languages, clearly concerned by what he was hearing. She looked at Gordon, who was trying to extract a piece of orange pith from his teeth. She made her decision. She would tell Hamish and Gordon to agree to the Land Rover. Now was not the time for a battle: Cat would have to learn her hard lessons herself.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS ISABEL’S TURN to cook that evening, and she had decided on something straightforward: French onion soup followed by tuna steaks with salad. She knew that both of these were favourites of Jamie’s, and they had the added attraction of being undemanding, and Isabel was in the mood for something simple. As she prepared the French onion soup, she told Jamie of the revelation that Hamish had sprung on her at the lunchtime lecture. When she mentioned the Land Rover request he buried his head in his hands. And when she went on to say that she had suggested to the lawyers that they approve the request, he raised both arms in a gesture of helpless resignation.

  “That’s complete capitulation,” he said, his voice rising. “He’s got away with it.”

  Isabel tried to reassure him. “It’s just one thing—and she is entitled to help from the trust.”

  “He’ll come back for more,” said Jamie. “And Cat won’t twig.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Isabel. “And anyway, I just couldn’t face a big row right at the moment.”

  He waited for her to explain.

  “I’m feeling the stress of that foolish undertaking of mine.”

  Jamie laughed. “Which foolish undertaking are you referring to?”

  No sooner had he asked the question than he regretted it. Throughout their marriage, he had advised caution, trying to dissuade Isabel from too readily becoming involved in the problems of others. She knew of her failing in that respect, and had promised to do something about it, but it never seemed to work. Her resolve not to get involved lasted until the next time an appeal was made for her help, and that was the point at which it faltered. It frustrated Jamie, but it also made him proud of her. He would not have liked to be married to a mean-spirited person, and Isabel was the walking antithesis of that.

  So he blushed, and said, “I’m sorry, Isabel. I didn’t mean that.”

  She hesitated, but then smiled; if there had been a barb, she chose not to notice it. She knew why he felt the way he did, and she, for her part, felt bad about that.

  She reminded him of their meeting with Jack and Hilary the previous evening. “There was something worrying me,” she said.

  “I could tell there was,” he said. “I sensed there was something.”

  “Yes, there was. I didn’t want to bother you with it, but now…”

  “You shouldn’t worry about bothering me,” he said quietly. “You know you can tell me anything—and vice versa.”

  “Of course.”

  He looked at her expectantly. “So?”

  “I mentioned to you that I’d met her before—a long time ago.”

  “Yes, you did. It was on jury service, you said.”

  “Yes. We were both picked for jury service at the High Court. I was hoping they’d excuse me, on the grounds that I was self-employed, but they did not. So I found myself being sworn in, along with fourteen others, of whom Hilary was one. She looked a bit different then—longer hair, I think—which is probably why it took me
a little while to recognise her yesterday.”

  “What was the case?” asked Jamie. “Anything interesting?”

  “I think some people were hoping for a juicy murder, or something like that. Blackmail, I suppose, is always fun, but they were due for a disappointment. It was fraud. A very respectable businessman called Dougal Macglashian was charged with getting people to invest in dicey propositions. It was all to do with the wording of a company prospectus.”

  “Dry stuff,” said Jamie.

  Isabel agreed that it was, but pointed out that the consequences had been anything but dry for the people who’d taken the bait. “Some of them lost their life savings. One woman put in everything she owned and lost the lot. I particularly remember her. She had savings of about thirty thousand, I think. She was a hairdresser—a single mother whose son had cystic fibrosis. I don’t know who put her in touch with this Macglashian—perhaps it was some useless financial adviser. Anyway, she lost every single penny. And this man sat in the dock, dressed in a smart suit, writing the evidence down on a yellow pad as if he were a court reporter. And it was all about him and his lies.”

  Jamie winced. “Horrible,” he said. “Did you…” He left the question unfinished.

  “Convict him? No, we didn’t. I would have—and there were quite a few others like me. You have to get at least eight jurors to convict in Scots law. We had eight who wouldn’t, and so he was found not guilty. That was that.”

  Jamie was silent. “So you were outvoted?”

  Isabel nodded. “We’re not meant to talk about it—even now. In fact, I haven’t said anything about it to anybody—ever—except you.”

  “I think the law assumes you’ll talk to your spouse,” said Jamie. “As long as you don’t take it further than that.”

  “I doubt it, but I trust you.”

  He smiled. “That’s nice to know.” And then his smile faded. “That man…what happened to him?”

  “He went back into business,” said Isabel. “He had his own firm called something-or-other finance—I forget what it was. But he had an office not far from Charlotte Square—the lot. Brass plate and so on. You sometimes saw his photograph in the Scotsman. He was a big donor to charities. You read about him sponsoring Scottish yachts in these big international races. It was all high-profile stuff.”

  Jamie looked thoughtful. “Those people—the jurors—who thought he was innocent—why?”

  Isabel had been peeling an onion. She put it down. “There’s a poem about onions that I sometimes think about. It’s Craig Raine, I think. He said that it’s the onion memory that makes him cry.” She looked at Jamie. “Don’t you love that? You peel off a layer of memory and you find the tears well up.”

  He was silent, but eventually said, “You aren’t crying because of the memory of that case?”

  She shook her head. “No, this is physiological. It’s all to do with something called syn-Propanethial S-oxide. It stimulates the tear glands. It’s not a very poetic name, is it? ‘It is the syn-Propanethial S-oxide that makes me cry’…doesn’t quite work as poetry.”

  She put the knife under the tap and ran it for a moment. Then she turned to Jamie, and continued, “She was the one who turned most of them. It was Hilary. She argued very strongly that he was innocent.”

  “On what grounds?” asked Jamie.

  “She claimed that she could always tell whether somebody was lying. She said she was one hundred per cent sure that Macglashian was telling the truth.”

  “She had no other grounds?”

  “No,” said Isabel. “But she was really persistent, and, I think, pretty convincing. There were quite a few people on that jury who had lost track of the proceedings more or less at the beginning. They simply didn’t understand. They were easily led, and I think they were swayed by the thought that if they acquitted him, they would at least not have to worry about convicting an innocent man.”

  “So that was that?”

  Isabel nodded. “But there’s something more—and this is what’s been preying on my mind since yesterday. This is what I really need to talk to you about.”

  She resumed the chopping of the onion, dabbing once or twice at her eyes with the corner of a tea towel. “About six months later—or maybe a little more—I was in Bruntsfield one morning. I had been at Cat’s and went over to the newsagent to pick up a paper. I dropped in at La Barantine for a coffee. I was sitting at one of those tables in the window when I saw them up at the counter, paying for their coffee and croissants, and about to leave. It was them—Hilary and Macglashian.”

  Jamie stared at her. “Definitely together?”

  “Yes. Together. They were talking as the woman behind the counter fiddled with the credit card machine. I buried my nose in my paper—I did not want her to see me—and she didn’t. But once they were outside, I was able to see them walk a short distance up the road. Her husband was there—in the street. They shook hands—it looked quite formal, but they were not strangers; they were friends, I would have thought.”

  Jamie considered this in silence.

  “I didn’t know what to think,” said Isabel. “I spoke to a friend of mine who said that he thought there was no reason why a juror should not socialise with somebody who’s been acquitted of an offence. He said that it was probably unwise, as it could suggest some sort of collusion between them, during the trial, but that was not necessarily the case.”

  Jamie thought about this. “It doesn’t smell right,” he said.

  “No,” said Isabel. “And I suppose there are times when we should trust our sense of smell.”

  Isabel finished scraping the sliced onion into a pot, poured some olive oil in, and put it on a ring of the cooker. There was a soft, sizzling sound. Neither of them spoke for a while. Then Jamie said, “This changes the way you feel about her?”

  Isabel nodded. “It does. It means I don’t trust her.”

  “I didn’t warm to her,” mused Jamie. “There was something about her that put me off.”

  “Pushiness?”

  He hesitated. “There was a bit of that,” he said. “But I’m not sure if it was just that. It was…a sort of creepiness. I can’t think of any other word for it.”

  “And yet,” said Isabel, “if one is making a choice on proper grounds—and that, after all, is why I’ve been asked to do this—then one can’t rely on some sort of intuition.”

  “Well, I have an intuition that this woman is bad news,” said Jamie.

  Isabel moved the pot off the ring, and the sizzling subsided. “I’ll take that into account,” she said. She reached for a jar of rich beef stock and decanted it into the pot.

  “Why do I like French onion soup so much?” asked Jamie.

  “You ate it as a boy? For most of us, that’s the reason we like things. Childhood exposure.”

  “The Jesuit claim?” said Jamie. “Didn’t they say: give us a child until he’s seven and we’ll give you the man?”

  “They stand accused of saying that,” said Isabel.

  Jamie laughed. “Give a boy French onion soup until he’s seven, and he’ll eat it for life.”

  “Possibly. But it can work the other way. I know somebody who can’t eat pineapple because she was forced to have it as a child.”

  When the meal was ready, they sat down and ate for a while in silence before Isabel said, “I’m going to have to see this through, I suppose. I said I would.”

  Jamie did not try to dissuade her. “Do it quickly,” he said. “Get the facts and then make a quick decision. Trust your intuitions.”

  She did not disagree, but thanked him—for everything.

  “I’ll play the piano for you after dinner,” he said. “Nothing demanding.”

  “And sing?”

  “Yes, we can sing.”

  “ ‘My Love’s in Germany,’ ” Is
abel suggested.

  “If that’ll help.”

  “It always does.”

  He looked at his plate. “My love’s in Germany,” he muttered. “Send him hame, send him hame! My love’s in Germany—send him hame! He’s as brave as brave can be, he would rather fa’ than flee, But his life’s so dear to me—send him hame, send him hame!”

  Isabel asked, “Can French onion soup make you cry?”

  Jamie thought it unlikely.

  “Then it’s those words,” said Isabel quietly.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SATURDAY was the busiest day at Cat’s deli, and for this reason one on which Isabel often helped out. Jamie was off that weekend—he sometimes had rehearsals on a Saturday afternoon—and so he agreed to take the boys on an outing while Isabel worked at Cat’s. Craigie’s Farm, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, overlooking the Firth of Forth, was a favourite place of Charlie’s, as there were old tractors, painted bright red and put out for children to clamber over, tolerant pigs to be prodded, and a restaurant that sold large slices of irresistible iced cake.

  There was no sign of Cat when Isabel went into the deli that morning at ten. Eddie explained that she had gone to meet her organic-egg supplier in East Lothian but would be back by eleven at the latest. In the meantime, if Isabel was prepared to slice peppers for marinating in olive oil, stuff large green olives with garlic, and, when she had finished that, make enough rice salad to see them through until Tuesday, then that would leave him free to deal with the customers. She agreed, and donned the gloves and apron that always made her feel a bit like a surgeon in an operating theatre. “A few germs would probably do people good,” she remarked to Eddie, who smiled and said, “We can’t have germs, Isabel. Not these days.”

  “Actually, Eddie,” she replied, as she slipped the uncomfortable latex gloves over her fingers, “we’re all covered in germs. You, me, Cat, even the Prime Minister. Everybody. And we need to be exposed to unfamiliar germs too, if our immune systems are to stay in good shape.”