The Charming Quirks of Other

by Alexander McCall Smith

  But now Jamie continued: "Just think, if Mozart had been given another thirty-five years. Just imagine."

  Isabel wondered whether the composer had said everything he wanted to say by the time he died, as had happened with Auden, who had said less and less in his later years, and much of it rather cantankerous. Perhaps there was a time for an artist to die, or at least to become silent, before he said something that contradicted everything he had said before. She had thought this recently when a distinguished philosopher--a long-professed atheist--began in his final years to write articles that took a different view. Those who had applauded his earlier works were dismayed and put the change of view down to senility. She had mentioned this to Jamie--read it out from a letter published in the newspaper--and he had said, "Yes, but he still believed what he said when he wrote those articles. He may have been losing the place, but he still believed what he said."

  "Undoubtedly. But the belief might have been based on a physical change in the brain."

  Jamie looked unimpressed. "But still his brain."

  "His brain at ... whatever age he was. Let's say eighty-something."

  "But a man aged twenty is the same person as the same man at eighty-something, isn't he?"

  She said that the answer to this was yes and no. "The same physical person, yes, but we can be quite different persons in other respects." She looked at him thoughtfully. How would he change? she wondered. "And perhaps we shouldn't judge people in the same way throughout their lifetimes. We can become different people, don't you think?"

  He looked doubtful, and so she carried on: "All we need to do is to make it clear that we're talking about people at a particular point in their lives. Look at those people who were communists in the thirties and then changed their minds when they saw what communism could do. What do we say of them when we sum them up at the end of their lives? That they were communists? That they condoned the Gulag?"

  Jamie shook his head. "No. We look at what they became. That's their ..." He paused, searching for the right expression.

  "Their final position?"

  "Yes. That's what counts."

  She considered this charitable--and she approved of that. There was not enough charity. There was plenty of readiness to blame and to punish; there was never enough generosity of spirit.

  She thought: We do not need to look for reasons for love--it is simply there; it comes upon us without invitation, without reason sometimes; it surprises us when we are least expecting it, when we think that our hearts are closed or that we are not ready, or we imagine it will never happen to us because it has not happened before. But if I were to ask myself why I love you, or perhaps try to find what is the main cause of my being in love with you, perhaps it is because you are generous of spirit. It is not because you are beautiful; not because I see perfection in your features, in your smile, in your litheness--all of which I do, of course I do, and have done since the moment I first met you. It is because you are generous in spirit; and may I be like that; may I become like you--which unrealistic wish, to become the other, is such a true and revealing symptom of love, its most obvious clue, its unmistakable calling card.

  THE ENERGETIC SUBSTITUTION of one task for another, more awkward task may make one forget for a while, but only for a while. Isabel knew that, and even as she buried herself over the next few days in performing the admittedly pressing work of putting the Review to bed--delicious term, she thought--at the back of her mind was the knowledge that there were other things she should be doing: thinking of how to deal with Professor Lettuce and his unsolicited review; speaking to Prue; finding out more about the candidates for the principal's post; and, of course, getting married. That made her smile; an impending marriage should occupy one's mind almost entirely, but here she was merely adding it to a list of things to do. There were people, she knew, who simply never got round to getting married; they might have decided to marry, but for some reason the timing might never seem quite right, or sheer inertia might take over. She had read of one engagement in the Highlands of Scotland that had lasted for twenty-eight years before the couple got round to holding a wedding. The groom had bought a wedding suit that had remained in the cupboard during all that time, as had the bride's dress; the spread of middle age had made both too small.

  Of course Isabel knew that things moved more slowly in the remote communities of the Scottish Highlands, where there is no need to rush things; and as she thought this, she remembered that suits became too small there for other reasons. In her student days, on a camping trip with friends, Isabel had passed a small farmhouse--a croft--in Wester Ross and seen a man's suit hanging out to dry on a line. People did not wash men's suits, but they did here, where there was no alternative; and there it was, hanging on the line, dark against the green grass, gesticulating in gusts that came in from the sea, arms filled with wind. The picture remained in her mind, so vivid after all these years that she could smell again the grass and the iodine scent of the drying kelp on the seashore and the wind that came in from the rolling Atlantic.

  They would talk about marriage again, and soon. She would suggest that they give themselves a little more time--a few months--to make their plans. If they were to go away on honeymoon, then there would be the Review to think about: one could not simply leave a philosophical journal to look after itself. And there were Jamie's commitments to consider: his programme of rehearsals and short-notice session work meant that he would have to make arrangements too. And then there was Charlie: he would come with them, of course, but that would rule out some of the places that Jamie had said he would like to visit. One could not easily take a small child to uninhabited islands off the coast of Scotland, for example.

  Isabel had agreed to a Scottish honeymoon, but, had she been given a completely free choice, she would have chosen something like trekking in the Himalayas. But such a choice was definitely not a good one for a child under two. Himalayan tracks were steep enough for an adult; for a toddler they might as well be vertical, unless, of course, Charlie were to be carried all the way, perhaps by one of the Sherpas who hired themselves out as porters. Charlie could be well wrapped up and strapped to one of those impossibly large packs of luggage the Sherpas shouldered; but what fun would such a honeymoon be for him? And there were those narrow mountain paths where one false step might send one sliding hundreds of feet down a side of scree or over some dizzy precipice. No, a better honeymoon from Charlie's point of view would be somewhere with a beach and a friendly, barely tidal sea at just the right temperature. That sort of place was, of course, hardly romantic, but then a honeymoon with a small child could not be expected to be a conventional honeymoon.

  She would sit Jamie down and talk to him about all this. They would identify a date and plan accordingly, but for now they would get on with the immediate tasks of life, one of which, for Isabel, was to attend a dinner party. She would be going by herself, as Jamie was playing in a concert in Dundee that night; and her attendance would bring back into focus at least one of the matters that she had been shelving: the shortlist.

  "PEOPLE IN EDINBURGH forget about us," said Jillian Mackinlay, as they looked out over the lawns at Abbotsford.

  Isabel took the glass of wine that a young man offered her on a small silver tray. He was dressed in the uniform of a waiter or steward--black trousers and white shirt--but she could tell from his hands that he was really a gardener, or tractor man perhaps, inveigled into household duties. She thanked him, and he broke into a broad smile. "You work here?" she asked.

  "No. I'm a shepherd." He nodded towards a man standing at the other end of the room. "His shepherd."

  Isabel took a sip of her wine as the young man moved away. "An Ettrick shepherd," she muttered.

  Jillian looked puzzled.

  "James Hogg," said Isabel. "The Ettrick Shepherd. The essayist."

  Jillian looked flustered. "Of course."

  "You were saying that people in Edinburgh forget something ..."

  Jillian
returned to her theme. "Us. They forget us. They think everything of any consequence happens in Edinburgh. They think that nothing happens down here, out in the country. They really do. Take this place. They forget that this is the greatest literary shrine in Scotland--Sir Walter Scott's house, no less, and we've had terrible trouble interesting them in it."

  "Oh, but I think they are interested," said Isabel. "I am. I love Scott. And I think he's still pretty widely read, isn't he?"

  "I'm not sure how many people still read him," Jillian said. "Rob Roy, perhaps, but beyond that, well ..."

  Isabel thought that the problem was time. Who had time for the great historical novels? "Some of it might seem a little ... heavy these days. People have so many claims on their time."

  "Well, they'll come in their droves once the trustees sort this place out," said Jillian, looking up at the ceiling. "This gorgeous ceiling, for example, and all this ... all this stuff." She gestured at the collection of ancient weapons adorning the wall. It was a romantic's dream.

  "Scott must have been a bit of a magpie," said Isabel. "So many things."

  "He was fascinated by the past. His life was a great big jumble of romantic history. Mists, glens, castles and so on. He suited his time absolutely perfectly. And just think--this is where he actually lived, where he wrote. We can take a look at his writing room after dinner. His desk is still there."

  The dinner at Abbotsford was Jillian's husband's idea. As a supporter of the project to restore Scott's house, he had invited a group of likely donors for dinner and Jillian had suggested that Isabel join them. "I'd like you to meet Alex," she explained. "And we're not asking you for money. You're here as ..."

  Isabel waited.

  "As a friend," Jillian continued. "And you'll have the chance to meet Harold and Christine. He's the outgoing head of Bishop Forbes. I wanted you to meet them socially rather than formally." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "He doesn't know that you're looking into this whole thing for us. But it could be useful for you to meet them."

  Isabel wondered why. The outgoing principal, she had been told, had nothing to do with the appointment of his successor, and so it was difficult to see what difference it could make for her to meet him. But she was keen to see Abbotsford again after so many years, having visited it last as a schoolgirl when the sisters were still in residence. These sisters, direct descendants of Scott, had kept the house going as best they could, but a roof so large and walls so rambling had eventually defeated their resources. Living in Scotland was like that: a battle against the elements; against the rain that would eventually wash away even the hardest stone; against wind that could lift the heaviest slate and curl the thickest roofing lead; against cold that would shrink the snuggest mortar.

  Jillian now led Isabel to the other side of the room. Her husband, a tall man with aquiline features, emanated an energy that impressed itself immediately. Committee man, thought Isabel; a natural chairman.

  Alex met her gaze as they shook hands. She noticed his eyes, which were pale blue, filled, it seemed, with an intense light. It was curious how it happened, and she had sometimes wondered about it: some eyes appeared to have the light within them rather than without. And yet eyes should reflect rather than emit light.

  He drew her aside, leading her to one of the large windows that looked out over Scott's grounds.

  "We obviously won't have the opportunity to talk very much," he said quietly. "Not with this mob."

  A mob of donors, she thought. That could be the collective noun. Or should it be a prospect of donors? Or a wealth of donors? The latter--clearly.

  "Jillian has filled me in," he continued. "So I understand you--how shall I put it?--look into certain matters for people. Delicate matters. Jillian has convinced us that one of those firms, you know, who look into fraud and such things, would be less discreet, and all this could somehow get out." He paused. "So we need somebody tactful. Like you."

  She looked down at her glass. He saw her do this.

  "That sounds a bit like parody," he said. "Sorry. But then parody often makes exactly the point one wants to make."

  She realised that she had misjudged him. Alex Mackinlay was not a typical bluff businessman, full of cliches and superficialities; there was a subtle intelligence at play.

  "I understand," she said. "And I'm happy to help."

  He looked at her appreciatively. "I'm very grateful. Although I must say that it crossed my mind to ask you why."

  It was a well-tried technique. If there was something that one wanted to know but did not want to ask directly, then the simplest thing was to announce that this was a question that one had no intention of asking. It always paid off; just as it worked when politicians said that the one thing they were not going to raise about a candidate was his past. That put everybody on notice to look for scandal.

  "I do this sort of thing because I can't find it in myself to refuse," said Isabel. "That is my weakness. I freely admit it."

  Alex smiled. "Well, at least that's honest. I'm not sure I would own up to my weaknesses quite so freely."

  Isabel raised an eyebrow. "Really? Of course I shall resist the temptation to ask you what those weaknesses are." It was his service returned.

  He did not answer. "Those three names," he said. "As Jillian will have told you, we fear that one of them is not quite what he claims to be. Or is otherwise unsuitable for appointment. But we don't know which one it is."

  Isabel thought about this. If he was as shrewd as she thought he was, then surely he would have his views on who the rotten apple might be. If the apple was rotten, of course.

  She asked him directly. "Who do you think it is? You must have your suspicions."

  He thought for a moment. "I'm very reluctant to say."

  "Because you're unsure?"

  He nodded. "Yes. That doesn't mean that I don't have a view, but I'm afraid I've learned not to trust my own judgement when it comes to people."

  This surprised her. "But how can you not? You're a businessman, I believe; you must have to form an opinion of people every day of the week. You must trust your own judgement."

  He was adamant. "Not people. Facts and figures--yes, especially balance sheets. But when it comes to people--I'm just not sure. I used to think I could tell, but not any more."

  "You'll have to tell me why," Isabel said. "You can't leave it at that."

  He hesitated, but then he decided. "All right. I'll tell you. I used to be chairman of a company based in Glasgow. We had a problem with embezzlement--money went missing. We didn't want to get the police involved, and so we tried to sort it out ourselves. I asked the manager to give me his views on who was doing it. I had a high opinion of him and I thought that he would probably have a fairly good idea of his staff and what was going on. So he gave me a name, and I called this chap in. I looked at him and I decided that he looked dishonest. So I asked him outright if he knew anything at all about the missing funds. He was all over the place. He mumbled. He looked up at the ceiling. He avoided eye contact."

  "You decided it was him?"

  "Yes. I did."

  "So what did you do?"

  Alex looked down at the floor. He was himself avoiding eye contact, thought Isabel. "I had no proof, and so I just warned him and said we were watching him. I didn't say anything more than that--I couldn't, and so I left it there. He left the room, and that was it."

  "And?" asked Isabel.

  "And he went away that night and threw himself off the Erskine Bridge. That was it. Left three children, and one on the way."

  Isabel winced. "These tragedies happen," she said. "Guilt can be very powerful."

  "Except he wasn't guilty," said Alex, looking back at her again. There was no light in his eyes now. "He was completely innocent. I'd made a huge error of judgement, hadn't even realised that he was suffering from very serious depression. I mishandled it totally. A few weeks later the manager was caught more or less red-handed. I'd misjudged him too--as well as that poor
man who jumped off the bridge." He paused. "There you have it."

  She was silent for a while. It was an appalling story, and she could not ask him again to give his views. But now he did. "Tom Simpson," he said. "The third name on that list of yours. There's something about him that makes me suspicious."

  Isabel thought: A guilty look? Wrong colour of tie?

  "Stupid," said Alex. "He's stupid, that man. Nobody else at the interview thought so--nor did his referees. But I think he's not very bright."

  "But he could be a good administrator," suggested Isabel. Did principals of schools have to be intellectuals? Surely what counted was the ability to motivate staff and students--and keep the parents happy. None of that relied entirely on intellectual ability.

  Alex smiled. "Yes. They used to have school heads like that, but not any more. It's changed a lot since our day. No, what worries me is that he claims to have a first-class honours degree--and a master's with distinction. I somehow feel that's just not possible."

  "You could check," said Isabel. It would be a simple business to get in touch with the universities in question and ask.

  "I have," said Alex. "I took it upon myself to contact the registry of the University of Bristol. They said that he'd been there, but they wouldn't reveal the class of his degree--something to do with data protection. You know how people won't tell you what time of day it is because of data protection."

  Isabel laughed. "I heard of somebody who refused to give his name when asked. He said it was on the grounds of privacy."