The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Then there was a report on a war in a country in Africa, with a picture of a boy soldier, gun in hand, a ridiculously large military cap on his head. The cap had fallen forward to obscure the boy’s face. He could never have seen well enough to shoot anybody with that cap obscuring his vision, but anybody else, Isabel thought, would surely be able to see him well enough to shoot him—which may well have happened by now. This little boy, who should have been playing with a toy car, or learning how to read, would have become a tiny corpse tossed into a common grave with other tiny victims. Was there a mother somewhere keening for him, as mothers have done for their sons since war was first invented? Or a father?

  “Horrible.”

  She looked up. It was Jane.

  “That photograph,” Jane said, pointing to the paper. “I saw it too. Isn’t it horrible?”

  Isabel nodded. Now her thoughts turned from the sad subject of boy soldiers to the present moment, and what she should say to Jane. It would be easy to say nothing, but could she do that? No. She was in exactly the same position as the walker in the hills who sees another making his way towards a precipice of which he is unaware. A failure to warn in such circumstances was the moral equivalent of a deliberate invitation to walk that way—Isabel was convinced of that. And yet, did a failure to put money in the charity box amount to killing the person who would otherwise have starved to death in some distant famine? She had never been convinced of that, even if she felt uneasy about it.

  That involved complicated discussions of causation, of the distinction between acts of commission and omission: the sort of issues that were bread and butter to the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics but were much harder to deal with when they became real, and had to be confronted while seated drinking coffee in her niece’s delicatessen in Edinburgh …

  “I’m so grateful to you,” Jane said as she sat down at Isabel’s table.

  Isabel tried to smile.

  “Yes,” Jane went on. “I was out at Rory and Georgina’s and we went over to New Lanark together. I’d always wanted to see it, you know. The whole idea of setting up an ideal, enlightened community is such an attractive one. And to think that they did that when everywhere else the conditions of working people were so bleak.”

  “Yes,” said Isabel flatly. She would have to say something soon. The longer she left it, the greater the pain. “Light and air. Robert Owen believed in that, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he did. And education.”

  Isabel was still thinking. Alastair Rankeillor did not sound like good father material, but would Jane want to contact him? What would be the point, other than confirming her identity—and that was the aim of Jane’s quest in the first place.

  “Then we went to the Falls of Clyde,” said Jane. “I’d seen photographs—”

  “Jane.”

  “Yes?”

  Jane’s expression was one of contentment. She’s happy, thought Isabel, and I’m about to shatter her happiness.

  Isabel drew breath. Her resolve to tell Jane was on the point of deserting her, but she had taken her decision and she must persist. “I’ve been giving some thought to your situation.”

  There was a very slight movement about Jane’s lips. An innocent twitch? A flinch? “My situation?”

  “Yes. You must have been thinking about it yourself, I suppose. And there must be a question mark …”

  Jane looked away. “There are often question marks over what we do.” She paused. “And sometimes it’s best to ignore them, don’t you agree?”

  Isabel waited until the other woman looked back at her again. She was not sure she was reading this remark correctly. Did Jane not want to know the truth? She swallowed. She could ask her directly. “Do you want to be completely sure?”

  “About who my father is?”

  Isabel nodded. “Yes, about that.”

  Jane frowned. “I know that Rory isn’t my father,” she said quietly. “I know. You don’t have to tell me.”

  Isabel had not expected this. She had imagined that Jane might have been hoping that Rory was her father, but an optimistic belief was different from knowledge of falsity.

  “How do you know?” she asked. “When I spoke to you about it before, you said you didn’t want a DNA test. So how do you know?”

  Jane hesitated before she answered, then said, “Georgina spoke to me.”

  “And?”

  “And she told me that it could not have been Rory. They had tried to have children, you see, and they had consulted a specialist. He’s infertile, apparently. And could never have been a father at any point.”

  “So he knows too? Then why is he going along with it? Why hasn’t he told you?”

  “Because he doesn’t know.”

  It did not make sense.

  “I can see that you’re puzzled,” Jane continued. “But there’s an explanation. He doesn’t know because she didn’t tell him. He was away at the time that the results of tests came in. He was in the army, remember, and he was on a posting abroad. She went for the consultation and it was explained to her that while she appeared to be fine, he was the problem.”

  Jane went on to tell Isabel about how Georgina had decided to say that the problem was hers, rather than his.

  “She felt that he was vulnerable. She felt that he had had too many blows to his pride anyway—he had been passed over for promotion—and so she decided to protect him from the psychological burden of the knowledge of his infertility.”

  “So she told him it was her?”

  Jane nodded.

  Isabel reflected on what she had been told. A deception was being practised by two people, and she, an outsider, had come to know about it—except that she was not an outsider: she had brought about the meeting of Jane and Rory, and was therefore implicated in the outcome.

  She asked Jane whether she thought it right that Rory should be deceived.

  “It’s what he wants,” she said. “He’s already said to me that having a daughter is what he wants above all else.”

  “Except it’s not true.”

  “Does it matter?” asked Jane.

  “It’s the difference between what is and what isn’t,” Isabel said. “He’s giving you his love—or I assume that’s what he’s giving you—because he thinks you’re his daughter.”

  Jane was defiant. “And what’s wrong with that? The important thing is the love itself, the happiness. Surely where it comes from doesn’t matter in the slightest.” She paused, searching Isabel’s expression for signs of agreement. “Suppose I have a painting that I think is the real thing, but isn’t. I think it’s a Picasso, but it’s not. If I never find out that it’s a forgery, then I’ll always have the pleasure of thinking I have something special. What’s wrong with that?”

  Isabel shook her head vehemently. They were back in the philosophy classroom, students debating with a tutor.

  “But that’s not what this is about at all. In that example, you’re not looking at it from the point of view of somebody who knows the truth. If you shift the emphasis, and look at it from the point of view of somebody who knows what the painting really is, you’ll get a different answer. That person has to say something.”

  Jane would not concede the point. “Would you? Let’s say you know my painting’s a forgery—would you feel you had to tell me? And if so, why? Why do you have to destroy an illusion if the illusion gives joy?”

  Isabel was puzzled. “But why are you allowing Rory to go on believing this? Do you want somebody who isn’t your father to think he’s your father? And what about Georgina? Why does she want him to think something that isn’t so?”

  “Because she loves him,” said Jane. “And because she wants him to be happy. This seems to have made a big difference to him. And as far as I’m concerned, does it matter all that much?” She paused. “As for me—well, it’s all rather complicated. I had invested so much emotionally in this search, but oddly enough as we went further into it the identity of my father suddenly b
ecame of less interest than I had imagined. Do you know who he is?”

  “I think it might be a man called Alastair Rankeillor. He’s a lawyer who lives abroad now.”

  She considered this for several moments. “I see. Well, at least that gives me a name.”

  “Which will hardly be enough, surely?”

  Jane looked up sharply. “You think so? You know what became much more important? I had not expected this, but it was my mother. What I really wanted was to find out a bit more about her, about her world. And I’ve done that. I thought I was searching for my father, but it was actually for my mother, about whom I already knew a certain amount. Strange, isn’t it? And then I came across a man who had been her boyfriend and who, as far as I can make out, actually did love her. And that was more important than anything else. I found that he wanted to be my father and I responded.”

  Jane searched Isabel’s face for a sign that she understood.

  “I can see that,” said Isabel quietly. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “And remember something, Isabel,” Jane continued. “I was adopted. All those years ago, two people came along and pretended to be my parents so that I had a family. In a way, this is an adoption in reverse. If I can bring happiness to a man who has been unhappy for a large part of his life, isn’t that worthwhile?”

  Yes, thought Isabel, it is. And yet, and yet …

  “It’s messy,” she said.

  Jane did not argue. “Like life … This lawyer—”

  “Alastair Rankeillor.”

  Jane repeated the name, as if trying it for size. “Alastair Rankeillor. Do you think I should make contact with him? I still feel a certain curiosity, I suppose.”

  “That’s up to you,” said Isabel. “If you don’t, the question is always going to be there. And he won’t be around for ever.”

  “Do you know anything about him? Do you think I’ll like him?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Isabel sighed. “You may not like him. I’m not sure whether he sounds like the sort of man who would necessarily welcome such an approach.”

  Jane weighed this. “Some things are best left undisturbed.”

  Isabel agreed. “Many things are best left undisturbed, if you ask me.”

  She was about to say something else, but she now saw that Cat had returned and was standing at the counter, looking in her direction.

  “Can we talk later?” she said to Jane.

  “Yes. But please, Isabel, you won’t spoil this, will you?”

  “No, I won’t spoil it.”

  “You give me your word?”

  “Yes. I shall say nothing. I shall do nothing.”

  Jane reached out and took her hand briefly. “I’m very grateful.”

  I have done the wrong thing, Isabel thought. I have done the wrong thing for the right reason. Again.

  AS FAR AS Cat was concerned, too, Isabel had done entirely the wrong thing in speaking to the Environmental Health department. As Jane got up to go, Cat made her way towards Isabel’s table.

  “Thanks a lot,” she hissed. “Thanks for informing on me.”

  Isabel tried to hold her niece’s venomous gaze. “Informing?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. You informed on me to the Environmental Health people. They threatened to close me down.” She stared at Isabel, her expression full of resentment. “Do you know that? They threatened to close me down, all because of you.”

  “Not because of me,” said Isabel. “Because of the mushrooms.” She paused. “Well, actually, the mushrooms were innocent. It was because of the person who sold you the mushrooms.”

  This did not mollify Cat. “Don’t play the philosopher with me! You betrayed me. Handed me in.”

  Isabel kept her temper, but she felt the back of her neck becoming warmer. “Look, I understand how you must feel. I’m sorry, I really am. The last thing I want is for you to get into difficulties with these people. But look at it from my point of view, just for a moment. Did you expect me to lie when they asked me where they came from? What could I say?”

  Their raised voices were now audible at the counter. Trish looked across the shop with interest.

  “You don’t hand in members of your family,” Cat retorted. “No decent person does that.”

  “Of course nobody wants to do that. But the question remains: can one lie? And there may be some circumstances when you simply have to say something. If you call that handing somebody in, well, I suppose that’s what it is.”

  This reply silenced Cat for a few moments. She stood quite still, holding Isabel’s gaze. Then she continued, “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “But I did,” said Isabel calmly. She was winning the encounter, but taking no pleasure in it. “Yes, we must be loyal to our family, but that loyalty has its limits. Surely you see that, Cat? Surely you see that there will be times when one has to do something that a member of one’s family may not like?”

  Cat half turned, but then, as if visited by an afterthought, she turned back and addressed Isabel. “Fine, just fine. So how would you react if I told you something … something about Jamie? How would you feel about that?”

  She turned on her heel and went into her office, slamming the door behind her.

  LATER THAT DAY, when Isabel was working in her study, Trish came to the house. Jamie answered the door, and Isabel heard the two of them talking briefly in the hall before he showed her in.

  “So this is where you work,” said Trish brightly. “Cool.”

  “I’m not sure if I’d describe it as cool,” said Isabel. “But then I have to work here.”

  Trish looked at the shelves. “All those books,” she muttered. “It’d give me a headache. Do you get headaches?”

  “Occasionally,” replied Isabel. “But more from people than from books.”

  Trish laughed. “That’s why I came to see you,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  Trish sat down uninvited. “That business this morning—”

  “I’m sorry that you had to witness it,” said Isabel. “Cat and I have what can openly be described as a tempestuous relationship. She’ll get over it.”

  Trish nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure she will. But she hits below the belt, doesn’t she?”

  “Sometimes,” said Isabel. She was not sure where this conversation was going and was being guarded.

  “I heard every word she said, you know. She’s got a tongue on her, so she has.”

  “She isn’t stuck for words,” agreed Isabel.

  Trish gazed out of the window. “Rhodies,” she said, pointing to the rhododendrons. “I had an uncle who grew those for garden centres. He even invented one—mixed the pollen, I think, and made one called ‘Yeats.’ He was always going on about Yeats—you know, that Irish poet. Dead now. Most poets are dead, aren’t they?”

  “It happens to poets,” said Isabel. “And to others too.”

  “Anyway,” Trish continued, “I heard what she said about your fellow. So I asked her later. I said: what had she meant by it, and she was blank. I asked her again, and then she said that it was nothing. She had been angry and had said the first thing that came into her mind.”

  Isabel felt the release of a knot that had been within her since that morning’s encounter. She had barely comprehended Cat’s throwaway remark about Jamie, but it had planted a seed of doubt. What could Cat possibly tell her about Jamie? Of course it had been nothing; of course. But what exactly had she meant?

  “I felt that I had to come and tell you this,” said Trish. “I didn’t like the thought of you thinking about it. Brooding, know what I mean?”

  Isabel was grateful. “That was really kind of you.”

  “No,” said Trish. “Anybody would have done it.”

  Isabel looked at her with affection. The good often do not recognise their own goodness, she thought; and as for Cat, Isabel would never say that anybody w
as completely impossible, but there were some people, at least, who might merit that description—if it were ever to be resorted to, which she would not, or at least not yet.

  A FORTNIGHT LATER, on a Saturday on which Scotland was blessed by unbroken light and warmth, a July day of high, empty skies and languid air, Isabel and Jamie were at last married. They had chosen to be married in private, or rather in circumstances in which anybody who cared to witness the ceremony could do so if they happened to be there, but to which no guests were invited other than Charlie and Grace. This was not through want of friends who might wish to join them, but because they felt that this long-awaited ceremony was something personal, the sealing of a bond about which they had never spoken very much to others, and which they wished to enshrine in vows that were as private as they were public. Charlie was there because this was, in a way, all about him; and Grace was there because somebody would have to sit with Charlie while his parents stood before the minister and exchanged vows. And Grace was family too; for all her little ways, she was as close to the three of them as anybody could be.

  Isabel had been in touch with a professor of theology, Iain Torrance, who, in spite of being the president of the Union Theological Seminary at Princeton, still kept a house in Scotland and who revealed that he would be in Edinburgh at the time. Iain, as a moral philosopher, had advised her on papers for the Review. He had agreed to perform the ceremony.

  They chose the Canongate Kirk, and at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon they arrived in a simple taxi and entered the church. Apart from the fact that Jamie was wearing his kilt, no passersby would have imagined that this couple were concerned with anything else but the most quotidian of business. Nobody saw the glances they gave one another as they stood before the white-gabled church with its simple, dignified Church of Scotland aesthetic. Nobody saw Isabel pause for a moment to survey the churchyard in which lay the poet Robert Fergusson and the philosopher and economist Adam Smith. They were both figures with whom she felt a special affinity, as a Scot and as a philosopher. If there were no guests at the wedding, those two were there, mute presences, friendly witnesses to a short and moving ceremony.