Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

by Alexander McCall Smith

  For several minutes he said nothing, and then he had agreed, with the result that now they were making their way out to West Linton, with Isabel at the wheel of her old green Swedish car. She rarely drove this car, which smelled of old, cracked leather and which, in spite of being largely neglected, never once in all its years had refused to start. I shall keep this car until I die, she had decided, a decision which had made her feel bound to the car in a curious way, as life partners are bound to each other.

  Ian was silent, tense beside her. As they negotiated their way out of the Edinburgh traffic, he stared out of the window, balefully, thought Isabel, like a man on his way to punishment, a prisoner en route to a new, remoter jail. And even as they passed Carlops, and the evening sky to the west opened up with shafts of light, he did not respond beyond a murmur to Isabel’s remarks about the countryside. She left him to his mood and his silence, but just before they reached West Linton itself, he pointed to a house some distance off the road, a large stone house with windows facing a stretch of moor. The last rays of the sun had caught the roof of this house, picking it out in gold.

  “I stayed there,” he said casually. “I spent three weeks there when I was recuperating. It belongs to friends of ours. They invited us to come and stay.”

  Isabel glanced at the house and then back at Ian.

  “You stayed in that house?”

  “Yes. Jack and Sheila Scott. They’re friends from university days. Do you know them?”

  She steered the car over to a small patch of grass at the side of the road and drew to a halt.

  Ian frowned. “Is there something wrong?”

  Isabel turned off the engine. “I wish you’d told me, Ian,” she said.

  He looked puzzled. “About Jack and Sheila’s house? Why should I have told you about that?”

  “Because it provides the answer,” she said. She felt angry with him, and there was an edge to her voice. “Did you go into the village itself?”

  “From time to time,” he said. “I used to go and browse through the bookshop. You know it?”

  Isabel nodded impatiently. “Yes, I know it. But tell me, Ian, would you have seen people while you were there?”

  “People? Of course I saw people.”

  She hesitated for a moment. They were near, so near to the solution. But she did not know whether she dared to hope that it could be so neat and tidy.

  “And spoke to people?”

  He looked out of the window at the grey-stone dyke that followed the side of the road. “It’s difficult to find dry-stane dykers,” he remarked. “Look at that one. The stones on the top have fallen off. But who can fix them these days? Who’s got that feeling for stone?”

  Isabel looked at the dyke. She did not want to talk about that now. “People,” she repeated. “Did you speak to people?”

  “Of course I spoke to people,” he said. “I spoke to the man who runs the bookshop. He’s a composer, isn’t he? I spoke to him and sometimes I spoke to people who came into the shop. He introduced me to some of the customers. It’s very villagey, you know.”

  Isabel knew that she could not expect the answer she wanted to the next question, but she asked it nonetheless. “And did you meet a vet?” she asked. “A vet who lives in the village, quite close to the bookshop?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I might have. I can’t remember it all that well. I was still a bit fuzzy round the edges then, you know. It was not all that long after I had left hospital.” He turned and looked at her, almost reproachfully, she thought. “I’m doing my best, Isabel. You know, this isn’t very easy for me.”

  She reached out and took his hand in hers. “I know you are, Ian. I’m sorry. It’s just that we’re very close now. So let’s not talk about it any further. Let’s just go and see him. He’s expecting us round about now.”

  HE HAD JUST RETURNED from work and was still wearing his jacket, a green waxed-waterproof. One of the pockets in the front was bulging with what looked like a bottle of tablets. Beneath the jacket she glimpsed a red tie which she recognised: the Dick Vet in Edinburgh, the university veterinary school.

  He opened the door to them and gestured for them to come in.

  “This place is a bit of a bachelor establishment,” he said. “I mean to tidy it up, but you know . . .”

  Isabel glanced about her. It was not unduly untidy, she thought, but it was spartan, as if nobody really lived there. She stole a glance at Euan Macleod: there were the high forehead and the eyes; yes, he was not unlike Graeme. But his was a kinder face, somehow, a gentler face.

  “You said that you wanted to see me about Gavin,” he said, as he motioned for them to sit down. “I must confess, I was a bit surprised. You know that I am separated from my wife? You know that we’re divorcing?”

  Isabel nodded. “I know that.”

  Euan looked directly at Isabel as he spoke, but there was no note of challenge in his voice. “So that meant that I didn’t see the children very much. In fact, my wife made it more or less impossible for me. I decided not to make a fuss. Only the youngest is under eighteen. The other two could decide for themselves in due course.”

  Isabel caught her breath. This was a different story from his wife’s, but of course one expected very different accounts of a marriage ending in an acrimonious divorce. Both parties could rewrite history, sometimes without even realising that that was what they were doing. Both could believe their own accounts.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to your son,” she said.

  He lowered his head in a gesture of acknowledgement. “Thank you. He was a very nice boy. But that illness . . . well, what can one say? Such a waste.”

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “But there was something salvaged from the tragedy. And that’s what we came to tell you, Mr. Macleod.”

  He started to speak—something she did not catch—but lapsed into silence.

  “Consent was given by your wife to the use of your son’s heart,” she said. “He was the donor in a transplant. And my friend here is the person who received it. This is why he is alive today.”

  Euan’s shock was visible. He stared at Isabel, and then he turned to Ian. He shook his head. He put his hands over his eyes.

  Isabel rose to her feet and approached him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “I can imagine what you’re feeling,” she whispered. “Please, I do understand. The reason why we came to see you is that Ian, my friend, needed to be able to say thank you. I hope you understand that.”

  Euan took his hands away from his eyes. There were tears on his cheeks. “I didn’t see him,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face the funeral. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t go . . .”

  Isabel bent down and placed her arms about him. “You mustn’t reproach yourself about that. I’m sure that you were a good father to him, and to the others.”

  “I tried,” he said. “I really did. I tried with the marriage too.”

  “I’m sure that you did.” She looked at Ian, who rose to his feet and joined her beside Euan.

  “Now listen to me very carefully,” she said. “Please listen. Your son is living on in the life of this man here. And this man, who owes your son so much, has come to you because he needs to express his gratitude. But there’s another thing—he can say to you that farewell that you and your son did not exchange. Look. Look.” She reached out and took Ian’s hand and turned it over, to expose his wrist. “Put your hand there, Euan. Can you feel that pulse? Can you feel it? That is your son’s heart. Your son would forgive you, you know, Euan. Your son would forgive you anything that you felt needed forgiving. That’s true, isn’t it, Ian?”

  Ian began to say something, but could not continue, and so he nodded his assent and clasped the hand above his, firmly, in a token of forgiveness and gratitude. Isabel left them together for a few moments. She crossed the room to the window and looked out on the village, at the lights and the darkening sky. Rain had set in, not heavy rain, but a gentle shower
, drifting, soft, falling on the narrow village street and her green Swedish car and the hills, dark shapes, beyond.

  “I see that it has started to rain,” she said. “And we must get back to Edinburgh soon.”

  Euan looked up. She saw that he was smiling, and she knew from this that she had been right; that something had happened in those moments, something which she had thought might happen, but which she had not allowed herself to hope for too much, for fear of disappointment. I am often wrong, thought Isabel, but sometimes right—like everybody else.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  GRACE PUT THE MAIL on Isabel’s desk.

  “Not very many letters this morning,” she said. “Four, in fact.”

  “What matters is the quality,” said Isabel, shuffling through the envelopes. “New York, Melbourne, London, and Edinburgh.”

  “Edinburgh is the fish bill,” said Grace. “Smell the envelope. They write the bills out in that funny little office they have at the back of the shop. Their hands smell of fish when they do it. One can always tell the fish bill.”

  Isabel raised the plain brown envelope to her nose. “I see what you mean,” she said. “Of course, people used to send perfumed letters. I had an aunt who put a very peculiar perfume on her letters. I loved that as a child. I am not sure whether I’d be so keen on it now.”

  “I think that we come back to these things,” said Grace. “I loved rice pudding as a girl. Then I couldn’t touch it. Now I must say that I rather look forward to rice pudding.”

  “Didn’t Lin Yutang say something about that?” mused Isabel. “Didn’t he ask: What is patriotism but the love of the good things that one ate in childhood?”

  Grace laughed. “Grub first, then ethics. That’s what I say.”

  Isabel began to say, “Brecht . . . ,” but stopped herself in time. She picked up the envelope which bore the New York postmark. Slitting it open, she extracted a letter and unfolded it. For a few minutes she was silent, absorbed in the letter. Grace watched her.

  She was smiling. “This is a very important letter, Grace,” she said. “This is from Professor Edward Mendelson. He’s the literary executor of W. H. Auden. I wrote to him, and this is his reply.”

  Grace was impressed. She had not read Auden, but had heard him quoted many times by her employer. “I’ll get round to reading him,” she had said, but they both doubted if she would. Grace did not read poetry—Grace’s razor.

  “I wrote to him with an idea,” said Isabel. “Auden wrote a poem in which he uses imagery which is very reminiscent of Burns. There are lines in ‘My love is like a red, red rose’ about loving somebody Till a’ the seas gang dry. You remember those, don’t you.”

  “Of course,” said Grace. “I love that song. Kenneth McKellar sings it beautifully. He made me fall in love with him. But there must be so many people who fell in love with him. Just like they all fell in love with Plácido Domingo.”

  “I don’t recall falling in love with Plácido Domingo,” said Isabel. “How careless of me!”

  “But Auden? What’s he got to do with Burns?”

  “He taught for a short time in Scotland,” said Isabel. “As a very young man. He taught in a boarding school over in Helensburgh. And he must have taught the boys Burns. Every Scottish schoolchild learnt Burns in those days. And still should, for that matter. You learnt Burns, didn’t you? I did.”

  “I learnt ‘To a Mouse,’ ” said Grace. “And half of ‘Tam O’Shanter.’ ”

  “And ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That’?”

  “Yes,” said Grace, and for a moment the two women looked at one another, and Isabel thought: This is one of the things that binds us together—in all the privilege of my life, in all that has been given to me through no effort of my own, I am bound to my fellow citizens in the common humanity that Burns spelled out for us. We are equal. Not one of us is more than the other. We are equal—which was the way she wanted it; she would have no other compact. And that is why when, at the reopening of the Scottish Parliament after those hundreds of years of abeyance, a woman had stood up and sung “A Man’s a Man for a’ That,” there had been few hearts in disagreement. It was the rock to which the country, the culture, was anchored; a constitution, a charter of rights, written in song.

  “I wrote to Edward Mendelson,” Isabel went on, “because I thought I could detect Burns—the influence of Burns—in one of Auden’s lines. And now he’s written back to me.”

  “And said?”

  “And said that he believes it possible. He says that he has some correspondence in which Auden says something about Burns.”

  Grace’s expression suggested that she was not impressed. “I must get on with my work,” she said. “I’ll leave you to your . . .”

  “Work,” said Isabel, supplying the word that Grace might have uttered in quotation marks. She knew that Grace did not regard the hours she spent in her study as real work. And, of course, to those whose work was physical, sitting at a desk did not seem unduly strenuous.

  Grace left her, and she continued with the rest of the correspondence and with a set of proofs that she had neglected over the last few days. She did not regret the time she had spent away from her desk, particularly the previous day’s trip to West Linton. As far as she was concerned, she had done her duty by Ian and had brought the whole matter to its resolution. On the journey back from West Linton Ian had been loquacious.

  “You were right,” he said. “I needed to say thank you. That was probably all there was to it.”

  “Good,” said Isabel, and she had mused on how strong the need to thank may be. “And do you think that will be the end of those . . . what shall we call them? Experiences?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ian. “But I do feel different.”

  “And we’ve laid to rest all that nonsense about cellular memory,” said Isabel. “Our faith in the rational can be reaffirmed.”

  “You’re sure that I met him, or had him pointed out to me, aren’t you?” Ian asked. He sounded doubtful.

  “Isn’t that the most likely explanation?” replied Isabel. “It’s a small village. People would have known about the death. They would have talked. You probably heard it, even if indirectly, from your hosts—a chance remark over breakfast or whatever. But the mind takes such things in and files them away. So you knew—but didn’t know—that Euan was the man you wanted to thank. Doesn’t that sound credible to you?”

  He looked out of the window at the dark fields flashing by. “Maybe.”

  “And there’s another thing,” said Isabel. “Resolution. Musicians know all about that, don’t they? Pieces of music seek resolution, have to end on a particular note, or it sounds all wrong. The same applies to our lives. It’s exactly the same.”

  Ian said nothing to this, but thought about it all the way back to Edinburgh, and continued to think about it for the remainder of that evening, in silence and in gratitude. He was not convinced by Isabel’s explanation. It could be true, but it did not seem true to him. But did that matter? Did it matter how one got to the place one wanted to be, provided that one got there in the end?

  JAMIE WAS INVITED for dinner that evening and accepted. He should bring something to sing, Isabel said, and she would accompany him. He could choose.

  He arrived at seven o’clock, fresh from a rehearsal at the Queen’s Hall and full of complaint about the unreasonable behaviour of a particular conductor. She gave him a glass of wine and led him through to the music room. In the kitchen, a fish stew sat on the stove, and fresh French bread was on the table. There was a candle, unlit, and starched Dutch napkins in a Delft design.

  She sat down at the piano and took the music which he handed to her. Schubert and Schumann. It was safe, rather gemütlich, and she felt that his heart was not in it.

  “Sing something you believe in,” she said after they had reached the end of the third song.

  Jamie smiled. “A good idea,” he said. “I’m fed up with all that.” He reached into his m
usic bag and took out a couple of sheets of music, which he handed to Isabel.

  “Jacobite!” exclaimed Isabel. “ ‘Derwentwater’s Farewell.’ What’s this all about?”

  “It’s a lament,” said Jamie. “It’s been dredged up out of Hogg’s Jacobite Relics. It’s all about poor Lord Derwentwater, who was executed for joining the rebellion. It’s all about the things that he’ll miss. It’s very sad.”

  “So I see,” said Isabel, glancing at the words. “And this is his speech here—printed at the end?”

  “Yes,” said Jamie. “I find that particularly moving. He delivered it a few minutes before they put him to death. He was a loyal friend to James the Third. They had been boys together at the Palace of St. Germain.”

  “A loyal friend,” mused Isabel, staring at the music. “That greatest of goods—friendship.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said Jamie. He leant forward and pointed to a passage in the printed speech. “Look at what he says here. Near the end—minutes from death. He says, I am in perfect charity with all the world.”

  Isabel was silent. I am in perfect charity with all the world, she thought. I am in perfect charity with all the world. Resolution.

  “And over here,” said Jamie. “Look. He says, I freely forgive such as ungenerously reported false things of me. Then he goes to his death.”

  “They acted with such dignity,” said Isabel. “Not all of them perhaps, but so many. Look at Mary, Queen of Scots. What a different world.”

  “Yes,” said Jamie. “It was. But we’re in this one. Let’s begin.”

  He sang the lament and at the end of it Isabel rose from her piano seat and closed the cover of the keyboard. “Fish stew,” she said. “And another glass of this.”

  At the table, the candle lit, they used the French bread to soak up the fish stew at the edge of their plates. Then Jamie, who was facing the window, suddenly became still. “Out there,” he whispered. “Just outside the window.”

  Isabel turned in her seat. She did so slowly, because she had guessed what it was, who it was, and did not want a sudden movement to scare him off.