The Careful Use of Compliments id-4

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Can I even begin to answer that question in a way which will not make me sound intrusive?

  “I saw one of your paintings,” she said. “A recent one. My curiosity was aroused.”

  For a moment he said nothing. “So it’s just curiosity?”

  Isabel nodded. But in what light did that show her?

  McInnes sighed. “I should not have agreed to their being sold,” he said. “I have sold nothing by . . . by McInnes since he died.”

  “He died?”

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  He turned away. “Yes. He did. The man who was McInnes died.”

  Isabel was about to say something, but McInnes continued:

  “It may sound odd to you, but that’s what it felt like to me.

  Everything seemed hopeless, tainted. I decided to make a fresh start.” He paused and looked at Isabel as if to challenge her to refute what he had to say. “And I’ve been perfectly happy, you know? Living here as Frank Anderson. Doing a bit of painting.

  And I’ve even managed to earn a living looking after sheep and driving a tractor for two of the farmers up here.”

  Isabel waited for him to say something more, but he became silent. “I can understand,” she said. “I can understand why people might want to reinvent themselves.”

  “Understand, but not approve?”

  “That depends,” said Isabel.

  “You disapprove of what I did? Misleading everybody into thinking that I had drowned?”

  Isabel shook her head. “Not really.”

  “There was no insurance, or anything like that,” said McInnes. “I did no wrong.”

  “You were presumably mourned,” said Isabel. “Somebody must have suffered.”

  “No,” said McInnes flatly. “I had no close family. My parents were dead. I was an only child.”

  Isabel spoke gently. “But you had a wife.”

  “Had,” said McInnes. “She . . . she went off with somebody else. And anyway, she hurt me more than I hurt her.”

  There was silence for a moment. Isabel wondered whether McInnes knew that his wife had herself been left by her lover.

  And if he did know, would it make any difference?

  She looked at him. He was standing in front of the window, his crop of unruly hair outlined in the afternoon light. There was 2 4 0

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h something about him that was indisputably the artist; however hard he sought to change his identity, she thought, that part would remain—that hair, and those eyes. It was the eyes of the artist that could be so very powerful, as they were with Picasso.

  She had read about one of Picasso’s friends telling the painter not to read a book lest his eyes burn a hole in the paper.

  For a moment she said nothing. Then, very quietly, “And a son too.”

  “A son.” It was not a question; just a statement.

  “Yes,” said Isabel. “Magnus.”

  “That’s the child she had by him,” McInnes said. “Not my son.”

  Isabel was surprised by his response. “You knew about him?”

  When he answered, McInnes’s voice was full of disdain.

  “She came to see me,” he said. “When her boy was quite small.

  I told her that I did not wish to change my mind.”

  It took a few moments for Isabel to digest this. So Ailsa knew all along that her husband was still alive; that surprised her. That made at least two people who knew his secret: his wife and Mrs. Buie. And now her.

  McInnes seemed eager to change the subject. “It was Flora Buie who persuaded me to sell those two paintings. I didn’t want to. She went on at me. I have some medical expenses, you see . . .”

  “I know about that,” said Isabel. “But I suspect that everything will be taken care of.”

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “You see,” explained Isabel, “Walter Buie bought one of the paintings and another collector bought another. Walter Buie knows that the painting is by you . . . in your posthumous period.” She could not resist the joke, and she was pleased to T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S

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  notice that McInnes smiled. “And he knows that you are still alive. I propose to buy that painting from him, and I know very well that you are still with us. So the money from that transaction is quite untainted. Nobody has been deceived. And the same applies for the collector who bought the other painting.

  The gallery is going to get in touch with him and tell him what we’ve found out. But at least you’ll get money for the one that was sold at auction.”

  “Some of it yours?” asked McInnes.

  “In a sense,” said Isabel. “The fact that I am going to buy the picture from Walter means that indirectly my money comes to you. But I get a McInnes, which I know was painted by you. So I’m happy too.”

  McInnes nodded. “All right.”

  “But there is one other little thing,” said Isabel. “In fact, it’s quite a major thing. That little boy. Magnus. He’s your son, you know.”

  “He’s not.”

  “He calls you Dad,” said Isabel. “That’s what he calls you.

  And I think he’s proud of you.”

  McInnes stood quite still. Then, quite suddenly, he raised a hand to his face and covered his eyes. Isabel heard his sobs and stood up. She placed an arm around his shoulders. He was wearing an Arran sweater, and the wool was rough to the touch.

  “You have to see him,” she said. “He is your son, you know.

  He looks just like you.”

  He took his hand away from his eyes and shook his head.

  “No. He’s not.”

  “I think he is,” said Isabel. “Because he looks like you. He really does.”

  She watched the effect of her words on him. It was not easy, 2 4 2

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h but now she knew why it was that she had come, and why it was that she needed to finish what she had to say.

  “You have two things to do, Andrew,” she whispered to him.

  “Two things. The first of these is that you have to go and forgive your wife. After eight years, you have to do that. You have to tell her that you have forgiven what she did to you. You have that duty because we all of us have it. It comes in different forms, but it is always the same duty. We have to forgive.

  “And then the second thing you have to do is to go and see your son. That is a duty of love, Andrew. It’s as simple as that. A duty of love. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  She had a few minutes to wait before he answered her. During that time she stood where she was, her arm about his shoulder. Outside, through the window, she could make out the shape of a cloud moving in the sky beyond the summit of the hills. Low stratus.

  She looked at him, and then, almost imperceptibly, she saw him move his head in a nod of agreement.

  T H AT WA S T U E S DAY . On Wednesday nothing of importance happened, although Grace found a ten-pound note in the street and this led to a long and unresolved discussion of the level at which one is morally obliged to hand lost money over to the police. Isabel suggested thirty pounds, while Grace thought that eleven was about right. On Thursday she received a letter which made her think—and act too—and a telephone call from Guy Peploe. Then on Friday, which had always been her favourite evening of the week, Jamie obtained a further two pieces of halibut, slightly larger this time, which they ate together at the kitchen table, under guttering candles.

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  Thursday’s letter, innocent in its beginnings, contained a bombshell halfway through. It came from a person whom Isabel had sounded out about joining the new editorial board. He was an old friend from Cambridge days, and he now occupied a chair of philosophy at a university in Toronto. She had told him the story of Dove’s foiled machinations—she knew that he had a low opinion of
Dove, whom he had once described as a char-latan. “I saw the Dove himself about five months ago,” he wrote in reply. “We were together at a conference in Stockholm. The Swedes were wonderful hosts, as usual, and the city was so beautiful in its late-winter clothing; white, the harbour still frozen over, everything sparkling. I had the misfortune of sitting next to the Dove at one of the dinners and he went on about himself the whole evening. He has a big book coming out, he said. A huge book, he implied. And then he went on about the fact that he was about to be divorced. There was some sort of hearing coming up and he gave me all the details of his wife’s iniquities. But who can blame her, Isabel? Being married to the Dove would be a pretty stiff sentence for anybody.”

  Isabel had put the letter aside and stood for several minutes in front of her study window, uncertain what to do. Of course there was only one proper course of action, and she took it, although she had been tempted to do nothing.

  “Cat,” she said. “I was misinformed. I owe you an apology.”

  “Misinformed about what?” said Cat.

  “Christopher Dove,” said Isabel quickly. “He’s not married.

  He’s divorced. I jumped to conclusions.”

  There was a silence at the other end of the line. But only a short one. Then “Makes no difference,” Cat said. “I’m seeing somebody else, actually.”

  Now it was Isabel’s turn to be silent.

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  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h

  “He’s called Eamonn,” said Cat. “He’s Irish, originally. And he’s lovely. He’s gentle. You’ll like him.”

  “I’m sure I shall,” said Isabel. But she was not sure. “What does Eamonn do?” she asked.

  There was a further silence, this time quite a long one.

  “Well,” said Cat at last, “he’s a bouncer for a bar at the moment, but he’s going to stop being a bouncer and do a stonemason’s apprenticeship. There’s a builder called Clifford Reid who’s taking him on. Clifford has been doing up a building near the delicatessen. He’s the most highly sought-after builder in town. You might have seen the scaffolding. That’s how I met Eamonn. He came in for coffee with Clifford.”

  Isabel did not know what to say, but Cat had to cut some cheese and so that brought the conversation to an end. Isabel felt relief over the Dove affair; she had done her duty and confessed, but it had made no difference. And if anxiety should be felt over Eamonn, there would be time enough for that in the future. A former bouncer–stonemason could be an improve-ment, though, on some of the men in Cat’s past; both required solid qualities in their practitioners, contrasting good qualities perhaps, but solid qualities nonetheless. Ireland gave so much to the world; perhaps Cat was learning at last.

  The telephone call from Guy Peploe started briskly, but led to at least one silence. “The purchaser of that painting was very understanding,” he said. “I told him that I had reason to think that it was not what I had been led to believe it was. He said that he still liked it, and would keep it. I adjusted the price, of course: a nice painting in the style of another artist is still a nice painting, but shouldn’t cost as much. He was perfectly happy with that. Very happy, in fact.”

  “And the consignor?” said Isabel. “Was she happy with getting a smaller sum?”

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  “She was very relieved,” said Guy. “She said—” He stopped.

  “How did you know it was a woman?”

  “I’ve met Mrs. Buie,” said Isabel.

  That was when the silence occurred, and Isabel decided that she would have to take Guy into her confidence. He was discreet and she knew that he could keep a secret. But she had involved him, and she would have to give him a full explanation.

  “May I see you next week?” she said. “There’s a long and rather complicated story that I have to tell you. But I’m going to tell you only if you give me your word that you won’t tell a soul.

  Not a soul.”

  “You have my word,” said Guy. “But can’t you give me a hint of what it’s about?”

  Isabel laughed. “It’s about a whirlpool,” she said. “And human oddness.”

  Now, sitting with Jamie in the kitchen, enjoying a glass of the chilled West Australian wine that he had brought with him, along with the slightly larger pieces of halibut, Isabel recounted the week’s events. Jamie listened attentively, and with increas-ing astonishment.

  “So Mrs. Buie gets away with it?” he asked at the end. “And McInnes continues to pretend not to exist? Hardly a very satisfactory conclusion, is it?”

  “But Mrs. Buie did no wrong,” said Isabel. “She sold two McInnes paintings painted by McInnes. Nothing wrong with that. Although I think that she won’t try it again.”

  Jamie frowned. “But there is,” he said. “She put up for sale two paintings which were meant to be by an artist who was dead. He wasn’t dead. What would the lawyers call that? A material misrepresentation, or something like that?”

  “That sounds like a rather fine point,” said Isabel.

  “Oh really?” Jamie expostulated. “You’re one to accuse me of 2 4 6

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h making fine points.” But his tone was one of amusement, and he was smiling.

  “What worried me more,” said Isabel, “was the fact that McInnes had ignored his son. That was the real tragedy.”

  “You persuaded him otherwise?”

  “I think so,” said Isabel. “In fact I’m sure of it.”

  She looked at Jamie, silently daring him to accuse her of unjustified interference. But he did not; instead he glanced at her, smiled, and said, “Well, that’s fine then.”

  He was thinking of his own son; how could anybody deny love to a child?

  “So would you say, on balance, that on this occasion at least it was worth interfering?” Isabel asked.

  Jamie hesitated. She should not meddle in the affairs of others; he was sure of that. But when he looked at what had happened here, well, would it be anything other than churlish to deny the good effects? So he merely said, “Yes. You did the right thing in this case.”

  “Thank you,” said Isabel. “But here’s something to think about: I realised it was the right thing to do only after I had done it.”

  They finished their dinner. And later, upstairs, lying still wakeful with the moonlight falling through the chink of the curtains that did not quite meet, they suddenly heard outside the yelping of Brother Fox. “He’s out there,” whispered Isabel. “That was him.”

  Jamie remembered a line of song: Prayed to the moon to give him light. That was about Mr. Fox, wasn’t it? Yes, said Isabel, it was. Does he pray to the moon, do you think?

  Jamie got up and went to the window to look out over the lawn. She saw him standing there, in his nakedness, and she T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S

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  thought of the beauty that somehow he had given her. A gift of beauty.

  He came back to the bed. “He sticks to the shadows,” he said. “But that was him, all right. Praying to the moon.”

  He held her hand lightly. “You promised something, you know. You promised that you would tell me a story about a tattooed man. Remember?”

  “Did I?” She was beginning to feel drowsy.

  “Yes, you did,” he whispered.

  “All right. A story about a tattooed man.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. She felt the movement of his breathing; so gentle.

  She whispered the lines, close to his ear. “The tattooed man / Who loved his wife, the tattooed lady / And was proud of his son, the tattooed baby.”

  She stopped, and she heard him breathing.

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “There are some stories that are very short,” she said quietly,

  “because they say everything that there is to be said.”

  In the silence of the room he thought about this. Sh
e was right.

  “Thanks for that story,” he said. “I liked it very much.”

  Isabel closed her eyes. There is a sea of love, she thought.

  And we are in it.

  A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

  Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenons The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics.

  Document Outline

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

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