The Comfort of Saturdays

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The three of them, Peter, his wife Susie and Isabel had been walking along the Water of Leith together, having had lunch in the Dean Gallery, when Isabel had said something about not wanting to crowd Jamie. The Stevensons had asked them to dinner at West Grange House and she had been hesitant in her acceptance.

  ‘I’d love to come,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And Jamie too,’ said Susie. ‘We meant both of you. Charlie will settle, won’t he?’

  ‘I’ll bring Charlie,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure about Jamie.’

  ‘But you can choose the evening,’ said Susie quickly. ‘We’ll fit in around you.’

  Again Isabel had hesitated. ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s just that . . .’

  Peter had looked at her quizzically. ‘Doesn’t Jamie want to come?’

  They had reached the point where the road dips down to the Dean Village at the old millpond and the path along the river begins. High above them were the soaring stone arches of the Dean Bridge, at the end of which a private house, built into the rock, acted as the bridge’s anchor to the wall of the valley. It was one of Edinburgh’s astonishing architectural details; a house which had been lived in for many years by a prominent psychiatrist, who used to joke that since the Dean Bridge had traditionally been the bridge of choice for suicide, like the Golden Gate in San Francisco, his house should have borne a sign reading Last Psychiatrist Before the Dean Bridge. Some had frowned at this, but Isabel had appreciated the joke; doctors needed their moments of dark humour amidst all the human suffering of their day. She looked up. How long would it take to fall – should the psychiatrist’s counsel prove ineffective – and what would one think on the way down? The Roman Catholic Church used to be charitable in such matters and had been prepared to concede that people probably changed their minds on the way down from these great heights, that the desire to die became a desire to live once the descent began. Repentance, then, could be assumed, and in this way one went up rather than down, in the metaphorical sense; once, that is, one had come down. Did the Vatican still think this, she wondered, or was it no longer necessary to make scholastic distinctions of this nature, if Hell had been abolished in Catholic teaching, as it had by liberal Protestantism? She had never been able to understand how anybody could reconcile the existence of Hell with that of a merciful creator; he simply would not have embarked on us in the first place in order to send us to some Hieronymus Bosch-like torture chamber or its more modern equivalent (a place of constant piped music, perhaps). Hell might be an airport, she thought, lit with neon and insincere smiles. No, she told herself; she was prepared to accept the possible existence of a creator, in the same way as she was prepared to accept curved space, but he or she would not invent Hell, whatever twists and turns on the subject of free will and choice were resorted to by the concept’s apologists. Why would a creator want us to have free choice in the first place if we were bound, imperfect creatures that we are, to abuse it? And yet, she thought, who amongst us does not want there to be justice, does not relish the idea that when Stalin took his final breath what he was shortly to encounter was at least some measure of punishment for his countless murders, rather than forgiveness? We should be careful, she decided, about abolishing Hell, even if we have no proof of its existence; and yet, and yet . . . Was not it a part of growing up to understand that much as we may yearn for a universe ruled by perfect justice, this was not the way the world would ever be? The wicked got away with their wickedness more often than not, and became incorrigible as a result: the robber barons became richer; the swaggering bullies never met anybody stronger than themselves. The most that many could hope for was that justice took the occasional victory, and that they would see it and be comforted.

  She looked away from the bridge. It made her dizzy to look up, even more so than looking down. I could never live up in the air, she thought, like people who inhabit high apartments, with nothing below them but an almighty drop and eagles for company.

  Peter’s question needed to be answered. ‘I’m sure that he’d like to come,’ she said. ‘It’s just that—’

  There was an edge to Peter’s interruption. ‘It’s just that what, Isabel?’

  It was not easy to explain. She was sure she was right in thinking that Jamie would not want to feel taken over; what young man would? ‘It’s a little difficult,’ she began. ‘I don’t want him to think that he has to tag along with me.’ Even as she spoke, she knew that it sounded unconvincing, and the way in which Peter and Susie were looking at her confirmed this: Peter was frowning, in an effort to see what exactly Isabel was driving at; Susie looked sympathetic, but it was evident that she did not agree. And that was when Peter told her to stop thinking about the age difference.

  For a while she was silent. They had continued on their walk, leaving the bridge behind them. The river, which was in full spate, was louder now, and she had to raise her voice to be heard above the sound of the water.

  ‘Easier said than done,’ she said.

  Peter thought about this. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Advice is always easy to give. But that doesn’t make it any less relevant.’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘Don’t you realise that Jamie probably feels about you exactly as you feel about him? Hasn’t it occurred to you that he can probably hardly believe his luck – to have found an attractive, intelligent – I could go on – witty woman like you? What would his alternatives be? Any other woman I can think of would be boring by comparison with you, Isabel. So stop it. Right? Just stop it. Subject closed.’ He drew breath. ‘Except for one final thing. You’re, what are you, forty-something? Forty-three? That’s still young . . . ish. And it’s not all that much older than him. Fourteen, fifteen years? So what?’

  ‘So does that mean we’re all to come to dinner?’ Isabel asked.

  All three laughed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘It does.’

  They continued with their walk. Then, as they drew level with St Bernard’s Well, with its small stone temple to Hygena, she saw a figure ahead of them. He had been walking towards them and now he suddenly turned and walked the other way, back towards Stockbridge. She had not been paying attention; there were a few people on the path and he was just one of them. But then she realised who it was. Nick Smart.

  She stared after the retreating figure; he was a swift walker. Peter noticed.

  ‘Seen a friend?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Isabel.

  They stopped to admire the temple. Isabel glanced down the path; Nick Smart must have let himself into Moray’s Pleasure Gardens, as he had disappeared from sight. She felt vaguely puzzled. Did he live there, in Moray Place or Doune Terrace? The gardens were private, and one needed to be a key-holder to get into them. And had Jamie not said something about his living over in the Pleasance somewhere, quite a different part of town.

  ‘People used to come and take the waters here,’ said Peter. ‘Apparently the water tasted foul. Full of iron.’

  ‘But that would have been a plus,’ said Susie. ‘Smelly mineral water was always thought to be better for you. More potent.’

  Isabel remembered visiting a spa in France where the water was traced with arsenic, and much sought-after for that reason. We like our pills bitter, she thought.

  Peter had remembered something. ‘We visited Vichy once,’ he said. ‘I remember that it was at the end of the season and there was an orchestral concert in the public gardens. The mayor made a speech at the concert and concluded by saying that he hoped to see all the curistes back again next year. Which I thought was rather tactless.’

  Isabel asked why, and Peter explained. ‘Because presumably they hoped to be better,’ he said. ‘And if they were better, they wouldn’t need another cure the following year.’

  Isabel felt foolish. ‘I see. Of course.’

  Peter looked at his watch and suggested that they walk back to the gallery, where they had left the car. As she walked, Isabel wondered about Nick Smart. Why had he turn
ed round so suddenly? Had he seen her coming? And if he had, then why should he wish to avoid her?

  Stella Moncrieff had said: ‘He said that he’ll see you. At first he said no. He was adamant – you know how stubborn men can be. But we can be stubborn too, can’t we? And I insisted. I begged him. I said that he should see you if only for my sake. And eventually he said that he would.’

  Isabel did not particularly like the idea of anybody being forced to see her; the position, she thought, that dentists must find themselves in when a young and nervous patient is led to the chair. Dentists, of course, could console themselves with the fact that the encounter was in the patient’s best interests, whereas she was not so certain that her seeing Marcus Moncrieff would do him any good. She had agreed to the meeting because Stella had pleaded with her and because she felt that it was her duty to respond, but that did not mean that her heart was in it. In fact, right up to the moment that she left the house at eleven o’clock that morning she had hoped that Stella would call and say that the whole thing was off. But she had not, and Isabel had set off on foot for the Moncrieff flat in Ramsay Garden.

  The city was preparing for the annual arts festival, which was now only a few weeks away. During that time, for a spell of just under a month, it would become another town altogether – a great open amphitheatre of plays and concerts and opera. Jamie would be busy, both as a player and as a spectator, and they had paged through the programme together, selecting what they wanted to see. Even Charlie had a programme outlined for him: a concert of performing dogs, to be held in a tent, and a magic show described in the programme as being ‘completely suitable for those under two’. ‘But everything’s magic for them,’ Isabel had said. ‘Have you noticed how he laughs if you hide your fingers under the tablecloth? He thinks that’s terribly clever.’

  For the inhabitants of Ramsay Garden, the Festival brought only the promise of sleepless nights. Their proximity to the Castle Esplanade, on which the military tattoo was performed each evening during the Festival, meant that they had to endure massed pipe bands every night, along with all the pyrotechnics, the fireworks and explosions, that the military, and large sections of an enthusiastic public, consider to be artistic. The final movement of the 1812 Overture, with its cannon fire, was a gift for such an occasion, and was being performed that year, adding to the assault on the senses of those who lived nearby. At least, thought Isabel, as she glanced up at the immense structure which had been erected on the esplanade, at least the modern inhabitants know that the bangs and explosions were not real; earlier inhabitants of that spot would have quaked at such sounds, which would have meant real cannon fire. And the skirl of pipes would have heralded the arrival of troops, and trouble.

  She reached the Moncrieffs’ door. A small brass plate said, simply, Moncrieff; along the edge of the plate was etched a tiny art nouveau device, one of those curious vines that artists of the period liked so much. The inhabitants of Ramsay Garden were playing the game, keeping in period, just as the inhabitants of the Georgian New Town on the other side of Princes Street were doing their best to maintain a Georgian style. The city encourages actors, thought Isabel, as probably all iconic cities do; look at the Parisians; it must be such an effort being so Parisian. She smiled at the thought, and pressed the bell. She herself lived in a Victorian house, but was not sure how she should respond to that particular challenge. By being stern and disapproving? By clothing the legs of pianos to preserve modesty? If the Victorians had ever really done that, and she had her doubts. Mind you, had there not been a Victorian librarian who had insisted on keeping books by men and women on separate shelves – unless, of course, the authors were married, in which case the books might properly be placed side by side?

  Stella greeted her and gestured for her to come inside. She looked relieved, Isabel decided; as if she had worried that I would not come.

  ‘I’m not late, I hope,’ Isabel said. She knew that she was not, but it was something to say.

  ‘Of course not. You’re . . . well, you’ve come exactly when I expected you.’

  Isabel looked about her. They were standing in a generously sized entrance hall. Off to the right, which was the back of the building, there was a door that led into a kitchen, and a short corridor off to further rooms, the bedrooms, she imagined. Then, to the front, another door, attractively panelled in light oak, opened out into a room which, although Isabel could not see into it, she assumed would be the drawing room. That was the room which looked north, which would have the famous Ramsay Garden view, and there was light flooding in from it.

  She glanced at the furniture, at the walls. It was typical of an Edinburgh flat of a well-heeled professional couple, which she assumed was what the Moncrieffs were – or had been; this was a house that had seen social disaster, she reminded herself.

  ‘Marcus is through there,’ said Stella, gesturing to the drawing room. Her voice was lowered; the hushed tone one might use outside a hospital room.

  She led Isabel into the room. At first, after the comparative gloom of the entrance hall, the light seemed overwhelming. It suffused the room, flooded it, and made Isabel blink.

  ‘Facing north,’ she said, ‘and yet this is so bright.’

  Stella muttered something about the windows, but Isabel did not catch what she said. Her attention was now focused on a man sitting in a chair by the large expanse of window at the front. He turned his head as they entered and rose to his feet.

  ‘Marcus,’ said Stella, her voice raised slightly, as if she were talking to a child. ‘Isabel Dalhousie has arrived.’

  As Marcus rose to greet her, he was dark against the glow behind him, a chiaroscuro effect that created what felt, Isabel thought, like an annunciation scene. She moved towards him, towards the light, and they shook hands.

  ‘The view . . .’ said Isabel.

  They both turned to look out. ‘Yes, that’s a view, isn’t it?’ said Marcus. ‘I sit here and see something different virtually every moment.’ He gestured towards Fife, where the hills, dark green and solid, were sharply outlined against the sky, like sections of a collage. ‘The sky over there changes constantly. Constantly. It shifts from blue to white to purple just like that. It’s very bright right now for some reason.’

  But Isabel was gazing downwards, to where the flanks of the Castle Rock descended almost vertically to the douce order of Princes Street Gardens, the railway line, the floral clock, the benches. Her gaze drifted beyond that, over the tops of the buildings, the crude, grey architectural mistake of the New Club, the ridges of chimneys, the stately stone pediments, to Trinity in the distance, and then the silver band of the Forth. The heart of a country, she thought; the heart of this place.

  There was a chair opposite his, and Marcus invited her to sit down. As she did so, she cast a quick appraising eye over him. He was a man somewhere in his fifties – the younger end, she thought – tall, just beginning to grey, and with one of those slightly angular faces that spoke of intelligent determination. It was a face which would have looked good on a banker, or a senior lawyer, but would do well for a doctor; a trustworthy face. And not at all aggressive, she thought. This was the face of a kind man.

  His voice was soft, the words clearly articulated, each syllable given its value, and each r given more. It was what she would have described as an old-fashioned Scottish professional voice. Of course he was innocent, that cardiologist was right – she could not imagine his doing anything underhand.

  ‘You know, I’m not sure whether Stella should have bothered you with my troubles,’ he said. ‘This wasn’t my idea, you know. This meeting of ours. Not my idea.’

  ‘I’m only here because I want to be,’ said Isabel. ‘I assure you.’

  He smiled, a quick, wistful smile. ‘That’s good to know. I’m not sure whether I’m here because I want to be. I rather think I’m not.’

  Here in what sense? Isabel wondered. At this meeting with her, or here in this room, rather than elsewhere – at work,
in a hospital or clinic? And there was a final possibility: here on this earth.

  ‘When your wife . . . when Stella spoke to me, I doubted if there was anything I could do to help you. I told her that. But if there is anything . . . well, it’s sometimes useful to have some-body else go over things and see if there is anything that can be done.’

  He watched her as she spoke, a slight smile playing about his lips. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think me ungrateful, but frankly I don’t really see any way out of my . . . misfortune. It’s happened. That’s it.’

  Isabel felt his sense of defeat. There were times when the acceptance of defeat must seem the only option and an intelligent person in such circumstances might well become resigned.

  ‘Would you be able to tell me – very briefly – what happened to you?’

  He sighed. ‘Very well. I was a doctor. I still am, I suppose. Although, as you can see, I’m not actually practising any more. I’m an infectious diseases specialist.’ He had been looking at his hands as he spoke; now he raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘There was a time when everybody thought that they wouldn’t need us much longer. People thought that they’d won the battle against the microbe – but were we in for a little surprise on that front! Everything has come back with a vengeance. TB is the least of it, perhaps. The real nasties, Ebola, Marburg and the rest, are lurking, and of course all sorts of new ones – avian flu and so on.’

  Isabel nodded. ‘I suppose we’ve created exactly the right conditions for this,’ she said. ‘Too many people. Too much travel. Environmental degradation.’

  Her comment seemed to cheer him: she knew what she was talking about. ‘Exactly,’ he said, his voice becoming enthusiastic. ‘Global warming is going to wreak havoc with health. Malaria in Europe and North America. And that will be just the beginning.’

  She brought the conversation back to his case. ‘But I was told that you were working on MRSA when this . . . this thing happened.’