The Sunday Philosophy Club

  On Cat’s twenty-first birthday Isabel’s brother had transferred enough to his daughter to allow her to buy a flat and, later, the delicatessen. There was not much left over from that—a wise policy on his part, thought Isabel—but Cat was extremely well off by the standards of her age group, most of whom would be struggling to save the deposit on a flat. Edinburgh was expensive, and thus was out of reach for many.

  Toby, of course, came from a well-off background, but his family’s money was probably tied up in the business and he was likely not paid much of a salary by his father. Such young men knew exactly how important money was, and they had a talent for sniffing it out. That meant that he might be very interested in the assets which Cat had at her disposal, although Isabel could never make such a suggestion openly. If only she could find some evidence of it, and prove it, as in the denouement of some dreadful drawing-room melodrama, but that would be highly unlikely.

  She reached across to reassure Cat as she changed the subject.

  “He’s perfectly all right,” she said. “I’ll make an effort, and I’m sure that I’ll see his good points. It’s my fault for being too … too fixed in my views. I’m sorry.”

  Cat appeared mollified, and Isabel steered the conversation to an account of her meeting with Paul Hogg. She had decided, on her way to the bistro, what she would do about that, and now she explained it to Cat.

  “I’ve tried to forget what I saw,” she explained. “It hasn’t worked. I still think about it, and then that conversation I had with Paul Hogg last night really disturbed me. Something odd happened that night at the Usher Hall. I don’t think that it was an accident. I really don’t.”

  Cat looked at her dubiously. “I hope you aren’t going to get involved,” she said. “You’ve done this before. You’ve got involved in things that are really none of your business. I really don’t think you should do that again.”

  Cat was aware of the fact that there was no point in upbraiding Isabel: she would never change. There was no reason why she should become involved in the affairs of others, but she seemed to be irresistibly drawn into them. And every time that she did it, it was because she imagined that there was a moral claim on her. This view of the world, with a seemingly endless supply of potential claims, meant that anybody with a problem could arrive on Isabel’s doorstep and be taken up, simply because the requirement of moral proximity—or her understanding of moral proximity—had been satisfied.

  They had argued about Isabel’s inability to say no, which in Cat’s view was the root of the problem. “You simply can’t get drawn into other people’s business like this,” she had protested after Isabel had become involved in sorting out the problems of a hotel-owning family that was fighting over what to do with their business. But Isabel, who had regularly been taken for Sunday lunch in the hotel as a child, had considered that this gave her an interest in what happened to it and had become sucked into an unpleasant boardroom battle.

  Cat had voiced the same concerns when it came to the unfortunate young man in the Usher Hall. “But this is my business,” said Isabel. “I saw the whole thing—or most of it. I was the last person that young man saw. The last person. And don’t you think that the last person you see on this earth owes you something?”

  “I’m not with you,” said Cat. “I don’t see what you mean.”

  Isabel leant back in her chair. “What I mean is this. We can’t have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbours, people we deal with, and so on.”

  Who, then, is our neighbour? she would say to the Sunday Philosophy Club. And the members of the Sunday Philosophy Club would think very carefully about this and come to the conclusion, Isabel suspected, that the only real standard we can find for this is the concept of proximity. Our moral neighbours are those who are close to us, spatially or in some other recognised sense. Distant claims are simply not as powerful as those we can see before us. These close claims are more vivid and therefore more real.

  “Reasonable enough,” said Cat. “But you didn’t come into contact with him in that sense. He just … sorry to say this … he just passed by.”

  “He must have seen me,” said Isabel. “And I saw him—in a state of extreme vulnerability. I’m sorry to sound the philosopher, but in my view that creates a moral bond between us. We were not moral strangers.”

  “You sound like the Review of Applied Ethics,” said Cat dryly.

  “I am the Review of Applied Ethics,” Isabel replied.

  The remark made them both laugh, and the tension that had been growing dissipated.

  “Well,” said Cat, “there’s obviously nothing that I can do to stop you doing whatever it is you want to do. I may as well help you. What do you need?”

  “The address of his flatmates,” said Isabel. “That’s all.”

  “You want to speak to them?”

  “Yes.”

  Cat shrugged. “I can’t imagine that you’ll find out much. They weren’t there. How will they know what happened?”

  “I want some background,” said Isabel. “Information about him.”

  “All right,” said Cat. “I’ll find this out for you. It won’t be hard.”

  As she walked home after her lunch with Cat, Isabel thought about their discussion. Cat had been right to ask her about why she involved herself in these matters; it was a question she should have asked herself more often, but did not. Of course, it was simple to work out why we had a moral obligation to others, but that was really not the point. The question which she had to address was what drove her to respond as she did. And one reason for that, if she were honest with herself, might be that she simply found it intellectually exciting to become involved. She wanted to know why things happened. She wanted to know why people did the things they did. She was curious. And what, she wondered, was wrong with that?

  Curiosity killed the cat, she suddenly thought, and immediately regretted the thought. Cat was everything to her, really; the child she had never had, her parlous immortality.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ISABEL HAD EXPECTED to spend the evening alone. Her progress with the index had encouraged her to tackle another task which she had been putting off—detailed work on an article which had returned from a reviewer accompanied by a lengthy set of comments and corrections. These had been scribbled in the margins and needed to be collated, a task which was rendered all the more difficult by the reviewer’s irritating abbreviations and spidery handwriting. That was the last time he would be used, she had decided—eminent or not.

  But Jamie arrived instead, ringing her bell shortly before six. She welcomed him warmly, and immediately invited him to stay for dinner, if he had nothing else planned, of course. She knew that he would accept, and he did, after a momentary hesitation for form’s sake. And for the sake of pride: Jamie was Cat’s age, twenty-four, and it was a Friday evening. Everybody else would have something planned for that evening, and he would not want Isabel to think that he had no social life.

  “Well,” he said, “I was thinking of meeting up with somebody, but since you ask … Why not?”

  Isabel smiled. “It will be potluck, as usual, but I know you’re not fussy.”

  Jamie took off his jacket and left it with his bag in the hall.

  “I’ve brought some music with me,” he said. “I thought you might like to accompany me. Later on, that is.”

  Isabel nodded. She played the piano moderately well and could usually just manage to keep up with Jamie, who was a tenor. He had a trained voice and sang with a well-known chorus, which was another attribute, she thought, which Cat could have taken into consideration. She had no idea whether Toby could sing, but would be surprised if he could. He would also be unlikely to play a musical instrument (except the bagpipes, perhaps, or, at a stretch, percussion), whereas Jamie played the bassoon. Cat had a good ear for music and was a reasonable pianis
t as well. In that brief period when she and Jamie had been together, she had accompanied him brilliantly, and she had brought him out of himself as a performer. They sounded so natural together, Isabel had thought. If only Cat would realise! If only she would see what she was giving up. But of course Isabel understood that there was no objectivity when it came to these matters. There were two tests: the best interests test and the personal chemistry test. Jamie was in Cat’s best interests—Isabel was convinced of that—but personal chemistry was another matter.

  Isabel shot a glance at her guest. Cat must have been sufficiently attracted to him in the first place, and she could see why, looking at him now. Cat liked tall men, and Jamie was as tall as Toby, perhaps even slightly taller. He was undoubtedly good-looking: high cheekbones, dark hair that he tended to have cut en brosse, and skin with a natural tan. He could have been Portuguese—almost—or Italian, perhaps, although he was Scottish on both sides. What more could Cat want? she thought. Really! What else could a girl possibly require than a Scotsman who looked Mediterranean and could sing?

  The answer came to her unbidden, like an awkward truth that nudges one at the wrong moment. Jamie was too nice. He had given Cat his whole attention—had fawned on her, perhaps—and she had grown tired of that. We do not like those who are completely available, who make themselves over to us entirely. They crowd us out. They make us feel uneasy.

  That was it. If Jamie had maintained some distance, a degree of remoteness, then that would have attracted Cat’s interest. That was why she seemed so happy now. She could not possess Toby, who would always seem slightly remote, as if he were excluding her from some part of his plans (which he was, Isabel had convinced herself). It was wrong to think of men as the predators: women had exactly the same inclinations, although often more discreetly revealed. Toby was suitable prey. Jamie, by making it quite apparent that Cat had his complete and unfettered attention, had ceased to interest her. It was a bleak conclusion.

  “You were too good to her,” she muttered.

  Jamie looked at her in puzzlement. “Too good?”

  Isabel smiled. “I was thinking aloud,” she said. “I was thinking that you were too good to Cat. That’s why it didn’t work out. You should have been more … more evasive. You should have let her down now and then. Looked at other girls.”

  Jamie said nothing. They had often discussed Cat—and he still nurtured the hope that Isabel would be his way back into Cat’s affections, or so Isabel thought. But this new view she was expressing was an unexpected one, no doubt. Why should he have let her down?

  Isabel sighed. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m sure you don’t want to go over all that again.”

  Jamie raised his hands. “I don’t mind. I like talking about her. I want to talk about her.”

  “Oh, I know,” said Isabel. She paused. She wanted to say something to him that she had not said before, and was judging her moment. “You love her still, don’t you? You’re still in love.”

  Jamie looked down at the carpet, embarrassed.

  “Just like myself,” said Isabel quietly. “The two of us. I’m still a bit in love with somebody whom I knew a long time ago, years ago. And there you are, also in love with somebody who doesn’t seem to love you. What a pair we are, the two of us. Why do we bother?”

  Jamie was silent for a moment. Then he asked her, “What’s he called? Your … this man of yours.”

  “John Liamor,” she said.

  “And what happened to him?”

  “He left me,” Isabel said. “And now he lives in California. With another woman.”

  “That must be very hard for you,” said Jamie.

  “Yes, it is very hard,” said Isabel. “But then it’s my own fault, isn’t it? I should have found somebody else instead of thinking about him all the time. And that’s what you should do, I suppose.” The advice was halfhearted; but as she gave it she realised it was exactly the right advice to give. If Jamie found somebody else, then Cat might show an interest in him once Toby was disposed of. Disposed of! That sounded so sinister, as if the two of them might arrange an accident. An avalanche, perhaps.

  “Could one start an avalanche?” she asked.

  Jamie’s eyes opened wide. “What an odd thing to ask,” he said. “But of course you could. If the snow is in the right condition, then all you have to do is to shift a bit of it, tread on it, even, and the whole thing gets going. Sometimes you can start them just by talking in a loud voice. The vibrations of your voice can make the snow start to move.”

  Isabel smiled. She again imagined Toby on a mountainside, in his crushed-strawberry ski suit, talking loudly about wine. “Do you know I had the most wonderful bottle of Chablis the other day. Fabulous. Flinty, sharp …” There would be a pause, and the words “flinty, sharp” would echo across the snowfields, just enough to start the tidal wave of snow.

  She checked herself. That was the third time that she had imagined him in a disaster and she should stop. It was childish, uncharitable, and wrong. We have a duty to control our thoughts, she said to herself. We are responsible for our mental states, as she well knew from her reading in moral philosophy. The unbidden thought may arrive, and that was a matter of moral indifference, but we should not dwell on the harmful fantasy, because it was bad for our character, and besides, one might just translate fantasy into reality. It was a question of duty to self, in Kantian terms, and whatever she thought about Toby, he did not deserve an avalanche or to be reduced to biscuits. Nobody could be said to deserve that, not even the truly wicked, or a member of that other Nemesis-tempting class, the totally egotistical.

  And who were they, she wondered, these practitioners of hubris? She had a small mental list of those who might be warned, for their own protection, of how close they were to attracting the attentions of Nemesis—a list which was headed by a local social climber of breathtaking nerve. An avalanche might reduce his self-satisfaction, but that was unkind; he had his good side, and such thoughts had to be put aside. They were unworthy of the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics.

  “Music before dinner,” said Isabel briskly. “What have you brought with you? Let me take a look.”

  THEY MOVED THROUGH to the music room, a small room at the back of the house, furnished with a restored Edwardian music stand and her mother’s baby grand piano. Jamie opened his music case and extracted a thin album of music, which he handed to Isabel for examination. She flicked through the pages and smiled. It was exactly the sort of music that he always chose, settings of Burns, arias from Gilbert and Sullivan, and, of course, “O mio babbino caro.”

  “Just right for your voice,” Isabel said. “As usual.”

  Jamie blushed. “I’m not much good at the newer stuff,” he said. “Remember that Britten? I couldn’t do it.”

  Isabel was quick to reassure him. “I like these,” she said. “They’re much easier to play than Britten.”

  She paged through the book again and made her choice.

  “‘Take a pair of sparkling eyes’?”

  “Just so,” said Jamie.

  She began the introduction and Jamie, standing in his singing pose, head tilted slightly forward so as not to restrict the larynx, gave voice to the song. Isabel played with determination—which was the only way to play Gilbert and Sullivan, she thought—and they finished with a flourish that was not exactly in the music but that could have been there if Sullivan had bothered. Then it was Burns, and “John Anderson, My Jo.”

  John Anderson, she thought. Yes. A reflection on the passage of the years, and of love that survives. But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo. There was an ineffable sadness in this line that always made her catch her breath. This was Burns in his gentler mood, addressing a constancy that by all accounts, including his own, eluded him in his own relations with women. What a hypocrite! Or was he? Was there anything wrong with celebrating qualities one lacked oneself? Surely not. People who suffered from akrasia (which philosophers knew all about and e
njoyed debating at great length) could still profess that it was better to do that which they themselves could not do. You can say that it is bad to overindulge in chocolate, or wine, or any of the other things in which people like to overindulge, and still overindulge yourself. The important thing, surely, is not to conceal your own overindulgence.

  “John Anderson” was meant to be sung by a woman, but men could sing it if they wished. And in a way it was even more touching when sung by a man, as it could be about a male friendship too. Not that men liked to talk—still less to sing—about such things, which was something which had always puzzled Isabel. Women were so much more natural in their friendships, and in their acceptance of what their friendships meant to them. Men were so different: they kept their friends at arm’s length and never admitted their feelings for them. How arid it must be to be a man; how constrained; what a whole world of emotion, and sympathy, they must lack; like living in the desert. And yet how many exceptions there were; how marvellous, for example, it must be to be Jamie, with that remarkable face of his, so full of feeling, like the face of one of those young men in Florentine Renaissance paintings.

  “John Anderson,” said Isabel, as she played the last chord, and the music faded away. “I was thinking of you and John Anderson. Your friend John Anderson.”

  “I never had one,” said Jamie. “I never had a friend like that.”

  Isabel looked up from the music, and out the window. It was beginning to get dark, and the branches of the trees were silhouetted against a pale evening sky.

  “Nobody? Not even as a boy? I thought boys had passionate friendships. David and Jonathan.”