Isabel let the allium bulb drop from her fingers and recited:
There once was a fox called Macallium
Who enjoyed the occasional allium.
When they said: Oh how bad!
He replied: I’m not sad
As I’m not a fit object of opprobrium.
Jamie stared at her. “Macallium?”
“Macallum is a perfectly common Scottish name, and therefore Brother Fox, were he to be graced with a name, could well be called Macallium. Surely the composers of limericks may take the occasional liberty with names.”
Jamie smiled. “I can’t set it to music,” he said. “The rhythm of a limerick is just too strong. It would take over. And besides—”
“Besides, it’s a piece of nonsense. At least Lear’s limericks had something poignant to say about human aspirations—and human loneliness.”
They began to walk back into the house.
“And yesterday,” he said. “What about yesterday? What are you going to do? Are you going to speak to Jane?”
She shook her head. “No. I want to speak to somebody else. To a judge.”
“Catherine Succoth? The woman you told me about?”
“Yes.”
Jamie placed the palm of his hand against his forehead, the gesture he invariably used when admitting failure. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Isabel looked at him enquiringly.
“She phoned,” Jamie said. “I meant to tell you. She phoned yesterday.”
He was always forgetting to pass on messages to her; it was a male failing, she thought. John Liamor had been the same—although he may have done it out of perversity, being jealous of her friends, though it was far from clear to her why this should have been so, when his feelings for her must have been so shallow, so loveless. And her father never passed on telephone messages, although that was vagueness, she thought, and a curious belief he entertained that nothing of any real consequence was ever said on the telephone.
“And?” asked Isabel. She forgave him this; she forgave him everything.
“She wanted you to phone back. She left her number.”
“Nothing else?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Interesting, though. There was something about her in the Scotsman the other day. Some big trial in Glasgow—she was the judge. Some big Glasgow hood who had a yacht that he used to run drugs from Spain. She gave him a real dressing down and then sent him off to prison for nine years.”
“Deservedly, no doubt.”
“Apparently he started to rant and rave after the sentence was passed and he shouted out that he would get her some day. I thought: You have to be brave to be a judge.”
Isabel agreed. “Yes. It can’t be easy.”
“And then you go home afterwards, after dealing with all that stuff, and you have to do ordinary things like preparing dinner and paying bills and things like that. And you know that there’s this character, going to his bunk in Barlinnie Prison or wherever, and starting his nine years—and thinking of you as his Nemesis.”
Isabel reflected on this. “No doubt you compartmentalise. Doctors do that, don’t they? They do the difficult things they do—telling somebody that they’re terminally ill, for instance—but they can’t let it stop them leading their own lives. They switch off, I suppose.”
She thought: What about me? She had to do the occasional unpleasant thing—rejecting unpublishable papers, knowing how much the author might have invested in his or her work. And in some cases, when the paper came from somebody struggling to keep a job, the rejection of the paper might be the thing that means the end of a career. Yet you couldn’t think about it; you couldn’t, because there simply was not enough room on the page for everybody who felt that they had something to say.
They reached the house. Jamie opened the door for her and then remembered. “Oh, and there was another call.”
She glanced at him reproachfully. “Yes?”
“Today. Somebody from the council. Environmental Health, he said. He gave a number too. He said you should ask for the food safety officer on duty.”
Isabel frowned. “Food safety?” And then she realised what it was. Mushrooms.
SHE CALLED the council first, using the kitchen phone, and was put through to a Mr. Wallace. As she had imagined, he was interested in mushrooms.
“We follow up on cases of food poisoning,” he said. “It’s usually restaurants, but occasionally we get unsafe products being sold by retailers. The hospital informed us that you had mushroom poisoning. Is that correct?”
“I felt a bit ill,” she said. “But it wasn’t anything serious.”
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line: a silence of censure, of disapproval. Then: “Any case of food poisoning is serious, Ms. Dalhousie.”
“I didn’t mean to make light of it,” Isabel said. “It’s just that I was only very mildly ill. Hardly anything life-threatening.”
Mr. Wallace passed over this. “We’d like to know where you bought these mushrooms,” he said.
“I bought them from …” Isabel hesitated, remembering Cat’s keenness to gloss over the incident.
“Yes?”
“From a delicatessen.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Mr. Wallace. “The supermarkets are very careful about these things. Which one?”
Isabel thought quickly. She could say that she had forgotten, but that would be a lie, and she would not do that. Cat would, she suspected; but she would not.
“Does it really matter?” Isabel asked. “I’ve spoken to the person who runs it and she’s assured me that there would be no prospect of this being repeated.”
The irritation in Mr. Wallace’s voice was now unmistakable. “Of course it matters. Some shopkeepers will tell you anything. We have to make sure that they understand the importance of knowing their suppliers.” He paused. “I could tell you some hair-raising stories about food impurity, Ms. Dalhousie. Yes, right here in Edinburgh.”
“What will be the consequences for the delicatessen?” asked Isabel.
“We’ll visit them,” snapped Mr. Wallace. “We’ll check up on their arrangements. We’ll discuss the situation.”
She hesitated.
“It’s for the best, you’ll agree,” came Mr. Wallace’s voice again.
She did not like being pressed in this way. Others might be so sure of their position as to answer directly and determinedly, but it was not her style. Isabel thought about things; she weighed them; she saw dimensions to a question that others might not. And in these circumstances, faced with a question that could incriminate a relative, some people might suffer a convenient lapse of memory, or tell an outright lie. But that, again, was not her way.
“What if I ensured that it didn’t happen again?” she asked.
There was only the briefest pause at his end of the line. “What do you mean? How could you?”
She kept her voice steady. “I mean exactly that. If I were to make sure that the person who sold me those mushrooms never again obtained their supplies from those people in—”
Mr. Wallace interrupted her. “So you know where they came from? You know the supplier?”
A foss, she thought. I have fallen into a foss of my own creation. The word came to her because it had occurred in a crossword—no other letters would have fitted—and she had gone to the dictionary to find its meaning. It was a hole, and she had dug it for herself: a metaphorical foss, but a foss nonetheless.
She realised that she could not avoid telling him. It was her duty to do so, of course, and she knew it, but she felt reticent for the most human, most understandable reasons. “It’s my niece’s delicatessen,” she explained, giving him the address. “And that makes it a bit complicated.”
The tone of disapproval deepened. Isabel was now, by her own admission, almost complicit. “I can see that,” he said icily. “But thank you for this information.”
They said goodbye and she replaced the handset in it
s cradle. Jamie, who had been standing in the doorway listening in to this conversation, raised an eyebrow.
“Bureaucrat,” said Isabel.
Jamie looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”
She took a deep breath. She should not have called him a bureaucrat, even if that was what he was. There had to be bureaucrats; there had to be people who investigated cases of mushroom poisoning, and to dismiss them as bureaucrats was wrong—it was a word which so often tended to be used with contempt that it might be described in the dictionary as a term of abuse. Mr. Wallace was only doing his job; he was paid to protect people and was entitled to expect cooperation. No doubt it was not easy, no doubt he encountered obstructiveness and mendacity at every turn. And now he was planning a head-to-head with Cat, who could be difficult at the best of times.
Jamie was thinking much the same thing. “Rather you than me,” he said. “Cat’s not going to like that.”
Isabel defended herself. “I had no choice.”
“Of course you didn’t,” agreed Jamie. “But I still say that Cat’s not going to be pleased.” He looked uncomfortable. “They could fine her.”
“Do you think so?”
“Oh yes. Or close her down for a while. I know somebody whose butcher was shut for two weeks by those food hygiene people.”
Isabel winced. “If that’s going to happen, then it’s going to happen. Remember that I’m the victim here, not Cat. I was the one who was poisoned.”
He nodded his agreement. “Yes, but also remember that Cat doesn’t always see things in quite the same way as others do.”
Isabel knew that was true. “We’ll see,” she said.
“Yes,” said Jamie. “But, look, don’t worry. She can’t bite your head off.”
“She can try,” said Isabel.
Jamie glanced at his watch and pointed upstairs. Charlie would wake up from his afternoon sleep in a few minutes, if he had not already done so, and Jamie was planning to take him down to the canal at Harrison Bridge. A small flock of over-privileged ducks, fed to bursting point by visitors, had established itself along the canal bank, and Charlie loved throwing them bread. Afterwards, Jamie planned to take him into town by bus; Charlie delighted in travelling on the top deck of buses and would do so, uncomplainingly, for long periods, fascinated by this first-storey view of the city.
Isabel consulted the scrap of paper on which Jamie had noted Catherine Succoth’s number. She was not sure whether the judge would be at home in the mid-afternoon, but she could leave a message if she was out. The number, though, was not her home one, being answered by a court secretary. Yes, Lady Succoth might be available; he would check.
Isabel was put through. “I’m sorry I didn’t call back yesterday,” she said. “I got your message only today. My … my fiancé forgot to tell me.”
The judge laughed. “Men.”
“Yes, men.”
Isabel waited.
“Would it be possible to see you?” asked Catherine. “I can imagine that you’re very busy but there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”
Isabel wondered whether the judge really believed that she was busy, or whether she was just being polite. It was easy to imagine the judge thinking that a philosopher would have time on her hands; most people thought that, after all, and Isabel had given up explaining that editing the Review of Applied Ethics was a real job that made real demands on her time. And she ran a house, too; made meals; looked after a young child, even if she had a housekeeper, which for most people, again, sounded like the height of privilege, of self-indulgence. It was not really; Grace was a high-maintenance housekeeper and Isabel kept her on because she believed that it was her duty to do so, Grace having worked for her father. It was her business, anyway, how she spent her money, and her time, and she had no obligation to justify herself …
“Dr. Dalhousie?”
“Yes, I’m still here.” She noticed the use of the doctoral title. Had the judge been checking up on her?
“Would you mind if I popped in to see you?”
Isabel assured her that she would not mind at all.
That afternoon—was there any chance of seeing her that afternoon? It was no notice, of course, but the judge was not sitting in court and could come to see her if Isabel had a few minutes, just a few minutes.
Isabel suggested that they meet for a cup of tea in the Elephant House, a café on George IV Bridge that was close to Parliament Square, where the judges had their chambers. She had been planning to call in at a bookshop on South Bridge and she could kill two birds with one stone. In using that metaphor, she wondered whether it would eventually be replaced by something else. People no longer killed birds with stones—or not in Scotland. People fired at them, or blasted them out of the sky, but did not kill them with stones. Metaphors were so bloody: people shot messengers, flogged dead horses, cut the throats of their competitors. Perhaps that was life; perhaps that was what it was really like.
Catherine sounded grateful. Isabel was going to ask her what it was that she wanted to discuss, but held back. She imagined that it had to do with Jane’s search. Did the judge want to find out the outcome? She had revealed that it was Rory Cameron who had been Clara’s boyfriend; was she now curious as to what had happened? Or did Catherine want to speak about something altogether different?
Was she perhaps going to ask Isabel to serve on some committee? People were always looking for volunteers to serve on the committees of their various causes, and Isabel did her fair share of that. She had no idea what Catherine Succoth’s charitable interests were, but she was bound to be the chairman of something or other. The lifeboats? Too obvious. Everybody supported the lifeboats, which raised vast amounts of money without having to do much persuading. It was because Britain was an island, perhaps, and its inhabitants felt a deep-seated need to know that there were lifeboats at the ready. Donkeys in North Africa? There was widespread outrage at the way donkeys were treated there, and the donkey charities did very well. There would be donkey committees in Edinburgh, no doubt, and they needed members, but again she did not quite see Catherine Succoth becoming exercised over the discomforts of Tunisian donkeys.
What about distressed gentlefolk? They, too, had their charity, which gave stipends in appropriate cases—a worthy cause, of course—even if quaintly named. She pictured the distressed gentlefolk, a rather quiet, uncomplaining group of people, looking slightly pained at their distress but not wanting to make a fuss, lining up politely for their stipends in their increasingly threadbare tweeds and outmoded skirts.
She decided to walk. The day, which had begun in a blustery fashion, had turned still and somnolent. There was a buttery feel to the air—or so Isabel felt; Jamie had heard her describe summer weather in those terms and had been puzzled.
“Butter?”
She had explained how she reacted to the dappled sunlight in the Meadows, where the trees, in full leaf, were touched with gold: butter, she thought.
She looked at the skyline, at the crags and peaks of the Victorian buildings, at the spikes. “We are a spiky city,” somebody had once said to her. “Our skyline says it all.” And it was true, she decided: a skyline reveals a city’s purpose and character. Oxford had its dreaming spires; Manhattan its glittering towers; Edinburgh its eccentric spikes. And that, perhaps, is what we are, she thought. We are not a culture of smooth curves; Scotland was a vertical place, a landscape of crags, both metaphorical and real.
She reached the Elephant House ten minutes early. She expected that Catherine Succoth would be punctual—she gave that impression—and she was right. At precisely the time she had suggested, Isabel saw the judge come into the café and look about her. She noticed how Catherine entered the room confidently, with an air of authority. It was because of her office, Isabel thought; when you are a judge people stand up when you enter the court, and you must get used to it.
“I hope I’m not late.”
“Of course not. I was early. I walked across
the Meadows, enjoying this …” Isabel gestured towards the window and the light outside.
Catherine sat down, smoothing her black skirt as she did so. She was, thought Isabel, the image of the sombre professional woman. She would have to be, Isabel supposed, at least while in chambers; on the bench Scottish judges wore red, providing a splash of colour. Would red suit Catherine Succoth? It would, she reckoned, although it was bound not to suit many with different colouring.
The café was busy, but Isabel had found a table near the window where they were sufficiently far away from others to be able to talk in privacy. Their nearest neighbour, a bearded man of scholarly appearance, was preoccupied with sorting out an unruly sheaf of notes. The Elephant House was more or less opposite the National Library of Scotland and served the scholars who populated its reading rooms. This man was one, Isabel thought, and she wondered what lonely furrow of scholarship he ploughed. History, perhaps. Something obscure: the history of trade between Scotland and the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. The notes were about merchants’ records. Quantities of dried fish and wool transported from Fife. Salt. Lime. Wood for Dutch shipbuilders. Nails.
Catherine noticed Isabel’s glance. “He’s an historian,” she whispered. “I have one of his books. I’ve never read it.”
Isabel smiled. “I guessed he was.”
“Trade routes,” said Catherine. “Interesting … if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”
Isabel wondered how Catherine knew what she had only guessed. She would not tell Grace, because Grace would immediately say that it did not surprise her in the least. She would explain it in terms of telepathy, or something like that, whereas, as Isabel knew, it was merely sheer coincidence. It was quite within the bounds of possibility that there should be an economic historian sitting in the Elephant House and that a philosopher should come in and speculate, correctly, as to what the historian’s calling was.