A Distant View of Everything

  “So she invited the two of them, and lo and behold the chemistry seemed to be right. Connie telephoned her a couple of days later to thank her for the dinner and mentioned, more or less as an aside, that she had heard from Tony MacUspaig and that he had invited her to some do or other. Naturally Bea was pleased. Another success, she concluded.

  “She thought no more about it, she told me, until a few weeks later she bumped into one of the other people who had been at the dinner party that started it all off. This was a friend of hers, a man called Rob McLaren, who’s apparently a very good listener. He’s a regular at her parties because of this. People like good listeners.”

  Jamie interrupted her. “I’m listening.”

  “Good. Rob told her how much he’d enjoyed the evening, and then said, ‘Interesting guests.’ She said that the tone of his voice suggested that there was something he wanted to tell her, and so she asked him whether he’d met them all before. He said he had, apart from the doctor—and that, of course, was Tony MacUspaig. Then apparently he went quiet for a few moments, and Bea knew that this meant he had major reservations.

  “She knew him well enough to say, ‘Come on, Rob, spit it out.’ And this brought a bit of humming and hawing and comments about not wanting to pass on tittle-tattle. But then he got to the point and said, ‘I’m afraid he might not be what you think him to be.’

  “She asked him what he meant by that, and apparently this led to more humming and hawing before he eventually said, ‘I hear he doesn’t treat women very well.’

  “She pressed him to spell it out. She asked him if he was a womaniser.”

  “They’re everywhere,” said Jamie. “There’s a brass player I know who—”

  “Hold on,” said Isabel. “Let me finish. And anyway, don’t brass players have a reputation?”

  “For drinking beer,” replied Jamie. “They’re always off to the pub after rehearsals—they’re famous for it. But they chat up women a lot too, I think.”

  Isabel shrugged. “I suppose men and women have always been involved in that sort of dance round one another. After all, isn’t that what dance is all about? Isn’t that what it represents?”

  “Perhaps,” said Jamie. “But let’s not get distracted.”

  “But it was you who distracted me,” Isabel pointed out.

  “Sorry—you carry on.”

  “It came out eventually. It was a special form of womanising: highly motivated. And not by the usual thing.”

  “Not sex?”

  “No, it seems not. Rob eventually said that Tony MacUspaig went for wealthy women. He got hold of their money somehow or other and then that was it—he was off. That’s what he wanted to warn Bea about.”

  Isabel sat back in her chair. She had finished her glass of wine, and the risotto would not be ready yet for another thirty minutes or so. If she had another glass of wine—and she allowed herself two if she felt she had an excuse—the evening would cease to be productive. There were letters on her desk, and an irritating manuscript submitted to the Review by a demanding professor of philosophy was awaiting her attention. The professor’s argument, she felt, was impractical and too extreme, and this view was shared by at least two members of her editorial board. But another two were strongly in favour of the paper and were pushing for its acceptance for publication. She could reject the paper if she wished—after all, she owned the Review and could do what she liked. But she had always been reluctant to use her position in that way. That would be petulant; that would be high-handed.

  Thinking about the issue made her feel uncomfortable. “Ridiculous Dutchman,” she muttered, as she fingered the stem of her wine glass.

  Jamie laid aside his spoon. “What was that?” he asked. “Did you just mutter ‘Ridiculous Dutchman’?”

  Isabel pursed her lips. “Did I? I suppose I did.”

  Jamie laughed. “Why? Why did you mutter ‘Ridiculous Dutchman’?”

  “Because he is,” said Isabel. “He submitted a paper—this Dutch professor with an amusing name. Van der Pompe. And he goes on and on about rivers being allowed to follow their natural course and the wrongness of intervening in the world’s topology. He doesn’t approve of hospitals, either. They limit natural mortality, he says. Can you believe it?”

  “So no medical treatments?”

  “None,” replied Isabel. “No antibiotics, of course, and even no aspirin.”

  “Strange,” said Jamie. And then added, “Ridiculous Dutchman.”

  Isabel looked at him sharply. “Well, he is. He is ridiculous. He’s a sort of uber-Green, and uber-anythings are ridiculous. Uber-socialists, uber-free marketeers, uber-nationalists—they’re all the same. He argues against the building of bridges. He says that bridges interfere with the natural limitations that the world imposes on us. If there were no bridges, we would not move about so much and ultimately there would be fewer of us. Our economies would be smaller, you see, and that would mean a lower population.”

  “And reducing the population—seriously reducing it—would be a good thing?” asked Jamie.

  “That’s what he says.” She paused. She remembered hearing new and virulent diseases being described as the only hope for mankind. “Although people who want smaller populations usually aren’t thinking of sacrificing themselves.”

  Jamie put the lid on his risotto and placed the pan in the oven. “Twenty minutes,” he pronounced.

  “Of course he’s right in a way,” said Isabel. “There are too many of us. If the world’s population were smaller, there would be fewer crises—fewer arguments over—”

  Jamie interrupted her. “Over everything. Water. Minerals. Food.”

  “Exactly. But is the solution to stop building things? He hates roads. He even disagrees with changing the shape of existing fields. He doesn’t like ploughing very much. Bizarre.” She paused. “He irritates me, you know. He’s written five times about his paper—five times! He’s so sanctimonious about it, more or less suggesting that the only reason why we wouldn’t be publishing it is because we don’t care about ecological issues, as if somehow the Review of Applied Ethics, and its editor in particular, were responsible for the silting up of the Nile, rising sea levels and the retreat of glaciers.” It was hard not to be sanctimonious when one was so sure of one’s ground. Few people, she thought, managed to be convinced they were right and yet not appear preachy and slightly disapproving of those who had yet to see the light.

  Jamie crossed the room to sit next to her at the table. “Perhaps he’s got a point,” he said. “If nothing else works, if we can’t control population growth the usual way, then perhaps we’ll have to look at solutions like that. Shrinking our economies. Leaving things in the ground. Stopping all this rushing around. Stopping all this going forth and multiplying.”

  “Even if that means everybody becoming poorer?” She asked the question, although she had always been sure of the answer. We had to become poorer—or at least the rich part of the world had to, and that included China now—because the world could not sustain our depredations. The Chinese, with all their factories, were running out of breathable air; that was how serious it was for them.

  He did not answer, but flicked at her glass with a fingernail. The crystal rang sharply. “You could have another glass of wine,” he said.

  She asked him what excuse she had.

  “Oh, everything,” he said nonchalantly. “Life. Van der Pompe. The Review. This ghastly MacUspaig. Psychopaths in general. People asking you to do things you don’t really have to do…”

  “Or I could celebrate,” she countered.

  “Yes, you could celebrate. And I could join you.”

  “But celebrate what?”

  “Being here,” said Jamie.

  “If that’s grounds for celebration…”

  He looked crestfallen, and she realised that her answer sounded world-weary and jaded, which had not been her intention. Isabel had no time for the cynical approach to life; cynicism, she said, was l
ike hydrochloric acid—corrosive.

  She started to apologise, but he cut her short.

  “It’s a tremendous privilege to be alive,” he said.

  “Oh, I know that…”

  “When you consider that the universe is full of inert matter—billions and billions of dead stars, and in the face of all those incalculable odds against life, we happen to have it, just for a tiny flash of time. It’s against all the odds.”

  She looked down at the floor and thought: Against all the odds, I have you…He was right: How could anybody not appreciate the immense privilege of life? Unless, of course, life for them was painful, which it was for so many; putting things in context did not really help the immediacy and reality of suffering, and there was so much of that—oceans and oceans of it. Looking up would certainly put human pretensions in their place: those pictures of distant galaxies did that for her. How could you worry about money or what somebody had said to you, or about being late for some appointment, or about encroaching wrinkles or expanding waistlines or any of the other things that people worried about, when you and your world were so tiny and insignificant? But of course humbling as such a perspective was, when you looked down again you saw your feet and the solid earth on which they stood, and there were real clocks ticking, and real tears to be shed over petty things. We were stuck: we were stuck with our ordinary world and its petty concerns. Ultimately any meaning we could find for our existence was stubbornly located right there and demanded that we take it seriously. And what did that mean? The answer that came to her was as unexpected as it was immediate: that she had to be kind to Professor van der Pompe.

  He rose to his feet and fetched another glass. The bottle of wine was on the table.

  “Slàinte.” It was the Gaelic toast. Jamie used it with a smile. “The full extent of my Gaelic, I’m afraid.”

  She replied in kind. “Slàinte.” And then added, “At least you admit it. Unlike some of those ardent enthusiasts for Gaelic road signs.”

  He looked at her. “Poor van der Pompe,” he said. “You’re going to end up publishing his paper, you know.”

  She sighed. “I know. And I shall. He’d be very unhappy if I didn’t.”

  “Do you really think he’s ridiculous?”

  She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have called him that. I’m feeling a bit tired—a bit frayed at the edges.”

  He shot her a sympathetic look. “Who doesn’t feel like that from time to time? And anyway, you can still refer to him as a Dutchman. There’s nothing pejorative in that, is there?”

  “No. I would take being called Dutch as a compliment. Everybody likes the Dutch.”

  Jamie smiled. “Well, that’s settled, isn’t it?”

  “But I still have a bad feeling about this MacUspaig.”

  Jamie grimaced. “Ridiculous…,” he said.

  They both laughed.

  “I’m going to have to do something about it,” said Isabel. She spoke with resignation, as one who is obliged to follow the promptings of a heart over which she has no control.

  “Let’s not dwell on it,” said Jamie. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Such as?”

  He made a gesture as if to show that he was choosing a topic at random. “About how much I love you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. But then you know that, don’t you?”

  “I suppose I do. And it makes me feel a whole lot less…well, less like the way I was feeling before you told me how much you loved me…If you see what I mean.”

  He did. He took her hands in his. He stood up, pulling her up with him. He put his arms about her. The mystery of otherness, she thought: the feeling of the physical existence of another person; a miracle.

  “Careful of my glass,” she said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ISABEL HAD ALREADY DECIDED what to do by the time she dropped Charlie off at nursery school the following morning. Her time was at her own disposal, as Grace had offered to look after Magnus all day, without even being asked, and she had partially accepted the offer: she would take over at lunchtime, if Grace could cover until then. Magnus still slept a large part of the day, and looking after him was by no means onerous.

  The child’s arrival had fired the housekeeper with new enthusiasm for her job, and she had come up with all sorts of reasons why Isabel should leave it to her to look after Magnus, on whom she so clearly doted. There were times when Isabel found herself resenting this—as often as not fairly strongly—but then she reminded herself that Grace was childless. That led to other reflections, the effect of which was to blunt any resentment: Grace did not have money—even if Isabel paid her generously—while she herself had more than enough; Grace lived in a rented flat while she and Jamie had living space to spare. There were many other ways in which Isabel’s position was so much more fortunate than her housekeeper’s, and the cumulative effect of these was that Grace was forgiven: she could be as demanding or as sniffy as she liked—she was forgiven.

  Isabel had made a telephone call the previous evening—a rather late one, at ten o’clock, which was on the cusp of when it was acceptable to call people at night. Bea, she thought, was likely still to be awake, as she had not struck her as the sort to retire to bed early with a book and a milky drink. And she had been right: Bea answered on the second ring.

  “Rob McLaren,” said Isabel. “Have I got the name right? The man who told you about Tony Mac…” She stumbled over the unusual name.

  “MacUspaig,” prompted Bea.

  “I want to speak to him.”

  There was a momentary silence at the other end of the line. Then Bea said, “Are you sure?”

  “About speaking to him? Yes, I think I need to.”

  “No,” said Bea. “I meant are you sure you want to get involved?”

  Isabel suppressed a sigh. Bea had very specifically asked her to do something, and now she seemed uncertain. “You asked me to,” she replied.

  Bea sounded apologetic. “I know, I know. But I’ve been thinking, and it occurred to me that this man Tony might be difficult. We don’t know much about him; what if he were to turn against you? What if he found out that you were interfering in his scheme?”

  “If he has a scheme,” said Isabel.

  “Yes, if he has one. What then?”

  “We deal with that when and if it arises,” said Isabel. “But listen, if you don’t want me to go ahead, I won’t.”

  Bea was silent. At last she said, “The problem is that I feel wretched. I’ve already put one person in a position where things may not turn out well for her, and now, with you, I’m putting another person in the firing line.” She paused. “The original mistake seems to be growing arms and legs.”

  Isabel felt a certain exasperation. Bea, she thought, was flailing around. She had not given sufficient thought to her introductions—introducing people she barely knew, or did not know at all—and now, with the materialisation of a risk that anybody should have been able to foresee, she was uncertain what to do.

  She decided to be firm. “You asked me,” she said, “and I said that I would do something about it. I do not intend to change my mind.”

  It sounded rather formal, even pompous, and Isabel smiled at herself. Do I really say things like that? she thought.

  The effect was immediate. “You’re right,” said Bea. “I shouldn’t interfere. You’ve agreed to help me, and I should be saying thank you rather than putting you off.”

  “Well, there we are,” said Isabel. “That’s all settled. Now what I need to get from you is Rob McLaren’s telephone number.”

  Bea had provided that, and now Isabel sat at her desk and dialled the number. There was no response at first, and she had almost put the receiver down when a voice came on the line. Rob McLaren listened to her and then agreed to see her later that morning. Isabel suggested the neutral ground of Cat’s delicatessen; if they met there, then she would be in a position to bring the meeting to an end should it show sig
ns of going on too long. One could always just announce that one had to go on somewhere else: it was not easy to do that in one’s own house. Anxious glances at one’s watch could be effective in shifting a guest who overstayed his welcome, but not in every case: the thick-skinned sometimes failed to notice such things, or were happy to ignore them.

  Cat was surprised to see her when Isabel arrived at the delicatessen shortly before eleven. “Have I made some mistake?” she asked. “Were you due to come in?”

  From behind his end of the counter, Eddie answered his employer’s question. “No, she’s not due to do a session until next week. You’re going to the dentist—remember? Isabel said she would help out.”

  “I haven’t come to work,” explained Isabel. “I was going to meet somebody for coffee. Although if you need any help, I’ll be happy to do what I can.”

  Cat eyed a large Milanese salami on a plate beside the meat slicer.

  “I could do that,” said Isabel, picking up on Cat’s glance.

  She took off her jacket, donning the white coat that Eddie fished out of a drawer. Then there were the latex gloves that Isabel always wore when she handled meat—not that Cat and Eddie bothered.

  She picked at the string stocking in which the salami was clad. Eddie, standing beside her, was clearly keen to demonstrate his own method of dealing with this. “If you cut the string stuff like this,” he said, running a knife down the side of the salami, “then it peels off quite easily—you see.”

  He demonstrated the removal of the string and then handed the heavy salami back to Isabel. “Watch your fingers,” he said.

  She started the machine. There was a hum, and then a whining noise as the circular blade began to spin. As Eddie uttered his warning, she remembered the butcher in Newington from whom they had bought meat in the days when she and her father were living alone in their large Edinburgh house. It had been a time when she missed her mother terribly—and she still did, of course, but it was particularly hard then, as she was a teenager and experiencing all the anxiety and uncertainty that blights the teenage years. The butcher, whose name was Mr. Hogg, had one finger missing from his left hand and two from his right. They had all been lost at the knuckle and when she first set eyes on these mutilated fingers, Isabel, who was then not yet fifteen, had been unable to take her eyes off them. Mr. Hogg was used to being an object of interest to children, and made light of his misfortune. He would stick the stump of a finger into an ear, giving the impression that a much longer digit was inserted. Then he would turn his fist, as if he were operating a screwdriver. Isabel had cried out in alarm, and he had quickly withdrawn his finger to reassure her. But the image had stayed with her, and now made her look with horror at the blade. It would require only the smallest slip, a wrong movement over an inch or less, to become nine-fingered. And that, of course, applied equally to so many other situations in life: the car shooting past pedestrians who were no more than a stumble from its lethal path; the half an arm’s length that separated two approaching trains from one another; the couple of yards of runway that made the difference between a safe landing and disaster. She picked up the salami and began to slice it.