A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h been thinking about something else he had said, and now she wanted another name from him. “Thank you. But before you go, Angus, that Italian you interviewed—what was he called?”
“One of those very long, aristocratic Italian names,” he said.
“But I simply addressed him as Tomasso.”
C H A P T E R N I N E T E E N
E
ISABEL LEFT THE HOUSE and walked briskly along Merchiston Crescent to Bruntsfield. It was now shortly before seven, a good three hours after she had taken the telephone call from Angus with its two pieces of surprising information. And yet, three hours later, she could think of nothing else and wanted to talk to somebody. She had debated with herself as to whether she should contact Jamie, and had eventually decided to do so even if she had some misgivings. If she was looking for advice from him, then she had already had his opinion, which he had volunteered the day before on their walk to Holyrood. He had made it clear that there was nothing further that she could, or should, do. But that was before she had received the news from Angus. Now everything was different. Rose had deliberately concealed from her the fact that her son had been the donor.
And that suggested, Isabel concluded, that she had something more significant to hide. The most likely explanation was that Rose knew about Graeme’s involvement in the death of her son and had decided to protect him. And if that were true, then Isabel felt that she should have no compunction in passing on 2 1 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h the information she had, such as it was. There would be no danger in those circumstances of destroying the relationship between the two of them on a mere suspicion.
It was a relief to her to know this. She could do what she had to do, and then start minding her own business once again.
But taking the decision to do something was not quite so easy if one had to take it without discussing it with anybody. And the only person she could really discuss it with was Jamie. Nobody else knew about this, except for Ian, of course, and after the scare in Sandy Bell’s, when he seemed to be buckling under stress, she was unwilling to expose him to more anxiety.
So it would have to be Jamie, and fortunately he had been free for dinner.
She had been candid over the telephone. “It’s an invitation with a price tag,” she had explained. “I want to ask you something. I won’t talk too much about it. But I do want to ask your advice.”
“About . . .”
“Yes,” she had interjected. “About that.”
She had expected him to sigh, or even to groan, and she was taken aback by his upbeat reply. “That’s fine,” he said. “In fact, I wanted to talk to you about that too.”
She did not conceal her astonishment. “You did?”
“Yes. But we can talk about it over dinner. That’s my door-bell. Adolescent number three. He’s the one who tries to play the bassoon with chewing gum in his mouth. Would you believe it?”
Isabel suddenly thought of Tomasso and of the disclosure made by Angus Spens. “I would believe absolutely anything,”
she said. “Anything.”
She walked into town, making her way across the Meadows against the stream of students coming from the direction of the F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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university. The students walked in twos and threes, engaged in animated conversation, and she thought for a moment of how she herself had done precisely the same thing, walking with her classmates, talking about the same issues, and with the same intensity, as these young people. They thought, of course, that the only people who were interesting, who really counted, were those who were twenty, or thereabouts. She had thought that too. And now? Did people of Isabel’s age, in their early forties, think that the world was composed of people in their early forties? She believed not. And the difference was this, she mused: those who are twenty don’t know what it is like to be forty, whereas those who are forty know what it is like to be twenty. It was a bit like discussing a foreign country with somebody who has never been there. They are prepared to listen, but it’s not quite real for them. We are all interested to hear what Argentina is like, but it’s difficult to feel for it unless one has actually been there.
The problem with being me, thought Isabel, as she walked along George IV Bridge, is that I keep thinking about the problem of being me. Her thoughts went off in all sorts of directions, exploring, probing, even fantasising. She suspected that most other people did not think like this at all. In fact, she had often wondered what other people thought about as they walked through the streets of Edinburgh. Did they think about the sort of things that she thought about—about what one should do, about what one should allow oneself to think? She was sure that they did not. And when she had asked Cat what she thought about when she walked every morning from her flat to the delicatessen, she had simply replied, “Cheese.”
Isabel had been taken aback. “All the time? Does cheese give you enough to think about?”
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Cat had thought for a moment before answering. “Well, not just cheese, I suppose. I think about things in the delicatessen.
Olives too. Salami sometimes.”
“In other words,” said Isabel, “you think about your work.”
Cat shrugged. “I suppose I do. But sometimes my mind just wanders. I think about my friends. I think about what I should wear. I even think about men sometimes.”
“Who doesn’t?” said Isabel.
Cat had raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“I am just like anybody else,” said Isabel. “Although sometimes, I suppose, I think about . . .”
Cat had laughed. “I suppose if one wrote down all one’s thoughts through the day it would make very odd reading.”
“It would,” said Isabel. “And one of the reasons why it would make such odd reading is that language would be inadequate to describe our thoughts. We don’t think in words all the time. We don’t engage in one long soliloquy. We don’t mentally say things like: ‘I must go into town today.’ We don’t use those actual words, but we may still make a decision to go into town.
Mental acts and mental states don’t require language.”
“So a person who never learnt a language could think in the same way as we do?” Cat sounded doubtful. How could one know one was going into town unless one had the word for going and the word for town?
“Yes,” said Isabel. “A person like that would have mental pictures. He would have feelings. He would have memories of what has happened to him and knowledge of what may happen in the future. The only difference is that he would find difficulty in communicating these, or recording them for that matter.”
And she thought of Brother Fox, who had no language, other than a howl or yelp, but who knew about danger and fear, F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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and who presumably had very precise memories of the layout of the walled gardens which composed his territory. She had looked into the eyes of Brother Fox on a number of occasions when they had surprised one another, and she had seen recognition in those eyes, and an understanding that he should be cautious of her, but not terrified. So there were memories in that mind, and at least some mute processes of thought, unfathomable to us. What is it like to be Brother Fox? Only Brother Fox knew the answer to that, and he was not in a position to reveal it.
I S A B E L H A D R E S E RV E D a table near the front window of the Café St. Honoré. From where they sat they could look up the short, steep section of cobbled road that led to Thistle Street. It was a small restaurant and well suited for a conversational dinner, although the proximity of tables to one another could be a problem if what one had to say was private. Isabel had heard, without consciously trying, snippets of choice gossip here such as the terms of a cohabitation agreement between a fashionable doctor and his much younger girlfriend—she was to receive a half-interest in the house and there was to be an independent bank account. And all of this came from his lawyer, who was talking to his own girlfriend, who was urging him on for further details. Isabel had looked away, but could hardly stuff her fingers into her ears. And then she had turned round and stared in reproach at the lawyer, whom she recognised, but was greeted with a cheerful wave rather than a look of contrition.