“Some people are strange,” said Alex.
“Very.” She paused. “And the others? Gordon Leafers and John Fraser?”
Alex shrugged. “I met them at the interview. John Fraser I knew slightly anyway. We had a couple of mutual friends.”
“That’s useful, isn’t it?” said Isabel. “What do they say about him?”
“They admire him. But they say that he’s rather gloomy. That was the word they used: gloomy.”
As well he might be, thought Isabel; with the life of that other climber on his conscience, he might well be gloomy.
“And Gordon?”
Alex’s answer came quickly. Gordon, in his view, was above reproach. “Everybody likes him,” he said. “An immensely attractive character.”
Yes, thought Isabel. Too attractive, perhaps? Or too attractive to married women?
A woman came into the room from a side door and signalled to Alex. “That’s dinner ready,” he said. “I believe Jillian has put you next to the current head. Harold Slade. You’ll like him.”
THEY FILED THROUGH to the dining room and took their places. When everybody was seated, Alex tapped his knife against a wine glass and stood up to speak. He was grateful to them all for coming, he said, and he hoped they would enjoy what they saw of Abbotsford. Scott would come back into fashion, he thought, and claim the imagination of a new generation. He was pleased to play a small part in this, and they could too.
Isabel frowned involuntarily; would an electronic generation, brought up on a diet of quick-fire humour and pyrotechnic cinematic effects, embrace somebody like Scott, whose stories could be weighed in pounds? And yet writers who wrote long books still survived: people still read Dickens and Stevenson; they still read Proust, for that matter, or claimed that they did.
“As long as people are interested in Scottish history,” said Alex, staring down the table as if to challenge those who were not, “then Scott will have his public.”
There were nods of agreement, and Isabel found herself joining in. The year before, there had been a gathering of the clans in Scotland and people had flocked from every corner of the globe to join in. These were people who lived in distant modern cities, in the Cincinnatis and the Canberras of this world, but who felt the pull of Scottish ancestry, even now; they had come to Edinburgh and watched Highland dancing and displays of every sort of Scotticism, lapping up the riot of tartan. And why not? People felt the need to come from somewhere, even if it was a long time ago and they were not sure exactly where it was and when. Blood links, she thought; that was what it was about. However tenuous such links were, people regarded them as standing between themselves and the void of human impermanence. For ultimately we were all insignificant tenants of this earth, temporary bearers of a genetic message that could so easily disappear. We had not always been here, and there was no reason to suppose that we always would be. And yet we found such thoughts uncomfortable, and did not like to think them. So we clung to the straws of identity; these, at least, made us feel a little more permanent.
Scott was part of that; this wonderful house, with all its reminders of the Scottish past, was part of it. Keep me from the pain of nothingness. The words came to her mind from somewhere, but she was not sure where: Timor nihil conturbat me, a play on that line of William Dunbar’s. It was not becoming nothing—death—that we must fear but being nothing.
This line of thought distracted her, and she did not hear Alex’s final observations before he sat down. Something further about Scott, and his feeling for Abbotsford. The speech over, in the outbreak of conversation that followed she turned to Harold Slade, seated beside her. They shook hands, and he announced that she had been pointed out to him by Alex Mackinlay as somebody who might come to the school one day and talk to the boys about doing a degree in philosophy. “If you think that’s a good idea, of course,” he said. “One of the interesting things that I have found in the past is that people don’t necessarily believe in what they do.”
Isabel laughed. “Oh, I believe in philosophy, Mr. Slade.”
“Harry, please.”
“Philosophy is something that you have to believe in,” she continued. “The moment you begin to think, you engage with it.” She paused. She was sounding pedantic, and did not want to. “I’d be happy to talk to the boys, Harry.”
He inclined his head. “Thank you. Perhaps you could manage it before I hand over. I’m going, you see.”
“I’d heard that. Singapore, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
She looked at him, taking in the details: the lines around the eyes, the strong chin, the slight fraying of what must be a favourite, over-used shirt. He was an imposing-looking man, and she could imagine him encouraging the rugby team on the touchline; there was a certain unabashed masculinity, a simplicity of spirit, that one found in people who spent their lives in boys’ schools. But that apparent simplicity, she thought, was probably misleading. His charm, she suddenly decided, was dangerous.
“And are you looking forward to the change?”
“I shall be doing much the same thing, I imagine. But in a rather different place.” He smiled at her. “I like Singapore. It’s very well-ordered. We’re becoming so slipshod and chaotic here; they aren’t.”
She agreed that there was something to be said for social order. “Who amongst us likes nastiness, brutality and shortness?” she said.
“Indeed.” He paused for a moment, breaking a small bread roll that had been placed on his side plate. “They’re very well-mannered in Singapore, you know. Courteous. You never see public drunkenness or fighting.”
They were, she said, but she wondered whether the atmosphere could become a bit … Order could be taken too far perhaps … She did not finish what she was saying. “My wife thinks that,” he said, looking down the table. “She’s not too keen to go, I’m afraid. But I’ve persuaded her to give it a try. We’re prepared to run separate establishments for a few years if push comes to shove. She could stay back here.”
“People do that,” said Isabel.
“It must be said that she’s not keen, though,” he said. “I feel a bit bad about it.”
He looked down the table again. Following his gaze, Isabel glanced at the thin, rather bony-looking woman who was sitting several places away from her. The woman looked up and, as their eyes met, Isabel saw something unsettling: jealousy. For a few moments she was uncertain what to make of it. What woman would resent her husband sitting next to another woman at a dinner? Only one who felt insecure in the man’s affections. A possessive wife, Isabel thought. But then she stopped. I know nothing about her, she said to herself. All that I know is that she does not want to leave Scotland; that she wants to stay where she is. But then she realised: with that small bit of information, I know everything.
She looked down the table again. Christine Slade was staring into the bowl of soup that had been placed in front of her by the same young man who had served drinks before dinner, the shepherd. She looked miserable, and Isabel felt a sudden surge of sympathy for her. How many wives were there, she wondered, whose lives were ruined by the career ambitions of their husbands? Who lived in their shadows and never complained? Who endured the loss of friends and family because they were obliged to move from pillar to post? And might one say the same thing about husbands in a similar position, who sacrificed themselves to their wives’ careers? One might, except for one major difference: one did not have to say it very often because there were so few of them.
She turned to Harold. “Perhaps you should think of staying in Scotland if your wife is so unhappy about moving.”
He looked at her in surprise. “But she’ll get used to it,” he said. “I’m not worried about her.” And then he added, “People adjust, you know. They get used to anything.”