There were further possibilities. Hypocrisy was not only about telling lies, it was about saying one thing and doing quite the other. People who did that were usually roundly condemned, but again this might not be as simple as some would suggest. Would it be hypocritical for an alcoholic to advise against drinking alcohol, or a glutton to recommend a diet? The recipient of the advice might well level charges of hypocrisy in such a case, but only if the person giving the advice claimed that he did not drink or eat too much himself. If he merely concealed his own vices, then he might still be considered a hypocrite, but his hypocrisy might be no bad thing. It certainly did not harm anybody, and indeed it might even help (provided that it remained undiscovered). This was a topic which would have been ideal for the Sunday Philosophy Club. Perhaps she would try to get people together for precisely such a discussion. Who could resist an invitation to discuss hypocrisy? The members of the club, she suspected.
Her boiled egg placed on the table, she sat down with a copy 6 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h of The Scotsman and a freshly brewed cup of coffee, while Grace went off to start the laundry. There was nothing of note in the paper—she could not bring herself to read an account of the doings of the Scottish Parliament—and so she quickly passed to the crossword. Four across: He conquers all, a nubile tram (11) .
Tamburlaine, of course. It was an old clue and it even appeared as the final line of one of Auden’s poems. WHA, as she thought of him, liked to do the crossword, and would have The Times deliv-ered to Kirchstetten for that very purpose. There he lived, in his legendary domestic mess, with manuscripts and books and over-flowing ashtrays, doing the Times crossword each day, with a tat-tered volume of the big Oxford open on a chair beside him. She would have so loved to have met him, and talked, even just to thank him for everything that he had written (except the last two books), but she rather feared that he might have written her off as one of his legion of bluestocking admirers. Six down: A homespun poet, a pig in charge of sheep? (4). Hogg, naturally. (But a coincidence, nonetheless.)
She finished the crossword in the morning room, allowing her second cup of coffee to get too cool to drink. She felt uneasy for some reason, almost queasy, and she wondered whether she had not perhaps had rather too much to drink the previous evening. But, going over it, she had not. She had had two small-ish glasses of wine at the opening, and a further one, if somewhat larger, in the Vincent Bar. That was hardly enough to unsettle her stomach or trigger a headache. No, her feeling of unease was not physical; she was upset. She had imagined that she had recovered from witnessing that awful event, but clearly she had not, and it was still having its psychological effect. Putting down the newspaper, she looked up at the ceiling and wondered whether this was what they called post-traumatic stress disorder. Soldiers T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
6 3
suffered from it in the First World War, although they called it shell shock then, and shot them for cowardice.
She thought of the morning ahead. There was work to be done; at least three journal articles were waiting to be sent out to referees, and she would have to despatch them that morning.
Then there was an index to be prepared for a special issue that was due to appear later that year. She did not enjoy indexing and she had been putting the task off. But it would have to be sent to the general editor for approval before the end of the week, which meant that she would have to sit down to it either that day or the following day. She looked at her watch. It was almost nine-thirty.
If she worked for three hours she would get through most, if not all, of the index. That would take her to twelve-thirty, or perhaps almost one o’clock. And then she could go and have lunch with Cat, if she was free. The thought cheered her up: a good spell of work followed by a relaxed chat with her niece was exactly what she needed to get over this temporary blue feeling—the perfect cure for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Cat was available, but only at one-thirty, as Eddie had asked to take his lunch break early. They would meet at the bistro opposite the delicatessen; Cat preferred getting out for lunch rather than taking up one of her own few tables. Besides, she knew that Eddie listened to her conversation when he could, and this irritated her.
Isabel made good progress with her index, finishing the task shortly after twelve. She printed out what she had done and put it in an envelope for posting on the way in to Bruntsfield. Finishing the work had lifted her spirits considerably, but it had not taken her mind off her conversation with Paul. That still worried her, and she kept thinking of the two of them, Paul and Mark, climbing together up Buchaille Etive Mhor, roped together per-6 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h haps, with Mark turning and looking down at Paul, and the sun on his face. His photograph, published in the newspapers, had shown him to be so good-looking, which seemed to make everything all the sadder, although, of course, it should not. When the beautiful died, it was the same as when the less well blessed died; that was obvious. But why did it seem more tragic that Rupert Brooke, or Byron for that matter, should die, than other young men? Perhaps it was because we love the beautiful more; or because Death’s momentary victory is all the greater. Nobody, he says, smiling, is too beautiful not to be taken by me.
The crowd in the bistro had thinned out by one-thirty, when she arrived. There were two tables occupied at the back, one by a group of women with shopping bags stacked at their feet, and another by three students, who were sitting in a huddle over a story that one of them was recounting. Isabel sat down at an empty table and studied the menu while she waited for Cat. The women ate in near silence, tackling long strands of tagliatelle with their forks and spoons, while the students continued their conversation. Isabel could not help but overhear snatches of it, particularly when one of the students, a young man in a red jer-sey, raised his voice.
“. . . and she said to me that if I didn’t go with her to Greece, then I couldn’t keep the room in the flat, and you know how cheaply I get that. What could I do? You tell me. What would you have done in my position?”
There was a momentary silence. Then one of the others, a girl, said something which Isabel did not catch, and there was laughter.
Isabel glanced up, and then returned to her scrutiny of the menu. The young man lived in a flat which was owned by this T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
6 5
anonymous she. She wanted him to go to Greece, and was obviously prepared to use whatever bargaining power she had to see to it that he did. But if she was coercing him in this way, then he would hardly be much of a travelling companion.
“I told her that . . .” Something was said which Isabel missed, and then: “I said that I would come only if she left me alone. I decided to come right out with it. I said that I knew what she had in mind . . .”
“You flatter yourself,” said the girl.
“No, he doesn’t,” said the other young man. “You don’t know her. She’s a man-eater. Ask Tom. He could tell you.”
Isabel wanted to ask, “And did you go? Did you go to Greece?”
but could not, of course. This young man was as bad as the girl who had asked him. They were all unpleasant; all sitting there gossiping in this snide way. You should never discuss the sexual offers of others, she thought. Don’t kiss and tell summed it up nicely. But these students had no sense of that.