They had argued about Isabel’s inability to say no, which in Cat’s view was the root of the problem. “You simply can’t get drawn into other people’s business like this,” she had protested after Isabel had become involved in sorting out the problems of a hotel-owning family that was fighting over what to do with their business. But Isabel, who had regularly been taken for Sunday lunch in the hotel as a child, had considered that this gave her an interest in what happened to it and had become sucked into an unpleasant boardroom battle.
Cat had voiced the same concerns when it came to the unfor-7 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h tunate young man in the Usher Hall. “But this is my business,”
said Isabel. “I saw the whole thing—or most of it. I was the last person that young man saw. The last person. And don’t you think that the last person you see on this earth owes you something?”
“I’m not with you,” said Cat. “I don’t see what you mean.”
Isabel leant back in her chair. “What I mean is this. We can’t have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbours, people we deal with, and so on.”
Who, then, is our neighbour? she would say to the Sunday Philosophy Club. And the members of the Sunday Philosophy Club would think very carefully about this and come to the conclusion, Isabel suspected, that the only real standard we can find for this is the concept of proximity. Our moral neighbours are those who are close to us, spatially or in some other recognised sense. Distant claims are simply not as powerful as those we can see before us. These close claims are more vivid and therefore more real.
“Reasonable enough,” said Cat. “But you didn’t come into contact with him in that sense. He just . . . sorry to say this . . .
he just passed by.”
“He must have seen me,” said Isabel. “And I saw him—in a state of extreme vulnerability. I’m sorry to sound the philosopher, but in my view that creates a moral bond between us. We were not moral strangers.”
“You sound like the Review of Applied Ethics, ” said Cat dryly.
“I am the Review of Applied Ethics, ” Isabel replied.
The remark made them both laugh, and the tension that had been growing dissipated.
“Well,” said Cat, “there’s obviously nothing that I can do to T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
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stop you doing whatever it is you want to do. I may as well help you. What do you need?”
“The address of his flatmates,” said Isabel. “That’s all.”
“You want to speak to them?”
“Yes.”
Cat shrugged. “I can’t imagine that you’ll find out much.
They weren’t there. How will they know what happened?”
“I want some background,” said Isabel. “Information about him.”
“All right,” said Cat. “I’ll find this out for you. It won’t be hard.”
As she walked home after her lunch with Cat, Isabel thought about their discussion. Cat had been right to ask her about why she involved herself in these matters; it was a question she should have asked herself more often, but did not. Of course, it was simple to work out why we had a moral obligation to others, but that was really not the point. The question which she had to address was what drove her to respond as she did. And one reason for that, if she were honest with herself, might be that she simply found it intellectually exciting to become involved. She wanted to know why things happened. She wanted to know why people did the things they did. She was curious. And what, she wondered, was wrong with that?
Curiosity killed the cat, she suddenly thought, and immediately regretted the thought. Cat was everything to her, really; the child she had never had, her parlous immortality.
C H A P T E R S E V E N
E
ISABEL HAD EXPECTED to spend the evening alone. Her progress with the index had encouraged her to tackle another task which she had been putting off—detailed work on an article which had returned from a reviewer accompanied by a lengthy set of comments and corrections. These had been scribbled in the margins and needed to be collated, a task which was rendered all the more difficult by the reviewer’s irritating abbrevia-tions and spidery handwriting. That was the last time he would be used, she had decided—eminent or not.
But Jamie arrived instead, ringing her bell shortly before six.
She welcomed him warmly, and immediately invited him to stay for dinner, if he had nothing else planned, of course. She knew that he would accept, and he did, after a momentary hesitation for form’s sake. And for the sake of pride: Jamie was Cat’s age, twenty-four, and it was a Friday evening. Everybody else would have something planned for that evening, and he would not want Isabel to think that he had no social life.
“Well,” he said, “I was thinking of meeting up with somebody, but since you ask . . . Why not?”
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Isabel smiled. “It will be potluck, as usual, but I know you’re not fussy.”
Jamie took off his jacket and left it with his bag in the hall.
“I’ve brought some music with me,” he said. “I thought you might like to accompany me. Later on, that is.”
Isabel nodded. She played the piano moderately well and could usually just manage to keep up with Jamie, who was a tenor.
He had a trained voice and sang with a well-known chorus, which was another attribute, she thought, which Cat could have taken into consideration. She had no idea whether Toby could sing, but would be surprised if he could. He would also be unlikely to play a musical instrument (except the bagpipes, perhaps, or, at a stretch, percussion), whereas Jamie played the bassoon. Cat had a good ear for music and was a reasonable pianist as well. In that brief period when she and Jamie had been together, she had accompanied him brilliantly, and she had brought him out of himself as a performer. They sounded so natural together, Isabel had thought. If only Cat would realise! If only she would see what she was giving up. But of course Isabel understood that there was no objectivity when it came to these matters. There were two tests: the best interests test and the personal chemistry test. Jamie was in Cat’s best interests—Isabel was convinced of that—but personal chemistry was another matter.
Isabel shot a glance at her guest. Cat must have been sufficiently attracted to him in the first place, and she could see why, looking at him now. Cat liked tall men, and Jamie was as tall as Toby, perhaps even slightly taller. He was undoubtedly good-looking: high cheekbones, dark hair that he tended to have cut en brosse, and skin with a natural tan. He could have been Portuguese—almost—or Italian, perhaps, although he was Scottish 7 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h on both sides. What more could Cat want? she thought. Really!
What else could a girl possibly require than a Scotsman who looked Mediterranean and could sing?
The answer came to her unbidden, like an awkward truth that nudges one at the wrong moment. Jamie was too nice. He had given Cat his whole attention—had fawned on her, perhaps—and she had grown tired of that. We do not like those who are completely available, who make themselves over to us entirely. They crowd us out. They make us feel uneasy.
That was it. If Jamie had maintained some distance, a degree of remoteness, then that would have attracted Cat’s interest.