The Sunday Philosophy Club

become a substitute for tennis.

“Very funny,” Cat had said when Isabel had once pointed this out to her. “But surely it’s absolutely right. Our emotions all seem geared towards keeping us in one piece, as animals, so to speak.

Fear and flight. Fighting over food. Hatred and envy. All very physical and connected with survival.”

“But might one not equally say that the emotions have a role in developing our higher capacities?” Isabel had countered. “Our emotions allow us to empathise with others. If I love another, then I know what it is to be that other person. If I feel pity—

which is an important emotion, isn’t it?—then this helps me to understand the suffering of others. So our emotions make us grow morally. We develop a moral imagination.”

“Perhaps,” Cat had said, but she had been looking away then, at a jar of pickled onions—this conversation had taken place in the delicatessen—and her attention had clearly wandered. Pickled onions had nothing to do with moral imagination, but were important in their own quiet, vinegary way, Isabel supposed.

A F T E R CAT A N D TO B Y had left, Isabel went outside, into the cool of the night. The large walled garden at the back of the house, hidden from the road, was in darkness. The sky was clear, and there were stars, normally not visible in the city, obscured by all the light thrown up by human habitation. She walked over the lawn towards the small wooden conservatory, under which she discovered a fox had recently made its burrow. She had named him Brother Fox, and had seen him from time to time—a svelte creature running sure- footed along the top of the wall or dashing across the road at night, on impenetrable business of its own. She 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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had welcomed him, and had left a cooked chicken out one night, as an offering. By morning it had disappeared, although she later found a bone in a flower bed, well gnawed, the marrow extracted.

What did she want for Cat? The answer was simple: she wanted happiness, which sounded trite, but was nevertheless true. In Cat’s case, that meant that she should find the right man, because men seemed to be so important to her. She did not resent Cat’s boyfriends—in principle, at least. Had she done so, the cause of her resentment would have been obvious: jealousy.

But it was not that. She acknowledged what was important for her niece, and only hoped that she would find out what she was looking for, what she really wanted. In Isabel’s view that was Jamie. And what about myself ? she thought. What do I want?

I want John Liamor to walk through the door and say to me: I’m sorry. All these years that we’ve wasted. I’m sorry.

C H A P T E R F I V E

E

NOTHING MORE ABOUT the incident appeared in what Isabel called the “lower papers” (well, they are, she would defend herself: look at their content); and what she referred to as the

“morally serious papers,” The Scotsman and The Herald, were also silent on the subject. For all Isabel knew, McManus might have found out no more, or if he had pieced together a few more scraps of detail, his editor could have deemed it to be too inconsequential to print. There was a limit to what one could make of a simple tragedy, even if it had occurred in unusual circumstances. She assumed that there would be a Fatal Accident Inquiry, which was always held when a death occurred in sudden or unexpected circumstances, and this might be reported when it took place. These were public hearings, before the local judge, the sheriff, and in most cases the proceedings were quick and conclusive. Factory accidents in which somebody was found to have forgotten that a wire was live; a misconnected carbon monoxide extractor; a shot-gun that was thought to be unloaded. It did not take too long to unravel the tragedy, and the sheriff would make his determination, as it was called, patiently listing what had gone wrong and what needed to be put right, warning sometimes, but for the most 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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part not passing much comment. And then the court would move on to the next death, and the relatives of the last would make their way out onto the street in sad little knots of regret. The most likely conclusion in this case would be that an accident had occurred.

Because it had taken place so publicly, there might be comments on safety, and the sheriff could suggest a higher rail in the gods.

But it could be months before any of this happened, and by then, she hoped, she might have forgotten it.

She might have discussed it again with Grace, but her housekeeper, it appeared, had other things on her mind. A friend was experiencing a crisis and Grace was lending moral support. It was a matter of masculine bad behaviour, she explained; her friend’s husband was going though a midlife crisis and his wife, Grace’s friend, was at her wit’s end.

“He’s bought an entire new wardrobe,” Grace explained, casting her eyes upwards.

“Perhaps he feels like a change of clothing,” ventured Isabel.

“I’ve done that myself once or twice.”

Grace shook her head. “He’s bought teenage clothes,” she said. “Tight jeans. Sweaters with large letters on them. That sort of thing. And he’s walking around listening to rock music. He goes to clubs.”

“Oh,” said Isabel. Clubs sounded ominous. “What age is he?”

“Forty-five. A very dangerous age for men, we’re told.”

Isabel thought for a moment. What might one do in such a case?

Grace supplied her answer. “I laughed at him,” she said. “I came straight out and said he looked ridiculous. I told him that he had no business wearing teenage boys’ clothing.”

Isabel could picture it. “And?”

“He told me to mind my own business,” Grace said indig-5 0

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h nantly. “He said that, just because I was past it, he