“And Neil, your flatmate? They were friends?”
“Of course,” said Hen. “They sometimes played golf together, 9 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h although Neil was too good for Mark. Neil is almost a scratch player. He could have been a professional, you know. He’s a trainee lawyer with a firm in the West End. Stuffy place, but they all are, aren’t they? This is Edinburgh after all.”
Isabel picked up her coffee cup and took her first sip. It was instant, but she would try to drink it, out of politeness.
“What happened?” she said quietly. “What do you think happened?”
Hen shrugged. “He fell. That’s all that could have happened.
One of those freak accidents. He looked over for some reason and fell. What else?”
“Might he have been unhappy?” said Isabel. She made the suggestion cautiously, as it could have been met with an angry response, but it was not.
“You mean suicide?”
“Yes. That.”
Hen shook her head. “Definitely not. I would have known. I just would. He wasn’t unhappy.”
Isabel considered Hen’s words. “I would have known.” Why would she have known? Because she lived with him; that was the obvious reason. One picked up the moods of those with whom one lived in close proximity.
“So there were no signs of that?”
“No. None.” Hen paused. “He just wasn’t like that. Suicide is a cop-out. He faced up to things. He was . . . You could count on him.
He was reliable. He had a conscience. You know what I mean?”
Isabel watched her as she spoke; the word “conscience” was not one which one heard very much anymore, which was strange, and ultimately worrying. It had to do with the disappearance of guilt from people’s lives, which was no bad thing, in one sense, as guilt had caused such a mountain of unnecessary unhappiness.
T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
9 5
But there was still a role for guilt in moral action, as a necessary disincentive. Guilt underlined wrong; it made the moral life possible. That apart, there was another aspect to what Hen had said.
The words were uttered with conviction, but they could only have been spoken by one who had never been depressed, or gone through a period of self-doubt.
“Sometimes people who are very clear about things on the outside are not so sure inside . . . they can be very unhappy, but never show it. There are . . .” She trailed off. Hen clearly did not appreciate being spoken to in this way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture you . . .”
Hen smiled. “That’s all right. You’re probably right—in general, but not in this case. I really don’t think it was suicide.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” said Isabel. “You obviously knew him very well.”
For a few moments there was a silence, as Hen sipped at her coffee, apparently deep in thought, and Isabel looked at the Vettriano, wondering what to say next. There seemed little point in continuing the conversation; she was not going to learn much more from Hen, who had probably said as much as she wanted to say and who was, in Isabel’s view, not very perceptive anyway.
Hen put her cup down on the table. Isabel moved her gaze from the oddly disturbing picture. The young man whom she had seen in the corridor was now entering the room, fully clothed.
“This is Neil,” said Hen.
Isabel rose to shake hands with the young man. The palm of his hand was warm, and slightly moist, and she thought: He’s been in the shower. That was why he had been dashing naked across the hall. Perhaps that was not unusual these days; that flatmates, casual friends, should wander about unclothed, in perfect innocence, as children in Eden.
9 6
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Neil sat down on the chair opposite the sofa while Hen explained why Isabel was there.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” said Isabel. “I just wanted to talk about it. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No,” said Neil. “I don’t mind. If you want to talk about it, that’s fine with me.”
Isabel glanced at him. His voice was very different from Hen’s; from the other side of the country, she thought, but disclosing an expensive education somewhere. He was Hen’s age, she thought, or perhaps slightly older, and like her he had a slightly outdoors look to him. Of course, he was the golfer, and what she was seeing was the effect of time spent on blustery Scottish fairways.
“I don’t think I should burden you much more,” said Isabel.
“I’ve met you. I’ve talked about what happened. I should let you get on with things.”
“Has it helped?” asked Hen, exchanging a glance, Isabel noted, with Neil. The meaning of the glance was quite clear, Isabel thought: she would say to him afterwards, “Why did she have to come? What was the point of all that?” And she would say that because she was nothing to that young woman; she was a woman in her forties, out of it, not real, of no interest.
“I’ll take your cup,” said Hen suddenly, rising to her feet. “I have to get something going in the kitchen. Excuse me a minute.”
“I must go,” said Isabel, but she remained on the sofa when Hen had gone out of the room, and she looked at Neil, who was watching her, his hands resting loosely on the arms of the chair.
