wanted the house for as long as he could remember and had leapt at the chance to buy it when it unexpectedly came on the market.
Peter had been a successful merchant banker and had decided in his mid-forties to pursue an independent career as a company doctor. Firms in financial trouble could call on him to attempt a rescue, or firms with bickering boards could invite him in to mediate their squabbles. In his quiet way he had brought peace to troubled business lives, persuading people to sit down and examine their issues one by one.
“Everything has a solution,” he observed to Isabel in answer to a question she put to him about his work as he showed her into his morning room. “Everything. All you have to do is to strip the problem down and then start from there. All one has to do is to make a list and be reasonable.”
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“Which people often aren’t,” said Isabel.
Peter smiled. “You can work round that. Most people can become reasonable even if they aren’t in the beginning.”
“Except for some,” Isabel had persisted. “The profoundly unreasonable. And there are quite a few of those, quick and dead.
Idi Amin and Pol Pot, to name two.”
Peter reflected on her turn of phrase. Who still spoke of the quick and the dead? Most people had lost that understanding of
“quick” and would look blank if they heard it. How typical of Isabel to keep a word alive, like a gardener tending to a feeble plant. Good for Isabel.
“The irretrievably unreasonable tend not to run businesses,”
he said, “even if they try to run countries. Politicians are different from businessmen or company people. Politics attracts quite the wrong sort of person.”
Isabel agreed. “Absolutely. All those overgrown egos. It’s why they go into politics in the first place. They want to dominate others. They enjoy power and its trappings. Few of them go into politics because they want to improve the world. Some might, I suppose, but not many.”
Peter thought for a moment. “Well, there are the Gandhis and the Mandelas, I suppose, and President Carter.”
“President Carter?”
Peter nodded. “A good man. Far too gentle for politics. I think that he found himself in the White House by mistake. And he was far too honest. He made those embarrassingly honest remarks about his private temptations, and the press had a field day. And every single one of those who took him to task would have harboured exactly the same sort of thoughts themselves. Who hasn’t?”
“I know all about fantasies,” said Isabel. “I know what he meant . . .” She paused. Peter looked at her quizzically, and 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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continued quickly, “Not that sort of fantasy. I have thoughts about avalanches . . .”
Peter smiled and gestured to a chair. “Well,
Isabel sat back in her chair and looked out over the lawn. The garden was larger than her own, and more open. Perhaps if she cut down a tree she would get more light, but she knew that she could never do that; she would have to go before the trees went.
Oak trees were sobering in that respect; every time you looked at them they reminded you that they were likely to be around well after you had gone.
She looked at Peter. He was a bit like an oak tree, she thought; not to look at, of course—in that respect he was more of a wisteria, perhaps—but he was a person whom one could trust.
Moreover, he was discreet, and one could talk to him without fear of what one said being broadcast. So if she asked him about McDowell’s, as she now did, nobody else would know she was interested.
He pondered her question for a moment. “I know quite a few of the people there,” he said. “They’re pretty sound, as far as I know.” He paused. “But I do know of somebody who might talk to you about them. I think he’s just left after some sort of spat. He might be prepared to talk.”
Isabel answered quickly. This was exactly what she had wanted; Peter knew everybody and could put you in touch with anyone. “That’s exactly what I would like,” she said, adding,
“Thank you.”
“But you have to be careful,” Peter continued. “First, I don’t know him myself, so I can’t vouch for him. And then you have to bear in mind that he might have some sort of grudge against them.
You never know. But if you want to see him, he sometimes comes to our concerts because he has a sister who plays in the orchestra.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h So you need to come to our concert tomorrow night. I’ll make sure you get the chance to talk to him at the party afterwards.”
Isabel laughed. “Your orchestra? The Really Terrible Orchestra?”
“The very same,” said Peter. “I’m surprised you haven’t been to one of our concerts before. I’m sure I invited you.”
“You did,” said Isabel, “but I was away at the time. I was sorry to miss it. I gather that it was . . .”
“Terrible,” said Peter. “Yes, we’re no good at all, but we have fun. And most of the audience comes to laugh, anyway, so it doesn’t matter how badly we play.”
