The Sunday Philosophy Club

whisky nosers spoke the language of everyday life, detecting hints of stale seaweed, or even diesel fuel. Isabel saw the merit in this. The Island malts, which she could barely bring 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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herself to sample—in spite of her father’s enthusiasm for them—

reminded her of antiseptic and the smell of the school swimming pool; and as for taste, “diesel fuel” seemed to express it perfectly.

Not that she would utter these views in the rooms of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, or even confess them to Johnny Sanderson, who was said by some to have whisky in his veins, on the strength of four generations of Highland distillers in his pedigree, starting, he proudly pointed out, with a humble crofter who ran an illegal still at the back of his sheep fank. Purveyors of alcohol were well known to found dynasties, of course: that was the case, she thought, with a politician whom Isabel’s grandfather had known slightly before the Second World War. Isabel’s grandfather, a principled man, had seen through him and had rebuffed an entic-ing offer for their company. Thereafter he had merely shuddered when the politician’s name was mentioned, an eloquent enough comment— more expressive, indeed, than mere words.

Isabel was amused by the idea that gestures should accompany verbal references. She was intrigued to see devout Catholics cross themselves at the mention of the BVM—and she liked the acronym BVM itself, which made Mary sound so reassuringly modern and competent, like a CEO or an ICBM, or even a BMW. And in places like Sicily, there were people who spat to the side when the names of their enemies were uttered, or as was sometimes the case in Greece, when Turkey or even a Turk was spoken of. She recalled the Greek uncle of a friend of hers, who was protected by his family from all mention of Turkey, lest he have a heart attack. Or the proprietor of a Greek island hotel at which she had once stayed, who refused to acknowledge that the distant coast of Turkey could just be made out from the terrace of the hotel; he simply denied that land could be seen, and did not see it. So might one wish Turkey out of existence, if one were so 1 9 8

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h inclined. All of this was to be avoided, of course, and Isabel knew it. She had never spat at the mention of a name, or even rolled her eyes upwards—well, that perhaps she had done once or twice, when the name of a well-known figure in the arts cropped up. But that, she felt, was fully justified, unlike the views of Greeks on Turks, and of Turks, one imagined, on Greeks.

Johnny Sanderson was already there when she arrived, and he led her to a quiet seat in the corner of the room.

“One question right at the beginning,” he said. “Do you like it, or hate it? If you hate it, I’ll get you a glass of wine instead.”

“I like some whiskies,” said Isabel. “Some.”

“Such as?”

“Speysides. Soft whiskies. Whiskies that don’t bite.”

Johnny nodded. “Reasonable enough,” he said. “Macallan. A lovely fifteen-year-old Speyside. It would offend nobody.”

Isabel sat back while Johnny went to order the whiskies from the bar. She liked this temple to whisky, with its high ceilings and its airiness. And she liked the people, too: direct and open-faced people who believed in fellowship and good humour. They were people, she imagined, who did not disapprove of their fellow man, unlike those who patrolled mores today; these people were tolerant, just as gourmets, by and large, tended to have tolerant, expansive outlooks. It was the obsessive dieters who were unhappy and anxious.

A paper had been submitted to the review which suggested that there was a duty to be thin. “Fat Is a Moral Issue” had been the title which the author had chosen; Isabel thought it an intriguing title. But the argument was poor; entirely predictable and entirely depressing. In a world of need, it was wrong to be anything other than thin. Until everybody was in a position 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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consume a surfeit of calories, then nobody should carry extra weight. The fat were therefore not entitled to be what they were.

Fairness of distribution demanded otherwise.

She had read the paper with increasing irritation, but then, at the end, when she had tossed it aside and gone into the kitchen for a slice of cake, she had paused at the very plate on which the cake rested, and stopped, and thought. The author of “Fat Is a Moral Issue” may have been pious in her tone, but she was right: the claims of the needy for food were moral claims of a particular sort. One could not ignore them—one could not walk away from them, even if those who made them on behalf of the hungry sounded like killjoys. And that, perhaps, was the problem: it was the tone with which the author had made her point—her accus-ing tone—that had irritated Isabel; it was the moral condescen-sion in it that made her feel that she was being accused of self-indulgence and greed. But the fundamental truth contained in her paper could not be shrugged off: we cannot ignore the pleas of the hungry. And if that meant that we needed to examine the overconsumption which deprived others of food, then that had to be done. And with that thought, she had looked at the cake and then put it back in its tin in the cupboard.

Johnny raised his glass to her. “This is lovely stuff,” he said.

“Fifteen quiet years in its cask. Fifteen years ago I was, let me think, thirty, and we had just had our first child and I thought that I was awfully clever and was going to make a million by forty.”

“And did you?”

“No. I never made a million. But I reached my fortieth birthday anyway, which is a greater privilege in a way.”

“Quite,” said Isabel. “Some would give a million for a single year, let alone forty.”

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Johnny looked into his whisky glass. “Greed,” he said. “Greed takes so many forms. Polite or naked. But it’s always the same at heart. Our friend Minty, for example . . .”

“You found out something?”