smoking room—where members congregated. It was a room filled with light, with two large ceiling-to-floor windows at the front, overlooking the square and its trees, and another large window at the back, looking down onto the mews behind Shandwick Place. There were two fireplaces, a grand piano, and comfortable red leather bench seats running along one wall, like the 8 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h seats of an old parliament somewhere, in some forgotten corner of the Commonwealth.
The Arts Club usually had an exhibition of paintings hanging in the smoking room, sometimes by members, many of whom were artists. This exhibition was by a member, and Isabel picked up the explanatory sheet and examined the works. They were a mixture of small portraits and watercolours of domestic scenes. She recognised the subjects of a number of the portraits, and was impressed by the likenesses: Lord Prosser, a bril-liant, good man standing against a background of the Pentland Hills; Richard Demarco in an empty theatre, smiling optimistically. And then there was another one, a large picture that domi-nated the wall behind the piano, a portrayal of pride, an actor whom Isabel knew very slightly but who was well known in general, standing with a self-satisfied sneer on his face, a curl of the lip, pure arrogance. Did he recognise himself in the likeness, she wondered, or did he not see himself as others saw him?
Burns had said that, of course, and it had been repeated at the last but one Burns Supper downstairs, in a bucolic address given by a former moderator of the Church of Scotland:
“Yes,” said a voice at her shoulder. “That’s him, isn’t it? She’s really summed him up, hasn’t she? Look at the eyebrows.”
Isabel turned round to see Ian standing behind her.
“One might have to keep one’s voice down,” said Isabel. “He could be a member here.”
“Not grand enough for him,” said Ian. “The New Club is more his territory.”
Isabel smiled. “Look at this portrait here,” she said, pointing to another of the pictures. A man sat in his study, one hand on a F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
8 1
pile of books and the other resting on a blotter. Behind him was a window in which a steep hillside of rhododendrons was visible.
“That’s a very different person altogether,” said Ian. “I know that man.”
“As it happens,” said Isabel, “so do I.”
They looked at the picture together. Isabel leant forward to examine the painting more closely. “Isn’t it extraordinary how experience writes itself on the face?” she said. “Experience and attitude—they both reveal themselves in the physical. One can understand people turning leathery, as Australians sometimes do, and one can understand how the pleasures of the table lead to fleshy jowls, but what is it that makes the spiritual face so different from the face of the venal? Especially with the eyes—how can the eyes be so different?”
“It’s how we read the face,” said Ian. “Remember that you’re talking to a psychologist. We like to think about things like that.
It’s a question of numerous little signals that create the overall impression.”
“But how do internal states show themselves physically?”
“Very easily,” said Ian. “Think of anger. The knitted brow.
Think of determination. The gritted teeth.”
“And intelligence?” asked Isabel. “What’s the difference between an intelligent face and an unintelligent one? And don’t tell me that there isn’t a difference—there is.”
“Liveliness and engagement with the world,” said Ian. “The vacuous face shows neither of these.”
Isabel gazed at the painting of the good, and then looked at the painting of the proud. In an earlier age, it might have been possible to believe that goodness would prevail over pride, but not any more. The proud man could be proud with impunity, 8 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h because there was nobody to contradict him in his pride and because narcissism was no longer considered a vice. That was what the whole cult of celebrity was about, she thought; and we feted these people and fed their vanity.
They went down to lunch, choosing one of the few private tables at the rear of the dining room. The main tables, both round, were filling up. One was presided over by a
“It was good of you to accept my invitation,” said Ian, as he poured Isabel a glass of water. “After all, I was a perfect stranger when we bumped into one another the other day.”
“That’s what you thought,” said Isabel. “But I know more about you than you think.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How?”
“You told me that you were a psychologist,” Isabel explained. “I telephoned a psychologist friend and found out all I needed to know.”
“Which was?”
“That you had a distinguished career. That you were almost given a personal chair here in Edinburgh. That you published a lot. That’s about it.”
He laughed. “And I know about you,” he said.
Isabel sighed. “Scotland is a village.”
“Yes,” went on Ian. “But so is everywhere. New Yorkers say that about New York. And of course now we have the global village.”
