The Careful Use of Compliments

“Anyway,” said Eddie, “long may it last.”

Isabel shook her head. “I doubt if he’s right for her.”

Eddie sniggered. “They get along.” He took a step backwards. “I’ve got to go.”

Isabel ate her meal in silence. Dove would know by tomor-1 9 4

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h row that the Review had changed hands, and he would realise immediately, even if it weren’t for the wording of the letter to Professor Lettuce, that he would never become editor. He would be angry, of course, and his anger would be directed at her. And if Cat heard about it—as she would—then she would assume that Isabel had fired Dove to spite her. Cat was quite capable of believing that, thought Isabel, and of course there might be people who would do such a thing, even if she was not one of them.

She knew, of course, that she should not allow herself to be governed by thoughts of what her niece would think—

particularly a niece who was growing into such an unpredictable person as Cat was. And yet she was not sure that she could face more of Cat’s moods or hostility. It would be like living with Schopenhauer, not an easy task for anybody, and certainly not for Schopenhauer’s mother, to whom the philosopher refused to talk for the last twenty- three years of her life.

She stood up and crossed the room to pay for her lunch. At the till, Cat waved her aside. “No need,” she said.

“But I must,” said Isabel.

Cat shook a finger. “No, it’s a thank-you.”

Isabel’s heart sank. “For what?”

“For introducing me to such a gorgeous man the other day!”

C H A P T E R S I X T E E N

E

THE QUEEN’S HALL that evening was packed, and although Jamie had tried to get Isabel a good seat, she ended up in the gallery, on one of the benches in which one could never quite relax. And there had been a purpose behind that discomfort; the Queen’s Hall had been a church, and the Church of Scotland had never been one for excessive comfort, lest it lead to somno-lence during sermons. Jamie was playing in the orchestra, as he sometimes did, and he was keen that Isabel should hear this particular programme.

“It’s a very adventurous mix,” he explained. “Faure’s Requiem in the first half, and then new or newish pieces in the second.

Various offerings from Peter Maxwell Davies, Stephen Deazley, and Max Richter. It’ll be interesting, to say the least.”

Jamie had given Isabel a recording of Max Richter’s Blue Notebooks, and she had played it time and time again, absorbed by the haunting, enigmatic music. And then in Mellis’s cheese shop one day, she and her friend Rosalind Marshall had seen the composer himself, who lived in Edinburgh; he had come in to buy a piece of Dunsyre Blue, and, recognising him from the sleeve of The Blue Notebooks, Isabel had said, “You don’t know 1 9 6

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h me, but The Blue Notebooks . . . ” She was not sure that he had heard her, in fact she thought that he had not, as the cheese-monger had started to speak, extolling the virtues of a particular cheese, and then somebody else had come in and it was too late.

“I’ll talk to him some other time,” Isabel said to Rosalind.

“Yes, perhaps,” said Rosalind. “I almost had a conversation with the prime minister once. He was paying a visit to the Portrait Gallery and I said something to him about one of the pictures, but he was distracted by somebody else and so I’m not sure he heard me.”

Isabel smiled. “There are probably many of us in Edinburgh who have almost conversed with prominent people, but not quite.” She paused, remembering something that had been said to her some time ago. “I was in Ireland, once, staying at a place called Gurthalougha House, near Shannon. And the woman who ran the hotel had an aunt, or so she told me, who had been walking in the Black Forest in the nineteen thirties when she met a small walking party coming along the path towards her.

And she recognised the man in front—it was Adolf Hitler. So apparently she said, ‘Good morning, Mr. Hitler,’ and he just nodded and continued on his way.”

Rosalind shook her head. “What a strange story. I’m not sure what we can take from that, but it certainly is rather strange.”

“Had her aunt been armed,” mused Isabel, “she could have changed the course of history, for the better.”

“By murdering Hitler?”

Isabel hesitated, but only briefly. “Yes. Although I’m not sure that I would use the word murder there. Murder is intrinsi-cally wrong, isn’t it? The word carries a lot of moral baggage.”

“So what should we call it? Execution? Assassination?”

“We could just call it killing, ” said Isabel. “That’s neutral. A T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S

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person defending himself from an attacker kills the aggressor, and that’s morally justifiable. We don’t say that he murders the person attacking him. Murder is one of those words with strong moral associations.”

Rosalind frowned. “So nobody could ever be said to have murdered a tyrant—is that what you’re saying? Even if somebody had ever succeeded in removing him?”