notice that McInnes smiled. “And he knows that you are still alive. I propose to buy that painting from him, and I know very well that you are still with us. So the money from that transaction is quite untainted. Nobody has been deceived. And the same applies for the collector who bought the other painting.
The gallery is going to get in touch with him and tell him what we’ve found out. But at least you’ll get money for the one that was sold at auction.”
“Some of it yours?” asked McInnes.
“In a sense,” said Isabel. “The fact that I am going to buy the picture from Walter means that indirectly my money comes to you. But I get a McInnes, which I know was painted by you. So I’m happy too.”
McInnes nodded. “All right.”
“But there is one other little thing,” said Isabel. “In fact, it’s quite a major thing. That little boy. Magnus. He’s your son, you know.”
“He’s not.”
“He calls you Dad,” said Isabel. “That’s what he calls you.
And I think he’s proud of you.”
McInnes stood quite still. Then, quite suddenly, he raised a hand to his face and covered his eyes. Isabel heard his sobs and stood up. She placed an arm around his shoulders. He was wearing an Arran sweater, and the wool was rough to the touch.
“You have to see him,” she said. “He is your son, you know.
He looks just like you.”
He took his hand away from his eyes and shook his head.
“No. He’s not.”
“I think he is,” said Isabel. “Because he looks like you. He really does.”
She watched the effect of her words on him. It was not easy, 2 4 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h but now she knew why it was that she had come, and why it was that she needed to finish what she had to say.
“You have two things to do, Andrew,” she whispered to him.
“Two things. The first of these is that you have to go and forgive your wife. After eight years, you have to do that. You have to tell her that you have forgiven what she did to you. You have that duty because we all of us have it. It comes in different forms, but it is always the same duty. We have to forgive.
“And then the second thing you have to do is to go and see your son. That is a duty of love, Andrew. It’s as simple as that. A duty of love. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
She had a few minutes to wait before he answered her. During that time she stood where she was, her arm about his shoulder. Outside, through the window, she could make out the shape of a cloud moving in the sky beyond the summit of the hills. Low stratus.
She looked at him, and then, almost imperceptibly, she saw him move his head in a nod of agreement.
T H AT WA S T U E S DAY . On Wednesday nothing of importance happened, although Grace found a ten-pound note in the street and this led to a long and unresolved discussion of the level at which one is morally obliged to hand lost money over to the police. Isabel suggested thirty pounds, while Grace thought that eleven was about right. On Thursday she received a letter which made her think—and act too—and a telephone call from Guy Peploe. Then on Friday, which had always been her favourite evening of the week, Jamie obtained a further two pieces of halibut, slightly larger this time, which they ate together at the kitchen table, under guttering candles.
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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Thursday’s letter, innocent in its beginnings, contained a bombshell halfway through. It came from a person whom Isabel had sounded out about joining the new editorial board. He was an old friend from Cambridge days, and he now occupied a chair of philosophy at a university in Toronto. She had told him the story of Dove’s foiled machinations—she knew that he had a low opinion of Dove, whom he had once described as a char-latan. “I saw the Dove himself about five months ago,” he wrote in reply. “We were together at a conference in Stockholm. The Swedes were wonderful hosts, as usual, and the city was so beautiful in its late-winter clothing; white, the harbour still frozen over, everything sparkling. I had the misfortune of sitting next to the Dove at one of the dinners and he went on about himself the whole evening. He has a big book coming out, he said. A huge book, he implied. And then he went on about the fact that he was about to be divorced. There was some sort of hearing coming up and he gave me all the details of his wife’s iniquities. But who can blame her, Isabel? Being married to the Dove would be a pretty stiff sentence for anybody.”
Isabel had put the letter aside and stood for several minutes in front of her study window, uncertain what to do. Of course there was only one proper course of action, and she took it, although she had been tempted to do nothing.
“Cat,” she said. “I was misinformed. I owe you an apology.”
“Misinformed about what?” said Cat.
“Christopher Dove,” said Isabel quickly. “He’s not married.
He’s divorced. I jumped to conclusions.”
There was a silence at the other end of the line. But only a short one. Then “Makes no difference,” Cat said. “I’m seeing somebody else, actually.”
Now it was Isabel’s turn to be silent.
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