The Charming Quirks of Others

She stopped herself. Such thoughts, she told herself, were crude fantasies of revenge. Dove had plotted against her and would have succeeded in hounding her out of her job had she not had the resources to buy the Review from under his nose, and then get rid not only of him but also of Lettuce, who had been his co-conspirator. Dove had planned her removal, but that did not mean that she should stoop to his level and seek revenge by writing a critical review of his book. That would be quite wrong.

She looked up at the ceiling. One of the drawbacks to being a philosopher was that you became aware of what you should not do, and this took from you so many opportunities to savour the human pleasure of revenge or greed or sheer fantasising. Well might St. Augustine have said Make me chaste, but not just yet; that was how Isabel felt. And yet she could not; she could not let herself experience the pleasure of getting her own back on Dove because it was, quite simply, always wrong to get one’s own back on another. It was her duty to forgive Dove and, if one were to be really serious about it, to go further than that and to love him. Hate the acts of Doves, not Doves themselves, she muttered; they said that about sin, did they not? Hate the sin, not the sinner.

She put aside Lettuce’s letter and picked up Dove’s book. She read the title, Freedom and Choice: The Limits of Responsibility in a Role-Fixated World. She wrinkled her nose. Was the world really role- fixated? Freedom of choice, though, was a subject in which she was interested, and indeed she had written on the subject when she was still a graduate research fellow. Turning to the end of the book, she found an annotated bibliography. She could see that Dove had been assiduous in his marshalling of the literature, and there, yes, there were her two papers on this subject. And after the first of these—a paper that had been published in the Journal of Philosophy, and which had been fairly widely cited—was Dove’s annotation. He had used only one word: Unreliable.

JAMIE RETURNED at twelve. Charlie had fallen asleep in his pushchair—a tiny bundle of humanity in Macpherson tartan rompers and green shoes. The rompers were damp across the chest with orange juice and childish splutterings; the shoes had a thin crust of mud on them. She smiled; an active morning with his father. She kissed them both: Charlie lightly on his brow so as not to awaken him; Jamie on the mouth, and he held her, prolonging their embrace.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

She looked surprised. “Missed me this morning?”

“Yes. I wish that you had been with us. We saw the ducks. In fact, we had a really intense time with the ducks. We watched them for half an hour.”

She smiled. “They’re obviously fascinating when you’re …” She pointed down at Charlie. “When you’re that size. Think of what they must look to him. Massive.”

Jamie followed her gaze. “He’s out for the count. Should we leave him?”

“Yes, let him sleep.” She drew Jamie aside. “I wanted to ask you something.”

She took him into her study and showed him Dove’s book. Jamie took it from her and looked at the title on the cover.

“Christopher Dove,” he said. “Your friend.”

“It was sent to me this morning by Professor Lettuce. Can you believe that?”

Jamie shrugged. “I’ve never been able to tell them apart. Lettuce is the large, pompous one, isn’t he? And Dove’s the tall one with the creepy manner?”

“You describe them very well,” said Isabel. “Yes, that’s them.”

“Oh well,” said Jamie. “So Dove’s written this book. You don’t want me to read it, do you?”

Isabel explained about Lettuce’s letter and his completely unwarranted assumptions. “He shows the most amazing brass neck,” she said. “And I really don’t know what to do. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”

Jamie lowered himself into one of the easy chairs in Isabel’s study. “Say no. Send the book back and tell them that you decide which books are to be reviewed. Be polite, but firm.”

She knew that was perfectly sound advice. Lettuce should not be left in any doubt as to the position; a fudge of any sort would simply mean that he would proceed to write the review regardless and it would then be difficult for her to turn it down. And yet, and yet … She looked at Jamie. She could not imagine his being involved in a fight of any sort—he was just too gentle for that. And too nice. He was also truthful: he said what he was thinking and rarely agonised—as she did—before coming up with a view.

“You’re probably right,” she said. “But I’m afraid that I’m worried about something.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “You’re not scared of Lettuce, are you?”

“Of course not. No. But I’m worried about my reasons for turning him down. What will he conclude? Don’t you imagine that he’ll think me petty and vindictive? And others might think that too. If Dove goes around saying that I ignored his book for reasons of personal spite. And he could say that, you know.”

“Yes, he could. But do you really have to worry about what Dove says? People won’t necessarily believe him.”

She thought about this. She wanted it to be true, but she did not think it was. People were only too ready to believe things that were manifestly untrue. When it came to remarks that portrayed others in a bad light, people were happy to believe things that showed others to be weak or flawed in some way: we believed that of them because it made us feel better; it was as simple as that.

“You see,” said Isabel, “Dove describes one of my papers as unreliable. He says so in the bibliography to this new book of his.”

Jamie looked surprised. “Unreliable? Dove said that?”

Isabel nodded. Her dislike of Dove was growing; the slowburning qualities of anger meant that she was only now beginning to feel the impact of that one dismissive word: unreliable. How dare he? And what did he mean by it?

She closed her eyes. Anger disfigured. She told herself that, took a deep breath, and then told herself it once more. We are disfigured by anger and must avoid it. We must, no matter how much we seethe.

“I think I should let him write it,” she said.