Espresso Tales - Alexander Hanchett Smith [51]
Matthew, in silence, stared up at the ceiling, thinking of uncles. He might so easily have been drowned by one of his uncles when he was eight, he thought. But which of his two uncles would have been most likely to drown him? His Uncle Willy in Dunblane, the one who farmed and who used to take him up the hillside on his all-terrain tractor to look at the sheep? Or 104 The Two Wicked Uncles: Possible Solutions his Uncle Malcolm in the West, who ran a marina and was a keen sailor? Uncle Willy might have drowned him in sheep dip, up at the high fank, and nobody would have been there to see it. It would have been a lonely death, under those wide Perthshire skies, and he would have closed his eyes to the sight of the heather and the mottled grey of the stones that made the fank. But Uncle Willy was an elder of the Kirk and would never have drowned anybody, let alone his nephew. No. It would not have been Uncle Willy.
Would Uncle Malcolm have pushed him overboard from his yacht, he wondered? Hardly. And yet, now that he came to think of it, Uncle Malcolm had a temper and might, just might, have drowned him in a rage. Matthew remembered crewing for him off Colonsay when he was much younger and clearing away the breakfast things from the galley. He had tossed the dregs from a couple of tea cups into the sea and had done the same with the contents of a mug beside the sink. Unfortunately, that had contained his uncle’s false teeth in their sterilising solution, and the teeth had been lost at sea. His uncle had shouted at him then – strange, gummy shouts which had frightened him. Yes, Uncle Malcolm was the suspect in his case.
Suddenly, Angus Lordie clapped his hands together, causing Cyril to start and leap to his feet. “Uncle A,” he said. “Uncle B
is off the hook. He did nothing, yes? And even if he hadn’t been there the boy would have drowned. So he didn’t cause the drowning. Whereas Uncle A caused it to happen.”
Big Lou listened intently. “Oh,” she said. “So it’s all down to causing things? Is that it?”
“Absolutely, most cogitative Lou,” said Angus. “That’s your answer for you.”
“Maybe if Uncle B were to . . .” Matthew began, but was interrupted by Big Lou.
“So it’s cause then,” she said. “But the problem is this. I could say to you, surely, that Uncle B’s omission to act was a cause of the drowning just as much as Uncle A’s positive act was. Ken what I mean?”
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Angus Lordie looked momentarily confused. Serves him right, thought Matthew. It was a bad mistake to condescend to Big Lou, as Angus was about to find out.
Big Lou reached for her cloth and gave the counter a wipe.
“You see, there’s no reason why we should not see omissions to act as being as causally potent as positive actions. It’s simply wrong to think that failures to act can’t cause things – they do. It’s just that our ordinary idea of how things are caused is too tied to ideas of physical causation, of pushing and shoving. But it’s more subtle than that.”
“So there’s no difference between Uncle A and Uncle B then?”
asked Matthew.
“Not really,” said Big Lou. “The book I’m reading says that ordinary people – the man in the street – would always say that Uncle A was worse, while the philosopher would say that there was no real difference.” She finished her sentence, and then looked at Angus Lordie.
Angus Lordie picked up his coffee cup and drained the last few drops. “Well, Lou,” he said. “That’s pretty impressive. I’ll have to think about what you said. You could be right.”
“I am right,” said Big Lou.
“Could be,” said Angus, looking for support from Matthew, but getting none. He looked at Cyril, who returned his gaze directly, but gave no further sign.
Matthew now spoke. “There could be a difference, though. There could be a difference between things we do on the spur of the moment and things we do after a bit of thought.”
Big Lou looked at him with interest. “Maybe,” she said.
“So in this case,” Matthew went on, “Uncle A had a bit of time – maybe only a minute