The Lost Art of Gratitude_ An Isabel Dalhousie Novel - Alexander McCall Smith [67]
Could we remember, though, only those things we wanted to? Could there be acts of forgetting, just as there could be acts of remembrance? Human memory was frequently difficult and unruly, but it was not beyond telling. And it was possible, she thought, to say to another who wanted one to forget something, an embarrassing or shameful incident perhaps, Yes, I have forgotten it. That was a lesson that one of her school friends could take to heart; whenever Isabel saw her now she delighted in remembering how as twelve-year-olds they had teased a vulnerable teacher, imitating her voice when she turned to write something on the blackboard, unaware of her lack of sureness of herself, her crippling inadequacy in the face of taunting schoolgirls. Don’t remind me of that, Isabel wanted to say, but did not because it sounded like an abrogation of responsibility for what she, like the other girls, had been. And yet that twelve-year-old was a different person in the moral sense; she, the mature Isabel Dalhousie, would never do what that near-teenage girl had done. It was not her; it simply was not her any more.
She crossed the road at Church Hill and made her way along the road to the gateway of West Grange House. Peter was in the garden, bending over to examine something in a flower bed, and was alerted to the arrival of Isabel by the barking of his dog.
“I know it’s an odd time to come and see you,” said Isabel. “But there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Peter smiled. “And it couldn’t wait?” he said. “Your impatience has always been one of your most charming qualities.” He gestured to a bench to the side of the front door. “We can sit there. It’s still warm enough to be outside. And light enough. The one consolation of our poor Scottish summers is the light, don’t you think?”
Isabel agreed. Then there was a silence, during which Peter looked at her expectantly. Eventually he said, “Minty Auchterlonie?”
She nodded.
“I thought it might be,” said Peter. “Did Jamie tell you that I met him at Hughes’?”
“Yes. And you said that you thought that she was in trouble.”
Peter nodded. “I did. And she is.”
She waited for him to expand on this, but when he spoke again it was to question her. “Are you … Well, I was about to say interfering again, but I realise that’s not exactly tactful. And I realise, too, that you can’t help yourself.”
From someone else she might have resented this remark, but not from an old friend. “I don’t know if it’s interfering to respond to a clear request from somebody,” she said. “She sought me out. She asked me.”
Peter conceded. “All right. I take it back. No interference.”
“And I can help myself,” Isabel added.
Peter was gracious. “Of course you can. Anyway, Minty: Do you want me to tell you what I know?”
She wondered if he was teasing her. “Will you?”
Peter looked at her as if weighing her up. “Well, I’m not sure if I can say much.”
Isabel reassured him. “I won’t repeat what you tell me. I’m quite discreet, you know.”
“Oh, I know that,” said Peter. “But I’m afraid I can’t give you all that much to be discreet about. I have my suspicions, though.”
“About her honesty.”
Peter thought for a moment. “Yes, you could say that. The definition of business honesty is a tricky thing, but it certainly covers what you don’t say just as much as what you do say.”
Isabel knew what he meant. There were many situations where failing to say something one should say could seriously harm somebody else; the difficulty, though, was judging just when there was a duty to say something in the first place.
“My understanding,” Peter continued, “is that Minty Auchterlonie has been accused of withholding information from an investor in her bank, a man called George Finesk. He’s furious as a result and is muttering about suing her. Nothing’s happened yet. But people have heard about it and that can’t be doing her much good.”
“And