The Lost Art of Gratitude_ An Isabel Dalhousie Novel - Alexander McCall Smith [88]
She wrote to Steven and assured him that she would. Then, musing on a life that included such calls to Mull and Paris, she turned her attention to Review correspondence. This was largely mundane, although she had to write to one author to inform him of a negative assessment of an article submitted for publication. “I’m sure that you will understand,” she wrote, knowing that authors often did not understand. Months, possibly years, might have gone into the turned-down article, and more than a few hopes might be dashed by rejection. For an untenured professor somewhere in the reaches of a university system looking for savings on salaries, the rejection might precipitate the end of a career. That worried her, but she saw no way round it. The world could be a hard place—as hard, even if in a different way, for philosophers as for salesmen or miners or anybody who lived on the edge of unemployment and financial ruin.
By eleven o’clock her correspondence was finished. She printed out and read through the last letter, to the Review’s printers; she noticed that in the final sentence of the last paragraph she had used unspaced commas—,thus, —and on impulse she left them. She would do that too, from time to time, as an act of homage, and because little rituals like that gave life its texture. Big Brother, masked as the intrusive state or the political censor of thought and language, might force us to do this and that, but we could still assert ourselves in little things—private jokes, commas without spaces, small acts of symbolic subversion.
She rose from her desk. She had decided what to do next, and she would do it without prevarication. She would pay a call on George Finesk, Minty’s wronged investor, and then she would go to see Minty, seek her out in the lair of the leopardess.
IT WAS NOT DIFFICULT to find where George Finesk lived. There were two Finesks in the telephone book—one in Tranent, a former mining town in East Lothian, and an unlikely place for a wealthy investor to live; another was in Ann Street, a highly sought-after Georgian street that was known for its elegant, if somewhat cramped, terraced houses. That was the number she dialled, and it was answered by a rather warm, welcoming voice.
She gave her name, and the warmth immediately disappeared; it was as if a window at the other end of the line had been opened to admit a chill blast.
“You said that you were Isabel Dalhousie?”
“Yes.”
There was silence at the other end. “And you wanted to speak to me? May I ask why?”
Isabel had been taken aback by the change in tone and took a moment to recover. “It’s about Minty Auchterlonie.”
A further silence ensued. Then, “I thought it might be.”
This puzzled Isabel. Why would George Finesk associate her with Minty? It would be unlikely that Peter Stevenson had said anything—he would never mention anything confidential.
Isabel resumed the conversation. “I think it might be best for us to discuss this matter in person, rather than on the phone. Easier.”
George Finesk agreed, even if he sounded reluctant. Yes, she could come down immediately, if she wished. He would have to leave the house in about an hour, so he could not give her very much time. With that, he rang off, after the most cursory of goodbyes. He had not put the phone down on her, she thought—he was obviously too polite for that—but it felt to her as if he had.
Isabel went into the kitchen. Although it was a Saturday,