The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [49]
‘Well, at the feast I ended up sitting next to none other than Professor Sykes, the genetics man, and he told me the most extraordinary story. I know it has nothing to do with anything, Matthew, but I must tell you. You may remember that he was the person who did the DNA tests on the Ice Man, that poor fellow they dug out of a glacier in France. He’d kicked the bucket five thousand years ago, but was in pretty good condition and so they were able to conduct a postmortem and look at the DNA while they were about it. Anyway, Sykes decided to ask for a random volunteer down in England somewhere and see if this person was connected in any way to the Ice Man. Some woman stepped up to the block and he nicked off a bit of her nose, or whatever it is that these people do, and – lo and behold! – she shares a bit of DNA with the old Ice Man. Which just goes to prove what Sykes had been saying for years – that we’re all pretty closely related, even if some of us shrugged off this mortal coil five millennia ago.
‘But then, Matthew, it gets even more peculiar. When this woman from Dorset or wherever it was got wind of the fact that she was related to the Ice Man, do you know what she started to do? She began to behave like a relative, and started to ask for a decent burial for the Ice Man!
‘Which just goes to show, Matthew, that when expectations are created, people rise to the occasion. They always do. Always.’ Angus paused. ‘What do you think of that, Matthew?’
‘I think she did the right thing,’ said Matthew.
33. Old Injustices have their Resonances
Angus Lordie stared at Matthew incredulously. ‘Did I understand you correctly?’ he asked. ‘Did you say that this woman did the right thing? That she should have asked for a decent burial for the Ice Man?’
Matthew thought for a moment. He had answered the question impulsively, and he wondered if he was right. But now, on reflection, even if brief, he decided that he was.
‘Yes,’ he said evenly. ‘I think that this was probably the right thing. Look, Angus, would you like to be put on display in a museum or wherever, even if you were not around to object? If you went tomorrow, what would you think if I put you on display in, say, a glass case in Big Lou’s café? You’d not want that, I assume. And nor, I imagine, would the Ice Man have wanted to be displayed. He might have had beliefs about spirits not getting released until burial, or something of that sort. We just don’t know what his beliefs were. But we can imagine that he probably would not like to be stared at.’
Angus frowned. ‘No, maybe not. But then, even if we presume that he wouldn’t want that, do we really have to respect the wishes of people who lived that long ago – five thousand years? Do we owe them anything at all? And, come to think of it, can you actually harm the dead? Can you do them a wrong?’
Matthew thought that you could. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why not? Let’s say I name you executor in my will. I ask you to do something or other, and you don’t do it. Don’t you think that people would say that you’ve done me a wrong, even though I’m not around to protest?’
Matthew was warming to the theme. The argument, he thought, was a strong one. Yes, it was wrong to ignore the wishes of the dead. ‘And what about this?’ he continued. ‘What if you snuffed it tomorrow, Angus, and I told people things about you that damaged your reputation – that you were a plagiarist, for instance? That your paintings were copies of somebody else’s. Wouldn’t you say that I had harmed you? Wouldn’t people be entitled to say: “He’s done Angus Lordie a great wrong”?’
Angus looked doubtful. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no more Lordie. I’ll be beyond harm. Nothing can harm