• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘But you could say: “He’s harmed his reputation”? You could say that, couldn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Angus. ‘You could say that, because I shall still have a reputation – I hope – for a short time after I go. But the Ice Man’s another matter altogether. As is Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte. You can say whatever you like about them because . . . because they’re no longer part of the human community.’ Angus looked pleased with the phrase. ‘Yes, that’s it – that’s the distinction. Those who have recently left us are still part of the human community – and have some rights, if you will – whereas those who left us a long time ago don’t have those rights.’

Something was bothering Matthew. ‘What about these post-humous pardons? What about the men who were shot for cowardice in the First World War? Aren’t they being pardoned now? What do you think of that, Angus? With your argument, surely they would be too long-dead to have any claim to this?’

Angus took a sip of his beer. ‘I’m not sure about that,’ he said. ‘They still have relatives – descendants perhaps, who want to clear their names. They feel strongly enough and they’re still very much with us. So the duty is to the living rather than to people who no longer exist.’

‘But what if their descendants knew nothing about it?’ asked Matthew. ‘What if there weren’t any families asking for pardons? Would we have any duty to them then? A simple, human duty to recognise that they were people . . . people just like us?’

Angus was beginning to look uncomfortable. He had argued himself into a position in which he appeared to be careless of the human bonds which united us one to another, quick and dead. Matthew, he thought, was right. Feeling concerned for the Ice Man was a simple recognition of human hopes, whenever they had been entertained. Ancient feelings were feelings nonetheless; old injustices, like the shooting of those poor, shell-shocked men, had their resonances, even today. And the government, he thought, was probably quite right to pardon the lot of them, on the grounds that you couldn’t distinguish between cases at this distance.

‘You’re right,’ Angus said. ‘You win.’

‘Oh,’ said Matthew. ‘I didn’t think you’d agree.’

‘Well, I do,’ said Angus. ‘But let’s get back to la McDowall. Where were we?’

‘You were walking down South College Street. She was telling you about McDowalls in general.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Angus. ‘Well, she suddenly turned to me, la McDowall did, and said: “We go back a very long way, you know, my family.” Of course I refrained from pointing out to her that we all went back as far as each other, and so she continued. “Yes,” she said. “I can trace things back quite a way, you know. I happen to be descended from Duegald de Galloway, younger grandson of Prince Fergus de Galloway, and his forebears can be traced back to Rolf the Dane, who died back in 927.”

‘That was pretty rich, but I let her go on. It’s best not to interrupt these people once they get going – they can easily blow a valve. So she said: “Oh yes. And if we go back from Rolf we eventually get back to Dowal himself, who lived in Galloway in 232 BC.”

‘I ask you, Matthew! What nonsense. And here was this otherwise perfectly rational woman, who went each day into an office somewhere in Edinburgh and made administrative decisions or whatever, claiming that she went back to 232 BC!’ He shook his head. ‘Personally, I blame the Lord Lyon, you know. He has the authority to stamp that sort of thing out, but what does he do? Nothing. He should tell these McDowalls that their claims are outrageous and that they shouldn’t mislead people with all this nonsense.’

‘But I’ve heard he’s a very nice man,’ said Matthew. ‘Perhaps he just feels that people like that are harmless. And if he started to engage with the McDowalls, he’d have all those Campbells and MacDonalds and people like that on to him. Scotland’s full of this stuff. It’s what keeps half the population going.’

The earlier consensus between them disappeared,