The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (17 page)

“I did.”

“I just wanted to be sure.”

“Well, I did.”

She went off to the kitchen, to return a few moments later with a small bowl of olives in oil. “Enjoy,” she said.

Out of earshot, Isabel said to Max: “I wonder if that’s mandatory. It sounded like it, don’t you think?”

Max was too immersed in his confession to appreciate the remark. “Yes, maybe,” he said vaguely. “So I took the job and then he was very good to me. If an invitation came to go to a conference that he couldn’t attend, he would often put my name forward as a substitute. Normally I would never have got that sort of thing, but I did. I went to Oslo. I went to a conference of the American Philosophical Association in St. Louis. I went to a UNESCO philosophical meeting in Paris. Everything was going really well.

“Then he said that I should publish something. I started to work on an article, a version of a paper I had given at a conference, but he said that it wasn’t right. I tried something else, and he said the same thing. I thought that he was becoming a bit concerned, and I was right. He took me out for a drink and told me that I really had to get something into print or I might find it difficult to get the next job—the post I have in his department is for three years, you see.”

Isabel was familiar with the situation Max was describing. The life of the untenured academic was less secure, she knew, than the life of the junior plumber—different, maybe, and more privileged, but without the same prospects of a career. It was all very well becoming a philosopher—that was perhaps the easiest part; it was remaining a philosopher that was the challenge. Not that philosophers, or academics of any discipline, should complain too much; there were people whose career path was even steeper and more slippery. Isabel had known professional singers who had for years clung by their fingernails to the lowest rungs of the singing world, stuck in the choruses of obscure opera companies, understudying roles for principals who were distressingly healthy, who never developed last-minute laryngitis or suffered allergic reactions between Act Two and Act Three.

“It’s not easy,” said Isabel.

So Lettuce—the elder one—was a cheat, a practitioner of academic fraud, no less. He should bear most of the blame for this, she thought, rather than his nephew. It was a classic case, the sort of thing one read about all the time in newspaper court reports. Fagin and the Artful Dodger: a young man corrupted by an older one. It was an ancient story, and a tawdry one.

“Then he gave me an article he had drafted. He said that I should add a few footnotes, but that in essence the piece should be published as it was. I didn’t know what to say. I should have given it right back to him. I should have said that I assumed that he was joking. I should have shown some moral courage. I did none of these things. I took it off and read it and did what he told me to do.”

He paused. He was staring down at the table, his mozzarella salad untouched. For a moment Isabel thought that he was about to burst into tears, but he did not. He looked up at her, his face full of misery and self-reproach.

“Why did I do it?” he asked. “It wasn’t for the job—I really don’t mind too much about that. It was because I knew that if I rubbed my uncle up the wrong way, it could mean a falling-out between him and my father. I know what my uncle’s like. He can be vindictive and I didn’t want to do anything that could threaten the status quo. I have to remain on good terms with him for my parents’ sake. Uncle Robert has got this mixed-up thing about me—he sometimes calls me the son he never had, but he can be very ambitious for me, overweening, bullying even.”

Isabel regarded Max with sympathy, wanting him to know that she understood.

“So there you have it,” said Max. “My confession. I’m sorry that I did it. And now, I suppose, you’ll have to take it up with him.” He suddenly sounded like a boy caught out. “Everything’s ruined.”

“In what way?”

“He’ll be furious with me for telling you. But I had to speak about it. How could I continue in the knowledge that you were being deceived?”

He seemed to expect an answer. She looked at him, thinking: I had written this man off. Now he reveals himself as flawed, weak and repentant, as we are, all of us: flawed and weak, if not repentant.

“Max, what you’ve just done is very brave. It isn’t easy to confess to something like that. You’ve done it and I admire you for it.”

He seemed astonished. “You admire me?”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “All of us do things we regret—that’s part of being human. And sometimes, I think, moral quality reveals itself not so much in what we do, but in what we later say about what we have done. Do you see what I mean?”

“Maybe. But—”

Isabel stopped him. “But nothing. Of course you were in awe of Lettuce … I mean, your uncle. He was supporting your indigent parents; he was indirectly supporting you. Money is so powerful, isn’t it? Those who have it can control the lives of those who don’t. And they do just that—with arrogance and selfishness in some cases.” She paused. “I’m sorry, but what you’ve told me about your uncle doesn’t endear me to him. In fact, I must say that my previous dealings with him haven’t done that either.”

He appeared suddenly crestfallen, and Isabel doubted whether she should continue. Did he still
like
Lettuce after what he had done to him? He must have admired his uncle; did that feeling persist?

She decided not to say more. “But that’s irrelevant now. What we need to think about is what he’s involved you in here. We can’t leave things as they are, can we?”

He shook his head. “No. So can I just withdraw the article?”

She thought about this. There was a way out and it was just beginning to show itself. But there was something that did not seem to make sense and she needed to ask a question first.

“May I ask you something?” she said. “Why did your uncle suggest that you come to see me? Was it just because you happened to be in Edinburgh?”

He took a moment to answer. “He didn’t suggest that I come to Edinburgh. I was here anyway to see somebody—a friend who’s taken a job here. He said that I should seize the opportunity to meet you since you were going to publish my article. And …”

“Yes?”

“And he said that he wanted to get me on to the board of the
Review
. He said that he had an idea of how he could.”

Isabel sat bolt upright. “Did he now?”

“Yes,” said Max.

“And how did he propose to do that? You do know, don’t you, that I own the
Review
? I’m not just the editor—I’m the publisher.”

Max nodded miserably.

“Well?” Isabel pressed.

“I’ve started telling you the truth,” said Max. “I have to carry on.”

“Yes please,” said Isabel. “I’m listening.”

“It’s not easy to say this.”

“Evidently not.”

He sighed and looked away. “He hinted—just hinted.”

“Yes?”

“He wanted me to seduce you.”

J
AMIE LISTENED
with growing anger. Isabel had not seen him angry before, and she reflected on how strange it was that even at this stage in their relationship she had never observed the effect on him of that most common of human emotions.

“He said
what
?” he exclaimed.

She repeated Max’s disclosure.

Jamie’s face reddened. “I’m going to sort him out.”

Isabel frowned. “Sort who out?”

“Lettuce,” Jamie snapped back.

“Which one?”

“The older one. That creep down in London.”

She felt touched that Jamie had reacted in such a protective, if clichéd masculine way. Was that what men should feel in circumstances where somebody makes an approach to their partner? And what did
sort out
mean? It sounded physical, but surely Jamie was not planning to assault Lettuce; he was far too gentle for that. She had never really thought about it, but had she been asked whether he was capable of physical violence, she would have answered that he was not.

Indeed, there had been the occasion when they had witnessed a military parade outside St. Giles’ Cathedral—one of those occasions when the Scottish establishment dressed up and carried flags from point A to point B with immense solemnity; the Earl of This and the Duke of That and the Hereditary Keeper of the This Thing and That Thing, all bedecked in tartan, with feathers in their bonnets, were rendering homage to an ancient Scotland that still haunted the present. On the edge of this ceremony had been a platoon of kilted soldiers, simple working-class boys from worlds so far from those of the grandees. These boys had real rifles with bayonets attached, and the bayonets had glinted in the slanting Scottish sun.

Isabel had whispered to Jamie, “Could you ever have done that? Could you ever have put on a kilt and carried a rifle with a bayonet?”

And he had glanced at the soldiers and she had seen something like sympathy, and sorrow, in his expression, and he had said, “Never. Never.”

He had been about to add something, but the bagpipes had begun to play and their wailing sound had drowned all speech, as it was meant to do.

No, Jamie was too gentle to sort anybody out, and even now, immediately after issuing the threat, he had calmed down and begun to look sheepish.

“You don’t mean it, do you?” she asked.

“What? Sorting Lettuce out?”

“Yes.”

He started to smile. “I’m not sure if I’d know how to.”

She leaned over and kissed him. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. And just as well—I couldn’t live with somebody who sorted other men out. It just wouldn’t seem right.”

“It’s still an awful thing for him to have said,” Jamie muttered. “It’s a sort of violation. By proxy.”

Isabel shrugged. “Lettuce. He’s dreadful. He always has been.”

“And that nephew of his?”

Isabel thought very carefully. She had already done Max an injustice by condemning him before meeting him; she was keen not to do the same thing again.

“He’s a bit weak, I suppose. He certainly let himself be led astray by Lettuce. But beyond that, we have to remember that he came clean. That takes courage. And now he’s all for accepting responsibility for the whole situation.”

Earlier on she had explained to Jamie about the article. It was fraud, he suggested, and she had agreed. Go to the police, he had said, but she had considered that something of an overreaction.

“The police would hardly take it seriously. They’ve got murders and muggings to look into. I’m sure they don’t have the time for a couple of philosophers getting hot under the collar about who wrote what. And anyway,” Isabel continued, “I’ve decided what to do. I’ll write to Lettuce to say that I’ve declined the article on the grounds that I don’t think it’s the work of his nephew. I’ll say to him that I think it reads like the work of a more experienced writer.”

“He’ll kick up a fuss.”

“Of course he will, but I’ll stand by my guns. I won’t tell him that I think it’s him, but I’ll say that if he wishes, I can hand it over to one of those stylistic analysts. They’re people who use computer programs to identify the frequency of the use of certain words and constructions. They can detect a writer’s fingerprint, so to speak. I’ll suggest that we run the article against something by him—by Lettuce—and see how it looks, just to show him how it works. Of course that’ll alarm him and he’ll drop the matter because the computer program would probably come up with the conclusion that he wrote it.”

Jamie smiled at her ingenuity. “But why not just confront him?”

“Because it will harm Max and in my view he’s relatively—not entirely—innocent in all this. He agreed to go through with it only to save his parents from Lettuce’s wrath.”

She paused; an idea occurred to her. She would encourage Max to write something that was authentically his. She would publish it if it was up to scratch, which it probably would be: Max struck her as an intelligent young man, even if he was a Lettuce. He would go away a friend rather than an enemy, and not only was it therefore the right thing to do in itself, it would also negate the elder Lettuce’s scheming.

She explained her plan to Jamie: “I’m going to ask Max to write something without any involvement from his uncle. It’ll help him to get free of his influence.”

Jamie looked disgruntled. “So Lettuce gets away with it? He gets away with that crude plan to—”

“To seduce me? That’s just laughable. It shows how much Lettuce knows about women. He assumed that any woman could be persuaded to fall for any good-looking young man who turns up. What an insult!”

Jamie smiled. “Can’t they?”

She gave him a scathing look—but with irony, of course. “Can any man be persuaded to fall for an attractive woman who makes a pass at him?”

Jamie took some time to answer. “Sixty per cent of men could,” he said. “No, seventy.”

She chided him. “Where do you get those figures?”

“Intuition,” he said. “I know what men are like. First-hand experience. I am one.”

“But you’re not part of that sixty or seventy per cent?”

“No. I promise you I’m not. Just you. You’re the only one who could seduce me.”

She laughed. “But I’ve already done that,” she said.

“So you have,” he said. “Utterly. Completely. Totally.” Then he became serious. “You do remember that we’re going to get married, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“When?”

She replied with a question of her own. “When would suit you?”

“Two weeks’ time?”

“Why not.”

He took her in his arms. “Good. I’ll make arrangements.”

THAT NIGHT
Isabel had a visit from Jane Cooper. She came unannounced, shortly after half past nine, finding Isabel alone in the garden. The midsummer evening, only a couple of days away from the solstice, was still lit by a sun not yet set; there would be a good hour of light left before the gloaming proper, that hazy, fuzzy time of soft edges and gentle, washed-out colours. And it remained warm; Isabel wore a blouse with no cardigan or sweater, the friendly air about her at a perfect temperature.

She saw Jane before Jane saw her. The other woman was walking down the street, on the other side, and had slowed down when she drew level with Isabel’s house. She hesitated for a moment before crossing the road, peering up—presumably to see if lights were on—and then started to make her way up the garden path.

Isabel, who had been examining a camellia bush, a mug of tea in her hand, called out: “You needn’t press the bell. I’m here.”

Jane spun round, almost guiltily, and made her way across the lawn to where Isabel stood.

“I was passing by,” she said. And then, “Well, actually, I wanted to see you, but I felt—I don’t know—I felt that I didn’t want to pester you. So I thought if I took a walk and just happened to bump into you …”

Isabel sought to put her at her ease. “You can come and see me any time,” she said. “I’m not one of those formal people who expect every visitor to phone in advance.” She gestured to a bench at the side of the house, near a clump of lavender. “Why don’t we sit there? I’m just finishing this tea—I could get you a glass of wine. An excuse to have one myself.”

Jane accepted, and Isabel went off back into the house to fetch the glasses. She came back out and handed her visitor a glass of chilled white New Zealand wine. They exchanged toasts.

Isabel went straight to the point. “You’ve met him?”

She knew immediately from Jane’s expression that the meeting had been a success. “Yes. Earlier today. We met for lunch in that restaurant you recommended to me. The Café St.… I forget its name.”

“St. Honoré,” Isabel prompted.

“Yes,” said Jane. “There.”

Isabel sipped her wine and then held the glass up to gaze through it at the sky. The pale, attenuated blue became green through the yellow of the liquid; the colour of our world, she thought, is mediated by our lens.

“And it was a success?”

She imagined Jane entering the restaurant and looking about her—for the father she had never met. What would one say in such circumstances, without appearing melodramatic.
Father?
Too restrained; too reminiscent of the dialogue of an old-fashioned repertory play. Noël Coward. Or Oscar Wilde, with discussions of handbags and railway stations. Perhaps such a first contact today would be wordless, or maybe feelings would be closer to the surface and there would be unashamed sobbing and unrestrained emotional histrionics.

Jane smiled. “It couldn’t have gone better. It was very … moving, I suppose. He was so kind to me.”

Isabel, who had become tense, relaxed. This was an intervention on her part that had worked; it was a very satisfactory conclusion, which was not always the case with what she called her
involvements
. Jamie would be pleased; he was always concerned that she might make matters worse. Well, she had not done that in this case; far from it. She had facilitated happiness.

“We talked for hours,” Jane went on. “I went there at twelve—we were the first people in for lunch. In fact, I think I was there at ten to. He came along fifteen minutes later, and we stayed until three. They started brushing the crumbs off our table very attentively—the signal, of course. At dinner they can turn the lights off if they want to give people the message.”

Isabel smiled at the recollection of her own experience of the ways of restaurant staff understandably anxious to get away. She had once been in Paris, at a philosophical congress, and had had dinner with two loquacious Milanese philosophers. They had enjoyed their conversation so much that eventually a waiter had felt obliged to whip the tablecloth from under their elbows—a feat of dexterity requiring, no doubt, years of practice if it is to be done without causing seismic disturbance to the table arrangements. Nobody could fail to get that message, and the Italian philosophers had risen to their feet, unfazed, continuing their debate as they left the restaurant.

“You must have had a lot to talk about,” she said. “Your whole life. And his, too, I suppose.”

She wondered how one began such a conversation. The bare facts of a life can be compressed into a few pithy phrases summing up school, job, marriage, interests, but those would hardly do in such a case.

“He told me a lot about himself,” Jane said. “To begin with, I thought that he would be reserved. You know there’s a certain sort of man who … well, I suppose, strikes one as being buttoned up. Military people are often like that. He had that about him, and then suddenly, all in a bit of a rush, he opened up and started talking about his feelings. I hadn’t expected it, but I suppose I had no idea what to expect.”

Isabel knew what she meant. So many men were starved of the opportunity to discuss their emotional lives, put off by inhibition, by the expectations of others, or by male denial: so much so that some felt they had no such life, that there was simply nothing there: a desert of the heart. Auden had said that, she remembered:
in the deserts of the heart, let the healing fountain start …

“A healing fountain …”

Jane was listening attentively. “Exactly. That’s exactly what I felt. The pain started to come out, but even as it emerged you could see—really see—him feeling better. He started to smile. He started to talk about his future.”

Isabel was interested in that. “Did he say he was going to give up golf?”

Jane was puzzled and listened intently as Isabel explained. “I had the impression—from something his wife said—that he played golf but did not actually enjoy it. He was trapped, in a way.”

Jane became animated. “Yes! Yes! That’s exactly the word he used: trapped. He didn’t say that he was trapped by golf, but he did say that he had been trapped all his life by people who expected him to do things he didn’t really believe in.”

“And that’s pretty common,” said Isabel. “Have you ever known a priest who doesn’t believe in God?”

“John Knox knew a God who didn’t believe in priests,” Jane replied.

Isabel laughed. “Jokes about the Scottish Reformation are so rare,” she said. “And all the funnier for it. But, tell me: have you? I have. I had a university friend who became a priest because he came from a devout family and there was a lot of pressure on him to go off to a seminary. Subtle pressure—nothing crude—but it was there. He half believed to begin with, and then he persuaded himself a bit more, but eventually he lost what little faith he had. But by that time he was a fully fledged priest with a parish and people relying on him and so forth. And all the time, he was just going through the motions.”