Angus looked doubtful. “Not really,” he said. “There’ll be no more Lordie. I’ll be beyond harm. Nothing can harm me then.
That’s the great thing about being dead. You don’t mind the weather at all.”
“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 110 Old Injustices Have Their Resonances 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 posthumous 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 govern-ment, 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.”
Old Injustices Have Their Resonances 111
“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 AD.’
“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, immediately. “That sort of thing is very important,” said Angus. “I happen to believe that clan reunions, clan gatherings and so on
– these are important. They remind us who we are.”
“Oh well,” said Matthew. “I know who I am. But let’s not disagree. If you don’t mind, tell me what happened.”
112 Miss Harmony Has a Word in Bertie’s Ear 34. Miss Harmony Has a Word in Bertie’s Ear On the day that Olive was due to come to visit Scotland Street, Bertie went to school with a heavy heart. He had pleaded with his mother to cancel the invitation, but his imprecations had been rejected, as they always seemed to be.
“But Bertie, carissimo,” said Irene. “One cannot cancel an invitation! Pacta sunt servanda! You can’t uninvite people once you’ve invited them! That’s not the way adults behave.”
“I’m not an adult, Mummy,” said Bertie. “I think that boys are allowed to uninvite people. I promise you, Mummy; they are. Tofu invited me to his house once and cancelled the invitation ten minutes later. He does that all the time.”
“What Tofu does or does not do is of no concern to us, Bertie,” said Irene. “As you well know, I have reservations about Tofu.”
Bertie thought he might try another tack. “But I’ve read about invitations being cancelled by grown-ups,” he said. “The Turks invited the Pope to see them and then some of them said that he shouldn’t come, didn’t they?”
Irene sighed. “I’m sure that the Turks didn’t mean to be rude,”
she said. “And I’m sure that the Pope would have understood Miss Harmony Has a Word in Bertie’s Ear 113
that. I’m also one hundred per cent sure that if the Pope invites you to the Vatican, the invitation is never cancelled. So we cannot possibly uninvite Olive. And we don’t want to, anyway! It’s going to be tremendous fun.”
Bertie had abandoned his attempt to persuade his mother.
But in a last, desperate throw of the dice, on the morning of the visit, using a red ballpoint pen, he applied several spots to his right forearm and presented this with concern to his mother.
“I don’t think that Olive will be able to come to play, Mummy,”
he said, trying to appear regretful. “It looks like I’ve got measles, again.”
Irene had inspected the spots and then laughed. “Dear Bertie,”
she said. “Have no fear. Red ballpoint ink is not infectious.
Messy, perhaps, but not infectious.”
At school that morning, it was not long before Olive had an opportunity to make her plans known.
“I’m going to Bertie’s house this afternoon,” she volunteered, adding, “by invitation.”
“How nice!” said Miss Harmony. “It is very encouraging, children, when we see you all getting on together so well. We are one big, happy family here, and it is good to see the girls playing nicely with the boys, and vice versa.”
Bertie said nothing.
“I don’t think Bertie wants her to go,” said Tofu. “Look at his face, Miss Harmony.”
Miss Harmony glanced at Bertie. “I’m sure that you’re mistaken, Tofu. Bertie is a very polite boy, unlike some boys.”
She tried not to look at Tofu when she said this, but her eyes just seemed to slide inexorably in his direction.