The Intervention of a Good Man

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Inverness comes from the Gaelic Ibhir Ness, meaning “mouth of the Ness.” A monster lurks in its loch, but our hero, who will arrive there tomorrow (Flight BA823), has no interest in that at all. He is coming to the heart of the Highlands to be with a woman, a very blond woman as they sometimes are in Scotland, who is twenty years younger than he is, none of which constitutes even the bare bones of a portrait.

He is coming to be with her in a place where, for the last two weeks, she has been staying with her mother and in a few days will be joined by the man with whom she spends her nights, therefore almost a husband. Of course people would call this madness, a mistake. He has made many mistakes and will make more. He is convinced — perfectly aware that he is quoting Oscar Wilde — that the only things we never regret are our mistakes.

It seems appropriate at this stage to say a little more about our hero. He will soon turn fifty. There are not fifty different ways to tackle fifty. There are two: in the first instance, you persuade yourself you are still young; in the second, you complain you are already old. Our hero ought to reject both, one out of realism, the other out of a concerted effort of will, but he settles for an obstinate pendulum swing, depending on the time of day. He is not altogether wrong in this: after all, in ten years his testosterone level will most likely start to drop and, in the absence of actual crutches for medicinal purposes, this defining question may be definitively settled. Suffice it to say that, if these are not his first old years, they are at least the last of his young ones.

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