Free The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

money.’
    Diane shrugged. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘They used to dothat sort of thing back in … back in prehistoric times – the 1960s and so on.’
    ‘So you think it doesn’t happen today?’
    Diane thought for a moment. ‘Maybe now and then. I suppose that money comes into the picture with arranged marriages, but otherwise … no, I don’t think so.’
    ‘So when you see a man of seventy marrying somebody of twenty, it’s nothing to do with the fact that he’s rich?’
    Diane laughed. ‘No. Of course that’s all to do with money. What I meant is that when there’s nothing like that in the picture then people these days marry because they like the person.’ She paused. ‘Why do you ask? Has anybody said anything?’
    Lizzie hesitated. She was loyal to her father, but she nonetheless felt that she needed to discuss this with somebody, and Diane was as close a friend as she had.
    ‘My dad said something,’ she confided. ‘He tried to be tactful about it but I could tell what he meant. He asked me whether I thought Bruce had asked me to marry him because of my money.’ Watching the effect of her remarks on her friend, she quickly added, ‘Not that I’ve got any.’
    Diane smiled. ‘You must have. You must have something. There’s your flat. You own that outright, don’t you?’
    ‘It was my grandmother’s,’ said Lizzie apologetically. ‘She left it to me. So I didn’t have to pay anything for it.’
    ‘But it’s worth quite a bit, isn’t it? A three-bedroom flat in Morningside …’
    ‘Only two proper-size bedrooms,’ interjected Lizzie. ‘The third one’s really a boxroom.’
    Diane ignored the objection. ‘Three hundred thousand pounds, at least,’ she said, a note of wistfulness in her voice. ‘Three hundred and fifty thousand, maybe. Even in this market.’
    Lizzie looked out of the window again. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘The sun.’
    But Diane was not to be so easily distracted. ‘And you inherited a whole bunch of shares, didn’t you? You told me that a long time ago. What are they worth now?’
    ‘Not all that much,’ muttered Lizzie.
    ‘How much?’
    Lizzie did not feel that Diane had the right to know the value of her portfolio of shares that McInroy & Wood had so prudently nurtured for her. But having started this discussion, she could hardly drop it now, and so she mumbled a figure.
    ‘What?’ asked Diane. ‘How much?’
    ‘Four hundred,’ said Lizzie, looking away.
    ‘Four hundred pounds?’
    ‘Thousand.’
    ‘A thousand pounds?’
    Lizzie was now virtually inaudible. ‘No, four hundred thousand.’
    Diane sighed. ‘So that’s three-quarters of a million altogether. You realise that, I suppose? You’re almost a millionaire.’
    Lizzie turned to her friend. ‘Please keep your voice down,’ she said. ‘I don’t want people thinking …’
    ‘So no wonder your father asked that question,’ said Diane. ‘I’d ask it too.’
    Lizzie was silent for a while. It was one thing for her father to think such thoughts; it was quite another thing for her close friend to harbour similar doubts.
    ‘Does Bruce know?’ Diane suddenly asked. ‘Did you tell him?’
    ‘He knows that I’ve got my own flat,’ answered Lizzie. ‘Obviously he knows that.’
    ‘Does he know that you own it outright?’ asked Diane.
    Lizzie thought for a moment. She remembered talking to Bruce about it once, but she did not think that they discussed mortgages. And as for the shares, she was sure that she had never mentioned … She stopped herself. He had said something once about a share tip that he had received and had told her that she should get her financial adviser to arrange for the purchase of some of the shares in question. ‘That is, if you have a financial adviser,’ he said casually. ‘Do you?’
    And she had answered, equally casually, ‘Yes, I do.’ And had proceeded to mention McInroy & Wood.
    Diane had been watching her. ‘He knows something, doesn’t