The Right Attitude to Rain id-3

by Alexander McCall Smith

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h of controversy. Should archaeologists rebury them, or can museums . . .” She sighed again, and imagined for a moment archaeologists digging up old bones, so carefully, with their trowels and brushes, and then, more or less immediately, burying them once more, with reverence.

  She rose to her feet to answer the lawyer’s call, taking the telephone with her to the window of her study.

  Simon Mackintosh’s voice was precise. “That place that you looked at,” he began. “The one in St. Stephen Street—I registered your interest in it with the seller’s lawyers, as you asked me to do.”

  “Good,” said Isabel. “And I’ve decided that I’d like to make an offer. I liked it very much. I was going to call you today to talk about what offer we should put in.” Isabel did not like the Scottish system of selling houses. A property went on the market with an invitation for offers, giving a general guide to where offers should start. But then what started was a blind auction: anybody interested in buying it could put in their best offer in a sealed envelope and, at a preordained time, these would be opened and the highest bidder—normally—would win the auction. This was all very well for sellers, but for purchasers it created an agony of uncertainty, driving people to offer the very most they could afford, just in case somebody else came up with a bigger offer.

  Simon laughed. “Well, I’m saving you that call—and with good news. The woman who’s selling it . . .”

  “Florence Macreadie.”

  “Yes,” Simon continued. “Her lawyer telephoned me and said that she would be very happy to sell it to you—and at a price which is actually lower than the current starting price. Ten thousand below, in fact. So it’s yours if you want it.”

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  Isabel said nothing as she absorbed this news. She had never been obliged to bid for a house before, but everything that she had heard from friends who had done so had made her dread the process. It seemed that everyone had their stories of missed properties, of offers that had seemed to be high and yet turned out to be far too low, of houses lost to an offer only five pounds higher; and yet here she was being offered a flat in a popular area of town at a sum below the starting price.

  “Isabel?”

  “Yes, I’m here. Sorry, I was thinking. I was trying to take in what you said to me. Ten thousand . . .”

  Simon sounded bemused. “Below. Yes. Ten thousand below.”

  So, thought Isabel, she’s desperate to sell. This means that there is some snag. The neighbours? Basil, the cat they met on the stairway? Ground subsidence affecting the foundations of the building? Fulminating wet rot in the roof space?

  Simon interrupted her thoughts. “My first reaction, of course, was to assume that there was some problem with the property. It sounded rather as if she wanted to offload it on you.

  That’s what I thought at first.”

  Precisely, thought Isabel.

  “But then,” Simon went on, “her lawyer told me the reason.

  She does have a reason, you know.”

  “And that would be?”

  Simon hesitated. He sounded embarrassed. “Apparently she was very taken with the idea of your living there. She said that she liked the idea of you living there with your young man.

  That’s the term she used. Young man. She said that it appealed to her sense of the romantic.”

  Isabel stared out of the window at the spruce tree in the 6 8

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h front garden. A squirrel was sitting nervously on one of the lower branches, its tail twitching in that curious, jerky way, as if tugged by a string.

  Simon continued. “I don’t like to pry, of course. It’s no concern of mine. I thought, though, that you were interested in the flat for Grace—”

  “Of course I am,” Isabel said quickly. “Young man . . . Look, Simon, this really is rather funny. I asked Jamie, who is indeed a young man, to help me look over the place. He lives round the corner down there. I thought that she got the wrong end of the stick but couldn’t set her right.” She laughed. “So now she wants to help set me up in a love nest.”

  Simon cleared his throat. “Well, I must admit that I was rather surprised. Mind you, why not, Isabel? There’s no reason why you shouldn’t do something like that. You’re a very attractive woman. Take a look in a mirror some day. I’m not speaking as your lawyer now, but as a friend . . .”

  “It would be interesting,” Isabel said. And she imagined herself—allowed herself to imagine—walking up the steps to the flat to find Jamie already home, inside, welcoming her, and her cooking a meal for the two of them in the kitchen with the late evening light of summer on the rooftops and a glass of wine in her hand and . . .

  “But back to the matter at hand,” Simon said. “What do you want to do? Do you want me to accept her offer to sell it to you?”

  Isabel was about to say yes, and then she was struck by doubt. Florence Macreadie’s offer was made on the basis of a false assumption. It was true that Isabel had done nothing to encourage the other woman’s false belief, but could she let her act on it? If she did she would be taking advantage of another’s mistake, which surely was wrong. It would be like . . . What T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N

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  would it be like? Like buying a valuable antique from a vulnerable old person who had no idea of what the thing was worth.

  People did that, did they not? Unscrupulous dealers would spot a valuable item in the possession of somebody who had no clue as to its value and they would buy it for a paltry sum. It would be a valid sale from a strictly legal point of view, but morally it was something quite different. If she took the flat from Florence on these terms, then it would be taking something from her which she would not have offered had she known the truth.

  “Can you let me think about this?” asked Isabel.

  “Of course.”

  “And is there any legal reason to turn it down?” she asked.

  Simon paused before giving his answer. “No legal reason, as far as I can see. But . . . morally, I think that you wouldn’t want somebody to be disadvantaged by a false impression she laboured under.” Simon paused for a moment. “I hope that you don’t mind my saying that. You’re the one who knows all about ethics . . .”

  Isabel’s response was immediate. “You’re quite right. Of course I can’t let her act on that strange idea. Of course not.”

  Simon’s relief was evident in his voice. “I thought you’d come to that conclusion. I’ll let her lawyer know that his client was—how shall we put it?—misinformed. Then we can come up with a bid, same as anybody else.”

  Isabel agreed, and after the exchange of a few niceties the conversation came to an end. She turned back to her desk, but did not sit down immediately. She stood for a good few minutes, staring at the books on her shelf, the serried ranks of titles.

  Kant. Schopenhauer. Midgley. Kekes. All these people who had spent so much time, given up on so many other diversions (one assumed) in order to devote themselves to the elucidation of 7 0

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h what was right. And here she had been faced with a moment of financial temptation—the saving of ten thousand pounds—and she had hesitated in her response. She had almost said yes. She had almost told Simon that they should accept Florence’s offer immediately. She had almost done that. And everything on those shelves, all the elaborate structures of right and wrong, had been for a few moments forgotten. Which is how most people acted when it came to temptation. They gave in. And we should never forget, thought Isabel, that every one of us is capable of doing the same thing if the gain that we see for ourselves is large enough. She had often thought that if she were ever to give in to a yearning for the material it would have to be a very large sum; her price would be a high one—a kingdom. But now she had seen that the opposite was, in fact, true. Her price was as low as anybody else’s. And if she could g
ive in over a mere matter of ten thousand pounds, could she not give in over the mere matter of a young man, a musician, whose company she so appreciated and whose profile, at the right angle, stopped her heart?

  I have learned something about myself, thought Isabel.

  C H A P T E R S I X

  E

  JOE AND MIMI settled into their routine. He went off to the National Library each morning and returned shortly after five in the evening. He seemed pleased with what he found. It was slow work, he said, and he was not sure what it would bring forth—a book, perhaps, but not a big book; an article certainly, that he would send to people who were interested in this sort of thing. Joe knew them all and they would send him their articles too. “The dean loves us to write these things,” he said. “It gives him a warm feeling.”

  Mimi looked for Arthur Waley and one or two other authors.

  She found a first edition of the life of Li Po, in good condition, with the dust jacket, which pleased her, and some Auden, which pleased Isabel, but which would not have pleased Auden, as it was a pamphlet, elegantly set and printed, of “Spain 1937,” a poem which he disowned.

  “I feel disloyal when I read the poems he disliked,” said Isabel. “Even that marvellous ‘September 1, 1939.’ Remember the poem? It had those lines at the end which people in New York copied and sent to one another in consolation in that other 7 2

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h terrible September. But Auden said it was all wrong. He didn’t mean it any more.”

  Mimi took off her spectacles and polished them on a square of soft silk. “But people take different things from works of art.

  The poem, the painting, changes.”

  Isabel suddenly laughed, and Mimi looked at her cousin in puzzlement. “Amused?”

  Isabel shook her head. “Sorry, not anything you said. I’ve just remembered what happened to my friend Gill Salvesen.

  She’s an amateur printmaker. One of her prints was taken by a gallery and they inadvertently hung it sideways. She heard about it and was going to tell them about their mistake, but before she could do so, a friend of hers bought it and hung it in her house—sideways. Gill didn’t know what to do.”

  Mimi smiled. “Well, that makes the same point, doesn’t it?

  People see different meanings.”

  “But there may be a real meaning. And if somebody doesn’t know that, shouldn’t we tell her?”

  Mimi pointed upstairs. “What about that McTaggart in our room? What if I thought that it represented people arriving in Scotland rather than emigrating?”

  “In art, immigrants don’t look sad,” countered Isabel. “They look apprehensive. Or even quite excited.”

  “But would you tell me that? Would you tell me that if what gave the painting meaning for me was the thought that it was all about arrival?”

  “I might let you carry on thinking that,” conceded Isabel.

  “Well, there you are,” said Mimi.

  Then Mimi said something which was to make a difference.

  It had nothing to do with their discussion of art, but was a social arrangement which she and Joe wanted to propose.

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  “We wondered if you were free the weekend after next,”

  Mimi said. “There are some people we know who are here in Scotland for the summer. They’ve taken a large house outside town—Joe knows exactly where it is. One of these Scottish fortified houses. Somewhere near Peebles, I think. Anyway, they—or rather he, we don’t really know her—asked us whether we would come out for the weekend. They’re happy to make it a house party. They know we’re staying with you, so you’re invited.”

  Isabel was free that weekend, and the idea of a house party appealed.

  “Good,” said Mimi. “We’ll get in touch with them. Or Joe will, rather.”

  Isabel was curious. “Who are they?”

  “Dallas people,” said Mimi. “He’s called Tom Bruce. She’s called Angie. She’s his fiancée. Second time round, of course.

  For him. I don’t know about her.”

  There was something in Mimi’s tone that made it clear to Isabel that Angie was not in favour. That was not unusual, of course; an old friend remarried and, try as one might, the new wife was not quite the same. Countless friendships had foundered on that rock.

  “You’re not too keen on her?” Isabel asked gently.

  “I don’t like to be uncharitable,” said Mimi.

  “Which is what people say before being uncharitable.”

  “Well,” drawled Mimi. “Well . . . Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. But put it this way: she’s a good bit younger than he is. And he’s . . .”

  “Very well-off?”

  “Exactly. Even by the standards of Preston Hollow, where he lives, he’s not hard up. Do you remember Preston Hollow from your Dallas visits?”

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  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Isabel did not. But Mimi’s point was clear.

  “He was one of those property people who acquired large tracts of land out near the airport. All that nothing acreage that nobody was interested in. Well, that changed, and Tom did very nicely. Not that anybody resented it. He’s a really nice man. He supports the symphony and the new museum. And he always said that he would support the law school too, but hasn’t exactly gotten round to it just yet.

  “Yes,” Mimi continued. “Everybody has time for Tom. We don’t see a great deal of him, but now and then we do. He’s quite a shy man, really. His confidence was pretty dented by his condition. Do you know about Bell’s palsy?”

  They were sitting together in the drawing room at the time.

  Isabel had given Mimi a glass of New Zealand white wine, and she was holding her own glass, half full. She put it down on the table beside her. In her mind she saw the man in the gallery. She saw the face wrenched up at one side in that disfiguring grimace. That was Tom. That was who he was.

  “I knew I was going to see him again,” she muttered. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?” asked Mimi, taking a sip of her wine.

  “I think I’ve met them,” said Isabel. “Just pure coincidence.

  I saw them in a gallery. They were buying a painting, I think.”

  “That’s them,” said Mimi. “She’s on a spending spree, I gather. Paintings. Rugs. Even a racehorse, somebody said.”

  “But I had the impression that he was the one who was—”

  “He’ll do anything to please her,” said Mimi. “Poor Tom.”

  I S A B E L M E T CAT for lunch that day, at two o’clock—a late lunch, but that was when the busy time in the delicatessen T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N

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  came to an end and Cat could leave Eddie at the counter while she took a break with Isabel at one of the tables. She had made Isabel a special Greek salad, which is what she knew she liked: salty cheese crumbled over olives and sliced boiled egg. Cat herself liked tomatoes and mozzarella.

  “I haven’t thanked you for the other night,” said Cat. “We both enjoyed it. I love seeing Mimi and Joe, although they always make me feel a bit stick-in-the-mud. All the travelling they do.”

  “I don’t know,” said Isabel. “You went to Italy not all that long ago. And you had those six months in Australia.”

  Cat looked wistful. She had spent six months in Australia after university, working in a series of casual jobs, travelling and seeing the country. It had been the most perfect time of her life, and she could not think of it without a feeling of nostalgia. “Yes.

  There was that. But that was then. Now is different. Now is here. And tomorrow will be here.”

  Isabel speared an olive with her fork. “Not necessarily,” she said. “All sorts of things can happen. You might . . .”

  Cat looked at her. “Yes? I might what?”

  Isabel had been thinking of marriage. That was the obvious thing that could change Cat’s life and
get her out of her rut, if that’s what she thought she was in. Marriage had changed Isabel’s own life—for the worse, but not every marriage did that.

  One would have to be massively cynical to see marriage in that light. Were most marriages happy? Somewhere she had read that with increased participation by women in economic life—

  as more women began to have their own careers—so the levels of happiness in marriage went down. Women in Sweden and countries like that, where women were free and independent, were apparently less happy in their marriages than women in 7 6

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h those countries where they had less power and participated less in the working world. Well, if that were the case, she thought, then that meant that there was something wrong with conventional marriage, rather than something wrong with freedom.

  She could not tell Cat that she had been thinking of marriage, because she was not at all sure whether Cat wanted to get married. So many people no longer bothered, but just lived together, or left it for years and years before doing anything about formalities. But was that what Cat really wanted? Or did she want somebody to come along and make a public commitment to her, as people used to do with marriage, as she had done with John Liamor?

  “I might what?” repeated Cat.

  “You might meet somebody,” said Isabel.

  Cat looked down at her plate, and Isabel knew that they were in awkward territory. She had learned her lesson, and was determined not to repeat the mistake she had made over Cat’s involvement with Toby. But there was no reason for Cat to take offence over a very ordinary reference to the possibility of meeting somebody, and so Isabel said, “You could find yourself in a relationship with somebody who worked somewhere else, for example. That happens, you know. What if you met an Australian you liked and you thought you might go off together to Melbourne or Perth or somewhere? That happens, a lot. And the other way round too. Somebody from Australia meets somebody from London and goes to live there.”