The Right Attitude to Rain id-3 Read online

  She sat down at the table while Jamie went to buy her a drink. She looked around the bar, taking in the small groups of friends, the couples, the one or two solitary drinkers seated on stools at the bar itself. There was nobody she knew, which did not surprise her. This was not her territory. And the thought of territoriality made her think, inconsequentially, of Brother Fox.

  She imagined that she might come into this bar and find him seated on a stool, his neat furry legs crossed elegantly, sipping a glass of . . . What would Brother Fox drink? Sherry perhaps, or something even more sophisticated, one of those cocktails with elaborate names that one saw listed in grander bars. Brother Fox would drink something called a “St. Francis,” she thought: two parts gin, one part lime and one part chicken. And Brother Fox would have a group of somewhat raffish friends—people like Charlie MacLean, perhaps, that man who wrote books on whisky and whose whisky-nosing she had once attended down 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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  in Leith; he and Brother Fox would get on well, telling each other stories. Absurd, but she smiled.

  Jamie came back with her drink. When he sat down, his knee touched hers under the table, but he did not move it.

  “I’ve got a present for you,” Jamie said, fishing into the bat-tered leather music case that he habitually carried. It was a case that served every purpose, from carrying musical scores to trans-porting cartons of milk and groceries from the supermarket.

  He took out a compact disc in a small plastic bag and handed it to her. “It’s a wonderful mixture of things,” he said.

  “And some of them we’re going to have to do ourselves. I’ll try to do arrangements if we can’t find the music. And I suspect that we won’t be able to find some of these things.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’re . . . you’re very sweet.” She took his hand briefly and squeezed it. She examined the disc.

  “Mood Scottish,” she read.

  “A play on Mood Indigo, I think,” said Jamie. “But don’t worry. It’s all very good. Some lovely stuff. Look.”

  He took the disc and pointed to an item on the list of tracks.

  “ ‘Sinclair.’ It’s a Faroese song about a Scottish soldier in Sweden. They went there a long time ago. By invitation, unlike most British soldiers . . .”

  “I know all about that,” said Isabel. “That’s why you come across Scottish names in Sweden. Macpherson and such like.

  But Swedish now.”

  Jamie tapped the CD case. Isabel noticed his finger, which was tanned light brown. It was gentle; so beautiful. “This Sinclair was on his way to battle,” he said, “and was warned by a mermaid not to go. By a mermaid, mind you.”

  “One should always listen to mermaids,” said Isabel. “They 2 4 4

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h address one so infrequently that anything they have to say must be important.”

  He looked at her in surprise and burst out laughing. Nobody else would say things like that; just Isabel. That was one of the reasons he found her irresistible.

  “He didn’t,” Jamie went on. “And he was killed as a result.

  Poor Sinclair. But the song is wonderful—it goes on and on.

  Very odd stuff.”

  Isabel pointed to something else. “And some Peter Maxwell Davies,” she said. “ ‘Lullaby for Lucy.’ I met him up in Orkney once.”

  “Max,” said Jamie. “We played his ‘Orkney Wedding.’ Complete with a piper. Very dramatic.” He paused, took the disc and examined the cover carefully. Then he handed it back to Isabel.

  “We could listen to ‘Sinclair’ after dinner. Would you like that?”

  “Yes. I would.” Her heart was racing.

  “Or we could go to the flat now and have dinner there. In Saxe-Coburg. How about that?”

  That, she thought, was even better. “Do you want me to cook?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll manage something.”

  They finished their drinks in the bar and then walked down St. Stephen Street, back to Jamie’s flat.

  “That flat round the corner,” Jamie said. “Have you decided?”

  “I have,” said Isabel. “I shall buy it. Grace looked at it the other day and liked it very much. She also met our friend Florence. They hit it off. She’ll probably recruit her for her spiritualist meetings.”

  “Florence is too rational,” said Jamie. “Still, it’s a happy ending.”

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  “I suppose so. And there’s nothing wrong with happy end-ings, is there?”

  “No,” said Jamie. “Except, perhaps, for that fact that they are rather rare.”

  They passed a small antique shop on the way and Isabel paused in front of the window. “I knew the man who ran this shop,” she said. “He used to sit in a chair, right there, dressed in a black suit with a waistcoat and a rose in his lapel, and everybody who went in received a great welcome and a story. He had Scottish literature on those shelves over there, and all other writers, including English, were shelved under foreign literature. But he didn’t mean it unkindly. He was just making a point.”

  Jamie pressed his nose against the glass. The chair was empty, the shop dusty. “A point about what?”

  “About cultural assumptions,” said Isabel. Seeing the empty shop saddened her. There were pockets of character, of resist-ance, that held out against all the forces that would destroy local, small-scale things, even small-scale countries; little shops were on the front line, she thought.

  “I don’t like shopping in great big shops,” she muttered.

  Jamie looked at her in puzzlement. “Excuse me?”

  She smiled, and drew him away from the window to continue down the street. “I don’t like the idea of little shops like that disappearing. That’s all. I like small things.”

  “Convenience,” said Jamie. “Isn’t there something in convenience?”

  “I suppose there is. But then . . .” She trailed off. Perhaps it was too late, and the logic of the large scale was unstoppable, but it all led to sameness and flatness, and who wanted that?

  Francs had gone, marks had gone, the insanely inflated Italian 2 4 6

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h lira had gone; cars looked the same wherever you went, clothes too. All the colour, all the difference, was being drained out of life. And species were dying too; every day insects disappeared for ever, strange little lives that had been led for millennia in the undergrowth came to an end with the destruction of a last toe-hold of habitat. It seemed like a relentless return to barrenness, to unrelieved rock. She looked at Jamie and wondered whether he cared about this. Or did one need another fourteen years to understand, or even to feel, these things?

  “I’m hungry,” said Jamie.

  “Then let’s go,” said Isabel. She was about to slip her arm into his, but stopped herself. Could she do that, or would that embarrass him? The early days of any relationship raised questions of that sort, of course; the easy familiarities came later, and seemed natural then, but at this stage they could be awkward. And they were not officially a couple, in the sense that people did not necessarily know about it, and would he want them to know? They walked separately.

  In his flat, Jamie took from Isabel the disc that he had given her and slipped it into the player. His kitchen, which ran off the living room, was small, and Isabel watched him as he prepared the meal: mozzarella and tomatoes, followed by pasta. He poured her wine and they raised their glasses to each other in a toast.

  “To you,” she said. And Jamie replied, “To me,” and then laughed. “I mean, to you.”

  “To me, one imagines,” said Isabel, “is the toast of the Ego-tists’ Club. What do you think?”

  Jamie agreed. “I’m sure it is,” he said. “Their dinners, though, will be difficult occasions. Everybody will want to give an after-dinner speech.”

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  “And they’ll all think that there are too many members,”

  she said.

  There was silence for a moment. Jamie picked up the bottle of dressing that he had prepared for the mozzarella and tomatoes and shook it so that the black of the balsamic vinegar suffused the olive oil.

  Isabel fingered the stem of her glass. “Jamie,” she said. “Are you happy about this . . . about what has happened between us?

  Are you sure that you’re all right with it?”

  He looked at her intently and she thought, I should not have said that. There are some things best left unsaid.

  “Of course I am,” he said. “Of course.”

  “You would tell me if you weren’t?”

  “I would tell you.”

  “Promise?”

  He moved his right hand in a quick crossing of the heart.

  “Promise.” Going back into the kitchen, he said over his shoulder, “Have you spoken to Joe and Mimi about last weekend?”

  “Briefly.”

  “And?”

  “They both enjoyed themselves.”

  “And Tom and Angie?”

  Isabel hesitated. She wanted to speak to Jamie about her talk with Tom, but she feared his reaction. He had always lectured her about interfering in others’ affairs, and she had just engaged in a major intervention, having encouraged Tom to get rid of Angie. Of course Tom had asked for that advice—he had effectively insisted that she be involved—but she was not sure whether Jamie would appreciate that.

  “Tom came to see me today. Just before you phoned. He wanted to talk.”

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  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Jamie, who had been stirring the pot of pasta, turned away from the cooker and looked at her quizzically. “Talk about what?”

  She would not tell him of Tom’s confession of feeling for her, but she decided that she would tell him the rest. “About him and Angie.”

  Jamie had put down the spoon and was standing in the kitchen doorway, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “What did he say?”

  Isabel lifted her glass and took a sip of wine. “He thinks she isn’t very fond of him. He’s decided to end the engagement.”

  Jamie looked down at the floor. “I’m not surprised,” he said.

  “You think that they’re unsuited too?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know about that. Maybe. But . . .”

  Isabel detected his uncertainty and encouraged him. “Go on. You can tell me.”

  He stared at her, embarrassed. “Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure . . .”

  “You have to tell me now.”

  He joined her at the table and sat down. “When we went into Peebles on Saturday morning, something happened.”

  Isabel caught her breath. “What happened?” Her voice was small.

  Jamie shifted in his seat. “I don’t really like to talk about this,” he said.

  Oh, she had eyes for you, that woman, thought Isabel. And her feelings, now, were ones of anger.

  Jamie mumbled, “She made a pass at me. Or I think she did.”

  This should be no surprise—Isabel had seen her looking at him—but she had not imagined that it would be translated into action. Where, though, was the doubt? “But you must know.

  Either she did or she didn’t. What did she say?”

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  Jamie’s embarrassment seemed to be mounting. “It was while we were driving back. She put a hand on my knee. Suddenly. Just like that. But quite far up.” He blushed, and Isabel lowered her eyes.

  “Was that all?” she asked. It was, she thought, and she felt relieved.

  “Maybe she didn’t mean it like that,” said Jamie. “I don’t know.”

  “I should think that she meant it exactly like that,” said Isabel. “Come on, Jamie. Women don’t do that sort of thing by mistake.” She mused for a moment. “What did you do?”

  Jamie bit his lip. “I told her a lie.”

  “Oh? That you were married?”

  “That I had a girlfriend.”

  Isabel smiled. “And that had the desired effect?”

  “She looked at me and she just said, ‘Pity.’ And then she took her hand away.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Isabel reflected on what she had heard and thought: It is exactly as I imagined. Angie is not in love with Tom. And since that is true, then my encouraging him to bring it to an end is the right thing to have done.

  “I told him to end the engagement,” she said. “I told him that he should talk to her about it. And he’s going to do it.”

  Jamie shrugged. “That’s probably for the best,” he said.

  He turned to go back into the kitchen. Isabel was relieved that he had not criticised her for interfering, and she started to talk about something else. Jamie, too, seemed pleased to move off the subject of Tom and Angie. He moved the disc back a track and played Isabel something that he wanted her to hear.

  Then they sat at the table and began their meal.

  He put down his knife and fork, although he had just begun 2 5 0

  A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h eating. He took her hand. “You can do no wrong, you know,” he said. “Not in my eyes.”

  “What a funny thing to say. But very nice.”

  “I mean it.”

  She felt the pressure of his fingers on the palm of her hand.

  It was gentle, as everything about him was. Gentle. Love is not a virtue, she thought; not in itself. But it helps us to be virtuous, to do good for those whom we love, and in that sense it can never be wrong, wherever it alights, whatever direction it takes.

  She looked at Jamie, in fondness. But she found herself thinking: He said that he had lied to Angie when he told her he had a girlfriend. Therefore I am not his girlfriend. So what does that make me?

  He let go of her hand and returned to his meal.

  “Can we go away together?” he asked. “Somewhere on the west coast? Or one of the islands?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’d like to go to Harris,” he said. “Have you ever been to the Outer Hebrides?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “And there’s a hotel I know there, just a small one, a converted manse. It looks down on a field that is full of wild flowers in the spring and summer, with the sea just beyond. Cold, green waves. The very edge of Scotland. It’s very beautiful. We could go there. Would you like that?”

  “Very much.”

  She smiled at him, and put her hand to his cheek, as she had done before, on that first discovery. But as she did so, she thought: I am going to break my heart over this, but not now, not just yet.

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  HAPPINESS. Over the next few days, Isabel felt herself to be in state of blessedness. She spoke to Jamie every day, and saw him briefly, for a snatched lunch in the small café opposite the gate of the Academy; he had an hour between pupils and they talked, low-voiced because a couple of the boys from the school were sitting at a nearby table, sniggering. Isabel eventually smiled at them and they blushed scarlet and turned away.

  Isabel’s happiness, though, was qualified by her anxiety over Cat. There had been rows with Cat before, and they always resolved themselves after a few days. The normal pattern would be for Isabel to apologise, whether or not she was in the wrong, and for Cat, grudgingly, to accept the apology. Isabel thought that she might wait a little longer before she went to speak to her niece; that would give Cat time to simmer down and also, she hoped, to begin to feel guilty about her own behaviour. This time it really was not her fault, she thought. Cat had no right to Jamie, having rejected him and turned a deaf ear to his attempts to persuade her to take him back, and even if Isabel had perhaps been insensitive to the need to talk to her about her feelings for Jamie, she considered this to be a light offence.

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he made her way to the delicatessen in the late morning.

  She had written a note which she would leave for Cat—a note in which she confessed her lack of sensitivity and asked Cat to forgive her. I’ve been thoughtless, she wrote. But then, in self-defence, It may be hard for you—I understand that—but please let me be happy. I had not imagined that this would happen.

  Please give me your blessing. She had read and reread the note, agonising over the wording, but had eventually decided that the words were just right because they were true.

  Cat was not there. Miranda and Eddie were behind the counter, Eddie cleaning the slicer—Isabel’s blood ran cold even at that—and Miranda serving a customer. Both of them glanced at her; Miranda smiled and Eddie acknowledged her with a slight nod.

  “Cat?” she asked Eddie.

  “Out,” he said. And then added, “Patrick.”

  Isabel sighed. Even if Patrick was as busy as his mother suggested, he still seemed to have a lot of time for lunch with Cat.

  She wondered whether his mother knew about these trysts, and whether, if she did, she would try to interfere.

  She asked Eddie to pour her a cup of coffee. Then she picked up a newspaper and went to sit at one of the tables. The world was in chaos, the front page suggested: floods had destroyed a large part of somebody’s coast, and there were pictures of a couple stranded up a tree, the woman wailing, her skirts torn and muddied; there were people building nuclear weapons; a large lake somewhere had been found to be poisoned, dead. So we frighten ourselves daily, thought Isabel, and with reason.

  She folded the newspaper up and put it away. She would look out at the street, watching passers-by, and then, if Cat had not returned in twenty minutes, leave the note. She stared 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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  through the window, past the carefully arranged display of bottles of olive oil which Eddie had set up to lure customers inside.