The Right Attitude to Rain

want to do.”

He spoke in a slightly pedantic way, the words carefully chosen and articulated, as if everything that he said was the result of careful deliberation.

“In that case,” said Isabel, “you yourself expect a job for life.

Interesting.” She waited a moment for her remark to sink in.

Patrick was not slow, and he gave a wry smile when he saw the trap he had stepped into.

“Being a lawyer is a career,” he said. “I don’t expect to be with the same firm all my life. The people I’m with at the moment could get rid of me tomorrow if they wanted.”

“But they won’t, will they?” said Isabel.

“Probably not. But they could, you know.”

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h

“If they were taken over?”

“Law firms tend not to get taken over,” said Patrick. And again he recognised the trap. The rules of the jungle did not apply to those who wrote the rules of the jungle.

“ W E L L ,” said Isabel to Mimi. “That’s Patrick.”

The two women were standing in the kitchen after dinner.

Cat and Patrick had left, and Joe, tired from the journey, had gone upstairs to bed. They had brought the plates and dishes through, and these were now stacked above the dishwasher, ready to be loaded.

“Yes, Patrick,” said Mimi neutrally.

Isabel knew that Mimi was charitable in her views. It was one of her great qualities: Mimi did not like to belittle others.

And, I must remind myself, Isabel thought, that I have had a single meeting with him. I am fourteen years older than he is.

Nobody is asking me to sit in judgement on him.

“He’s bright,” said Isabel. “Toby wasn’t.”

“No, so I hear,” said Mimi.

“And I can see what she sees in him physically,” said Isabel.

“He’s . . .”

“Yes,” said Mimi. “He certainly is.”

There was silence for a moment. “He lives with his mother,”

said Mimi. “When I was speaking to him through there, he told me. He says that he’s lived with his mother all along. Through law school, through his traineeship, and he’s still there.”

“That’s unusual,” said Isabel. “Or is it, these days? Children are going back home, I gather, but they usually go away first.”

She paused. She remembered Eddie’s remark: Patrick is more T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N

5 9

like me. What exactly did that mean? Now that she had met Patrick she thought that she might understand it better.

“I found him a bit . . . ,” she began.

“A bit?” asked Mimi.

Isabel was not sure. “A bit something. But I’m not sure what it is. It’s a sort of fussiness, perhaps. Yes, fussiness might be the word. I can imagine that he likes to have everything neat and tidy. I imagine that he disapproves of a lot of things. That sort.”

“Do you think that he disapproved of us?” asked Mimi, picking up a heavy crystal glass and holding it up to the light.

“This was his glass, by the way.”

Isabel looked at the glass. There was nothing unusual about it. A few tiny grains of dark sediment from the red wine it had contained stuck to the bottom, just above the stem.

“Do you notice anything?” asked Mimi, handing the glass to Isabel.

She looked at it. There was nothing; just the grains. Were they significant? She looked at them again. “Just a bit of sediment,” she said, puzzled.

Mimi looked amused. “Look at the rim,” she said.

Isabel looked but could see nothing. Then she saw. Nothing was what she saw.

“Quite clean,” said Mimi. “He wiped it after he used it. I saw him do it. He wiped it with his table napkin.”

“An obsessive,” said Isabel.

“Maybe,” said Mimi. “But you know what I think? I think he’s a mama’s boy.” She paused and took the glass back from Isabel. “I just get that feeling about him. I hope that I’m not doing him an injustice, but he reminds me