The Right Attitude to Rain

few days ago when the morning paper had revealed the appointment by the Scottish administration of three new commissioners: one to deal with obesity, one to protect the rights of children, and another to deal with issues of access to the arts. One such commissioner would have been provocation enough to Grace; the appointment of three was insupportable. “All they want to do is to work out ways of regulating us,” she said. “But our lives are just not their business. If we want to be overweight, then that’s our affair. And as for the rights of children, what about their duties?” The conversation 1 7 6

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h had ended at that rhetorical point, and Isabel, having only just opened her mouth, had shut it again. There would be no victory in debate with Grace; even a commissioner would come off second best in that.

She finished her work, which was the writing of a short piece to introduce a supplement of the Review devoted to self-knowledge. It had not been easy; for some reason she had felt that the piece had become too subjective, as if she were describing her own search for self-knowledge. She printed out what she had written and read through it. She had relied on Alasdair McIntyre as a starting point. He had suggested that the unity of the self be based on the unity of a narrative that started with birth and ended with our death. In other words, we made for ourselves a coherent life story, and that life story—that narrative—enabled us to understand ourselves. But was coher-ence a goal in itself? One might pursue bad goals consistently; one might be consistently self-interested, but would that make for a form of self-knowledge that had any value at all? Isabel thought not. Self-knowledge required more than an understanding of how things work as a narrative; it required an understanding of the character traits that lead to the narrative being what it is. And for this, she concluded, we might attempt to mould our character in the future. I can be better, she thought, if I know what’s wrong with me now.

She put the sheets of paper down and sighed. Was this really a satisfactory way of earning a living? She was not at all sure whether what she wrote would change anything for anybody; it was doubtful that somebody reading her introduction would say to himself, So that’s how it’s done! If she wanted to do that, she would be better doing anything but professional philosophy. If she wanted to change the world and the way people 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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looked at it, then she would do far better being a journalist, who at least would be read, or a broadcaster, who might slip in little bits of advice, or a teacher, who could pour thoughts into the ears of receptive pupils. And yet if she asked any of these whether they would wish to trade their lives for hers, they would all be likely to say that they would.

She packed, her mind still half on self-knowledge, half on the choice of clothing for the weekend. There would be walks, no doubt, and she would need something waterproof. And they might be fairly formal for dinner—Dallas people dressed smartly, she remembered, and so she would need something suitable for the evening. Angie would not dress down; she would wear a cocktail dress and there would be jewellery. She looked at her wardrobe, and felt, for a brief moment, despair. There were word people—idea people—and then there were clothes people—

fashion people. She knew which group she belonged to.

An hour later, her weekend case in the back of her green Swedish car, Isabel drove across town to Stockbridge to collect Jamie. It was a teaching afternoon for him, and the last of his pupils emerged from the front door of his shared stair just as Isabel drew up in her car. The boy, swinging his bassoon with the lightheartedness of one who had just finished a lesson, noticed Isabel’s car and made eye contact with her. She had seen him before, when she had come to Jamie’s flat at the end of a lesson, and they recognised each other, but he looked away again sharply. Isabel smiled; there was a certain point in the teen years, for boys, when the sheer embarrassment of being alive was too much. And this came out in the form of hostility, of grunts, of silent glowers. The world was just wrong to the teenage boy, quite wrong, and all because it failed to understand just how important that particular teenage boy was.

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h She extracted her telephone from her bag and dialled Jamie’s number to let him know that she was waiting for him.

He would be two minutes, he said, and he was.

“I recognised that boy you were teaching,” Isabel said as they set off. “I met him once before.”

“He was nicer then, I suppose,” said Jamie. “Something’s happened to him. And his bassoon-playing.”

“Puberty,” suggested Isabel.

Jamie laughed. “They come out of it. One of them was horrible last year and then suddenly he started to act like a human being again. The excuses for not practising went away. The scowls. It all went.”

Isabel turned the car into Henderson Row. She felt a sudden surge of excitement. It was Friday afternoon and she and Jamie were going off together into the country. They would be together until Sunday evening, which was the longest time she had ever spent in his company. And they had never been away before; that lent an additional spice to the moment.

“I’ve been looking forward to this weekend,” she said. “I was feeling stale. I haven’t been out of town for ages.”

Jamie half turned in his seat and grinned at her. Sic a smile, she thought in Scots, would melt ilka heirt—such a smile would melt any heart. “I was thinking about it all morning,” he said. “I had a deadly dull rehearsal in the Queen’s Hall. I just wanted to get out of town. To get far away from conductors and other musicians.”

“They’ll want you to perform,” warned Isabel. “There’s a piano, I’m afraid. And I’ve brought some music.”

“Singing with you is different,” said Jamie. “It’s . . . well, it’s casual. I enjoy it.”

Isabel said nothing. She looked ahead at the traffic, which 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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was light for a Friday afternoon. Sometimes one could get caught round about George Street or going up the Mound, but cars were moving freely now and she thought that it would not take them much more than an hour to get to the house, if that.

They were heading for Peebles, to the south of Edinburgh, in roughly the same direction that Joe and Mimi had gone that morning. Tom and Angie had rented a house in a glen further to the west, a house off the normal track of visitors, but which Isabel was aware of. She had a friend who knew the owners.