The Right Attitude to Rain

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china cans, were set out on a tray, with bitter chocolate mints to one side.

There was brief, inconsequential conversation, and then Isabel and Jamie went to the piano.

“Something Scottish,” said Tom. “Please. Something Scottish.”

Isabel nodded in his direction, then turned to Jamie as she sat on the piano stool. “Sing for your supper?”

“No alternative,” muttered Jamie. But he was incapable of being churlish, and he smiled encouragingly as she opened the book of Scottish songs and put it on the piano.

Isabel pointed at the music and Jamie nodded. “Very suitable,” he said.

“ ‘The Bonnie Earl of Moray,’ ” Isabel announced. “This is not exactly a cheerful song—sorry about that—but it’s rather haunting, in its way. In fact, it’s a lament, and a lot of Scottish music is about how things have gone wrong, about what might have been if things had turned out a bit better.”

Mimi laughed at this. “Isn’t that the same as country and western?” she asked. “All those songs about unfaithful women and faithful dogs.”

“Perhaps,” said Isabel. She played a few chords and turned to Jamie, who nodded. He stood by the piano, ready to sing.

When they reached the end of the song, and the last notes of the piano accompaniment, Mimi clasped her hands together, as if to clap, but did not, because everybody else was silent.

Angie was staring at Jamie, and Tom, who had been watching Isabel’s hands on the keyboard, was now looking at Angie. Joe had his hands folded on his lap and was looking at the ceiling, at one of the plaster cornucopias.

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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 broke the silence. “The bonnie earl of Moray was murdered, alas,” she said. “The earl of Huntly slayed him, and then laid him on the green, as the words have it.”

“It’s very sad,” muttered Angie. “Very sad . . . very sad for his family.”

Jamie caught Isabel’s eye. He was daring her to laugh, but she looked down at the keys of the piano, and depressed one, a B-flat, gently, not enough for it to sound.

“Yes,” said Isabel. “He was a much-loved man, I believe.

And there’s a line there, you know, which is very intriguing. He was a braw gallant, and he played at the glove. Apparently that means that he played real tennis—not lawn tennis, but real tennis. That’s the game with those strange racquets and the ball that you hit off the roof. At first they played it by hitting the ball with their hands. Then they started to use a glove. Racquets came much later. There’s still a real tennis court at Falkland Palace.”

“We went there,” said Tom, “didn’t we, Angie? Over on the way to St. Andrews. Falkland Palace. There was an orchard—

remember?—and that peculiar tennis court was there. That’s where James V died, just after Mary, Queen of Scots, was born.

Remember? He just turned his face to the wall and died because he thought that everything was lost. They told us about it—that woman who showed us around.”

Angie frowned. She looked confused. “Which woman?”

Jamie came to her rescue. “I’d like to sing another song,” he said. “This is by Robert Burns, and is one which you all will know. ‘My love is like a red, red rose.’ ”

While Isabel paged through the book, Tom said, “That’s a beautiful song. Really beautiful.” He was sitting next to Angie on the sofa near the fire and now, as Isabel played the first bars 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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of the introduction, he took Angie’s hand in his. Isabel, half watching, half attending to the printed music, thought it was possible that Tom knew exactly what Angie had in mind when she accepted his offer of marriage, but had decided that she might grow to love him because love can come if you believe in it and behave as if it exists. That was the case, too, with free will; with, perhaps, faith of any sort; and love was a sort of faith, was it not?

But then she glanced at Angie, and she changed her mind again. She would prefer him not to be around, she thought. That is when she would love him. She would love him much more then.

C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

E

SHE AWOKE in the small hours of the morning, barely three, and heard him breathing beside her, that quiet, vulnerable sound, so human. Her pillow had slipped off the side of the bed and her head was against a ruffled undersheet. She was turned away from him; away, too, from the window through which the dim light of a sky that was never truly dark in the summer made its way through the gaps in the curtains. She was immediately wide awake, her mind clear, but she closed her eyes and drew the sheet up. It was warm; there was no need of blankets in that still air.

She went over what had happened. After the music the evening had come to an end. Mimi had been tired and said that she and Joe would go upstairs; Angie had looked at her watch and said that she, too, wanted to go to bed. Jamie had said, “I’m going to have a walk outside. Isabel? What about you?”

It was not an invitation that included Tom, and Isabel felt embarrassed, but then she thought that Tom would imagine he had been spoken for by Angie, who had declared that she was heading for bed. She said goodnight to Angie and saw that the 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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