The Right Attitude to Rain

As Jamie acknowledged the information, Isabel, who had poured herself a fresh cup of tea, fiddled with her teaspoon.

Then Angie said, “Is everything all right up there? Are you comfortable enough?”

Jamie was on the point of leaving the room. He stopped.

“Yes,” he said quickly. “Yes, it’s fine.”

“I’ll come up and check on everything,” said Angie. “I’ve left the arrangements to Mrs. Paterson, but I should see that everything’s all right.”

Jamie threw a glance at Isabel, and she looked at him helplessly.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything’s fine. Mrs. Paterson has looked after us very well.”

“Yes,” said Isabel. “Very well. You’re lucky to have her.”

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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Angie looked at Isabel, but only for a moment before she turned away, as if Isabel’s intervention was hardly worth noticing.

She put down her cup and rose to her feet. “I’ll come with you.”

Tom appeared uninterested in this conversation. He said to Isabel, “Do you know the Falls of Clyde?”

“The Falls of Clyde?” She was thinking of what Angie might do when she went upstairs. Did it matter at all that she had been told that her guests, whom she thought were merely ac-quainted, were occupying the same room? What business was it of hers? None, Isabel decided. In fact, it would probably do her good to be reminded of this, as it might lessen the eyeing up of Jamie which was going on. Was Tom completely unaware of that? Had he not noticed?

Jamie left the room, with Angie just behind him. Poor Jamie, thought Isabel. He’s embarrassed about this. I have no need to feel awkward, but it must be different for him. She thought of the reason for this. It was the way that people looked at these things—from the outside. The younger man was seen as being used. Always. That’s the way people thought.

She was not using him. And she would not hold on to him; she knew that there would come a time when one of them would need to let go—and it would be him. When that time came she would not stop him. But it was not yet. And it did not matter what the world thought of her. If people wanted to talk of cradle-snatching, they were welcome to do so.

C H A P T E R N I N E T E E N

E

ON MONDAY, back in Edinburgh, she spent three hours at her desk and made a good dent in the submissions pile. There was an awkward letter to deal with, too, which took almost an hour: a letter from a member of the editorial board expressing concern about the direction the Review was taking. Since they had appointed this new member, a young professor from the University of British Columbia, he had written to Isabel four times. Normally she did not hear from the members of the editorial board, some of whom she suspected were only dimly aware that they were members and who never raised any issues.

But this professor took his membership seriously and had a keen eye for what he saw as deviations from the main purpose of the journal. We are a journal of applied ethics, he wrote to Isabel. There are plenty of journals that cover moral theory— our job is to look at the application of ethics to concrete situations: the real problems of real people doing real jobs.

At his suggestion they had devoted an entire issue to lifeboat ethics. The discussion had been concerned with the deci-sions that one had to make in a lifeboat about who was allowed in and who should remain on the sinking ship if there were not 2 2 0

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h enough seats. And then, once the lifeboat was launched and began to ride too low in the water, who would be thrown out.

Should the oldest go first? How would one choose between the loafer and the hard-working doctor? And what if the people in the boat became really hungry and had no alternative but to eat one of their number?

Highly unlikely, another member of the editorial board had written to Isabel. Should we not concentrate on the problems of the real world?

And Isabel had replied:

I’m sorry to have to take issue with you on this, but I assure you that these questions have arisen in the real world. The case of the Mignonette was very well documented, and it is just one example. A small group of sailors was shipwrecked and found themselves in a lifeboat with the cabin boy. They drifted around for some time, becoming hungrier and hungrier, and eventually, in sheer desperation, two of them decided to kill and eat the cabin boy. This they did, and then, as luck would have it, help steamed over the horizon. The sailors were taken back to England and charged with murder. They argued that they were driven to do what they did through sheer necessity, but the criminal courts took a different view and they were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Fortunately they were not hanged, and had to serve only short prison sentences. That happened.

This had drawn a swift response. You said “fortunately” they were not hanged, wrote her correspondent. Aren’t you justifying murder? By what principle can I kill an innocent person to save my own life?

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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I am not saying that, Isabel replied. I said that it was fortunate that they were not hanged because I have a very strong objection to the death penalty. Killing another as a punishment is an act of barbarism. It’s as simple as that. And it also shows a terrible lack of forgiveness. That is why I said that it was fortunate that those two men were not hanged.

The reply came. I see. I stand corrected. But the point remains: Can you kill another to save your life even if your victim is not responsible for creating the threat to your life in the first place? That’s the question.