Sweet, Thoughtful Valentine by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith [Smith, Alexander McCall]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Short Stories
ISBN: 1414027192
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

She was no nearer a decision the following morning; indeed, she had given the matter no further thought. That day was to have been devoted to routine editorial tasks, but became something altogether different when her niece, Cat, called her shortly after breakfast.

“I know you’re busy,” Cat began—an opening that invariably preceded a request for help.

“Staff shortage?” asked Isabel.

Cat did not answer. “Charlie’s still going to that playgroup of his?”

Isabel replied that he was. “Do you need me to help at the deli?”

Cat could hardly ignore the direct question. “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “Eddie has to go to the dentist. He hasn’t been for ages and I had to make the appointment for him. He’s got some sort of dental phobia.”

Isabel remembered that she had had a dental conversation with Cat’s young assistant some years previously. She remembered that he had looked at her disbelievingly when she told him about the efficacy of dental anaesthesia.

“I wasn’t going to be doing very much,” she said to Cat. “I can easily come in, if you like. Jamie’s going to take Charlie to playgroup this morning—I can be in by nine.”

“Oh, Isabel! You…you angel.”

“I don’t mind,” said Isabel. “And, by the way, angels are those who do things they can’t abide doing. There’s no great credit in doing something you enjoy doing.” As she spoke, she thought of the issue of whether good actions were good because they had good results or because they were done for a good motive. Would a saint be less of a saint if he did what he did for reasons of personal gratification rather than for the benefit of others? She thought he would.

Cat was always short with her when she made philosophical points. “Nine o’clock then?” she said. “I don’t think we’re going to be particularly busy. It’s been quiet these last few days.”

Cat rang off and Isabel returned to the kitchen to finish giving Charlie his breakfast. She had cut small strips of bread on which butter and boiled egg had been spread; these were called soldiers and they were a particular favourite.

“Soldiers!” he shouted, waving his hands enthusiastically.

Jamie took him off to playgroup half an hour later, giving Isabel time to read a few emails before she left for Bruntsfield and Cat’s deli. As she made her way along Merchiston Crescent, she thought about the content of the emails. There had been seven of them, and most of them had been concerned with mundane journal affairs. One, though, was a complaint from a subscriber, who berated Isabel for publishing papers by a conservative philosopher of whom she strongly disapproved. It was a letter of extraordinary intolerance, and Isabel had stared at the text with astonishment.

She had begun to feel angry, tapping out a response on her keyboard with a force that she would not normally have used to type a letter. I assume that you intended your letter to be published in our correspondence columns, she wrote. However, since I do not like your views, I shall not do so.

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