The Novel Habits of Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith [McCall Smith, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

ISABEL HAD BEEN IN TOUCH with Kirsten, suggesting that she come round for afternoon tea the following day.

“With Harry,” she added. “Bring him after school.”

“They’ve just broken up for the summer. He’s on holiday.” She paused. “Are you sure?”

“I’d like to meet him.” And then she asked, “Can we talk about it? I mean, can I talk to him about…his previous life?” She felt slightly foolish, but that was what the boy himself had been talking about.

Kirsten had reassured her that Harry was quite open about it. “He seems quite happy to speak about it. But I don’t think you should go into this business of wanting to go back.”

“Of course not.”

“The doctors said that we should ignore that. Or one of them said that; another said that we needed to talk that through.”

“I’ll keep off that,” said Isabel.

She asked Jamie to take Charlie to the Blackford Pond while the visit was taking place. Charlie admired older children and would distract Harry with his attention; the long-suffering ducks at Blackford Pond were capable of providing seemingly endless entertainment for the price of a bag of bread crusts.

Kirsten was early, and Isabel was still working in her study when she arrived. She had been editing a particularly opaque article and was beginning to ask herself why she had accepted it for publication. But the letter had been sent, and the author, a post-doctoral fellow at a university in New Zealand, had already been in touch to express his delight at the decision. “This makes all the difference to me,” he had written. “It’s my first publication, you see, and…well, I’m just over the moon—I really am. My wife is having a baby, as it happens, and this is the icing on the cake. First baby, first publication!” She would persist, but it was trying, and the sound of the doorbell was a welcome release.

Harry was standing next to his mother on the doorstep, clinging to the fabric of her jeans, a small hand pinched tight for security. He was wearing a striped shirt of a sort that Jamie had bought for Charlie; small red shoes with white laces; stains on the legs of his trousers—mud, she thought; that aversion of eyes with which small children will express their embarrassment. Kirsten had said that he had just turned seven, but he looked slightly younger than that, she thought: five or six—no more.

Kirsten attempted to introduce Isabel, but the boy looked away, and then stared fixedly at the ground.

“You must say hello,” said his mother. “Come on, Harry. It’s rude not to say hello to Isabel.”

Isabel bent down. “I’ve got a little boy too,” she whispered. “He’s not here, but he said you can look at his cars. He’s got some cars.”

Harry looked up and met her gaze. She was struck by the colour of his eyes: they were grey, or seemed to be grey in this light, and had an unexpected softness to them, like the eyes of some timid, small creature, which is what he was, of course.

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