The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel (9) Read Online Free PDF Page A

him. Somebody
     had mentioned your name. I said that you had quite a reputation for helping people
     in a tight spot and that he could talk to you. I hope you don’t mind.”
    Of course Isabel minded; it was very easy, she thought, to offer the services of others.
     But then she remembered her sainted American mother and asked herself how she would
     havereacted to such a request. She knew the answer. “Never turn your back on another,”
     her mother had said to her when she was a girl. “The person you’re turning your back
     on might die that night.” It was not, Isabel realised, the sort of thing one should
     say to children, who could feel unreasonably anxious about death anyway. And if somebody
     died, the child could well blame himself or herself; children often did that, the
     psychologists told us; they felt guilty about things that happened, even if they had
     nothing at all to do with them.
I turned my back on her, and she went and died!
But it was advice that had stuck, and came back to Isabel now, years later, in this
     difficult encounter. She stared at Martha. “I will, if you want me to,” she said.
     She almost added, “Though I can’t say I’m overly enthusiastic,” but decided against
     it. There was no need to be churlish.
    Martha looked at her gratefully. “Even if you just talk to him,” she said. “Listen
     to his tale of woe. Even that would help.”
    “I’ll try,” said Isabel.
    “Tomorrow?” asked Martha. “Duncan’s coming into town. Could you see him then? Lunch—just
     the three of us. Unless you’d rather I didn’t come.”
    Isabel hesitated. There were times when one had to act self-defensively, even if it
     caused disappointment. It went against the grain, but one had to.
    “Just him and me, I think,” she said. She tried to speak gently, but even then felt
     she had to explain. “It’s sometimes easier for people to talk if there’s nobody else
     there.”
    “Do you think so?” said Martha.
    “I do,” said Isabel.
    Martha shrugged. “Odd,” she said.
    It was true, thought Isabel, that none of us ever imagined that people might
not
wish to be in our company. We assumedthat people found us good company, would like to be with us. But they might not. They
     might find us opinionated or dull or irritating—as poor Martha undoubtedly was; all
     of which qualities we would be the last to discern in ourselves.
    Isabel swallowed. It was so easy to forget the needs of others, and to allow irritation,
     boredom or sheer indifference to get the better of us. She would not do that; she
     would make an effort. It was very easy to build people up, to make them feel better
     about themselves: a few words of praise, an appreciative comment or two, and people
     felt better. Martha clearly took pains to look her best; perhaps a remark about that
     would help the situation.
    “I must say,” Isabel began, and then searched desperately for a suitable comment.
     “I must say that you’re looking really … really attractive. That top suits you, I
     think. Your colour.”
    She drew in her breath. The top was beige: she had just suggested that Martha’s colour
     was beige.
    “Beige?”
    “No,” said Isabel quickly. “I wouldn’t call it beige. I’d say
oatmeal
. I’ve got a carpet that colour in the upstairs bedroom and …” She trailed off as
     it struck her that she had now compared Martha’s top to a carpet.
    Martha stared at her for a moment before smiling wryly. “It’s kind of you to say that,
     Isabel, but I’m sure you don’t really mean it.”
    “I did mean it,” Isabel lied. And she thought, more than a little ashamedly: Kant
     would never,
never
have given that answer. He would never have paid an insincere compliment in the first
     place. Kant would not have noticed the way a woman was dressed; Hume might have, and
     Voltaire certainly would.
What the Great Philosophers Would Say About Your Wardrobe:
that would be an amusing book to write—and it