Read Online Alexander Mccall Smith - Isabel Dalhousie 05 by The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday - Free Book Online

to, the cardiologist, he said that there had been some issue with your husband.”
    Stella looked away. “That’s one way of putting it.” She paused and looked back up at Isabel. “The truth of the matter, Isabel, is that I want you to help him. I know that you don’t know me. I know that our troubles have got nothing to do with you, but that’s the problem, you see, our troubles have got nothing to do with anybody. Except us.” She made a gesture of despair. “So what am I to do? I can’t do anything myself, and Marcus, that’s my husband…he’s paralysed with guilt and self-reproach. With shame, too. He’ll hardly leave the house. Won’t talk to his old friends.”
    Isabel listened carefully. It was not clear to her why Stella had chosen her. She decided to ask.
    â€œBecause I’ve heard about you,” said Stella. “I knew somebody you helped a couple of years ago. Nobody asked you. You just helped. And you made a difference.”
    Isabel noticed that Eddie was signalling from the counter, making a gesture towards the coffee machine. She nodded to him and then said to Stella, “They make a particularly good cappuccino here. Would you…”
    â€œYes. Please.”
    â€œAnd then you can tell me exactly what the problem is. I can’t imagine that I’ll be of any use, but tell me anyway, and I’ll do what I can.”
    It sounded so trite to her, even as she said it; the stock scene from the detective novel. The investigator reassures the distraught wife. Find out who’s blackmailing/having an affair with/holding prisoner my husband, please. Don’t worry, I’ll do what I can. And then the relief on the face of the supplicant.
    Stella looked relieved.
    Isabel stopped herself short. Don’t make light of human pain, she told herself. It’s not funny.

CHAPTER FIVE

    T HAT EVENING, on impulse, Isabel said to Jamie, “Look, it’s five o’clock, or just about. If we bathed Charlie now and gave him his—”
    â€œTea,” supplied Jamie, pointedly, but smiling as he said it. He wanted to use the popular Scottish word for what Isabel would have called dinner, or possibly supper.
    â€œIf you like,” said Isabel. “I was going to say dinner, as you well know. But then, if you’re going to be all down and demotic, dinner means lunch in such circles, doesn’t it?”
    â€œFeed,” suggested Jamie. “How about that as a compromise?”
    Isabel did not think so. “Give him his
feed
? It sounds like agriculture to me. You give feed to cattle, don’t you. Anyway, after he’s had his…”
    â€œGrub.”
    â€œAll right, after he’s had his grub, why don’t we…” She paused. “Grub first, then ethics. You know who said that?” It was an accurate description, perhaps, of the daily routine of the editor of the
Review of Applied Ethics,
which did indeed begin with breakfast and proceed to ethics.
    Jamie did not hesitate. “
Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.
Brecht.”
    Isabel bowed her head in mock homage. “I’m impressed.”
    â€œMy German teacher at school went on about that,” said Jamie. “He said that
Fressen
was appropriate for animals rather than people. Brecht was showing his low opinion of humanity by choosing to say
Fressen
rather than
Essen.
That’s why
grub
is a better translation than
food.
Grub is messy, animal stuff. He was very clever.”
    â€œHe was a hypocrite,” said Isabel. “He lived very comfortably in the GDR. No belching Trabbi for him. And he supported those horrific people who ran the place.”
    Jamie shrugged. “He believed in communism, didn’t he?”
    â€œYes,” said Isabel. “But he enjoyed what other writers in the GDR were denied. Freedom.” It was tawdry, that shabby republic, with its legions of informers and its