Alexander McCall Smith

From The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Abacus [imprint of Time Warner] 2003):

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work it out themselves, they would never bother. They would just find what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought.
Precious Ramotswe had learned about good and evil at Sunday School. The cousin had taken her there when she was six, and she had gone there every Sunday without fail until she was eleven. That was enough time for her to learn all about right and wrong, although she had been puzzled - and remained so - when it came to certain other aspects of religion. She could not believe that the Lord had walked on water - you just couldn't do that - nor had she believed the story about the feeding of the five thousand, which was equally impossible. These were lies, she was sure of it, and the biggest lie of all was that the Lord had no Daddy on this earth. That was untrue because even children knew that you needed a father to make a child, and that rule applied to cattle and chickens and people, all the same. But right and wrong - that was another matter, and she had experienced no difficulty in understanding that it was wrong to lie, and steal, and kill other people.
[Chapter 3, Lessons about Boys and Goats, p. 33-34]
"He comes home smelling of perfume," she said, "and smiling too. Why would a man come home smelling of perfume and smiling?"
"Perhaps he is seeing another woman," ventured Mma Ramotswe.
The woman had looked at her aghast.
"Do you think he would do that? My husband?"
They had discussed the situation and it was agreed that the woman would tackle her husband on the subject.
"It's possible there is another explanation," said Mma Ramotswe reassuringly."
"Such as?"
"Well ..."
"Many men wear perfume these days," offered Mma Makutsi. "They think it makes them smell good. You know how men smell."
The client turned in her chair and stared at Mma Makutsi.
"My husband does not smell," she said, "He is a very clean man."
Mma Ramotswe had thrown Mma Makutsi a warning look. She would have to have a work with her about keeping out of the way when clients were there.
[Chapter 7, Mma Makutsi Deals with the Mail, p. 82-83]
[...] Perhaps she wanted him dead, and then her prayer was answered by the crocodile. Would that make you a murderer in God's eyes if something then happened? God would know, you see, that you had wanted somebody dead because there are no secrets that you can keep from God. Everybody knows that.
She stopped. It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going out. Pumpkin.
[Chapter 7, Mma Makutsi Deals with the Mail, p. 84]
She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them to form a political party - with a chance of government perhaps - but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail.
[Chapter 20, Medical Matters, p. 193]

From Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith (Abacus [imprint of Time Warner] 2003):

Old diesel engines were generally reliable, but there came a point in their existence when they simply had to be pensioned off. He had hinted at this to Mma Potokwani, but she had always come up with reasons why money should be spent on other, more pressing projects.
"But water is the most important thing of all," said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. "If you can't water your vegetables, then what are the children going to eat?"
"God will provide," said Mma Potokwani calmly. "He will send us a new engine one day."
"Maybe," said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. "But then maybe not. God is sometimes not very interested in engines. I fix cars for quite a few ministers of religion, and they all have trouble. God's servants are not very good drivers."
[Chapter 4, At the Orphan Farm, p. 42-43]
Mma Ramotswe told her that she was engaged to be married, and she pointed to the diamond on her finger. Mma Tsbago admired it and asked who the fiancé was. It was a good thing to marry a mechanic, she said, as she had heard that they made the best husbands. You should try to marry a policeman, a mechanic or a minister of religion, she said, and you should never marry a politician, a barman, or a taxi driver. These people always caused a great deal of trouble for their wives.
"And you shouldn't marry a trumpeter," added Mma Ramotswe. "I made that mistake. I married a bad man called Note Mokoti. He played the trumpet."
"I'm sure that they are not good people to marry," said Mma Tsbago. "I shall add them to my list."
[Chapter 6, A Dry Place, p. 65-66]

From Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor Books [imprint of Random House] 2002):

Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and observance. You simply could not create your own morality because your experience would never be enough to do so. What gives you the right to say that you know better than your ancestors? Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it. That was what made the modern morality with its emphasis on individuals and the working out of an individual position, so weak. If you gave people the chance to work out their morality, then they would work out the version which was easiest for them and which allowed them to do what suited them for as much of the time as possible. That, in Mma Ramotswe's view, was simple selfishness, whatever grand name one gave to it.
Mma Ramotswe had listened to a World Service broadcast on her radio one day which had simply taken her breath away. It was about philosophers who called themselves existentialists and who, as far as Mma Ramotswe could ascertain, lived in France. These French people said that you should live in a way which made you feel real, and that the real thing to do was the right thing too. Mma Ramotswe had listened in astonishment. You did not have to go to France to meet existentialists, she reflected; there were many existentialists right here in Botswana. [...] It was very existentialist, perhaps, to go out to bars every night while your pregnant wife stayed at home, and even more existentialist to go off with girls -- young existentialist girls -- you met in bars. It was a good life being an existentialist, although not too good for all the other, nonexistentialist people around one.
[Chapter 7, The Girl with Three Lives, p. 77-78]
"Do not listen to him, ladies," said Mma Makutsi. "This young man is not allowed to see girls. He already has a wife and three children and his wife gets very cross if she hears that girls are talking to him. Very cross."
The students moved back. One of them now looked at the apprentice reproachfully.
"But that is not true," protested the young man. "I am not married."
"That's what all you men say," said one of the students, angry now. [...]
The apprentice started the car, tight-lipped, and drove off.
"You should not have said that, Mma. You made me look foolish."
Mma Makutsi snorted. "You made yourself look foolish. Why are you always running after girls? Why are you always trying to impress them?"
"Because that's how I enjoy myself," said the apprentice defensively. "I like talking to girls. We have all these beautiful girls in this country and there is nobody to talk to them. I am doing a service to the country."
[Chapter 15, What Do You Want to Do with Your Life?, p. 188-189]

From The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith (Abacus [imprint of Time Warner] 2004):

[...] "You have to be careful what you say," she warned Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. "People don't like you to think that they know nothing. Especially somebody like Mma Makutsi, with her ninety-seven per cent or whatever it was. You can't go and tell somebody like that that they don't know a basic thing, such as how to find a husband."
"It's nothing to do with ninety seven per cent," said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. "You could get one hundred per cent for typing and still not know how to talk to men. Getting married is different from being able to type. Quite different."
[Chapter 1, How to Find a Man, p. 8]
"You are a lady who is full of ideas," said the younger apprentice. "Your head must hurt, Mma."
Mma Makutsi smiled. "Only hard ideas make your head hurt. My ideas are always simple."
"I have simple ideas too," said the older apprentice. "I have ideas of girls. Those are my ideas. Simple. Girls, and then more girls."
Mma Makutsi ignored this, addressing her next remark to the younger apprentice. "There are many people wanting to learn how to drive, are there not?"
The younger apprentice shrugged. "They can learn. There are lots of bush roads for them to practice on."
"But that won't help them drive in town," said Mma Makutsi quickly. "There are too many things happening in town. There are cars going this way and that. There are people crossing the road."
"And a lot of girls," interjected the older apprentice. "Lots of girls walking about. All the time."
The younger apprentice turned to look at his friend. "What is wrong with you? You are always thinking of girls."
"So are you," snapped the other. "Anyone who says he does not think of girls is a liar. All men think of girls. That is what men like to do."
"Not all the time," said the younger one. "There are other things to think about."
"That is not true," the older one retorted. "If you didn't think about girls, then it is a sign that you are about to die. That is a well-known fact."
[...] The younger apprentice [...] turned to Mma Makutsi. "What will you call this driving school, Mma?"
"I have not thought about it," she said. "I will think of something. The name you give to a business is very important [...] The name says everything you need to know about the business."
The younger apprentice looked up at her hopefully. "I have a good idea for the name," he said. "We could call it Learn to Drive with Jesus."
There was silence. The older apprentice cast a glance in the direction of his friend, and then turned away.
"I am not sure about that," said Mma Makutsi. "I will think about it, but I am not sure."
"It is a very good name," said the younger apprentice. "It will attract a careful class of driver and it will mean that we have no accidents. The Lord will look after us."
"I hope so," said Mma Makutsi. [...]
[Chapter 2, Learn to Drive with Jesus, p. 24-26]

From The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon [imprint of Birlinn Ltd] 2003):

One of the older girls had made tea, and now she brought this in, together with the rich fruit cake on a plate. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni saw the cake, and for a moment he frowned. He knew Mma Potokwani, and the presence of a large cake, specially made for the occasion, was an unambiguous signal that she had a request to make of him. A cake of this size, and emitting such a strong smell of raisins, would mean a major mechanical problem. The minivan? He had replaced the brake pads recently, but he was concerned about the engine seals. At that age, engine seals could go and the block could heat up and ...
"I've made you a cake," said Mma Potokwani brightly.
"You are a very generous person, Mma," said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni flatly. "You always remember that I like raisins."
"I have many more packets of raisins," said Mma Potokwani, making a generous gesture; as might one with an unlimited supply of raisins. She reached over to the plate and cut a large portion for her guest. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni watched her, and he thought: once I eat this cake I will have to say yes. But then he went on to think: I always say yes anyway, cake or no cake. What difference is there?
[...]
"Now," said Mma Potokwani, as she placed another, particularly generous, slice of cake on Mr J. L. B. Matekoni's plate. "Now, we can talk. Now I know you are a brave man, which I always suspected anyway."
"You must stop calling me that," he said. "I am no braver than any other man."
Mma Potokwani seemed not to hear. "A brave man," she went on. "And I have been looking for a brave man now for over a week. At last I have found him."
[...]
Mr J. L. B. Matekoni look down at his plate. He felt a strong sense of foreboding but he would eat the cake nonetheless while Mma Potokwani revealed whatever it was that she had in store for him. He would be strong this time, he thought. He had stood up to her not all that long ago on the question of the pump, and the need to replace it; now he would stand up to her again. He picked up the piece of cake and bit off a large piece. The raisins tasted even better now, in the presence of danger.
[Chapter 2, How to Run an Orphan Farm, p. 18-19, 23-24]
Mma Ramotswe said nothing, while Mma Makutsi continued. "You must go into the garage right now," she said. "You must put a stop to it. You must forbid him. It is too dangerous."
Mma Ramotswe nodded. "I do not think that it is a good idea. But I am not sure that I can forbid him. He is not a child."
"But you are his wife," said Mma Makutsi. "Or you are almost his wife. You have the right to stop him doing something dangerous."
Mma Ramotswe frowned. "No, I do not have that right. I can talk to him about it, but if you try to stop people from doing things they can resent it. I do not want Mr J. L. B. Matekoni to think that I am telling him what to do all the time. That is not a good start to a marriage."
"But it hasn't started yet," protested Mma Makutsi. "You are just an engaged lady. And you've been an engaged lady a long time now. There is no sign of a wedding." She stopped, realising that perhaps she had gone too far. What she said was quite true, but it did not help to draw attention to their long engagement and to the conspicuous absence of any wedding plans.
Mma Ramotswe was not offended. "You are right," she said. "I am a very engaged lady. I have been waiting for a long time. But you cannot push men around. They do not like it. They like to feel that they are making their own decisions."
"Even when they are not?" interjected Mma Makutsi.
"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "We all know that it is women who take the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women."
"So we should say nothing at the moment?" she said. "And then ..."
"And then we find a chance to say something very small," said Mma Ramotswe. "We shall find some way to get Mr J. L. B. Matekoni out of this. But it will be done carefully, and he will think he has changed his mind."
Mma Makutsi smiled. "You are very clever with men, Mma. You know how their minds work."
Mma Ramotswe shrugged. "When I was a girl I used to watch little boys playing and I saw what they did. Now that I am a lady, I know that there is not much difference. Boys and men are the same people, in different clothes. Boys wear short trousers and men wear long trousers. But they are just the same if you take their trousers off."
Mma Makutsi stared at Mma Ramotswe who, suddenly flustered, added quickly, "That is not what I meant to say. What I meant to say is that trousers mean nothing. Men think like boys, and if you understand boys, then you understand men. That is what I meant to say."
"I thought so," said Mma Makutsi. "I did not think that you meant anything else."
"Good," said Mma Ramotswe briskly. "Then let us have a cup of tea and think about how we are going to deal with this problem which Mma Holonga brought us the other day. We cannot sit here all day talking about men. We must get down to work. There is much to do."
Mma Makutsi made the bush tea and they sipped on the dark red liquid as they discussed the best approach to the issue of Mma Holonga's suitors. Tea, of course, made the problem seem smaller, as it always does, and by the time they reached the bottom of their cups cups, and Mma Makutsi had reached for the slightly chipped teapot to pour a refill, it had become clear what they would have to do.
[Chapter 8, Tea is Always the Solution, p. 91-93]
Mma Ramotswe had once come across somebody who had forgotten his Setswana, and she had been astonished, and shocked. This person had gone to live in Mozambique as a young man and had spoken Tsonga there, and had learned Portuguese too. When he came back to Botswana, thirty years later, it seemed as if he were a foreigner, and she had seen him look puzzled when people used quite simple, everyday Setswana words. To lose your own language was like forgetting your mother, and as sad, in a way. We must not lose Setswana, she thought, even if we speak a great deal of English these days, because that would be like losing part of one's soul.
Mma Makutsi, of course, had another language tucked away in her background. Her mother had been a speaker of Ikalanga, because she had come from Marapong, where they spoke a dialect of Ikalanga called Lilima. That made life very complicated, thought Mma Ramotswe, because that meant that she spoke a minor version of a minor language. Mma Makutsi had been brought up speaking both Setswana, her father's language, and this strange version of Ikalanga, and then had learned English at school, because that was how one got on in life. You could never even get to the Botswana Secretarial College if you spoke no English, and you would certainly never get anywhere near ninety-seven per cent unless your English was almost faultless, like the English that schoolteachers used to speak.
Mma Ramotswe had almost forgotten that Mma Makutsi spoke Ikalanga until one day she had used an Ikalanga word in the middle of a sentence, and it had stuck out.
"I have hurt my gumbo," Mma Makutsi had said.
Mma Ramotswe had looked at her in surprise. "Your gumbo?"
"Yes," said Mma Makutsi. "When I was walking to work today, I stepped into a pothole and hurt my gumbo." She paused, noticing the look of puzzlement on Mma Ramotswe's face. Then she realised. "I'm sorry," she said. "Gumbo is foot in Ikalanga. If you speak Ikalanga, your foot is your gumbo."
"I see," said Mma Ramotswe. "That is a very strange word. Gumbo."
"It is not strange," said Mma Makutsi, slightly defensively. "There are many different words for foot. It is foot in English. In Setswana it is lonao, and in Ikalanga it is gumbo, which is what it really is."
Mma Ramotswe laughed. "There is no real word for foot. You cannot say it is really gumbo, because that is only true for Ikalanga-speaking feet. Each foot has its own name, depending on the language which the foot's mother spoke. That is the way it works, Mma Makutsi."
That had ended the conversation, and no more was said of gumbos.
[Chapter 15, Bad Men are Just Little Boys, Underneath, p. 157-158]

From In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon [imprint of Birlinn Ltd] 2004):

[...] Mma Ramotswe went on to explain that new shoes would be wasted on Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. "There is no point in buying men new shoes," she said. "They are wasted on them. Men are not interested in shoes. That is very well known. If a man is always thinking about shoes, then there is something wrong with that man."
"And what do men think about?" asked Mma Makutsi. "If they cannot think about shoes, what can they think about?"
Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. "Men think about ladies a great deal of the time," she said. "They think about ladies in a disrespectful way. That is because men are made that way, and there is nothing that can be done to change them. Then if they are not thinking about ladies, they are thinking about cattle and cars. And some men think about football too. These are all things that men like to think about."
[Chapter 17, Mma Ramotswe, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, and Mr Polopetsi Get an Unpleasant Surprise, p. 184-185]

From Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon [imprint of Birlinn Ltd] 2003):

The next day was the first working day of the field trip. Vogelsang had been told of the existence of an extremely old man who lived on a nearby hillside and who spoke a version of Irish which was considered by all to be exceptionally archaic. If there were to be any vestiges of Old Irish extant, then in the words used by this old man might such linguistic remnants be found.
"You can certainly call on old Sean," said the hotel proprietor. "But I can't guarantee your reception. He may speak interesting Irish, but he's an extremely unpleasant, smelly old man. Not even the priest dares go up there, and that's saying something in these parts."
Undaunted, Vogelsang led the way up the narrow, unused track that lead to Sean's cottage. At last they reached it and, carefully negotiating the ramble of surrounding pig-sties, they approached the front door.
Vogelsang knocked loudly, and then called out (in Old Irish): "We are here, Sean. I am Professor Vogelsang from Germany. And this young man is my assistant."
There was silence from within the cottage. Vogelsang knocked again, louder now, and this time elicited a response. A frowning, weather-beaten face, caked with dirt, appeared at the window and gesticulated in an unfriendly fashion. Vogelsang bent down and put his face close to the window so that his nose was barely a few inches from Sean, but separated by a pane of glass.
"Good morning, Sean," said Vogelsang, "We have come to talk to you."
Sean appeared enraged. Shouting now, he hurled words out at the visiting philiologists, shaking both fists at Vogelsang's face.
"Quick," said Vogelsang, momentarily turning to von Ingelfeld. "Transcribe everything he says. Do it phonetically."
As Sean continued to hurl abuse at Vogelsang, von Ingelfeld's pencil moved swiftly over the paper, noting everything that the cantankerous and malodorous farmer said. Vogelsang nodded all the while, hoping to encourage the Irishman to open the door, but only succeeding in further annoying him. At last, after almost three quarters of an hour, Vogelsang observed that the visit might come to an end, and with the echoing shouts of Sean following them down the hill, they returned to the hotel.
A further attempt to visit Sean was made the next day, and the day after that, but the visitors were never admitted. They did, however, collect a full volume of transcribed notes on what he shouted at them through the door, and this was analysed each evening by a delighted Vogelsang.
"There is some very rare material here," he said, poring over von Ingelfeld's phonetic notations. "Look, that verb over there, which is used only when addressing a pig, was thought to have disappeared centuries ago."
"And he used it in addressing us?" said von Ingelfeld wryly.
"Of course," snapped Vogelsang. "Everything he says to us is, in fact, obscene. Everything you have recorded here is a swear word of the most vulgar nature. But very old. Very, very old!"
[Chapter 3, Early Irish Pornography, p. 37-39]

From The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon [imprint of Birlinn Ltd] 2003):

"Tell me, Herr Unterholzer," he said. "If you were to want to go to America to give a lecture, how would you ... well, how would you get yourself invited, so to speak?" Quickly adding: "Not that I would ever be in such a position myself, but you yourself could be, could you not?"
Unterholzer had an immediate answer.
I should contact the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst," he said. I should tell them who I was and I should ask them to arrange a lecture somewhere in America. That is what they are paid to do."
"I see," said von Igelfeld. "That would no doubt save embarrassment."
"Of course," said Unterholzer. "They are experts in finding places for more German academics to go and lecture to other people, whether or not they want to hear them. They are very persuasive people. That is how I went to Buenos Aires and gave my lecture there. It really works."
[Chapter 1, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, p. 10-11]
[...] He was aware of the fact that it bore an American stamp; American stamps, he had observed, always showed people doing things, whereas German stamps were designed not to excite people too much and were somehow more appropriate.
[Chapter 2, A Leg to Stand On, p. 23]
[...] It was true that the dog had lost three legs in the incident, but the Veterinary Institute had gone out of its way to fit it with a prosthetic appliance that appeared to be working. An elaborate harness was secured around the dog's body and attached to this were three small wheels. By using its remaining leg as a paddle, the dog could propel itself on its wheels and get anywhere it wished to get. Only very occasionally did the system not work, as had happened once or twice on a hill, when the dog had got out of control and careered down the pavement on its tiny wheels, unable to stop itself, and had ended up on a lawn or in a bush. [...]
"What I mean," went on Unterholzer, "is that it takes a toll to be looking after a handicapped dog. There are so many things to worry about. Such a dog might become stuck in the mud, for example, if one's dog happens to have wheels, that is. Only yesterday I had to oil him. One does not usually have to oil a dog, I think."
[Chapter 3, On the Couch, p. 23]

From At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon [imprint of Birlinn Ltd] 2003):

Cinco Fermentaciones shook his head. "No," he said. "You must not leave the hotel. It is for your own safety."
Von Igelfeld looked at the manager, who nodded his agreement with Cinco Fermentaciones and made a quick, but eloquent, throat-slitting gesture.
"Outside is extremely dangerous," the manager said quietly. "The whole country is extremely dangerous."
"Surely not in the middle of the city," protested von Igelfeld. "Look, there are plenty of people outside in the streets."
"Yes," said Cinco Fermentaciones. "And most of them are extremely dangerous. Believe me, I know my own country. [...]"
"But who are these dangerous people?" asked von Igelfeld.
"Brigands, desperadoes, narcotraficantes, guerillas," began Cinco Fermentaciones. "Extortionists, murderers, anti-Government factions, pro-government factions, disaffected soldiers, corrupt policemen, revolutionary students, conservative students, students in general, cocaine producers, hostile small farmers, dispossessed peasants ... And there are others."
"Disaffected waiters as well," interjected the hotel manager. "We regularly receive bomb threats from a movement of disaffected waiters who attack hotels. It is very troublesome."
[At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, p. 85-86]

From The Girl Who Married a Lion by Alexander McCall Smith (Canongate, 2005):

The animals were very fortunate in finding a good supply of water under the ground. They all drank their fill and then began to leave the well. When they returned, though, they found that the water was dirtied - somebody had been drinking from it in their absence.
"We must leave somebody on guard," said Elephant. "Then that animal will be able to stop the water from being dirtied while we are off hunting."
It was agreed that Hyena would take on this task on the first day, and he was duly left there, while all the others went off in search of food. He sat in the shade of the tree and thought about things that hyenas like to think about, which are not things that you and I would understand.
[Tremendously Clever Tricks are Played, but to Limited Effect, p. 171]

From The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon [imprint of Random House], 2004):

"[...] Our emotions all seem geared towards keeping us in one piece, as animals, so to speak. Fear and flight. Fighting over food. Hatred and envy. All very physical and connected with survival."
"But might one not equally say that the emotions have a role in developing our higher capacities?" Isabel had countered. "Our emotions allow us to empathise with others. If I love another, then I know what it is to be that other person. If I feel pity -- which is an important emotion, isn't it? -- then this helps me to understand the suffering of others. So our emotions make us grow morally. We develop a moral imagination."
"Perhaps," Cat had said, but she had been looking away then, at a jar of pickled onions -- this conversation had taken place in the delicatessen -- and her attention had clearly wandered. Pickled onions had nothing to do with moral imagination, but were important in their own quiet, vinegary way, Isabel supposed.
[Chapter 4, p. 46]
It was so easy, thought Isabel. It was so easy dealing with people who were well-mannered, as Paul Hogg was. They knew how to exchange those courtesies which made life go smoothly, which was what manners were all about. They were intended to avoid friction between people, and they did this by regulating the contours of an encounter. If each party knew what the other should do, then conflict would be unlikely And this worked at every level, from the most minor transaction between two people to dealings between nations. International law, after all, was simply a system of manners writ large.
[Chapter 14, p. 140]
Isabel agreed, but could think of nothing useful to add, so she said: "It's spring, I suppose."
"I suppose," said the barman. "But you never know."
Isabel had returned to her table. You never know. Of course you never know. Anything could happen in this life. Here she was, the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, about to go off in search of ... of a murderer is what it amounted to. And in this task she was to be assisted, although somewhat reluctantly, by a beautiful young man with whom she was half in love but who was himself in love with her niece, who in turn appeared besotted with somebody else, who was having a simultaneous affair with his sister's flatmate. No, the barman certainly did not know, and if she told him he would scarcely believe it.
[Chapter 15, p. 142]
Jamie looked unconvinced. "These sociopaths," he said. "What do they feel like? Inside?"
Isabel smiled. "Unmoved," she said. "They feel unmoved. Look at a cat when it does something wrong. It looks quite unmoved. Cats are sociopaths, you see. It's their natural state."
"And is it their fault? Are they to blame?"
"Cats are not to blame for being cats," said Isabel, "and therefore they cannot be blamed for doing the things that cats do, such as eating garden birds or playing with their prey. Cats can't help any of that."
"And what about people like that? Can they help it?" asked Jamie.
"It's very problematic whether they are to be blamed for their actions," said Isabel. "There's an interesting literature on it. They might argue that their acts are the result of their psychopathology. They act the way they do because of their personality being what it is, but then they never chose to have a personality disorder. So how can they be responsible for that which they did not choose?"
[Chapter 16, p. 158-159]
"Everything has a solution," he observed to Isabel in answer to a question she put to him about his work as he showed her into his morning room. "Everything. All you have to do is to strip the problem down and then start from there. All one has to do is to make a list and be reasonable."
"Which people often aren't," said Isabel.
Peter smiled. "You can work round that. Most people can become reasonable even if they aren't in the beginning."
"Except for some," Isabel had persisted. "The profoundly unreasonable. And there are quite a few of those, quick and dead. Idi Amin and Pol Pot, to name two."
Peter reflected on her turn of phrase. Who still spoke of the quick and the dead? Most people had lost that understanding of "quick" and would look blank if they heard it. How typical of Isabel to keep a word alive, like a gardener tending to a feeble plant. Good for Isabel.
"The irretrievably unreasonable tend not to run businesses," he said, "even if they try to run countries. Politicians are different from businessmen or company people. Politics attracts quite the wrong sort of person."
Isabel agreed. "Absolutely. All those overgrown egos. It's why they go into politics in the first place. They want to dominate others. They enjoy power and its trappings. Few of them go into politics because they want to improve the world. Some might, I suppose, but not many."
[Chapter 19, p. 177-178]

From Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith (Little Brown [imprint of Time Warner], 2005):

[...] Now we are ready, Isabel thought, with some satisfaction. She looked at Eddie, who gave her a thumbs-up signal of encouragement. We feel the common feeling of employees, she thought; that peculiar feeling of involvement with those with whom one works. It was not like friendship; it was a feeling of being together in something which afflicts all humans - work. We are working together, and hence there exist between us subtle bonds of loyalty and support. That is why trade unionists addressed one another as brother and sister. We are together in our bondage, each lightening the load of the other; somewhat extreme, she reflected, for a middle-class delicatessen in Edinburgh, but nonetheless something to think about.
[Chapter 5, p. 44-45]
Then the customers began to drift in. Isabel dispensed small tubs of olives and sun-dried tomatoes. She cut cheese and wrapped bread and reached for tins of mackerel fillets from the shelves. She exchanged views with customers - on the weather, on the contents of that day's copy of the Scotsman, and, with questionable authority, on a local planning issue. So the morning drifted by, and not once, she reflected, had she had the opportunity to think about moral philosophy. This was cause for thought: most people led their lives this way - doing rather than thinking; they acted, rather than thought about acting. This made philosophy a luxury - the privilege of those who did not have to spend their time cutting cheese and wrapping bread. From the perspective of the cheese counter, Schopenhauer seemed far away.
[Chapter 6, p. 52]
Sceptical me, thought Isabel. But one has to be, because if one were not sceptical about things like this, then one would end up believing all sorts of untenable things. The list of traps for the gullible was a long one, and seemed to grow by the day: remote healing, auras, spoon bending, extrasensory perception. Of course there was telepathy, which seemed to be something of an exception to these New Age enthusiasms; it had been around for so long that it had almost become respectable. So many people claimed to have had telepathic experiences -- level-headed, rational people too -- that there might be something in it. And yet had not Edinburgh University's professor of parapsychology done exhaustive tests on telepathic communication and come up with nothing? And if groups of volunteers, hundreds of them, could sit for hours in his laboratories and try to guess what card somebody in the next room was looking at, and never get above the level of chance in their replies, then how could people insist that it was anything more than coincidence that they thought of somebody the moment before that person telephoned? Chance; pure chance. But chance was a dull explanation because it denied the possibility of the paranormal, and people were often disappointed by dull explanations. Mystery and the unknown were far more exciting because they suggested that our world was not quite as prosaic as we feared it might be. Yet we had to abjure those temptations because they lead to a world of darkness and fear.
[Chapter 14, p. 146-147]
"What's it like?" Ian asked. "I know it may sound like a rather simple question, naive perhaps, but what's it like - being a philosopher?"
Isabel looked out of the window. It was mid-morning and they were sitting in her study, the tang of freshly brewed coffee in the air. Outside, on the corners of her lawn, the weeds had begun to make their presence increasingly obvious. She needed several hours, she thought, several hours which she would never find, for digging and raking. One must cultivate one's garden, said Voltaire; and there, he said, is happiness to be found rather than in philosophising. She thought for a moment of the juxtaposition of philosophy and the everyday: zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance had been an inspired combination for its moment, but there might be others, as novel and surprising. "Voltaire and the control of weeds," she muttered.
"Voltaire and ... ?" asked Ian.
"Just musing," said Isabel. "But in answer to your question: It's much the same as being anything else. You carry your profession with you, I suppose, in much the same way as a doctor or, I should imagine, a psychologist does. You see the world in a particular way, don't you? As a psychologist?"
Ian followed her gaze out into the garden. "To an extent," he said, but sounded doubtful. "Being a philosopher, though, must be rather different from being anything else. You must think about everything. You must spend your time pondering over what things mean. A somewhat higher realm than the rest of us inhabit." [...]
"It's much more mundane and everyday than you would imagine," she began. [...]
Ian nodded. "I see. Well, that's a little bit disappointing. I imagined that you spent all your time pacing about trying to work out the nature of reality - wondering whether the world outside is real enough to take a walk in. That sort of thing."
Isabel laughed. "Sorry to disabuse you of such amusing notions. No. But I must admit that my calling - if I can call it that - sometimes makes life a little difficult for me."
This interested him. "In what way?"
"Well, it's mostly a question of duty," Isabel said. She sighed, thinking of her demons; moral obligation was the real problem. This was the cross she bore, the rack on which she was obliged to lie - even the metaphors were uncomfortable.
"I find myself thinking very carefully about what I should do in any given situation," she went on. "And it can get a little bit burdensome for me. In fact, sometimes I feel rather like those unfortunate people with OCD - you know, obsessive compulsive disorder; of course you know that, you're a clinical psychologist - but I sometimes think I'm like those people who have to check ten times that they've turned the oven off or who have to wash their hands again and again to get rid of germs. I think I can understand how they feel."
[Chapter 15, p. 157-159]
She looked at the next letter, but put it down again before opening it. Her mind had returned to the possible special issue on the ethics of food. There would have to be a paper on the moral issues raised by chocolate; the more she thought of it, the richer became the philosophical dimensions of chocolate. It brought akrasia, weakness of the will, into sharp focus. If we know that chocolate is bad for us (and in some respects chocolate is bad for us, in the sense that it makes us put on weight), then how is it that we end up eating too much of it? That suggests that our will is weak. But if we eat chocolate, then it must be that we think that it is in our best interests to do so; our will moves us to do what we know we will like. So our will is not weak - it is actually quite strong, and prompts us to do that which we really want to do (to eat chocolate). Chocolate was not simple.
[Chapter 18, p. 219]
It wasn't easy. But now I know, and I think that I am slowly coming to a full and rational explanation of what has happened. I am very pleased about that, even if you don't approve of what you think of as my meddling. (I am not a meddler, Jamie, I am an intromitter. Yes, that's an old Scots law term which I rather like. It describes somebody who gets involved. A person who gets involved without good excuse is called a vitious introimitter. Isn't that a wonderful term? I, though, am not a vitious intromitter.)
[Chapter 21, p. 254-255]

From The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith (Little Brown [imprint of Time Warner], 2005):

Isabel pointed to the painting beside it, a small still life of a white-and-blue Glasgow jug. There was something familiar about the style, but she could not decide what it was. Perhaps it was the jug itself; there were so many paintings of Glasgow jugs - to paint one, it seemed, had been a rite of passage, like going to Paris. Artists, she thought, were enthusiastic imitators, a thought that immediately struck her as unfair, she conceded to herself, because everyone was an enthusiastic imitator.
[Chapter 1, p. 7]
She paused at the corner of the High Street where the statue of Edinburgh's most famous philosopher, David Hume, had been placed. What a disaster, she thought. Isabel admired Hume and agreed with Adam Smith's view that he approached as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit. But the good David was a natty dresser, interested in fine clothes (there was Allan Ramsay's portrait to prove that), and here he was, seated in a chair, wearing a toga, of all things. And there were some who had voiced further objections. Hume was a reader, they said, and yet here he was merely holding a book, not reading it. But what, she wondered, would the statue have looked like if he had been portrayed in elegant clothes with his nose stuck in a volume of Locke? There would have been objections to that too, no doubt. This was the public past, about which we often disagree.
[Chapter 1, p. 11]
"I had a patient once who had a problem." He smiled. "Well, all my patients have a problem, I suppose, but this one had a particularly difficult problem. He was a liar. He just felt compelled to tell lies - about all sorts of things. And he knew that it was wrong, and he had to fight with it every day. Life for him was one constant effort, but he managed to stop lying. And, do you know, I really admired that man. I really did."
He was right, she thought. It was easy to be moral when that was the way you felt anyway. The hard bit about morality was making yourself feel the opposite of what you really felt. That was where credit was deserved.
[Chapter 2, p. 24]
[...] it had reminded Isabel, inconsequentially, of Wittgenstein's account of his last meeting with Gottlob Frege. 'The last time I saw Frege,' he said, 'as we were waiting at the station for my train, I said to him, "Don't you ever find any difficulty in your theory that numbers are objects?" He replied, "Sometimes I seem to see a difficulty - but then again I don't see it."' Isabel was not sure whether this was funny. She thought it might be, but stories told by philosophers which appeared to be funny were sometimes not funny at all, but very serious. And sometimes very serious remarks made by philosophers were, in fact, jokes, and intended to be taken as such.
[Chapter 3, p. 31]
And yet did it matter if love was not reciprocated? Was it not possible to love somebody hopelessly, from a distance even, and for that love to be satisfying, even if never reciprocated, even if the object of one's affections never even knew? Jamie could love Cat even if he never, or only rarely, saw her. And she could love Jamie even if he never knew that she did. Both of us give love, she thought, and that must do something for us. Perhaps it was a bit like giving an anonymous gift. If one derived pleasure from the giving of something even if the recipient never knows who gave it - and it was a pleasure to give anonymously, as Isabel knew - then could not the giving of love be satisfying even if the person one loved never knew that he or she was loved? People did that all the time when they loved the inaccessible: the great romantic heroes, the film stars, the rock musicians, who were loved by legions of people who never saw them. Or the saints, and, if one came to think about it, God - although he, if one believed in him, loved one back, and so that was different; that was reciprocated love.
"Does it matter?" she asked Jamie. "Does it matter if one loves somebody who doesn't love one back? Do you think that it makes a difference?"
He looked up at her. "Of course it does. It's sad!"
"Sad?" she mused.
"Yes," he said. "It's like ..."
She raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Like talking to somebody who isn't listening," Jamie said. "Yes, that's what it's like."
Isabel thought about that for a moment. "Is it because one can't share the feeling of love? Is it like having dinner all by oneself?"
[Chapter 3, p. 33-34]
In bed that night, in the darkness, with the illuminated dial of her alarm clock glowing from the bedside table, she asked herself whether one could force oneself to like somebody, or whether one could merely create the conditions for affection to come into existence and hope that it did, spontaneously. Open then our hearts - these words came into her mind, dredged from somewhere in her memory, from some unknown context. If one opened one's heart, then friendship, and love, too, might alight and make their presence known. It was the act of opening that came first; that was the important thing, the first thing. But who was it who said, Open then our hearts? Where did that come from?
[Chapter 4, p. 53]
[The only reference I can find to 'Open then our hearts' comes from an old hymn, "Being of Beings", No. 654 in the Methodist Hymnal - 1889 Edition -- Fred]
"The point is," said Jamie, "that you shouldn't let things go with a house. If something needs attending to, then you should do it before it gets worse. My dad's got a builder who keeps saying that to him."
"And it's true," said Isabel. But then she remembered a conversation with a German friend, Michael von Poser, on one of his visits. He was a prominent German conservationist who believed that old buildings should be left to age gracefully. "And if your ceiling should fall down," he had said to Isabel, a twinkle in his eye, "then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way."
[Chapter 10, p. 97]
The following morning she made the decision to visit Florence Macreadie. There was an F Macreadie listed in the telephone directory for St Stephen Street and a quick call from Isabel established that she would be at home after eleven that morning -- "after doing the messages" -- and would be happy to see her; Isabel approved of the old Scots expression and liked Florence Macreadie all the more for using it. One did not go shopping in Scots; one went for messages.
[Chapter 11, p. 108]
She moved away from the rug shop. A man inside, anxiously waiting for customers, had seen her and had been watching her. Isabel had looked through the glass, beyond the piles of rugs, and had met his gaze. She was sensitive to such encounters, because in her mind they were not entirely casual. By looking into the eyes of another, one established a form of connection that had moral implications. To look at another thus was to acknowledge one's shared humanity with him, and that meant one owed him something, no matter how small that thing might be. That was why the executioner was traditionally spared the duty of looking into the eyes of the condemned; he observed him by stealth, approached from behind, was allowed a mask, and so on. If he looked into the eyes, then the moral bond would be established, and that moral bond would prevent him from doing what the state required: the carrying out of its act of murder.
Of course that was a long way from looking through the plate-glass window of a rug shop, but salesmen knew full well that once you engaged your customer in that personal bond, then the chances of their feeling obliged to buy were all the greater. Rug salesmen in Istanbul in particular understood that; their little cups of coffee, half liquid, half sludge, offered on a brass tray, were intended not only as gestures of traditional hospitality, but also as the constituents of a bond between vendor and client. So, as Isabel retreated from the window and looked fixedly down the street, she felt the tentative bonds snapping like overstretched rubber bands. And then she was free,
[Chapter 11, p. 110]
"I can't believe in God, Miss Dalhousie. I've tried from time to time and I just can't. And yet, when we need them, who are the people who are always there for us? Who are the people who comfort us? Whom would you like to have at your ending? What kind of person would you like to have at your death bed? An atheist or somebody with faith?"
Isabel thought. Were there not atheists who were just as capable of giving love and support as others? And might not it be better to die in doubt, if that had been one's condition in life? "I know some very sympathetic non-believers," she said. "I don't think we should discount them."
"Maybe," said Florence. "But there's nothing in the atheist's creed that says that he must love others, is there?"
Isabel could not let this pass. "But he may have every reason! Even if you do not believe in God you may still think it very important to act towards others with generosity and consideration. That's what morality is all about."
Florence's eyes lit up. "Yes," she said, "morality - the ordinary variety - says that you shouldn't do anything to hurt others. But I'm not so sure that it tells you to go further, to love them." She thought for a moment. "And surely most people are not going to make the effort to love others on the basis of some theory, are they? I know that I wouldn't. We have to learn these things. We have to have them drummed into us."
"The moral habits of the heart," mused Isabel.
"Yes," said Florence. "And religion is rather good at doing that, don't you think?" She turned round and began to pour the hot water into the cafetière. "Anyway, I don't know how we got into that! You didn't come here to discuss theology with me, did you?"
[Chapter 11, p. 113-114]
As she made her way down the stone staircase to the front door, Isabel encountered the cat she had seen on her first visit to Florence's flat. He was sitting on a chair on a landing, his tail hanging down beneath the seat. He watched her warily as she walked past, looking up at her, holding her gaze for a moment, before he turned his head away to stare at the banisters with affected interest in something invisible to a human being. Then he closed his eyes, as if to dismiss her, and she walked quietly on. Many people in pursuit of the cool, thought Isabel, would give anything to appear as indifferent, as insouciant, as this indolent cat, but they would never make it. Wrong species: we are too engaged, too susceptible to emotion, too far from the consummate psychopathy of cats.
[Chapter 11, p. 119-120]
"I occasionally dream of Brother Fox," she said to Mimi. "In my dreams he can speak. It's very strange, but not at all odd in the dream, you know. He speaks with a slightly high-pitched, rather refined Scottish voice, but once he spoke French, and that surprised me. He used subjunctives and I remember thinking how remarkable it was that an animal should have the subjunctive." She used the construction "have the subjunctive" without thinking that it might have sounded strange to Mimi. Scots said "I have the Gaelic" when they could speak Gaelic.
[Chapter 14, p. 150-151]
"'The Bonnie Earl of Moray'," Isabel announced. "This is not exactly a cheerful song - sorry about that - but it's rather haunting, in its way. In fact, it's a lament, and a lot of Scottish music is about how things have gone wrong, about what might have been if things had turned out a bit better."
Mimi laughed at this. "Isn't that the same as country and western?" she asked. "All those songs about unfaithful women and faithful dogs."
[Chapter 16, p. 117]

From The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith (Polygon [imprint of Birlinn Ltd] 2007):

She sipped at her tea and made her way to the back of the house. There was nothing to see there, just a couple of empty barrels that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had brought back from the garage for some yet-to-be-explained purpose. He was given to clutter, and the barrels would be tolerated only for a few weeks before Mma Ramotswe would quietly arrange for their departure. The elderly watchman, Mr Nthata, was useful for that; he was only too willing to take away things that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni left lying about in the yard; Mr J.L.B. Matekoni forgot about these things fairly quickly and rarely noticed that they had gone.
It was the same with his trousers. Mma Ramotswe kept a general watch on the generously cut khaki trousers that her husband wore underneath his work overalls, and eventually, when the trouser legs became scuffed at the bottom, she would discreetly remove them from the washing machine after a final wash and pass them on to the woman at the Anglican Cathedral who would find a good home for them. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni often did not notice that he was putting on a new pair of trousers, particularly if Mma Ramotswe distracted him with some item of news or gossip while he was in the process of getting dressed. This was necessary, she felt, as he had always been unwilling to get rid of his old clothes to which, like many men, he became excessively attached. If men were left to their own devices, Mma Ramotswe believed, they would go about in rags. Her own father had refused to abandon his hat, even when it became so old that the brim was barely attached to the crown. She remembered itching to replace it with one of those smart new hats that she had seen on the top shelf of the Small Upright General Dealer in Mochudi, but had realised that her father would never give up the old one, which had become a talisman, a totem. And they had buried that hat with him, placing it lovingly in the rough board coffin [...]
[Chapter 1, A Very Rude Person, p. 5]
[...] Mma Ramotswe was normally quite content with her own company. She could sit on her verandah on Zebra Drive and drink tea in perfect solitude, with her only company that of the birds outside, or of the tiny, scrambling geckos that made their way up the pillars and across the roof; that was different. In an office one needed to be able to talk to somebody, if only to make the surroundings more human. Homes, verandahs, gardens were human in their feel; offices were not. An office with only one person in it was a place unfurnished.
[Chapter 9, The Understanding of Shoes, p. 107]

From The Miracle at Speed Motors by Alexander McCall Smith (Little, Brown 2008):

[...] they had been shopping together and had been distracted by a display of beds in the large funiture store [...]
"These are very fine beds," she observed, reaching out to feel the texture of the velvet headboard. "A person would sleep very well in a bed like that. And there is a lot of room, too."
It was a potentially indelicate reference, at least in its last part, to the fact that these beds would accommodate both husband and wife in comfort; the sort of reference which, if made by an engaged woman to her fiancé, might be interpreted as a hint. Phuti Radiphuti and Mma Makutsi did not live together, and both had their own bed. This was Phuti's doing, and indeed Mma Makutsi had been slightly concerned that he had not been more passionate, so far. But that would come, she thought, in the fullness of time, and in the meantime there were plenty of matters to attend to without worrying about such things. As Mma Ramotswe had once delicately pointed out to Mma Makutsi, far too many people were permanently miserable because they allowed love affairs and everything that went with such things to dominate their lives. It is only one thing, she said, that business between men and women, and there are many other more important things, including food.
[Chapter 4, An Uncle with an Unsophisticated, Broken Nose, p. 44-45]
Mma Ramotswe turned the van and they had just started back when the first drops of rain began to fall. First there was that smell, that smell of rain, so unlike anything else, but immediately recognisable and enough to make the heart of a dry person soar; for that, thought Mma Ramotswe, is what we Batswana are: dry people, people who can live with dust and dryness but whose hearts dream of rain and water. Now, in great veils, the rain fell upon Botswana; great purple-white veils joining sky to land, soaking the parched landscape.
They drove down the road through the welcome deluge, travelling slowly for the puddles and sheets of water that were forming so quickly. The tiny white van, valiant in every sort of condition, ploughed through the water like an albino hippo, while its windscreen wipers swept backwards and forwards, making it possible, just, to see a few yards ahead through the downpour. But then, as if overcome by the sheer effort of pushing aside so much water, the wipers collided with one another and became stuck. Immediately Mma Ramotswe and Mr Polopetsi were as if shrouded in a completely impenetrable mist.
[Chapter 6, A Chair in a Tree, p. 87-88]
"Thank you, Mma," said Mma Ramotswe. "You have told me something very important. And I don't think we need to tell Mma Sebina about what her mother did. We can keep that a secret, as long as we can tell her that she has a brother."
Mma Mapoi seemed relieved. "It would be better that way," she said. "My friend never wanted her daughter to know. I am sure of that."
"Then we can respect her wishes," said Mma Ramotswe. "It is always better to respect the wishes of somebody who is late."
"Oh, yes," said Mma Mapoi. "That is much better. Otherwise they might punish us from up there."
Mma Ramotswe sipped at her tea. "Possibly," she said. But there was disbelief in her voice; she did not think that those who were late, or the ancestors themselves, would wish punishment upon us, no matter what our transgressions. It was far more likely that there would be love, falling like rain from above, changing the hearts of the wicked; transforming them.
[Chapter 11, A Conversation about the Past, p. 151-152]

From The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith (Little Brown [imprint of Time Warner], 2007):

[...] Lot number 87 was a painting of a man standing on a shore, a stack of lobster creels just behind him, and behind the creels a mountain rising sharply. It was unmistakably the landscape of the Western Highlands of Scotland, with its grey rocks protruding from thin soil, the verdant green of the grass, the gentle, shifting light; and the man's face, with its weather-beaten look, further proclaimed the place. [...]
Isabel studied the painting intently. It was the expression on the man's face that interested her. This was a man who knew hardship, but was not bowed by it. And there was a kindness too, a gentleness that was sometimes squeezed out of those who wrested their living from a hard place - the sea or a windswept island.
[Chapter 1, p. 13]
Isabel arrived home to find that Grace had taken Charlie out into the garden in his pram, and was sitting under the sycamore tree at the back. [...]
"Something seemed to be bothering him this morning," said Grace. "He was all niggly and he wouldn't settle. Girned a lot. Then he became a bit better. I gave him some gripewater."
Isabel stayed where she was, bent over the pram, her face just above Charlie, but she looked sharply at Grace. "You gave him gripe-water," she said evenly. "And?"
"And it did the trick," said Grace. "No more girning. Well, no more after about ten, fifteen minutes."
Grace used the Scots word girn, which Isabel always thought so accurately described the sound of a child's crying. But it was the gripe-water that concerned her. "I didn't know we had any gripe-water," she said. And then, straightening up, she continued, "We don't, do we? We don't have it."
"I bought some," said Grace. "A few weeks ago."
Isabel walked round the side of the pram. "And he's had it before?" she asked.
"Yes," said Grace. "Quite a few times. It really is effective."
Isabel took a breath. She rarely felt angry, but now she did, aware of the emotion welling up within her - a hot, raw feeling. "But gripe-water contains gin, doesn't it? For God's sake. Gin!"
Grace looked at her in astonishment. "Not any more! It used to, I believe. I had it when I was a child, my mother told me. She said that she would take a swig or two herself as well. But that's years ago. You know how fussy people are these days."
[Chapter 5, p. 62-63]
"MacDiarmid liked that part of Scotland," said Isabel. "'Island funeral'. That was one of his better efforts, in spite of the flannel. He was a bit of a shocker, you know."
"But he could --"
"Yes, he could," said Isabel. "He could stop us in our tracks. That poem about the island funeral makes the hairs on the back of one's neck stand up." She paused and remembered. "I went to one once, you know. An island funeral. An aged cousin of my father's who had married into a family on South Uist. They were Free Presbyterians and there were no prayers. All those dark-suited men standing in a huddle, and the coffin left outside. They sang psalms, those strange Gaelic psalms, and then they went and buried her in silence with rain coming in from the Atlantic, nothing heavy, just soft rain. And that light. The same light that's in that painting over there."
[Chapter 6, p. 74-75]
Isabel Dalhousie's green Swedish car, laden almost to the point of discomfort with the impedimenta that a baby requires, nosed its way gingerly down the ramp on to the deck of the Port Askaig ferry. Charlie was awake, but lying still in his reclining car seat, staring at the ceiling of the car with intense fascination. He had seemed to enjoy the earlier sea journey, which had taken them from the Mull of Kintyre to the island of Islay, and which was now to be followed by the five-minute crossing over to Jura. The rocking movement of the ferry and the noise of the engines made him wave his arms with pleasure. "It reminds him of the womb," said Isabel. "The movement, the noise."
[Chapter 12, p. 152]
[The movement and noise of the ferry reminded Charlie of the womb? Ah yes, of course, those old-fashioned diesel-motor wombs. We shall never see their like again. -Fred]
Jamie raised his glass to hers. "To the next three days," he said. He looked at her, almost reproachfully. "And, Isabel ... don't. Just don't."
"I'll try not to." She meant it, but somehow she knew at the same time that she did not. Can one want to do something and yet not want to do it? Of course you can, she told herself. Of course.
[Chapter 12, p. 161]
The house had been built in the nineteenth century and added to in Edwardian times, a rambling country house half white, at the front, and half grey, at the back. [...] The entrance was typical of that which one would find in any Scottish country house - a comfortable, lived-in hall, with walking sticks, cromachs (the Scottish crooks used by shepherds and hikers), and a bent and dusty green golfing umbrella that would have provided dubious protection against the elements even in its youth. If it rained here, it rained with conviction: shifting veils of water from clouds scudding in straight off the Atlantic; horizontal rain, vertical rain, rain swirling in all directions. Or on occasion the air was just wet: at such times there were no visible raindrops, just suspended moisture like the spray of a perfume atomiser that settled on clothing and skin. And with it came the midges, those tiny fruitfly-like creatures who scorn protective creams and lotions, and nip the skin of any human target in sight. Unfortunate hikers had been known to throw themselves into rivers to escape the clouds of stinging insects.
[Chapter 13, p. 164-165]
"It's dangerous to feed birds overenthusiastically," she had once said to Jamie, when they had taken Charlie on one of his first visits to the pond. "And it's also dangerous to overinvest birds with symbolism. These national eagles that people make such a fuss about must find it difficult to take off under the weight of all that symbolism."
Jamie had looked at her and said, "That's a very strange remark, Isabel. You talk complete nonsense sometimes. Flights of fancy."
She had not minded. "I like to think about things," she said airily. "I like to let my mind wander. Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check."
Jamie thought about this for a moment. He was trying to recall something rather funny that Isabel had started to say a few days earlier but had been cut off midstream by some protest from Charlie. [...]
Isabel frowned. "Drivers? Oh yes, somebody had mentioned a driver of ninety-three, which I thought was a little bit late to be in control of a car. I'm sure that one must be very wise at the age of ninety-three, but I'm not so sure about one's reactions at that stage. I think I suggested that one's car should become more and more grey as one gets older, which would warn people that one's reactions might be a little slow. They would be like learner plates when one's learning to drive - those are a warning too. So cars would be seen to turn grey, perhaps a little bit slowly, just as people's hair greys."
"And young men would be required to drive red cars?"
Isabel nodded her agreement. "Yes. Red cars would be a warning of the presence of testosterone. We need warning, you see."
"And at intersections the red cars would yield to the grey ones?"
"Of course," said Isabel. "Or that would be the rule in a wellordered society. Do you know that in Japan, young drivers have to give way to older ones? It can get quite complicated if one can't see the other driver too well and one can't work out whether he's older than you. I believe a certain number of accidents result from this confusion."
Jamie laughed. "Absurd. And completely untrue."
"Perhaps," said Isabel. "Absurd. But fun nonetheless."
[Chapter 15, p. 181-183]
"That fox," said Grace, "has dug up half the small rose bed. You know, the one near the garden shed."
"The summerhouse?"
"Whatever you call it. Yes, there. He's dug a great big hole and put the soil all over the lawn."
Isabel peered out of the window. The grass near the summerhouse certainly looked darker. "He must be thinking of a new burrow," she said. "Even foxes must have their plans for the future. Presumably they face the same sort of dilemmas that we do: renovate, or dig a new burrow."
Grace stared at Isabel with a look that was half disbelief, half scorn. "They don't think that way," she said after a while.
Isabel returned the stare, but did not say anything. The trouble with Grace, she thought, is that she is so literal. But that was the trouble with most people, when it came down to it; there were very few who enjoyed flights of fantasy, and to have that sort of mind - one which appreciated dry wit and understood the absurd - left one in a shrinking minority. Isabel remembered being at a conference at Christ Church in Oxford and sitting next to a Japanese woman over breakfast in the Great Hall. The Japanese woman, who was accompanying her husband, a philosopher, to the conference -- Kant for Our Times -- had suddenly turned to her and said, "I am so old-fashioned. I am a dodo."
The heartfelt comment had been triggered by the hall and its table lights, by its paintings of past masters and benefactors of the college, by the presence of what seemed like a quieter past, and Isabel had felt a surge of sympathy for the other woman.
"I am sure that there must be a club for dodos," she said. "The dodos' club. And it would meet in places like this."
The woman's eyes had widened, and then she had burst out laughing. "The dodos' club! That's so clever."
It was not very clever, thought Isabel, but for a moment there had been a sense of contact across cultures, of kindred spirits reaching out to one another. And that happened from time to time, when she met somebody who could look at the world in the same way, and see the joke. But not now, in this conversation with Grace about Brother Fox and the mess that he had made of the small rose bed.
[Chapter 17, p. 209-211]
Isabel thanked her and left. She had asked the woman whether she thought that he would be in and she had replied that it was highly likely. Frank Anderson, she said, appeared never to go anywhere, although she had seen him in Perth once or twice. "He hirples a bit," she said, using the Scots word for limping. Isabel nodded; the hirple would be why he needed the orthopaedic operation that Mrs Buie had mentioned - the operation that the state was failing to provide. We care for one another, thought Isabel, but we still don't care quite enough.
[Chapter 19, p. 235]

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