Free The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel (9) by Alexander McCall Smith

mentioned the Korean mathematics book, but now she did.
    “I meant to tell you. She’s giving him mathematics lessons.”
    Jamie’s face fell. “You mean …”
    “Yes, she’s taught him how to divide.”
    “But I thought it was his natural ability …”
    Isabel smiled. “It is. No amount of tuition would enable an untalented three-year-old
     to divide. No, he’s obviously got ability.”
    Jamie sat down. He looks cross, thought Isabel. First, the dry-skin affair, and now
     mathematics.
    “She should have asked us,” Jamie said eventually. “I mean, things like that—educational
     matters—are parental affairs, wouldn’t you say? I wouldn’t try to teach some other
     person’s child how to do mental arithmetic. Would you?”
    Isabel sat on the arm of his chair. It was the most comfortable chair in the house
     and it occupied pride of place in her study, where it had always been. Jamie liked
     it and would sometimes sit reading in it while Isabel worked; she liked having him
     there, but his presence did not help her to work. Isabel had always found it difficult
     to concentrate with other people in the room; they distracted her, as she found herself
     wondering what they were thinking. It would be fascinating to have some sort of printout
     of the thoughts of other people—a stream-of-consciousness report. It would read, she
     suspected, like a badly constructed novel, by an author who had no sense of the flow
     of narrative.
Look at her. Where did she get that? I had something like that back when I was living
     in that flat. Who lives there now?Did I turn the iron off? I’m feeling a bit hot. What did the weather forecast say?
     Bill hasn’t telephoned. He said he would
. And so on, for page after page.
    She addressed his question. “It’s different with Grace. She has a lot of responsibility
     for Charlie. She’s not quite family, but she’s close enough. And that makes her an
     important part of his life.”
    He looked up at her. “I suppose so. But still …”
    “Yes,” she said. “But still.”
    “I’d like to see the book.”
    She suggested he ask her.
    He got up out of the chair. “We still need to think about all that. We need to ask
     ourselves whether we really want him to have lessons at this point. I’m not sure that
     I want to turn him into a performing monkey.”
    Neither did Isabel.
    “And there’s another thing,” said Jamie. “You have to be careful how you teach things.
     Music teachers are very careful about teaching very young children. You can get it
     all wrong and then they grow up with bad habits. Or you can ruin their lips—you don’t
     let small children play brass, for example.”
    “We need to talk to her,” she said. “Both of us. But not now.”
    “When?”
    She sighed. “After the weekend.” She wanted to enjoy the concert and did not want
     to go out after a row with Grace. But there was more to it: she also wanted to make
     it easy for Grace; she did not believe in painting people into a corner and making
     them lose face. So she would have to work out a method of doing it that would mean
     that Grace would believe it was her decision. It would not be easy, and Isabel had
     to admit that she had no idea how she could possibly do this.
    THEY WALKED to St. Cecilia’s Hall. The weather had held and the evening air was balmy. In the
     Meadows, the large slice of park that separated Edinburgh’s Old Town from the Victorian
     suburbs to the south, spontaneous games had sprung up: rounders played by a mixture
     of parents and eight-year-olds; a small game of cricket with only five or six fielders
     and a tennis ball. Isabel looked up at the branches of the trees that formed a canopy
     above the footpath they were following. The trees were in full leaf, but sky still
     showed through gaps in the foliage, a fading blue with drifting lace-like clouds.
     It made her dizzy to look at clouds when they were moving, as these were, and Isabel
     reached for