The Novel Habits of Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

nouns, she thought, although the effort of translating it all into German would be enough to give rise in itself to guilt, or perhaps to
compound noun anxiety,
which would sound so much more credible in German, where the word
Angst
could be tacked on to just about everything. She paused at that. Angst was different from guilt, and the distinction should be maintained: one could feel angst about something that one knew one should not feel guilty about; angst had nothing to do—or not necessarily so—with any personal failure.
    On the landing at the top of the stairs, Edward glanced in the direction of the coffee room. “I need to talk to you,” he said, his voice lowered.
    “Over coffee?”
    Edward shook his head. “In private. I can go and fetch you a cup of coffee, if you like, but we need to talk in my room.”
    Isabel was concerned. “Is everything all right?”
    He assured her it was. “No, nothing’s going wrong as far as we’re concerned. Our work is going very well, and we’re enjoying ourselves. It’s more a question of…” He broke off before continuing, “Look, I’ll join you in my room in a moment—I’ll get the coffee. Just wait for me there.”
    She knew where his room was—a small study at the end of the sort of meandering corridor that was typical of so many Edinburgh buildings. Cheryl’s room was next door, and Isabel had visited them both in their respective offices shortly after they arrived. The door was ajar, and she entered the room and sat down on the armchair near the window. The room overlooked a small, three-sided courtyard; facing east, it was still benefiting from the morning sun. This had a buttery quality to it; it played upon her arms as she waited and she felt its heat, rather like the warm breath of some invisible creature. She looked up at the ceiling, with its elaborate cornice. This followed the Greek key design that had been so popular during Edinburgh’s eighteenth-century enthusiasm for all things Greek—when the city’s ambition had been to re-create the Parthenon on the Calton Hill and when people began to refer to Edinburgh as the Athens of the North. She smiled at the thought. Money had run out after the construction of nothing more than a set of imposing pillars topped by lintels; these remained, a reminder of the perils of civic vanity. In Isabel’s view, though, they were just right for the city; a completed Parthenon would have been too much—in bad taste, perhaps, whereas a manifestly uncompleted Parthenon was just right. Failure often had a certain style that success simply did not have.
    Edward appeared, bearing two cups of coffee. He handed one to her, and then he crossed the room to take his seat behind the desk. The coffee was piping hot, with small wisps of steam still rising from its surface. Isabel raised the cup to her lips, but put it down without taking a sip. Edward looked apologetic.
    “Sorry, it’s too hot,” he said. “Give it a moment.”
    Isabel smiled. “Coffee’s getting hotter and hotter, it seems. Global warming, perhaps.”
    They laughed.
    “You have to be careful,” said Edward. “In some coffee places you now see warning notices:
Our coffee is served at…
and then they give the temperature. I suppose they’re worried about being sued.”
    “Everybody’s worried about that,” said Isabel. “I was in a shop the other day—just a small place—and there was a large sign on the wall that simply said:
The management is not responsible.
That was all.”
    “A general disclaimer,” said Edward.
    “Of course one can understand it,” said Isabel. “We’re so obsessed with protecting people from themselves—and protecting ourselves from others while we’re about it.” She thought of another example; there were so many once one began to think about it. This time it was Charlie’s nursery; they had taken the children to the museum and had sent a letter to the parents telling them that a full risk-assessment survey had