The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONEWh'hat made isabel dalhousie think about chance? It was one of those curious coincidencesan inconsequential oneas when we turn the corner and find ourselves face-to-face with the person we've just been thinking about. Or when we answer the telephone and hear at the other end the voice of the friend we had been about to call. These things make us believe either in telepathyfor which there is as litde hard evidence as there is, alas, for the existence of Santa Clausor in pure chance, which we flatter ourselves into thinking plays a small role in our lives. Yet chance, Isabel thought, determines much of what happens to us, from the original birth lottery onwards. We like to think that we plan what happens to us, but it is chance, surely, that lies behind so many of the great events of our livesthe meeting with the person with whom we are destined to spend the rest of our days, the receiving of a piece of advice which influences our choice of career, the spotting of a particular house for sale; all of these may be put down to pure chance, and yet they govern how our lives work out and how happyor unhappywe are going to be.