The Forgotten Affairs of Youth Read Online Free PDF

Scotland Turbines,” said Grace. “You’ll see their shares in the paper. Look at the stock-market page.”
    “So they exist?”
    “Yes, of course they exist. I looked them up. They make turbines for hydroelectric schemes.”
    Grace appeared to feel that they had spent long enough on turbines and went on to say something about needing new scouring liquid for the upstairs shower, which was becoming mildewed. She looked at Isabel slightly reproachfully, as if she were responsible for the mildew. Isabel thought: It’s not my fault, but Grace will always blame me.
    Then Grace said, “Oh, somebody phoned while you were out. I asked for her name, but she just left a number for you to call back. It’s in the basket. Some people don’t give their names, which is odd, I think. It’s as if they’ve got something to hide …” She examined Isabel as if she were conniving in, or at least condoning, a whole series of anonymous calls. Then she continued, “She sounded Australian.”
    It was the woman whom Cat had met. Isabel glanced at her watch: there was time to return the call before she went off to collect Charlie. That would mean, of course, that she would have done no work at all that morning, and would probably do very little that afternoon. Did it matter? Would the world be changed if the next edition of the
Review of Applied Ethics
did not come out on time? The answer, of course, was that it would make very little difference—a humbling thought.
    Isabel rose from her desk and made her way into the kitchen. If Grace wanted to leave her a note, there was a small basket on top of the fridge in which notes were placed. There was one now, with a number scribbled on it in pencil. Underneath the number, Grace had written:
woman
. Isabel smiled; she was reminded of her father, who had once said to her, “Don’t write—or say—any more than you have to. Just don’t.”
    Or think, perhaps?
    Isabel took the note back to her study. There she wrote on it
West of Scotland Turbines
, and then picked up the telephone.

CHAPTER THREE

    I SABEL HAD SUGGESTED meeting Jane Cooper the following day at Glass & Thompson. This suited both of them: Jane had somewhere to go in Princes Street, and Dundas Street was no more than ten minutes’ walk from there—and Isabel had to return a catalogue to Guy Peploe at the Scottish Gallery, a few doors down.
    Her visit to Guy was brief, as the gallery staff were hanging paintings for the next show and she knew that this was not a time when they needed distraction. The invitation to the private view was on her mantelpiece:
A History of Scotland in Landscape
.
    “Landscapes,” said Guy, pointing to a number of paintings stacked against the wall. “Solid and reliable landscapes. People love them.”
    “Which is just as well for galleries,” said Isabel, peering at the vaguely familiar view depicted in one of the paintings. It was somewhere in East Lothian, she thought; looking back along the coast towards Edinburgh. But there was something not quite right.
    “When was this done?” she asked, trying to make out the signature at the bottom.
    Guy glanced at the painting. “Last year. You’ve probably heard of him. We showed him a couple of years ago.”
    “This is the view from somewhere near Tranent, isn’t it?” asked Isabel.
    Guy nodded. “Yes, in the direction of Edinburgh. That’s Arthur’s Seat over there, isn’t it? He’s got the haziness of it rather well, don’t you think?”
    Isabel agreed. The artist had captured the misty, blue light that seemed to play around Arthur’s Seat when one looked at it from some distance. Blue remembered hills, she thought; Housman’s phrase about the hills of Shropshire, made so striking because the
remembered
was in the wrong, or at least an unusual, place.
Remembered blue hills
would have sounded so different and would have been quickly forgotten;
blue remembered hills
had an entirely different effect.
    Then she realised what was wrong.