The Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

Athens.
    Isabel spotted a couple of dog owners deep in conversation while their dogs, waiting patiently at their feet, glared at one another in mute suspicion. Behind them, on the newly mown turf—the sweet smell of freshly cut grass still lingered—a small group of students sat in a circle while one, holding a book, read aloud. The boys were bare-chested, their skin pale in the morning sunlight, the girls with midriffs exposed. One of the girls, she noticed, had a tattoo worked around her navel—a Celtic design, it seemed; all whirls and whorls.
    Isabel tried to make out the title of the book from which the boy was reading, but failed.
The
something.
The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran? They were the right age, she thought; we should all read
The Prophet
before we became too cynical, too jaded to be impressed. Charlie would read
The Prophet
one day, and have a poster of Che Guevara on his wall—if anybody remembered Che Guevara by then.
    She touched Jane’s forearm lightly and nodded in the direction of the students. “Look,” she said. “I expect your mother might have sat right there in her day, just like them.”
    Jane glanced at them and smiled. “You know something?” she said. “Ever since I came to Edinburgh, I’ve had the feeling that I’m close to her. I know that it’s probably no more than auto-suggestion, but I really do feel it.”
    They chose the path off to the right, which took them to the southern edge of George Square. Here was a row of old stables, now used as store rooms, and behind them a cobbled road to the one remaining Georgian side of the square. Isabel and Jane did not follow this, but made their way round the back of the University Library, to Buccleuch Place and the premises of the university accommodation service. A discreet blue notice advertised the presence of this office. Most of the buildings in the street belonged to the university and were used for smaller academic departments, the occasional student flat and supporting elements in the academic bureaucracy.
    “I know somebody here,” said Isabel, as they climbed the narrow stone staircase to the third floor. “In fact, she’s a very distant relative on my father’s side. A third cousin, or something like that. She’s worked here for at least twenty years and is more or less the institutional memory.”
    A corridor ran off the landing, and beyond that a small internal hall dominated by a large noticeboard. The hall gave on to three offices, one labelled
Assistant Director
, one
Accounts
, and one bearing the simple legend,
Miss Hodge
.
    Isabel approached Miss Hodge’s door and knocked loudly. A voice within invited her to enter.
    “Isabel! And …”
    Isabel introduced Jane to her cousin, Katrina, a slender, rather concise woman somewhere in her late forties.
    “Jane is with us from Melbourne. She’s at the Humanities Institute.”
    Katrina smiled warmly. “Melbourne,” she said. “I went there three years ago. I watched the tennis—the Australian Open.”
    “Katrina is a keen tennis player,” explained Isabel. “Almost played for Scotland.”
    “A hundred years ago,” said Katrina. “And not all that almost. Almost almost, I’d say.” She invited them to sit down. “When you phoned me, you didn’t tell me exactly what it was you wanted to know.”
    Isabel apologised. “I thought it best to explain in person,” she said. “It’s rather complicated, but Jane is trying to trace her mother, who’s no longer alive. No, that sounds a bit odd. She’s trying to find out about her mother so that she can trace her father. That’s right, isn’t it, Jane?”
    Jane nodded her confirmation. “I was born here in Edinburgh,” she said. “I was adopted and taken to Australia. I know my biological mother’s name and I know that she died when I was about eight. I have no idea of who my father was, but he was probably a student at the same time as my mother.”
    There was a note in Jane’s voice that made Isabel