The Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander Mccall Smith

Author:Alexander Mccall Smith [McCall Smith, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction - Mystery " Detective - Women Sleuths
ISBN: 978-0-307-90679-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

CAT TOOK RATHER LONGER than anticipated to return from delivering the ham.

“Sorry,” she said. “I had to help her do one or two things in the house, poor woman. Her leg’s in plaster, you know. If you snap your Achilles tendon you can’t do very much.”

“Of course,” said Isabel. “You must feel like a puppet with its strings cut.”

The simile seemed to interest Cat. “Yes, that’s right. It must be a bit like that.”

Isabel glanced at Sinclair, who was at the other end of the shop, attending to a customer who was sampling a piece of Camembert.

“I got to know our young friend,” she said. “He told me that—”

“Good,” said Cat. “He’s nice, isn’t he?” And then she said something that surprised Isabel, perhaps even shocked her. “Temptation on legs.”

Isabel was not a prude, but this seemed out of place. In saying this, to Isabel it seemed that Cat was inviting her participation in the act of concupiscent looking, and she did not wish to be part of that.

We do not have to reveal to others what we want, thought Isabel. Private desires should be precisely that: private.

“He’s certainly nice-looking,” she said. “But—”

Cat interrupted her, making Isabel wonder whether her inner reaction to the curious aside had been outwardly visible. “Thanks for looking after him. I think he’ll be fine.”

Isabel weighed up whether to say something about the knives, and Sinclair’s rudeness, but she did not. And as she made her way back to the house, she reflected on it further and decided that she had done the right thing. She should not interfere in Cat’s life; any comment that she made about Sinclair, however well intentioned, would not be appreciated and could even have the opposite effect from that which she intended. If Cat was going to fall for this narcissistic young man, then she would do so irrespective of what Isabel advised. And that falling, thought Isabel, had probably already occurred.

She knew the signs by now, and she reckoned they were already there for the reading—the touchiness, the slight air of distraction: this was Cat in love. Love is blind: the old adage was absolutely true, as were so many vintage clichéd sayings. And that was precisely why such axioms were popular, and overused: because they showed themselves to be true time and time again. We knew that love was blind because so often we witnessed it obscuring the judgement of others—not our own, of course—although love was far from blind to begin with. It had its eyes wide open and saw only too clearly the things it was looking for—at least in Cat’s case, where looks, it seemed, counted for everything, with Bruno, the tightrope-walker, being the sole exception. Even he, though, must have held some physical attraction for Cat; probably his legs. A funambulist must have strong legs if he is to balance on the wire, and Cat liked men with strong legs. She remembered Toby, who had proved to be disastrous, with his crushed-strawberry trousers; one could not help but notice his legs, and Cat had.

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