So perhaps what Forbes had written in this notebook about Sheila, whenever, wasn't so far from being true. First loves stay with you, he thought, as no others. All the more when they come to nothing as may well have been the case with Edward's for Bobby Macrae.

A girl passed, slowly. She was blonde, long-legged, in a loose flowered skirt that came half-way down her calves. She wore sandals, but walked elegantly. A boy sitting sideways on his stationary scooter called out "bella". She didn't turn her head to look at him. 

Forbes re-lit his cigar, which had gone out the way Toscani do. He glanced at his watch. Almost time to go to the next session of the conference, only civil to do so, attendances had, he understood, been disappointing so far, except for the concert of Gaelic music in the castle courtyard the first evening. He paid his bill and set off, leaning on his stick. He was sweating in the afternoon heat. At least it would be cool in the fine reception room of the municipality.

He was early, the platform still unoccupied. He looked over the books laid out on a table. There was an Italian edition of a novel he had written a long time ago; he couldn't remember ever having seen it before. Still, it was something, he supposed. His own books made a poor show in comparison with the works of other speakers. There were six or seven titles from the Sicilian veteran, and a pile of a dozen or so copies of the novel by this session's speaker. He was a thirty-something Scottish writer and a card propped against the pile declared him to be the winner of a prize which Forbes had never heard of.

He really was out of things, but then he had known that for a long time and had accepted the invitation to the festival only because it promised him a free, or more or less free, few days in Italy.

People were taking their seats, not in any great number. The chairman began her introduction, first in Italian, then English. Kyle Hutcheon, she said, had been acclaimed as the most talented of a new wave of Scottish writers. His novel, set partly in Glasgow and partly on the West Coast of America, had already been translated into half-a-dozen languages, including of course, she was happy to say, Italian. Kyle would be happy to sign copies after the event. Unfortunately, Kyle himself didn't speak Italian, but she would translate what he had to say for the benefit of Italian-speakers without English. She smiled, invitingly. The author scowled. He began to speak in a rapid mutter. Forbes, slightly deaf, couldn't follow. The chairman's Italian version was more comprehensible.