I couldn’t resist. I reached innocently across for the lit cigarette and raised it to my own lips, inhaling with perfect nonchalance. ‘Catch him at what?’ I asked Simon.
His face fell, and even Paul looked faintly shocked, but I managed to hold the innocent expression long enough to convince Simon.
‘Nothing,’ he said. He glanced uncertainly at Paul. ‘I only thought …’
He wasn’t allowed to finish telling us what he thought. Behind him in the entrance hall the front door blew open and shut and I braced myself as the Whitakers came into the bar, shattering what little remained of the companionable peace that had settled between Paul and myself.
‘Why, Emily!’ Garland raised her eyebrows in a calculated arc and widened her eyes. ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’
I didn’t, actually. I had given it up three years ago, as part of my more responsible approach to life, and I was somewhat relieved to find it tasted awful, but I sent Garland an almost cheerful shrug. ‘Well, we all have to have one vice, don’t we? That’s what my father says.’
‘Only one vice? Darling, how boring!’ She sank gracefully onto the soft chair nearest the door and gave a tiny, self-satisfied sigh. ‘I won’t be able to get up again, now,’ she pronounced. ‘We must have walked a hundred miles.’
‘Just over the river and back, actually,’ Jim Whitaker put in, as he joined us by the window, ‘but my wife’s not used to walking. And those shoes don’t help.’
Garland lifted one delicately arched foot, the better to examine her tight Italian pumps. ‘I know. I really must invest in a pair of sensible shoes like yours, Emily,’ she said, sending me a smile designed to soften the cutting compliment. ‘You English always wear such practical clothes.’
Paul’s eyes laughed at me as he positioned the ashtray nearer me, closing his unfinished book and pushing it aside. He looked at Simon, curious. ‘And where did you take off to, this afternoon?’
‘Oh, nowhere in particular,’ Simon answered, swinging his lanky frame into the chair beside me. He whistled a snatch of something through his teeth and looked around. ‘Where’s Thierry, by the way? Isn’t he working?’
‘He’s in the back, doing paperwork.’ The lie came easily in Paul’s unhurried voice. ‘He knows we’re here, though. He’ll be out in a minute or two.’
‘Thank God,’ said Garland. ‘I could certainly use a drink after all that marching around. I prefer places we can drive the car to, you know. What about you, Emily?’
‘Oh, I don’t mind walking.’ I smiled politely, folding what was left of the cigarette into the ashtray with exquisite care. ‘I rather enjoy it, actually.’
Garland smiled. ‘Like Neil. Honestly, he makes me tired just watching him. Up and down those stairs all day, and he never even breathes hard. It’s disgusting. Jim used to be fit like that, didn’t you darling? When I first met you. The Army,’ she sighed, ‘does wonderful things to a man’s body. Oh, there you are, Thierry, we were beginning to think you’d disappeared.’
Thierry looked rather flushed, and more than a little pleased with himself. Garland mistook his cheerful distraction for an inability to understand.
‘We … thought … you’d … disappeared,’ she repeated, in a louder voice.
‘Ah.’ He grinned, and broadening his accent so that he sounded exactly like a music hall actor pretending to be French, he asked her very slowly: ‘Would … you … like … a … drink?’
Even Jim smiled at that, but Garland missed the joke completely. ‘Oh, that’s very much better, Thierry,’ she congratulated him. ‘You see? I told you if you kept on practising, your English would improve in no time.’
Thierry shrugged, a modest little shrug. I didn’t trust myself to look up again until after he’d brought the drinks.
For the next half hour I sipped my kir and smiled politely. When it became apparent that the Whitakers were rooted to their seats for the remainder of the evening, and that Paul and I would have to wait until breakfast to talk any further about Harry, I excused myself with a rather convincing yawn and started up the winding stairs.
Alone in my room, I closed my fingers thoughtfully round the little silver coin, still nestled deep within my pocket, and wandered over to the window. The night air was thick and full of dampness. In the square below, the street lamps spread warm yellow pools of light upon the smooth black pavement, and water spilled from the fountain like an iridescent rain.
Beside the fountain, the little spotted dog yawned and stretched as the breeze went shivering through the acacias.
The gypsy glanced swiftly upwards, expressionless, at my window, then looked away again and lit a cigarette with unhurried fingers. It was only the darkness, I told myself, that was giving things this air of melodrama. The gypsy had every right to be sitting in a public square, and he might have been looking at anything, really, not just at my window. But still I latched the window firmly, securely, and twitched the heavy curtains closed before I crawled beneath the covers of the wide bed, shutting my eyes tightly into the pillow like a child seeking comfort in the long uncertain night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘… we give you, being strange
A licence: speak, and let the topic die.’
Paul answered my knock at the door next morning with the telephone slung from one hand and the receiver cradled close against his cheek. Smiling, he motioned me in, not missing a beat in his conversation. He was speaking in French. ‘Ah. I see. Yes, I’ll wait, it’s no problem.’ Fingers cupped round the mouthpiece, he smiled again. ‘Come on in,’ he told me. ‘Have a seat.’