He raised his shoulders in an almost Gallic shrug. ‘If you had the choice of living in Austria or Birmingham, which would you choose?’
‘If I were a violinist?’ I smiled. ‘I’m not sure. Birmingham has a cracking good orchestra.’
‘And if you weren’t a violinist?’ He asked the question quietly, and slid his serious eyes to mine, and all of a sudden I felt I’d been tossed into deep water, over my head. I found I couldn’t answer him, even in jest, and after a long moment he calmly looked away again, towards the river. ‘Damned noisy this morning, those ducks,’ was his only comment.
The silence stretched. I was just beginning to think I couldn’t bear it any longer, that I’d have to invent an excuse and leave before I did something foolish, when the cat, apparently deciding that I’d suffered long enough, woke from its nap and stirred. Arching its back in a reluctant stretch it dropped gracefully from my lap to the gravel path and stalked off without so much as a backward look, melting like a shadow into the grassy riverbank.
I watched it go. ‘Time for breakfast, I suppose,’ I said. Standing up, I brushed my hands against my legs to clear off the clinging strands of cat hair, suddenly aware of the rattling hum of traffic from the boulevard behind us. It seemed a harsh intrusion, in the scented stillness of the Promenade.
‘I’ll walk back with you.’ Neil rose and stretched as the cat had done, and fell into step beside me.
The red gravel path led us into the modern world, where cars and lorries lumbered noisily up and down the boulevard. All along the far side of the street the shopkeepers were running through their daily ritual of opening up, polishing windows and scrubbing down awnings and sweeping the pavement in front of their stores.
We kept to the river walk. There were plane trees here, too – not as ancient or peaceful as those of the Promenade, but nearly as tall, and the breeze blowing through them was idle and cool. It had blown the mist from the murmuring river that danced past in sharp sparkling ribbons of light, and the pavement was dappled with shadow and sunlight, both shifting in time with the whispering leaves.
Despite the bustle of the boulevard, no one seemed to hurry on the river walk. Several people had stopped to lean against the low stone wall and watch the yellow kayak I’d seen earlier come smoothly stroking by on its return trip. Further on a young man struggled up a flight of steps in the sloping river wall, fishing rod in one hand and creel in the other, looking well satisfied. And further on still, not far from the steps where Paul usually sat, a little girl skipped down the cobbled boat launch towards the chattering ducks. They let her come quite near, indeed – so near that the older man lounging some distance behind her stirred in mild alarm. Raising his voice, he called her back a few steps from the swift-flowing water.
Beside me, Neil smiled. ‘Just like her mother. She has no proper sense of danger.’
My head jerked round before I remembered that he would know Lucie Valcourt. Lucie could hardly have remembered him from his visits to the house – she wouldn’t have been more than four years old herself when her mother died, and three more years had passed since then. But she obviously knew Neil now, and knew him well. When she came dancing back happily up the ramp to say hello, she greeted me in singing French but spoke to Neil in clear, if halting, English. ‘Good morning, Monsieur Neil,’ she said. ‘I feed the dukes.’
‘Ducks, love. And yes, I see that. No school today?’
The dark curls swung from side to side, emphatically. ‘No. It is Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday already?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You know in England, children go to school on Wednesday.’
Lucie wrinkled her nose at the thought. It was an expression, I decided, that must have crossed many a French face down through the ages – the civilised person pondering the ways of the barbarian. Even her comment, that she would not like to live in England, was hardly without precedent.
François turned his dry indulgent gaze on Neil. ‘But in England, a man like me would have some rest,’ he said, also in English. ‘Instead this little one, she takes me every Wednesday for a walk, like a dog.’
‘I feed the d … ducks,’ she chimed in, careful with the new pronunciation. She thought of something, looked at me. ‘Mademoiselle, you would like also to feed the ducks? I have much bread.’
If anybody else had asked me that, I’d have said no, but then I’d never learned the knack of saying no to children. Neil stayed behind with François, and Lucie lapsed into French again as she led me down the broad boat launch, her small feet bouncing on the cobblestones. ‘Monsieur Neil is a friend of yours, Mademoiselle?’ she asked, and then without giving me a chance to answer, ‘He was a friend of my mother’s, too. He lives in Austria. Last summer I went there with Aunt Martine, and he came to visit us. He speaks German,’ she informed me, ‘but he can’t speak French. I heard him try to, once, with Aunt Martine, and he got all his words mixed up. It was funny. Do you like him?’
‘Yes, I do. He’s a very nice man.’
‘Is he your boyfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ She bounced a little higher. ‘He is very pretty, I think. Prettier than my papa.’ With the candid eyes of childhood she looked back at Neil who stood, arms folded, talking now to François. ‘But he is not perfect.’
I smiled. ‘No?’ If Neil Grantham had a flaw, I certainly hadn’t been able to find it.