16

‘There is a telephone call for Mr Lafarge,’ said the waiter, as he stopped beside their table and caught Clare’s eye.

Robert lowered his newspaper and looked at her.

‘From Paris?’ she asked, as she put down her toast and wiped crumbs from her fingers on a large damask napkin.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. The young lady on reception asked me to come and tell you because she’s new and doesn’t know Mr Lafarge,’ he explained before he moved away.

‘I’ll go and see who it is,’ Clare said, getting to her feet. ‘If it’s Paris, I’ll ask them to call again in half an hour. If it’s about today’s meeting, I can take a message. All right?’

Robert nodded and retired gratefully behind The Times.

Clare moved quickly through the large dining room full of the smell of bacon and egg, the rustle of newspapers and the sound of well-bred English voices. Robert was not a morning person. Even in Italy, where he spoke not a word of the language and could only read the exchange rates, he still insisted on having his newspaper.

‘Good morning,’ she said, picking up the phone and trying English first. ‘This is Clare Hamilton, Mr Lafarge’s assistant.’

‘Clare! What a relief. I thought I was going to have to use my schoolboy French.’

‘Charles,’ she replied, laughing.

One of the things she liked most about Charles Langley was his disarming honesty.

‘Has something gone wrong?’ she asked quickly. ‘We were expecting you and John Coleman at nine thirty.’

‘Well, it’s good news in one way, but there is a real problem. I don’t know how Robert Lafarge will take it. John’s wife went into labour last night. It’s her third pregnancy, but they lost the first two. Naturally, she’s in a bit of a state. John’s even worse, but he’s trying to do the stiff upper lip bit. He’s with her at the hospital and he really can’t leave her at this stage.’

‘And he’s the one that’s worked out the growth projections?’

‘Absolutely. I’d have swotted them up if I’d been coming to Paris, but there was no point when you were coming here and I could bring him with me. Will your boss be furious, or can you charm him? I’ll turn up and grovel, but I can’t waste his time trying to have a meeting. Is there any hope we could have the meeting tomorrow, or were you flying back tonight?’

‘No, he’s booked on the evening plane tomorrow,’ she replied. ‘There’s nothing in the diary, but I think he wants to do some shopping.’

‘Sounds hopeful, if you can persuade him. I could take you both shopping today and then out to lunch. Do you think he’d like a Langley Town and Country Tour? I think it’s going to be a nice day. I really do feel bad about this, Clare, but poor old John is up to thirty thousand. Lafarge is a bachelor, isn’t he?’

‘No, Charles, he isn’t. He lost his wife and daughter during the German advance. There was a baby son that might or might not have survived.’

‘Oh lord, Clare, that’s tough,’ he said, with an audible intake of breath. ‘Makes one’s own problems seem pretty trivial,’ he added resignedly. ‘What shall I do? Give me good advice.’

‘Well, I think you should appear, but leave it till ten. I’ll tell him you’ve offered to take us shopping or whatever he wants to do. With any luck, he’ll suggest tomorrow. Can John get in touch with you?’

‘Yes, he’ll ring my secretary from the hospital as soon as there’s any news and I’ll keep in touch with her whenever I can get to a phone.’

‘Right, I’ll do what I can. See you at ten.’

The moment Clare sat down, Robert folded his paper and signalled to the waiter.

‘London or Paris?’ he asked, as the waiter set down a pot of coffee, a rack of toast and a well-polished cup and saucer bearing the hotel’s crest in gold.

‘Yours was getting cold,’ he said abruptly, as he poured her a fresh cup. ‘Now finish your breakfast,’ he added firmly.

‘It was Charles Langley,’ she began, as she buttered the hot toast. ‘John Coleman’s wife went into labour last night. They’ve lost two babies already.’

‘So, no meeting today. Is tomorrow a possibility?’

‘Yes, distinctly so, if baby arrives today. Charles has offered to take us shopping and then to lunch. He thought you might like a tour of London or a drive out into the countryside. It looks as if it’s going to be a nice day.’

‘What time’s he due?’

‘I said ten.’

‘Good. I hate nine-thirty meetings.’

He stood up unexpectedly, paused for a moment.

‘I’ll meet you in the foyer at ten. I have some things to see to.’

He tramped across the dining room and disappeared in the direction of the lifts, a small, almost square figure with dark, thinning hair and a very determined set to both his face and figure.

Clare watched him as she ate her toast. In the two weeks since they’d first dined together, she’d discovered the second Robert in her life was often as silent and awkward as the first. The better he got to know her, the more he let it show. He was never bad-tempered, never discourteous, but he no longer concealed either his irritation at changed arrangements or his discomforts. This morning, his inside was playing up. She’d noticed the discarded foil of his indigestion tablets by his plate when she came down to join him. Eating breakfast usually helped, but until he’d been to the bathroom he wouldn’t feel much better.

She looked at her watch. It was only ten to nine. She sat drinking her coffee and watching people standing up, collecting themselves and moving towards the foyer and their day’s work. Men in dark suits with loud voices and identifiable accents. Women, smartly dressed, up in town to go shopping. A handful of tourists in casual clothes being shepherded by their courier. A group of twenty men and women, who got up together and turned out of the dining room towards one of the smaller conference suites.

Clare thought of John’s wife lying in some labour ward. Poor woman. To lose two babies. She wondered if they had both been born dead or if they had simply not survived for very long, like Robert’s brothers and sisters. Robert’s wife had lost a child too before their daughter was born. Then Robert had lost them both and his son, whom he had never even seen.

Sometimes the world seemed such a cruel place. She couldn’t really accept that everything was the will of God, the way it had been put to her from the pulpit all through her schooldays. It just wasn’t logical. If God was all powerful, then why did he let it happen? And if he wasn’t all powerful, why did the Church try to insist that he was?

The image of Robert’s wife with her tiny baby and her five-year-old daughter haunted her. At Film Society, with Keith Harvey she’d once seen a newsreel about the fall of France. The sad columns of people trudging away from burnt-out villages or fleeing before the German advance. Women and children and old men, carrying bundles, pushing prams stacked high with possessions, pulling carts because all the horses and donkeys had been requisitioned for the army. Moving as quickly as they could, hampered by children who could walk no faster and cried in fright when the planes passed overhead. Diving for the ditch when they heard the rattle of their machine guns.

Suddenly, she realised she was the same age as Robert’s daughter would have been, had she survived. The baby boy would be William’s age. In her own mind, she’d always think of him as little Robert, calling him after his father, just as generations of women in her own family had named a son either Robert or Thomas.

Beyond the tall windows with their heavily draped velvet curtains, the traffic flowed down Park Lane under a bright blue sky dappled with small white clouds. If the weather were like this tomorrow evening when she flew to Belfast she’d be able to see more of the green hills and little fields than she’d ever seen before.

‘Can I bring you some more coffee, Miss Hamilton?’

The voice drew her back to the present. She smiled up at the waiter who’d served breakfast and brought them the message about the telephone call.

‘No thank you. That was splendid. It’s time I did some work!’

She went to reception, checked there were no letters or telegrams for Robert, collected her key and went up to her room. She couldn’t decide what was making her so sad, Robert’s loss, or the Colemans’ loss, or some loss of her own she could put no name to.

 

‘How do you do, Mr Langley?’ said Robert Lafarge, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully.

Clare smiled to herself. The words were fine, but the intonation was all wrong. It sounded more like, ‘How do you do a reverse turn, or a back flip, or a victory roll?’ She had a feeling he was teasing her, but couldn’t be sure.

‘Je suis très bien, merci, Monsieur Lafarge,’ replied Charles Langley, speaking French for some reason best known to himself.

‘Bon. Bon.’

Having shaken hands most cordially, Robert turned to Clare and addressed her at a speed she knew Charles couldn’t possibly follow.

‘You will explain to Monsieur Langley that I appreciate his difficulties. We will meet tomorrow at ten, all being well with the Coleman family. As for today, I would be grateful if he would entertain you. I have made my own arrangements, but will expect to see you at breakfast at eight thirty tomorrow.’

He turned away before she could protest and beamed at Charles Langley, while he waited for her to translate.

From the look on his face, it was perfectly obvious Charles hadn’t managed to catch so much as a word. She could do nothing other than give an exact translation.

It was now Charles’s turn to smile broadly. He assured Robert Lafarge, in English, that he would be most happy to entertain Miss Hamilton. He could rest assured that she would be well looked after.

Clare translated, they shook hands again, exchanged good wishes in each other’s language. Robert wished ‘Miss ’Amilton’ a pleasant day, and went off looking pleased with himself.

‘Well then, what shall we do? Where would you like to go? Would you mind if we call in at my office on the way?’

‘No, of course not. I’ll go and get my coat. Is it as nice as it looks outside?’

‘Yes, it’s lovely, but there’s a chilly edge to the breeze. You’ll certainly need a coat over that suit. Unless you want to go shopping?’

‘No, definitely not. I was wondering if we could walk in a park. I have some flat shoes upstairs.’

He looked at the high heels that complemented her spring costume and nodded wisely.

‘Bring them with you and I’ll call a taxi.’

‘Haven’t you got your car?’

‘Oh yes, but it’s up in Covent Garden. You don’t think I’d turn up here in less than a Rolls, do you?’

Ten minutes later, as Clare settled back in the taxi, she felt her spirits rise. She was even prepared to be grateful to Robert for organising her day without consulting her. Charles was a nice man, too nice, perhaps, but she’d always liked him. They’d met several times now in the course of business and got on well. Once, when Charles had stayed an extra night in Paris, they’d had dinner together.

‘So which of the character-forming establishments did you go to?’ she asked gaily, when she stopped laughing at one of his stories about his school days.

The answer took her so totally by surprise, she felt the colour drain from her face.

‘You must have known Andrew Richardson,’ she said slowly, as she collected herself.

‘Goodness, yes. Richardson was my fag. Nice chap. Had relatives in your part of the world. Went to Cambridge. Law, I think. Or was it history?’

‘It was law.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Yes, rather well. We were engaged. But it didn’t work out.’

‘Oh, I am sorry. That makes two of us. My wife left me last year. We’d only been married two years. I came home one day and she was gone. Two lines on the back of a shopping list to say don’t try to find her, there was no point. She went off with a cousin of mine she’d known for years,’ he explained bitterly. ‘What happened with you and Richardson?’ he went on when he’d recovered himself.

She told him as honestly as she could.

‘Sounds just like him. Bloody fool. Pardon the expression. He always did what people wanted him to do, never mind what he wanted. I’d have taken you to Canada.’

She glanced away from the look he gave her.

‘If I’d been in his position,’ he added quickly.

The streets were full of people, the shop windows dressed with giant sprays of blossom, flourishing daisies and sprouting branches, a background for costumes in delicate pastels, soft leather shoes with very high heels, and summer dresses in linen and flowered cotton.

She registered the passing scene with a corner of her mind, but had not the slightest wish to be any part of it. She was glad when the taxi turned away from the main streets she recognised and nosed its way down through a maze of side streets only just wide enough to drive through. It pulled up beside a pavement stacked high with boxes and the debris of the early morning market. Beyond, a tall narrow building still carried its rather old-fashioned sign, ‘Langley and Son, Fruit Importers’.

‘Sorry about this. You get used to it, but it’s hard on visitors,’ he said, drawing her gently away from a squashed tomato on the pavement. ‘It’s better upstairs.’

The stairs were steep, but at the end of a surprisingly broad landing he threw open a door into a large room, beautifully restored to its former elegant style, with moulded cornices and a plaster-work ceiling, full of light, and carpeted from wall to wall. The furniture was Scandinavian – a polished teak desk, leather swivel chairs, stainless steel lamps, polished metal filing cabinets. On the walls were photographs and etchings of early aeroplanes, biplanes and gliders.

‘What a lovely room, Charles,’ she said, as she slipped off her coat and gave it to him. ‘Do you fly?’

‘When I can. There’s a light-aircraft club down at Biggin Hill. I wanted to go into the air force when I left Oxford, but they wouldn’t have me. Low level of colour blindness. Besides, father wanted me in the business.’

One more of them, Clare thought to herself. Andrew does what his uncle wants, Charles does what his father wants. Men with offices keep their secrets on the walls of their room. Robert’s horses, Charles’s planes. She wondered if Andrew would put pictures of prize cattle on his wall if ever he had a room of his own.

‘Can I leave you to look round while I check with Julie? There may have been a call from John.’

‘Yes, surely. Can I look at your books?’

‘At anything you like,’ he said easily, as he strode across the room and out on to the landing.

She was still looking out of the window at the pavements below when he came back only minutes later.

‘Good news?’ she asked as she swung round and saw the huge grin on his face.

‘Absolutely great. Little boy arrived half an hour ago. Bad moment with cord round the neck, but they were more than half expecting it. He’s absolutely fine. They haven’t even weighed him yet, but he’s at least seven pounds. Poor Jane can’t stop crying, but John says she’s all right, no stitches or anything nasty, just pure relief.’

‘How wonderful. Isn’t it lovely when things work out right?’

‘Yes, wish it happened more often. How shall we celebrate? Town or country? I can do better than a park: I can take you to Ashdown Forest, on to the Downs, perhaps, show you my home at Penshurst. There’s a good pub near there called The Spotted Dog, if you like traditional English pubs.’

‘Charles, I’ve never been in any kind of English pub. I would love that, if it’s not too long a drive. My geography of Kent and Sussex is a bit hazy now, though I think I could still draw the sketch map of the Wealden Dome with the centre eroded out.’

‘More than I could. I was lousy at geography. You can look at the road atlas if you want, but the nicest little roads aren’t on it. They’re in my head. Right, let’s go.’

‘Can I leave a message for Robert Lafarge? I don’t know what he’s planning to do, but he’ll be pleased when he hears about the baby.’

‘Yes, of course. Dial nine for an outside line. I’ll go and bring the car down. Probably take me about five minutes. Sometimes the phone plays up. If it does, go and use Julie’s.’

 

Once free of the traffic in central London they moved speedily through the suburbs, and within half an hour were driving in rich, green countryside with half-timbered houses and villages already bright with summer flowers. Newly leafed trees, almost touching across the narrow roads, filtered the bright sunlight into dappled shadows as stretches of woodland alternated with small hamlets, clustered groups of older houses and a few recent developments of bungalows.

‘I used to wonder if stagecoaches outside hostelries really existed,’ Clare said, as they passed yet one more Old Coach Inn. ‘They used to appear every Christmas in the box of cards, but we haven’t got anything like that in Ulster. I thought perhaps stagecoaches and oak beams were like Santa Claus, purely for the festive season.’

Charles laughed and nodded towards the view as they crested one of the higher hills.

‘Is Ireland really so different from this?’ he asked.

‘Can’t speak for Ireland,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I only know Armagh and bits of County Down and the north coast of Antrim, but they’re very different from this. Not so many trees. Little green hills, but lots of them. Tiny fields compared to these,’ she began, scanning the well-cultivated lowland spread out below the steep hill they’d just climbed.

‘Go on,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the narrow road. ‘Tell me more. I’ve never been to Ireland. Is it really greener than this?’

She laughed.

‘Yes, it is actually. But the main difference is that Ireland is shaggy. This is all so tidy. Those fields look as if they’d been vacuum-cleaned after they were harrowed. The bits of Ireland I know are more unkempt, more unruly, I suppose. But then, this land has been cultivated for such a long time in comparison.’

‘Domesday Book and all that?’

‘I wish we had a Domesday Book for Armagh. I’d love to know exactly what was going on in my small corner. I doubt if much of the land was cultivated before the seventeenth century. Mostly, it was pasture for cattle. According to my grandfather’s great friend Charlie Running, Armagh was settled by planters from Warwickshire. That’s why there are so many apple orchards and why we have a Shakespearean turn of phrase.’

‘I haven’t noticed that,’ he said, glancing at her as the road straightened out.

‘But I haven’t lapsed into dialect yet. I’m still speaking standard boardroom English.’

‘I’ll keep listening. I could listen to you all day.’

 

Clare was delighted by The Spotted Dog, and amused by Charles’s practised stoop as they came into the bar with its huge oak beams close enough to touch, sporting prints and well-polished brassware.

‘It appears that true-born English men were smaller in days of yore,’ he said, sitting down beside her on a bench, well polished by generations of bottoms. ‘We can eat here or go through to the dining room,’ he said, nodding towards an almost empty room, laid out with pink table linen and white napkins folded in stemmed glasses.

‘I like it here,’ she said promptly.

‘Good. So do I,’ he said, picking up the handwritten menu and glancing at it. ‘Daisy does a good cottage pie. Steak and kidney pudding is splendid if you’re really hungry and the fish and chips is the best in Sussex, so my father says. Though that’s probably because he knows Fred goes up to Billingsgate in the middle of the night to choose his own fish.’

‘I’d love fish and chips. I can’t think when I last had any.’

‘No, the French don’t seem to have the knack of it. I can’t imagine a pomme frite ever tasting like a good old English chip.’

The landlady herself came to take their order and welcomed Charles like a long-lost friend.

‘Daisy, this is Clare,’ he said, when she paused for breath. ‘She works in Paris and hasn’t had fish and chips since she went.’

‘Well, we’ll soon put that right, won’t we?’ said Daisy, shaking Clare’s hand and smiling at her. ‘You must be dying for a bit of good English nosh,’ she said, winking at them.

The food was as good as Charles had promised and Clare hungrier than she’d imagined, given the full English breakfast served in Park Lane. Although it was now the middle of May, a pleasant wood fire burned in the huge fireplace, filling the whole room with the scent of its fine bluish smoke. She looked around as they ate, taking in the details of the comfortable and welcoming room, the small tables, the cosy alcoves. How strange it was to step into someone else’s world, full of the people they knew, the places dear to them.

It was as if you made a picture of the world through what you did, what you saw, the people you knew well. And yet, living in the very same place, whether it was Armagh, or Penshurst, or Paris, another person could make a totally different picture. She glanced towards the two women at the nearest table, clearly old friends. They were talking about their girlhood in Simla and mutual friends who had just gone back for the first time since ‘the old days’. They knew Daisy, so presumably they lived here, somewhere among the leafy lanes, the sudden steep hills and the wide views over almost flat lowland. She wondered how those early years fitted into the picture they’d made.

‘Have your parents always lived in Penshurst?’

‘Mm,’ he nodded, as he demolished the last of his chips. ‘I was actually born there, though that wasn’t planned. I had the bad taste to arrive early. Fortunately, the midwife lived just round the corner and had a phone. My poor father hadn’t the remotest idea what to do, so he made a cup of tea.’

‘At least he could manage that,’ she said, laughing. ‘Where I come from, some men would think that was letting the side down. Teamaking is woman’s work.’

‘You get over that in the army,’ he said, leaning back comfortably. ‘Two years away from home and no one to do things but yourself. Unless you get a commission, of course. Even then you learn all the practical things in basic training, bed making, sewing on buttons. If your kit’s not up to scratch you’re up on a charge. CB and all that.’

‘What’s CB?’

‘Confined to barracks. Fate worse than death. You die of boredom.’

‘And a commission?’

‘That’s when they think you’re officer material. They put a pip on your shoulder and call you a soldier of the Queen, or King, as it was in my case. Poor man died while I was in Egypt and we had to put on a grand parade for the Accession.’

‘So you went into the army?’ she asked, surprised.

He laughed wryly.

‘No, my dear Clare. I didn’t go in. I was called up. National Service.’

‘Yes, of course. I’d forgotten. We don’t have National Service in Ulster. It sounds like a good idea.’

‘It doesn’t feel like a good idea while you’re doing it, but I think I agree with you. Very character-forming and all that. Caroline used to appreciate my domestic skills.’

The bitterness broke through every time he mentioned her. She wondered if she sounded as bitter when she spoke of Andrew.

‘Why do you think she married you?’

‘I’ve asked myself that one too. Sometimes I can’t think why anyone would want to marry me.’

‘Oh Charles, don’t be silly,’ she said, laughing. ‘You’re terribly marriageable. Surely the problem was that a lot of women wanted to marry you, but not always for the right reasons.’

‘What are the right reasons?’ he said promptly.

‘Well it’s not about domestic skills, or good looks, or entry to a particular social milieu, or money, or position. I think it’s about being able to make a life together. Supporting each other. Accepting the weaknesses as well as the strengths.’

‘But aren’t men supposed to be unfailingly strong?’

‘Only in certain women’s magazines,’ she said crisply, as Daisy reappeared to take away their empty plates.

‘Not much for Fido,’ said Charles, as she picked them up.

‘Good. That’s just what I like to see. Apple crumble, blackcurrant tart or jam roly-poly with cream or ice cream?’

 

After their meal, they walked through to the minute garden at the back of the pub. Perched on a narrow ledge, above the steep drop of the hillside, a few tables with furled umbrellas were surrounded by a mass of green foliage and terracotta pots filled with geraniums.

‘The hollyhocks are marvellous in July,’ Charles said, as he saw her eye the tall stems already stretching higher than her head.

‘I used to embroider hollyhocks and crinoline ladies with watering cans under trellised arches. But I’ve never seen a real hollyhock before. Bit like stagecoaches and hostelries. You really are completing my education,’ she said, laughing, as they moved to the edge of the terrace and gazed out over the sunlit countryside beyond.

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ he said, smiling with pleasure. ‘Next comes the cultural bit of the tour. Have you read Winnie the Pooh?’

‘Yes, I have indeed,’ she replied, surprised he should even have heard of one of Aunt Sarah’s children’s books.

‘Good. Well I shall now take you to the Top of the Forest. It’s actually called Caesar’s Camp, but Milne lived close by so everyone knows that’s what he used. We can walk off lunch there. And the view is good. On a clear day, you can see for miles.’

 

‘Sorry about the smell,’ he said, as he pushed open the front door of his house in the Cromwell Road and waited for Clare to go ahead of him towards the open door of the sitting room. ‘It’s Mrs M. Her passion for lavender polish is exceeded only by her passion for Dettol and Vim. I drew the line at Jeyes Fluid. Here, let me take your coat.’

‘What a lovely house, Charles,’ she said, as she handed the coat to him. ‘And a garden as well?’ she added, as she moved toward the french windows.

‘More a large back yard really, but I’ve a friend who specialises in town gardens. Amazing what you can do when you know how,’ he said, as he dropped his briefcase and turned towards the kitchen.

‘I can make tea, but there may not be any cake,’ he said seriously. ‘Make yourself at home.’

He waved a hand at the sitting room, a light airy room with the same spare furnishing as his office, but a more lived-in look.

She took him at his word, slipped off her high heels and went straight to the french windows. Immediately outside, a small cobbled area had a pool at its centre. The old walls were draped in climbers. One of them, a pink clematis, was covered in bloom. Raised flowerbeds had been shaped to make the whole space look larger and longer than it really was.

She stared at the rich greenery, the varied texture of shrubs and the patches of colour and thought about the long day they’d spent together, the continuous play of sunlight on the rippling countryside that ran, ridge upon ridge, till the chalk finally met the sea.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, across all the years, the back yard in Edward Street came into her mind: the single flower bed made of old bricks, carefully draped with trailing lobelia; the honeysuckle growing up the wall of the outside lavatory; her mother picking a posy to put on the table.

‘You’re in luck, Clare. Mrs M. left me a lemon drizzle. She sometimes does if …’

He broke off and put the tray down hastily, as she turned towards him, her eyes bright with tears.

‘Clare, what is it? What’s wrong? Have I said something? Done something?’

She shook her head helplessly, quite overwhelmed by his concern. He came and put his arms round her, held her close, fished out his handkerchief and gave it to her.

‘I thought of the garden at home … before my parents died. I suddenly felt so lonely. Does that ever happen to you?’

‘Yes, yes it does,’ he said, holding her close and stroking her hair distractedly. ‘What can I do to help?’

‘It’s been such a lovely day. I can’t think why I should feel so sad.’

‘Has it really been a lovely day?’ he asked, looking down at her.

‘Yes, I’ve enjoyed every bit of it,’ she said, sniffing, and trying to mop up her tears.

‘You’ve shrunk,’ he said. ‘I could have sworn you came up to my shoulder just a little while ago.’

She giggled and looked down at her stockinged feet.

‘All part of trying to be sensible and grown-up when sometimes I don’t feel it,’ she said, looking up at him.

He kissed her gently. When she didn’t move away, he took her more firmly in his arms and kissed her passionately.

‘I should so like to make love to you. Would that be grown-up and sensible?’

‘I don’t know, but it would be nice.’

 

Clare opened her eyes and saw a Spitfire dipping its wing in a brilliant summer sky. She knew it was a Spitfire, because Uncle Jack’s friend who worked in the aircraft factory during the war made models of Spitfires on polished metal stands. The one he’d given Uncle Jack had sat on the mantelpiece at Liskeyborough for years.

Clare moved her head to look at the other pictures in Charles’s bedroom, but she didn’t recognise any of the other aircraft, nor the pictures of mountain peaks, some of them iced with snow.

‘Tea, my lady?’ said Charles, coming in with a tray and two china mugs. ‘No cake, it might spoil your dinner.’

‘Goodness, what’s the time?’

‘Time to get some clothes on, though I must say you look delightful without. Not quite the thing for Andoni’s.’

‘What’s Andoni’s?’

‘I hope you’ll like it. I took a chance while you were asleep and booked a table. It’s a Greek restaurant. Not posh at all, but the food’s good and the waiters are fun. You said you and Louise were going on holiday to Greece in the summer, so I thought you might enjoy it.’

‘What a kind thought. I’ve never had Greek food.’

‘And never made love to an Englishman?’

Clare was quite taken aback. To begin with, she wasn’t sure whether it was a statement or a question. She’d only ever made love to Andrew. Did he classify as an Englishman, when he was born in Ireland and was passionate about Ulster?

‘What makes you say that?’ she asked, hoping he wouldn’t notice she was blushing.

‘I’ve been told the only way to make love to an Englishman is to lie back and think of England.’

She laughed and put her free hand out to touch his cheek.

‘You’re teasing me again,’ she said easily.

‘I wish I was,’ he said, his eyes flickering away from her gaze. ‘I know I’m no great shakes in bed.’

‘Charles, what are you talking about? You were lovely. I was so sad and you were tender and passionate … what do you mean?’

She sat up in bed, put her mug on the bedside table.

‘Now tell me what makes you think that, or can I guess it in one?’

‘After today, I’d say you’d guess it in one.’

‘Well, she’s wrong, completely wrong.’

He smiled, put down his mug of tea and kissed her gently.

‘Bless you for saying so. Time we were going,’ he reminded her.

‘No it isn’t,’ she said, shaking her head vigorously. She put her arms around him and kissed him. Moments later, he dropped his dressing gown on the floor and came back into bed.

 

‘How do you like your coffee?’ Charles asked. ‘Sceto, metrius or glika?’

Clare caught the hint of laughter in his eyes and laughed too.

‘Sugar. No spoonful, one spoonful, two spoonful,’ the waiter said helpfully, as he brushed crumbs from the tablecloth and wiped perspiration from his forehead. ‘Real Greek coffee. Ess strong.’

‘He’s right,’ agreed Charles. ‘Take the skin off your mouth if you’re not careful. I go for the two spoonful.’

‘Right then, I’ll try that too. Glika,’ she said, smiling at the waiter. ‘And the others? Sceto?’ she asked, counting on her fingers.

‘Sceto, metrius, glika,’ he repeated, with a broad grin. ‘I teach you speak Greek.’

‘I bet he would,’ said Charles, as soon as he was out of earshot. ‘He’d teach you more than Greek. And I wouldn’t blame him.’

He reached for her hand across the small candlelit table.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to part with you.’

‘It’s been such a lovely day, Charles. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,’ she said, looking at him steadily.

He smiled wryly and shook his head.

‘What you mean is that you don’t really fancy me.’

‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ she said vigorously. ‘It’s not a question of fancying you. I think you’re the nicest man I’ve met for a long time. I really enjoy being with you. It would be very easy to fall in love with you.’

‘Then why not?’ he asked, looking distinctly brighter.

‘Because I know it wouldn’t work out and I just couldn’t bear to hurt you. Not after what happened with Caroline.’

‘But why shouldn’t it work? We get on well, don’t we?’

A sudden pulse of anxiety touched his mouth and eyes.

‘We do, don’t we?’ he said, urgently.

‘Yes, we do. But getting on well isn’t enough. I’ve learnt that the hard way,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ she went on, putting her free hand on top of his. ‘I don’t think I can explain, Charles, but I can imagine the sort of girl who really could make you happy. I’d be so delighted if it was me, but it’s not.’

‘You really don’t think it ever could be?’

‘No, I don’t. But we can be a lot closer than “just good friends”,’ she said honestly. ‘If you wanted to, that is.’

‘You mean we’d see each other sometimes?’

Clare looked at the clear grey eyes watching her. For one moment, she felt such a tenderness for this dear, uncomplicated man and such a weariness with the effort of her own singular life she longed to say words that would make him happy, words that would move her into the protective warmth he was offering her.

‘I’d love to see you. Of course I would. As often as I’m over here or you’re in Paris, we’ll meet. We’ll share our secrets and encourage each other.’

‘But you won’t let me carry you off here and now and live happily ever after,’ he said, managing a wry smile.

She beamed at him, shaking her head, relief mixed with pleasure as she saw his spirits lift.

‘I think happy ever after is going to take us both a bit longer. But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?’