LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Then the least I can do is buy you dinner...’

      ‘Oh, no!’ she exclaimed in sudden panic. ‘Truly, you don’t need to do that.’

      ‘I know I don’t,’ he agreed with another teasing smile, ‘but I would like to. You can tell me all that’s been happening at home. You still live in Beckford? That good old hotbed of gossip?’

      Feeling unworldly and suburban, she gave a wry smile and nodded.

      ‘Still at home?’ he teased.

      Wishing she could invent a worldly lifestyle for herself, suddenly transpose into an exciting, intriguing companion, she gave another reluctant nod. ‘Very unenterprising of me, I know, but, well, I’m quite happy there.’

      ‘No need to sound defensive, or apologetic,’ he said gently, ‘we can’t all be adventurers.’ With a wry smile of his own, he picked up his cup. ‘Still the wicked one, am I?’ he queried with a crooked grin.

      ‘Fraid so. Unredeemable. They’re all just waiting for your sticky end so that they can say “I told you so” to each other.’ Studying him while his attention was elsewhere, she wondered if he minded. He didn’t look as though he did, but then, Charles never looked anything but amused. It had been nearly fifteen years since he had actually lived in the village, and, although she had seen him from time to time, when he had made a flying visit to Beckford for her brother’s funeral, returned quite often to see old friends, it had been over a year since she had last seen him, and then only briefly, and from a distance, which perhaps was why she had felt this overwhelming need to see him now. ‘You no longer go back?’ She knew very well he didn’t, knew that his old friends had moved away, but she didn’t want him to know that she knew. Didn’t want him to know of her infatuation. Her obsessive interest in his affairs.

      Returning his attention to her, he gave a faint smile and shook his head. ‘Still writing your children’s books?’

      ‘Yes, still doing them.’

      ‘No more yearnings to be a nurse?’ he asked with a quizzical smile.

      ‘No,’ she denied with a faint grin as she remembered that youthful ambition, remembered his teasing.

      ‘Well, if determination should win any prizes you’d get the big one. Still unpublished?’

      ‘No,’ she denied with a touch of pride. ‘I am now, well, if not exactly rich and famous, at least being sold.’

      Looking genuinely pleased, he exclaimed, ‘Congratulations! What name do you write under? Would I have heard of you?’

      Amused, she shook her head. ‘I doubt it.’

      ‘Tell me anyway,’ he persuaded gently, and as though he really was interested. But then, that was part of his charm, he always appeared interested in other people’s doings.

      Knowing he would make the connection, she confessed reluctantly, ‘Donny.’

      ‘Ah.’ With a sympathetic nod, he said, ‘For your brother.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Your parents have come to terms with it now?’

      ‘On the surface perhaps, but inside? No, not really,’ she said with rather haunting sadness.

      ‘Is that why you stayed at home?’ he asked gently.

      ‘Partly, I suppose. Whenever I made noises about leaving, finding a flat, they didn’t exactly say anything, but they looked so hurt that I didn’t have the heart to persist.’

      ‘Kind Melissa.’

      With a little shrug, she finished her coffee. She wasn’t sure kind came into it. Cowardice perhaps, or guilt. Not that she really had anything to feel guilty for, and yet, whenever she had broached the subject about leaving, guilt was what they had made her feel. And if she had left, lived a different sort of life, would she have got over this need for Charles? And yet, to be honest, mostly, she didn’t feel a desperate need to try her wings elsewhere, just now and again when she began to feel stifled by the feelings of responsibility her parents engendered in her. There was also the question of money. Due to the fact that her father had lost all interest in his business when Donny had died, their income now was quite small, and without her contribution they would have found it hard to manage. So she stayed, and if her brother’s ghost was part of the package, well, it was an amiable ghost, not one that ever threatened her peace of mind. She could think of him now with love and affection, not the aching pain that his death had brought over ten years before. Such a silly death, such a wasteful, foolish way to die, to trip and knock yourself out and then drown in a puddle barely big enough to wet your shoes.

      Pushing the memories aside, she asked lightly, ‘So what are you up to these days? Apart from being an adventurer, that is?’

      ‘Oh, this and that,’ he dismissed. ‘I get by.’

      She could see that, she thought wryly, if the sailing jacket he was wearing was anything to go by. That certainly hadn’t come from Woolworths. But any chance to probe further was thwarted by the appearance of a woman who seemed vaguely familiar. She was tall, and fair, and very, very attractive, and her face was full of laughter and lively curiosity as she stared at Melly through the window behind Charles. Putting a finger to her lips to indicate silence, she slipped in through the door, tiptoed across to the table, and then put both hands over Charles’s eyes.

      Grasping her wrists in his strong hands, he removed them and turned to peer upwards, then grinned. ‘Bonjour, madame,’ he greeted lightly.

      ‘I’ll give you “bonjour”! You are a wretched, wretched man, Charles! Where have you been? And why didn’t you come to my party?’

      ‘I was busy,’ he drawled laconically, and Melly got the definite feeling that those narrowed grey eyes held a warning. For the woman not to presume, perhaps? This was a part of him that she had never seen, and just for a moment she felt a little frisson of fear at her temerity in seeking him out. He was not a boy, but a man of the world, sophisticated, wealthy. In his own setting he was vastly different from her childhood friend.

      ‘Yes, and I can imagine what with!’ the woman laughed, bringing Melly back to the present with a start.

      ‘I’m sure you can.’

      With a comical grimace, and a little smile for Melly, she hurried to rejoin her companions outside.

      What had he been busy with? Melly wondered as she followed the elegant blonde’s progress with her eyes. Women? His yacht? Not something she could ask. Finally turning back to face him, she observed, ‘She looks a bit like the actress...’

      ‘Alison Marks,’ he put in coolly. ‘Yes. She is.’

      ‘Hm,’ she offered ruefully. ‘You move in exalted circles.’

      ‘Exalted?’ he queried thoughtfully. ‘No, they’re just ordinary people. Quite nice, some of them. You should come back in September; they’re all here then for the film festival.’ Seeing her puzzlement, he clarified, ‘The American Film Festival. It’s held in Deauville each year. Want to go? I’ll get tickets for you if you like.’

      ‘Me? Good heavens, no!’ she denied without really thinking about it.

      ‘Sure? I can get you an invite. Rub shoulders with the rich and famous... No, perhaps not,’ he added softly with a little shake of his head. ‘A lamb among lions...’ With another, more genuine smile, he continued, ‘It would probably bore you to tears. Not your sort of people, Melly. All full of their own egos.’

      Which, of course, perversely, made her want to change her mind, a fact he very well knew, judging by the twinkle in his eyes.

      The crashing open of the door made them both turn. A man with grey hair and a weatherbeaten face was standing in the opening, and he stared at Charles with an expression of almost despair on his face.

      ‘Qu’est-ce

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