A dark-haired waiter appeared beside them. ‘Bonjour, monsieur. Ça va?’
‘Christien!’ James grinned up at him. He turned to Diana. ‘This is Christien. He always looks after me here. Best damn waiter in Provence, and the best-looking too. Film-star material, wouldn’t you say?’
Diana looked at the young waiter as he handed them menus. He was certainly handsome enough with his jet-black hair, straightened and gleaming with oil. And he had a lovely smile, she thought, as they formally shook hands – ‘Christien, Diana; Diana, Christien’ – but his dark brown eyes troubled her. They flickered with anxiety, even as he bowed and smiled.
She remembered the waiter at the Negresco the day before. James seemed to have quite an effect on people here. She’d never noticed it before, back in England. Perhaps the French didn’t know what to make of a successful, wealthy British man in their midst. Maybe it was something to do with the war; lingering French guilt at being so quickly routed while her ally struggled on alone.
James had ordered their wine before Diana had arrived and now Christien drew the dripping bottle from a silver bucket at the side of the table, and poured ice-cold Chablis for both of them. Then he hurried away with their order.
The faint atmosphere of tension lifted as soon as he was gone, and Diana felt herself relax as she eavesdropped on the conversations that ebbed and flowed around her.
James lifted his glass. ‘A toast, Diana, to finding each other again. It’s incredible, isn’t it? A kind of miracle. You thought I was dead and I . . . well, I never dreamed I’d set eyes on you again. Here’s to us.’
‘To us.’
They touched glasses. Something’s happening, thought Diana. I shouldn’t have come here, but I’m glad I did. I haven’t felt like this for so, so long.
She realised he was staring at her. ‘What is it, James?’
‘You look different,’ he told her. ‘From yesterday, I mean.’
‘In what way?’
He shrugged. ‘Happier, I suppose. Definitely more relaxed, but that’s understandable. You must have thought you’d seen a ghost when I got out of that taxi.’
He reached over and took her hand, squeezing it gently. Without thinking, she returned the pressure. ‘Can you ever forgive me, Diana, for running out on you? Tell me that something I explained to you yesterday made any kind of sense.’
Diana drank some of her wine as she considered. ‘Well, yes. Yes, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now and I wouldn’t be . . . feeling like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Happy. Incredibly, unbelievably happy. I woke up this morning feeling like a different woman . . . No, that’s not quite true – I feel like the woman I used to be. I can’t deny it, James, not to myself nor to you. Being here with you now is just like a miracle, as you said. I feel that a part of me which went to sleep a long time ago is waking up again.’
He laughed. ‘My very own Sleeping Beauty.’ He gestured at the sun-dappled terrace around them. ‘And here we are, in our own fairy story. Who knows what’s going to happen to us next?’
Diana couldn’t think quite what to say to that and was grateful for Christien’s reappearance with their starters. They were both having bouquet de crevettes and Diana wished she hadn’t worn her cream lace dress; one false move in dead-heading the juicy prawns that were perched all around the rim of a small cut-glass salad bowl would leave her spotted with indelible orange stains.
James noticed her hesitation and understood at once. ‘Ah yes, the timeless exploding prawn dilemma. Here – give them to me.’
He drew her starter towards him and deftly removed the heads, tails and scales before washing his fingers in a finger-bowl of lemon-scented water brought by Christien. He pushed the prawns back to her. ‘There. All done.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and then, barely realising what she was doing, she took his hand in hers and raised it to her lips, kissing his fingertips.
‘Thank you,’ she said again.
He smiled at her. ‘Well, I suppose it’s a start. Preparing your prawns for you, I mean. I have to start making up for the last decade somehow, don’t I?’
They ate in silence for a minute or so before Diana looked at him, and sighed. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask you a question. You can probably guess what it is.’
‘Yes, I think I can. You want to know if I’ve found someone else, as you have, and precisely how I make my way here in Nice.’
‘That’s two questions.’
‘True, but you were planning on asking me both of them, weren’t you?’ He paused while Christien took away their dishes. James then poured more wine for them both.
‘Right.’ He looked up at her. ‘Firstly, I am not involved with anyone at the moment. In fact, I haven’t been for some time. Of course I’ve had liaisons over the years, but nothing ever came of them.’
For a second time he reached for her hand. ‘I admitted yesterday that in the days and weeks after I was shot down I didn’t really think about you much, if at all. I was just too damned busy staying alive and keeping out of either French or German hands.’
‘I can understand that.’ She squeeed his hand. ‘Really, I can.’
He nodded gratefully. ‘But once I got to Nice and found my feet,’ he went on, ‘I thought about you more and more. I kept wishing that somehow things had turned out differently. That I’d been shot down over England, for example, and perhaps wounded in a way that stopped me flying again. All hopeless, foolish fantasies; I knew that. But you were always on my mind.’
‘It was the same for me, James. A day never passed when I didn’t think about you.’
They stared at each other for some time, before he continued: ‘As for how I live, it’s not complicated. Even after I got my false papers in Marseilles, I had a lot of money left over. Most of the hard cash and all the gold and jewellery. As I told you, there was far more in that man’s safe than he could possibly earn as a country doctor. Did I mention that in the same bag as the banknotes there were embossed business cards giving his name and the address of another surgery in Paris?’
Diana shook her head.
‘No? Well, I had a lot of ground to cover yesterday, I suppose. Anyway, when I got to Nice I decided to invest in some local businesses. There might have been a war on but as I said, you’d hardly have known it. I bought stakes in shops, bars, hotels – even a taxi-rank. That cab you saw me getting out of yesterday is one of mine and the guy driving it is basically my personal chauffeur.
‘Eventually I was able to buy most of my partners out entirely. I did pretty OK during the war, Diana, but now,’ James waved expansively at the packed restaurant around them, ‘the South of France is really booming. I’m making serious money. I deal in antiques. I don’t know how much your Dougal is worth, but—’
‘It’s Douglas,’ Diana corrected for the second time. For some reason she wanted to smile.
‘Dammit! Douglas! Sorry, Diana, I’m not doing it on purpose. I was always rotten with names, you remember that . . . Anyway, I was going to say I’d be happy to meet him at any of the tables in the casino at Monte, win or lose. I’m bankrolled. In fact, I’m putting the money together to close my biggest deal so far, but I won’t bore you with that now. I don’t want you to think I’m shooting you a line.’
She allowed herself a smile. ‘No, you’re not doing that. I can see you’re a local VIP by the way people treat you. Christien, for example. But he reminds me of the waiter at the Negresco, James; something tells me he’s frightened of you.’
‘Frightened of me?’ James burst out laughing. ‘I just stand out a bit because I’m an Englishman and I don’t talk about my past. Man of mystery, that’s me. I reckon they’re just curious.’
50
The brown Citroën pulled away from the villa’s front door and Maxine took the white envelope the taxi driver had handed to her and propped it on the marble mantelpiece. The fireplace below was laid with logs and kindling, but they were hidd
en behind a large bowl of flowers that had been placed in front of the grate. The fire would not be lit again until late October.
‘Come along, Stella!’ she called, her low heels clicking on the stone slabs of the entrance hall. ‘Our lessons are over for today. We are going out.’
A few moments later, the girl appeared at the top of the stairs that led to the villa’s bedrooms.
‘Are we? Who was that at the door?’
‘A letter for your mother. Come down and put your shoes on, I have a treat for you.’ Maxine scooped car keys from a side table and fumbled in her bag for the scrap of paper with the villa’s burglar-alarm code scrawled on it. She could never remember the random series of numbers and letters.
Stella ran into the room. ‘What about Mummy? Where is she?’
‘She’s having lunch with an old friend she bumped into. She just rang to say she won’t be home for a couple of hours yet.’
‘Again?’ Stella looked surprised. ‘But she was out quite late yesterday afternoon, too. She promised she’d take me to the fair at Villeneuve Loubet today. It just opened for the summer.’
‘I know,’ Maxine said. ‘That’s where I am to take you. We will have fun together, won’t we? And Mummy says maybe she can join us there later. It is not a large fair and she will find us quite easily, I think.’
Stella was mollified. ‘All right. Let me get my pocket money and put my shoes on, and we can be off.’
Diana shivered under him and James leaned back towards the foot of the bed to pull the sheets up over them both. Then he drew her to him and kissed her forehead.
‘Cold?’
She shivered again, and gave a small laugh. ‘Hardly . . . not after that. It’s just that I – oh my goodness, James!’
He held her tightly until another, exquisite convulsion had passed.
‘Well,’ she said, when she felt she could speak with reasonable composure. ‘That was . . .’ Diana made a small fanning gesture in front of her face as she gazed up at the ceiling. ‘That was . . . I don’t know . . . exactly like it was, you know, that week at the Dower House.’
He slid one arm under her waist and pulled her gently on her side until they were facing each other.
‘For me, too. You’re lovely, Diana. Lovelier than you ever were. Let me look at you properly.’
He pulled the sheets away again and sat up, gazing at her.
‘You’re perfect . . . unchanged. Except for this.’ He looked at the neat horizontal scar below her navel and stroked it gently with a forefinger. ‘But this makes you more real, and oh . . . I don’t know, complete.’ He stroked the silver line again. ‘That’s Stella, I suppose?’
‘That’s Stella,’ she confirmed.
She felt completely comfortable under his scrutiny, in a way she never did with Douglas. Dear, kind, generous Douglas. She knew he couldn’t help it, but Douglas always seemed to devour her with hungry eyes before they made love. And even afterwards, when she slipped out of bed to go to their bathroom, he followed her every movement with a relish she found increasingly difficult to bear. Soon, she knew she would think it repellent.
They had never once made love in the dark. Douglas always insisted on keeping the light on ‘so I can see you properly’. Surely husbands could desire their wives without being so openly lecherous? Douglas didn’t make her feel desired; he made her feel gloated over. For some time now she’d increasingly found pretexts to avoid the act of love. She could tell Douglas had noticed. A certain coolness had begun to form between them.
She had made no such excuses an hour ago to James.
As their lunch progressed she had found herself reaching for his hand more often, and detaining it in her own for longer. She had always loved his hands, from that first night they slept together in the Dower House, and the shuddering, involuntary responses that they drew from her. And then later, when they made love . . . she trembled slightly at the memory.
And as they talked and laughed about the time they’d spent together all those years ago, she began to understand her hunger to see him today for what it really was.
She craved him. She longed to take her erotic dreams of that summer, and turn them into a consummate reality.
He noticed the change in her. Her lips became slightly parted, her cheeks gently flushed. At last a pause fell; a silence that slowly filled with unmistakable expectation and mutual, unspoken understanding.
Eventually he’d leaned forward, and brushing her hair behind her ear as he had earlier, whispered to her, ‘Diana.’
‘Yes, James?’
‘When you saw me coming out of the hotel earlier, I’d been to Reception. I booked us a room here this afternoon. I know that was incredibly presumptuous of me, but I—’
She pressed the tips of her fingers against his lips. ‘No. I’m glad, James,’ she whispered. ‘Really, really glad. Can we go there now, straight away?’
In the room, they undressed each other wordlessly before falling on to the bed. He entered her almost at once.
‘I’m sorry, Diana,’ he gasped. ‘I have to have you right now . . . Later, I promise I’ll—’
She silenced him again, this time with her lips. After a moment, she turned her head away a little and drew her arms tightly around him, pulling him still further in.
‘This is exactly what I want, my darling, darling James. I couldn’t want anything more.’
He continued to stroke her Caesarian scar. ‘What happened? Was it an emergency?’
‘Sort of. She was in completely the wrong position and nothing the midwife or doctor did could turn her. Stella was stubborn right from the start. It would have been a breech birth and they’re awfully dangerous. The surgeon was quite sweet about it before they put me under. “I’m going to make Baby a little front door so he can join us,” he said to me. Except that it wasn’t a “he”, was it?’
James propped himself up on one elbow and stroked her hair. ‘Did you think you were having a boy?’
Diana nodded, taking his hand and kissing the palm. ‘Oh yes. We all did – me, and Mummy and Daddy. It’s obvious now why. We’d lost both you and John less than a year before, and a son would have seemed incredibly symbolic. I convinced myself you’d left me with a boy.’
‘So what did you think when you came round and they handed you a baby girl?’
Diana lay back on the pillows and smiled at the memory. ‘I burst into tears of sheer happiness. I completely forgot all thoughts about having a boy . . . There was something so sweet and – oh, I don’t know – almost funny about having a little girl. We all felt it. My parents doted on Stella from the day she was born.’
James reached down to the side of the bed and groped for cigarettes inside his jacket. He lit one for each of them before asking her: ‘I don’t suppose you have a photo of her on you, do you? I’d love to see her.’
‘Not so fast, père Blackwell,’ she replied. She sat up and looked at him with mock seriousness. ‘How did you know I’d want to come to this hotel room with you?’
He dipped his head and kissed each of her breasts in turn before answering.
‘Because I heard something in your voice when you telephoned me at my apartment this morning. Remember, you’re my wife, though I suppose our marriage must have been dissolved or annulled or whatever, years ago. But that doesn’t alter what we had – what we have, together. We know each other instinctively. That doesn’t go away, does it? Do you see?’
She smiled at him. ‘Of course I do. I’m only teasing. I know exactly what you mean. I feel it too.’
He put his cigarette on the ashtray by his side of the bed, and took hers, placing them carefully side by side. Then he held her face in both his hands and kissed her gently on the lips.
‘There’s one more thing that I have to tell you, Diana. It’s more important than anything I’ve said yet.’ He pulled her gently down beside him, and began to stroke the curve of her waist. ‘I still love you. I never stopped loving you.’ He kissed her agai
n. ‘And I think that you still love me.’
She kissed him back. ‘Yes, I do, James. I really do.’
A while later, they drew apart again. Diana lay still with her eyes closed for a while before slowly sitting up, pulling her bag onto the bed and unzipping a small side compartment. She slid her fingers inside and drew out a small black-and-white photograph.
‘Here she is. This is your daughter.’
He took the picture and angled it towards the advancing afternoon light that slanted through the bedroom windows. After a few moments, he gave a low whistle.
‘My, oh my, so that’s her . . . that’s our little girl. How old is she in this?’
‘It’s a recent one,’ Diana said. ‘I took it about six weeks ago, so she’d just turned ten. Those are our villa gates behind her.’
He studied the photo closely. It showed Stella standing on one leg, the other tucked up behind her and held in her hand by the ankle. Her other arm was thrown extravagantly above and behind her, gesturing towards the villa’s drive. She appeared to be singing, her mouth a perfect ‘0’. She was wearing a knee-length summer dress, and white sandals buckled on to bare feet. Her blonde hair was inexpertly tied up in bunches, which James guessed she had attempted to do herself.
He turned to her mother and grinned. ‘She looks quite a character.’
Diana smiled back. ‘Oh, she is. She can be so funny, and quick, and she doesn’t miss a trick.’
‘Can I keep this?’
‘Of course you can, darling. I’ll get some more and give them to you when we next see each other.’
They stared at each other, as the implication behind her words sank in.
‘Hmm,’ he said at last. ‘Isn’t this what they call the vanishing point?’ He pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head. ‘What I mean is – well, if we look behind us, we can see how we got here. It’s certainly a crooked road, but it all makes perfect, logical sense. But when we look ahead . . .’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a completely blank landscape, isn’t it? Which way do we go now?’
They held each other for some time longer, before she replied.
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