full of silly fairytales!
With a cutting breath, she headed downstairs into her sitting room to phone the White Hart, and then let Mrs Hughes know they might have an unexpected guest for dinner. Her thoughts ran on—hectic, agitated.
She rubbed at her head. If only Anatole would go away. He’d kept away while Vasilis was alive. As if she were poison...contaminated. But if he was set on seeing Nicky—who seemed so thrilled that he’d come, so animated and delighted...
How can I stop Anatole from visiting, from getting to know Nicky? How can I possibly stop him?
She couldn’t think about it—not now, not here.
With a smothered cry she made her phone call, put her housekeeper on warning, then got out the file on Vasilis’s foundation and busied herself in the paperwork.
It was close on an hour later when the house phone went. It was Nanny Ruth, back on duty for the evening, wanting a decision about Nicky’s teatime.
‘Well, why not let him stay up this evening?’ Christine said. That way, if Anatole was assuming he would dine here, she would have the shield of her son present. Surely that would help, wouldn’t it?
Some twenty minutes later her housekeeper put her head round the door.
‘Nicky and Mr Kyrgiakis are coming downstairs,’ she said, ‘and dinner’s waiting to be served.’
Christine thanked her and got up. She would not bother to change. Her clothes were fine. Anatole would still be in his jeans and sweater, and Nicky would be in his dressing gown.
She went into the dining room, saw them already there. Anatole was talking to Nicky about one of the pictures on the wall. It was of skaters on a frozen canal.
‘Brrr! It looks freezing!’ Anatole was shivering exaggeratedly.
‘It’s Christmas,’ explained Nicky. ‘That’s why it’s snowy.’
‘Do you have snowy Christmases here?’ Anatole asked.
Nicky shook his head, looking cross. ‘No,’ he said disgustedly.
Anatole looked across at Christine, paused in the doorway. ‘Your mother and I had a snowy Christmas together once—long before you were born, Nicky. Do you remember?’
If he’d thrown a brick at her she could not have been more horrified. She was stunned into silence, immobility.
With not a flicker of acknowledgement of her appalled reaction, he went on, addressing her directly. ‘Switzerland? That chalet at the ski resort I took you to? We went tobogganing—you couldn’t ski—and I did a black run. We took the cable car up, I skied down and you came down by cable car. You told me you were terrified for me.’
She paled, opening her mouth, then closing it again. He was doing it deliberately—he had to be. He was referring to that unforgettable Christmas she’d spent with him and the unforgettable months she’d spent with him—
‘What’s tobogganinning?’ Nicky asked, to her abject relief.
Anatole answered him. He was glad to do so. Had he gone mad, reminding Tia—reminding himself—of that Christmas they’d spent in Switzerland?
I’m not here to stir up the past—evoke memories. It’s the future that is important now—the future of Vasilis’s son. Only that.
He answered the little boy cheerfully. ‘Like a sledge—you sit on it, and it slides down the hill on the snow. I’ll take you one day. And you can learn to ski, too. And skate—like in the picture.’
‘I like that picture,’ Nicky said.
‘It’s worth liking,’ Anatole said dryly, his eyes flickering to Christine. ‘It’s a minor Dutch Master.’
‘Claes van der Geld,’ Christine said, for something to say—something to claw her mind out of the crevasse it had fallen into with the memory of that Christmas with Anatole.
They’d made love on Christmas Eve, on a huge sheepskin rug, by the blazing log fire...
Anatole’s eyes were on her, with that same look of surprise in them, she realised, as when she’d mentioned Vasilis discussing Aeschylus and Pindar with the vicar.
She gave a thin smile, and then turned her attention to Nicky, getting him settled on his chair, then taking her own place at the foot of the table. Anatole’s place had been set opposite Nicky. The head of the table was empty.
As she sat down she felt a knifing pang in her heart at Vasilis’s absence, and her eyes lingered on the chair her husband had used to sit in.
‘Do you miss him?’
The words came from Anatole, and she twisted her head towards him. There was a different expression on his face now. Not sceptical. Not ironic. Not taunting. Almost...quizzical.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What do you think?’ she retaliated, snatching at her glass, and then realising it had no water in it.
He reached for the jug of water on the table, filled her glass and then his own. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. His mouth tightened. ‘There’s a lot I don’t know, it seems. For example...’ his tone of voice changed again ‘... I didn’t know that you knew about Dutch Old Masters. Or anything about Hellenistic sculpture. Or classical Greece literature. And yet it seems you do.’
She levelled a look at him. There was no emotion in it. ‘Your uncle was a good teacher,’ she said. ‘I had nearly five years of personal tuition from him. He was patient, and kind, infinitely knowledgeable, and—’
She couldn’t continue. Her voice was breaking, her throat choking. Her eyes misted and she blinked rapidly.
‘Mumma...?’
She heard Nicky’s voice, thin and anxious, and shook her unshed tears away, making herself smile and reach for her son, leaning forward to drop a kiss on his little head.
‘It’s all right, darling, Mumma’s fine now.’ She made her face brighter. ‘Do you think Mrs H has made pasta?’ she asked. It was no guess—Mrs Hughes always did pasta for Nicky when he ate downstairs.
‘Yes!’ he exclaimed. ‘I love pasta!’ he informed his cousin.
Anatole was grinning, all his attention on Nicky too. ‘So do I,’ he said. ‘And so,’ he said conspiratorially, ‘does your mumma!’
His gaze slid sideways. He was speaking to her again before he could stop himself. Why, he didn’t know. He only knew that words were coming from him anyway.
‘We always ate it when you cooked. Don’t you remember?’
Again, she reeled. Of course she remembered!
I remember everything—everything about the time we spent together. It’s carved into my memory, each and every day!
She reached for her water, gulping it down. Then the door opened and Mrs Hughes came in, pushing a trolley.
‘Pasta!’
