you to Deauville? Not the racing,’ he teased, ‘that doesn’t start till August. The golf? The sailing? The casino?’
Settling back in her chair, not quite sure she believed this was happening, and that Charles was actually sitting opposite her, a quizzical expression on his strong face, she toyed idly with a sugar wrapper someone had left on the table. Even though hope had been warring with expectancy, she still found it hard to believe that her fantasising, her irrational hopes, were being realised. Glancing up at him, she felt faint. ‘Not the casino, no. The war graves.’
‘The war... Oh.’ With a nod of understanding, he slapped the table. ‘Of course, your grandfather. You’re looking for his grave?’ Noting her astonishment, he smiled. ‘I remember your father once telling me that his father had fought and died in Normandy during the D-Day landings. Any luck?’
‘Yes. I knew, of course, that it was the Military Cemetery at Tourgeville; it was just a question of finding it. The authorities were very helpful when I contacted them in England—they even offered to take me there.’
‘But you wanted to go alone,’ he put in understandingly.
‘Yes. I’ve just come from there.’
‘Which is why you’re looking so pensive,’ he exclaimed softly, ‘and insensitive Charles Revington has just trampled all over your feelings with his size-nine boots. I’m sorry.’
With a renewed stab of guilt, because she hadn’t been feeling any of the emotions he expected of her, she protested softly, ‘No need to be sorry, and insensitive is the last thing I’d call you. I was just feeling a little sad, and thoughtful, I suppose.’
With a gentle hand he removed the wrapper from her fingers, then lifted them to his mouth and kissed the tips. ‘Triste. That’s what the French would say. Have you been to look at the landing beaches? Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha?’
‘No, not yet.’ No need to tell him that she had only arrived that morning.
‘You should make the time. They’re worth seeing, and the American Cemetery in Saint Laurent. It will bring a lump to your throat. So many crosses, so many dead.’
‘Yes, I will.’ With a little smile for the waiter, and a hesitant, ‘Merci,’ she gratefully turned her attention to putting sugar in her coffee and stirring it. He was too near, too charming, too much the man, and she could think of nothing to say, nothing that would interest him. From longing for the chance to see him, talk to him, now that the moment was here she felt gauche, shy, uninteresting.
‘You’re on your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘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.
