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 qu’il y a?’ Charles queried with a frown.
A burst of French issued from the other man, and the only word Melly caught was a name, Laurent.
Shoving his chair back, Charles hurried across to the man standing agitatedly in the doorway, and Melly didn’t need to be able to understand French to know that Charles was demanding details of whatever it was that had happened.
Quickly finding some francs, she put them on the table to pay for the coffee, then, pushing her own chair back, she hurried to join the two men who were striding urgently back towards the harbour. Something was wrong, that was obvious, but what?
There was a large knot of people on the quay, all talking, obviously discussing whatever it was that had occurred, and she watched Charles and his companion stride up to some sort of official and begin to question him. She saw him nod, then shove his hands into his pockets and look out towards the open sea.
She could have gone away then, left quietly, without fuss, because she knew he’d forgotten all about her, but she didn’t want to go away, didn’t want to leave. Moving to stand beside him, she asked hesitantly, ‘Is something wrong?’
Snapping his head round, and then staring at her as though he wasn’t sure who she was, he gave a long shudder, and with an obvious effort focused his attention on her.
‘Melly. Oh, hell, I’m sorry...’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, tell me what’s happened.’
‘It’s Laurent—well, Laurent’s yacht, at any rate; apparently a motor cruiser went into her side. I don’t know any details; the rescue launch has gone out...’ Breaking off, he continued, more to himself than her, ‘He’ll be all right. More lives than a cat...’ And then he closed his eyes, as if he was silently praying.
‘Charles,’ his companion said quietly and, grasping his arm, drew his attention to the rescue launch that was slowly entering the harbour. Glancing at Charles’s face, she saw hope warring with bleak presentiment. Averting her eyes, she too stared at the launch as it slowly motored to the quayside.
A man and a woman were escorted off first, the woman weeping hysterically, the man white and obviously shaken. No one else, only the blue uniformed figures. Charles and his companion walked towards the man who was obviously in charge. She saw him shake his head.
Feeling helpless, and useless, she watched as a white-shrouded form was stretchered up and put carefully on the cobbles. Saw Charles kneel and gently pull back the covering to stare down at, presumably, the face of his friend, and then stand helplessly by as the stretcher was picked up and carried to the waiting ambulance. The other man accompanied it, leaving Charles looking lost and anguished, unbearably hurt.
Her heart aching for him, she walked back to his side. Slipping her hand into his arm, she held it warmly against her.
‘I should have gone with him,’ he said bleakly. ‘I was intending to, only I wanted to finish fixing something on Wanderer. If I’d been with him...’
‘If you’d gone with him,’ she said gently, ‘it might have been you.’
‘You think that matters? No, Melly, it wouldn’t have mattered at all. No loss to anyone. But Laurent... Oh, God.’ Turning his head, and obviously becoming aware of the knots of people still talking, speculating, he clenched his teeth and eyes tight for a moment, then, grasping her hand, he said harshly, ‘Let’s get out of here before the Press arrive!’
Pulling her along the sandy track and across the main road towards a block of flats, he pushed through the main entrance door and into a waiting lift. Pressing the button for the third floor, he kept his face resolutely turned to one side, away from her, until the lift halted and the door slid open.
Melly had just time enough to notice that the landing was covered with expensive green carpet, the walls painted cream, before she was tugged along to a door at the end. Flat three hundred and one. Charles inserted his key and, still grasping her hand, pulled her inside. Releasing her, he strode along the
