‘That’s OK, I can find it again.’ He grinned. ‘I have a very intimate relationship with this book.’
‘Well, I should think so, if you’ve been reading it for two years.’
He turned the paperback over, balancing it carefully in his hand. ‘That was always my favourite poem, you know, when I was a kid. Tennyson’s Ulysses. I used to know it by heart.’
From what I’d seen so far of his memory, I was willing to bet he knew the poem still. I’d memorised it once myself, years ago, at school. I remembered how romantic it had seemed – the aged Ulysses throwing off the chains of boredom, leaving his dull hearth in search of new adventure. To sail beyond the sunset … I’d thought that beautiful, once. But now I knew it was a wasted effort, chasing sunsets. There was nothing on the other side.
Paul was watching me with those wise eyes that saw too much. I glanced away, quite casually, and asked him: ‘But however did you make the leap from Tennyson’s Ulysses to James Joyce? They’re not a bit alike.’
‘That,’ he told me, ‘was my sister’s fault. She saw this book in a used bookstore a couple of summers back, read the title, and bought it for me. She thought one Ulysses was the same as the next. I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I started reading it.’ He smiled again, and set the book aside. ‘It’s become sort of an obsession. I won’t be able to rest until I’ve finished the damn thing.’
I was vaguely surprised to learn that Simon and Paul had a sister. Not that it mattered, but for some reason I’d thought there were only the two of them. The curious thing about meeting people on holiday, I told myself, was that one formed opinions based on first impressions, or past experience. And one was so often wrong. I looked up at Paul. ‘How many brothers and sisters do you have?’
‘There are six of us, altogether.’
‘Six!’
‘Yeah. Simon’s the oldest, then Rachel, Lisa, Helen, me and Sarah. Sarah,’ he added, having counted everyone off in order on his fingers, ‘is the one who bought me the book.’
‘Six,’ I repeated, incredulous.
My reaction amused him. ‘Let me guess. You’re an only child.’
I admitted that I was. ‘But then my cousin was usually around at holidays and half-terms to keep me company. People used to mistake us for brother and sister, we looked so much alike.’ We still did, come to that. Especially around the eyes. The thought of Harry triggered a more recent memory. ‘I’ve had a message from him, by the way. He’ll be a few days late.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Paul said. ‘Simon will have the next few days planned out for us, just watch. He’s a man with a mission now.’
‘Queen Isabelle’s treasure, you mean?’ I smiled. ‘Well, he can hunt if he likes, but I doubt he’ll find it. Harry says the research alone could take years.’
‘God, don’t tell Simon that. The more impossible something is, the more he wants to do it.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, fraying the end of it, and lit another. ‘And don’t tell Simon you saw me doing this, either. He’d have my hide. He thinks I just come down here to feed the ducks.’
There were an awful lot of ducks, now that I noticed it. They seemed to be clustered mostly upriver, where a cobblestone ramp for launching boats slanted gently down to meet the water, although a handful of adventurous ones had ridden the current down to where we sat and were paddling now around a flat-bottomed punt moored by chains to the river wall. The ducks were noisy little creatures, scolding and complaining as their feet beat time against the dragging river.
I’d often fed ducks myself, as a child, but now I simply put my chin on my hands and watched them, while Paul smoked his cigarette in mellow, undemanding silence. At length he stood and stretched, picking up his book. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see if Thierry’s got the bar open yet. I could use a coffee or something.’
I walked back with him, but when he would have bought me a drink I shook my head, yawning. ‘Have a heart,’ I begged him. ‘I only got here yesterday, remember, and I’ve been on the go ever since. I’ll never make it through to suppertime if I don’t have a nap.’ The thought of supper made me frown. ‘Do you all eat together, every night?’
He laughed, and shook his head. ‘No, we usually end up doing our own thing. Why, did we scare you last night?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to … heavens, is that Neil?’ I broke off suddenly to stare in wonder at the floor above us.
‘Yeah. He’s good, isn’t he?’ Paul listened for a moment, then flashed a sympathetic smile. ‘And he’s just getting started, from the sounds of it. I hope you can sleep through Beethoven.’
I couldn’t, as it happened, but it was my own fault more than Beethoven’s. My restless mind would not keep still enough for sleep to settle on it. It conjured images of gypsies and of castles and of dark-eyed men with blindingly fair hair. In the room below, Neil finished playing the symphony’s opening allegro, and moved smoothly on into the funeral march. A new set of images rose to join the ones already swirling behind my closed eyelids – a black-and-white cat and a mournful church and a spray of flowers, red as blood. And through it all, the gypsy’s face turned, watching me with a strange and secret smile.
I opened my eyes, and sat up.
It was no use, I thought. I wasn’t going to sleep. I might as well go down and have that drink with Paul. What happened next, I later decided, was entirely Beethoven’s fault. If he hadn’t written such a beautiful piece of music, I wouldn’t have paused on my way downstairs to listen to it. And if I hadn’t paused, there on the first floor landing, I wouldn’t have been anywhere in sight when the Whitakers’ door opened further down the hall, and Garland came out into the passage. She hadn’t seen me yet – she was looking down, one hand shielding her forehead – but I felt a moment’s panic. I didn’t like the woman, didn’t want to be drawn into conversation, didn’t want Neil Grantham to hear her piercing voice and know that I was standing there, outside his room …