Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner [61]
‘I am actually quite glad to be surrounded by all these waiters and bottles and millionaires,’ Edith confessed. ‘At least I assume they are millionaires?’
‘That is what they would like you to assume, certainly. And if money talks, as it is supposed to, then they are certainly making the right amount of noise.’
He settled her at a table in the shade of a striped awning, picked up the menu which an attentive waiter had immediately placed before him, and said, ‘I should have the duck if I were you.’
Edith ignored him. ‘I lost my bearings out there, I think. I felt as if we might not be allowed back.’
‘Is there so much to go back to?’ enquired Mr Neville. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps that was impertinent. Please forgive me. You may not be fascinating, Edith, but you certainly know how to make a man feel uncomfortable.’
Edith smiled demurely. ‘Am I to take that as a compliment?’ she asked.
Mr Neville rewarded her with a cold look. ‘That is the sort of remark I associate with a lesser woman. You are unsettling. Simply leave it at that. You don’t have to dimple and bridle, like an ingénue. Am I to take that as a compliment, indeed. I hope you are not going to turn into the kind of woman who leans across the table, props her chin in her hand, and says, “What are you thinking?” ’
‘All right, all right,’ said Edith, with a sudden return of joviality. ‘I am not here to pass tests, you know. I am supposed to be enjoying myself.’
‘You will find that the one does not preclude the other,’ said Mr Neville, his ambiguous smile hovering around his mouth. But he ordered a fine lunch, and as the duck was placed before her, he was glad to see her expression brighten and her colour return. His own duck despatched by means of a few expertly calculated incisions, he leaned back to light a cigar. A weak sun emerged. Edith sat still and lifted her face, idle now, and in no hurry.
‘Talking of going back,’ said Mr Neville, ‘what did you have in mind? I do not mean back to the hotel; that is inevitable. I mean back to your ordinary life. I only ask,’ he added, ‘because I myself must leave at the weekend.’
Edith’s smile faded. The thought of going home, or rather, back, would have to be faced, but she found herself unwilling to contemplate taking so decisive an action. This curious interlude in her life, uncomfortable though it was, had relieved her of the necessity of thinking about what was to come. And this moment, becalmed on this stone-floored platform, at this agreeable open-air restaurant, with a companion of really unusual character and perception, had had the further result of enabling her successfully to postpone any deeper thoughts.
Tilted back in his chair, Mr Neville watched her face. ‘Let me see,’ he said mildly. ‘Let me see if I can imagine what your life is like. You live in London. You have a comfortable income. You go to drinks parties and dinner parties and publishers’ parties. You do not really enjoy any of this. Although people are glad to see you, you lack companions of first resort. You come home alone. You are fussy about your house. You have had lovers but not half as many as your friends have had; they, of course, credit you with none at all and worry about you rather ostentatiously. You are aware of this. And yet you have a secret life, Edith. Although only too obviously incorruptible, you are not what you seem.’
Edith sat very still.
Mr Neville deposited the ash of his cigar carefully in the ashtray.
‘Of course, you will say that this is none of my business. I would say, simply, that it does not concern me. Any more than my diversions need concern you. Whatever arrangements we may come to must leave these considerations scrupulously unexamined.’
‘Arrangements?’ echoed Edith.
Mr Neville sat forward and put his hands on the table. He seemed, suddenly, somewhat younger and less controlled than usual. It had been easy to think of him as a wealthy man in his fifties, fastidious, careful, leisured, attractive in a bloodless sort of