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Behind me, on the cliffs, the château bell sang seven times—they’d just be starting breakfast service back at the hotel. I ought to be getting back. But not just yet, I thought. Not yet. I smiled as I gently stroked the sleeping cat, and lifted vague unfocused eyes to gaze along the Promenade.
Row facing row the plane trees stood, ghostly pale and thick with green, mute sentries from an age long past. Beneath the arching canopy of leaves a raked red gravel path invited idle footsteps, like my own, and garden benches beckoned one to pause and watch the world drift by.
From my own bench I could see clear across the Vienne, past the jutting point of the little island to the darkly wooded shore that lay beyond. And in between, cold and still like a sheet of ice, the river breathed a veil of mist that caught and spread the dawning spears of sunlight.
Earlier I’d watched a yellow kayak cleave that mist, dancing the current down toward the bridge. Earlier still, a woman with a dog had passed me by, her step brisk and purposeful. But now there was only me, and the cat, and the ducks chattering noisily along the riverbank.
My mind had begun to drift idly along with the river when the cat suddenly shifted position, claws pricking through my woolen jumper. I winced, and looked to see the cause of its alarm.
I didn’t have to look far. Four trees away a little spotted dog, nose fixed to the ground, came trotting round a metal litter bin. It was obvious that the dog hadn’t yet taken note of us, and even more obvious that it posed no immediate danger to my bristling cat—this because the dog was attached by a bright red lead to a man standing, slouched, with his back to the river, his face cast half in shadow by the flat morning light.
The gypsy wasn’t alone. Another man had stopped beside him on the blood-red path, a tall long-limbed man with hair so fair it shone in that soft morning light like silver. The gypsy spoke, and gestured, and I saw Neil shake his head, an
d tossing back some smiling comment he came on toward me.
“Good morning,” he greeted me. “Mind if I join you?”
There seemed no escaping the man, I thought, despite my best efforts. I shifted to make room for him on the bench and he sat down with a decided thump, angling himself against the armrest so he could look at me. “You have a thing for cats, I take it? Or are you out to comfort every stray in Chinon?”
“Not every stray. Just this one.”
“Is this your chap from Saturday night, then?” He reached a careful hand to scratch the dirty black-and-white head. The cat, less nervous, subsided into my lap and stared at him through half-closed eyes. “Well, what do you know.” Neil’s own eyes crinkled at the corners. “He gets about, this one. I think I saw him prowling about last night, as well.” Withdrawing his hand, he stretched his long legs out before him, ankles crossed. “He seems rather affectionate, for a stray.”
“Yes.” I looked up and past him, to where the gypsy and his dog still loitered. “What did that man ask you?” I wanted to know.
“He wanted a match, that’s all. I didn’t have one.”
I set a calming hand upon the deeply purring cat. “Spoke to you in English, did he?”
“No, French.”
“I thought you didn’t speak French.”
He slanted a curious look in my direction. “I don’t, beyond the limits of my Oxford phrasebook,” he said, “but when a chap comes up to me with an unlit cigarette in his mouth and pantomimes the striking of a match, I’ve a fair idea what he’s wanting.”
“Oh.” My gaze dropped defensively. When I raised my eyes again the path was empty. The gypsy and his dog were nowhere to be seen. I gathered the cat closer and summoned up a cheerful smile to show to Neil. “I didn’t expect to see you up and about this early,” I told him. “I thought you did your walking in the evenings.”
“Dustmen woke me,” was his excuse. “Four o’clock in the bloody morning, they come barreling round the square like it’s a parade ground.”
I sympathized. I’d heard them myself, that morning. I’d heard a great many things, actually, from the tiniest rustle of a dead leaf scuttling across the asphalt to the quiet talk and measured footsteps of two gendarmes patrolling on the graveyard shift. Sleeplessness always heightened my senses.
“They wake me every time, those dustmen,” Neil went on. “Most mornings I just drop off again, but this morning…” He shrugged, and fitted his shoulders to the worn back of the bench. “This is a lovely place, isn’t it?”
“Yes, quite lovely.”
“The whole town is, really. I always hate to leave it.”
“Your holiday’s almost over, then?” Blast, I thought. I could hear the trail of disappointment in my own voice.
“Next week, I think. I’m very nearly back to normal.” He flexed his hand to demonstrate. “Besides, I’m pushing my luck as it is. I’m not paid a salary to sit around and do nothing.”
“But you’ve been practicing,” I argued in his defense. “Every day.”
His eyes slid sideways, unconvinced. “Only for an hour or so.”
“Isn’t that long enough?”
“Back home my normal work day lasts six hours, sometimes more. I’m only playing at it, here.”
