‘Why don’t you sit with Marleen and me, we’re just over here.’
‘An offer I couldn’t possibly refuse,’ he smiles, sounding quite upbeat but looking a little unsteady on his feet.
At the table, Frank tells us that he’s enjoyed a quiet morning in the reading room of the library, in preparation for the next stage of the journey to Paris. ‘I’ve never been, so I want to be well rested,’ he explains.
‘A man of the world like you has never been to Paris,’ I tease. ‘How is that possible?’
‘Have you been?’ he asks, not answering my question, a sorrow coming over his eyes.
‘A handful of times for the galleries when I was younger, for my husband’s exhibitions and for pleasure, too,’ I say, remembering meandering visits to galleries with Bill in our younger years, then leisurely meals outside watching the world go by, followed by coffee and cassis macarons. ‘My family come from Rotterdam and it’s an easy enough train ride from there.’
‘Rotterdam,’ says Frank thoughtfully. ‘It took a lot of damage in the war. My father dropped supplies there during the occupation.’
‘My mother lived through it in her teens,’ I share, aware that the experience shaped her whole being, andmine to some extent. ‘When I was a teenager in the sixties, my mother actively encouraged me to become part of the peace movement, to follow the arts, to experience new places, hence why I ended up in London.’
‘I was a little younger, growing up in Kent, but it doesn’t leave you. I joined the army in ’fifty-one to help with recovery efforts however I could.’
‘So you’re a military man,’ says Marleen.
‘Indeed I am,’ he says, lifting his tea slowly, his hands shaking.
‘You must have seen much of the world,’ I say.
‘More than I might have liked,’ he replies, and I sense it’s a subject he’s not keen to discuss further.
In a place of so many open books, I think, Frank seems curiously closed.
16.
CARLY
Daisy, Joe and I started the morning close to the hotel with a coffee followed by a browse of the London Review Bookshop, a light and welcoming shop with a handsome, dark green façade. Not satisfied with just one bookshop, we then headed down to Covent Garden to Cecil Court, where we wove in and out of the second-hand bookshops and antiquarian booksellers. After the luxury of the train and the hotel, it felt good to be out in the city chilling with two people my own age, enjoying our love of books together. Joe shared his dream of being a bookseller or librarian instead of doing tours at the library, and Daisy gabbled on about bookshop design and how she believes books are the thing that make any space a home. I told them I envied them their passions.
I could have spent days browsing the bookshops, and it crossed my mind that if I worked for Marleen, I’d have all of London’s bookshops to enjoy, but Flynn had told us we had to be at St Pancras by noonto check in for our train to Paris, so more browsing had to wait.
In the end, check-in for the Eurostar took half the time Flynn had planned so we had a while to rest in the lounge or head upstairs to the pubs and bars of the main concourse.
‘Let me take you for that drink,’ says Nicolas, when he finds me looking for Elsa and Mum in the Eurostar lounge.
‘Ah, sure,’ I say, caught a little off-guard but conscious that he did offer last night. I’d planned to take him up on the suggestion, but I’d gone on the walking tour and then crashed out on my hotel bed instead.
‘I know a great place,’ he says, leading me to the escalator that heads up to the main concourse. Standing on the step above him I’m almost at his eye level, light marbles of green, blue and brown, brought out by the forest-green cashmere slung over his shoulders.
‘Champagne and oysters?’ I ask, when he takes me to Searcy’s, a handsome rectangular bar set under the station’s huge Gothic canopy. The dark wood and brass detailing put me in mind of the Scotsman.
‘Why not?’ he says, his eyes shining. I haven’t the heart to tell him that I’m not really an oyster kind of girl.
‘OK, sure,’ I shrug, and a host in a white shirt and brown apron shows us to two blue velvet stools at the corner of the bar.
‘You look very beautiful today,’ he says, after we’ve ordered.
‘Thank you.’ I blush, feeling a littletooseen, regretting the choice of low-cut sleeveless blouse.
‘And your scent, so floral, what is that?’ he asks, leaning in.
Before I can answer he closes his eyes and says, ‘Dior. J’adore.’
‘How did you know that?’ I laugh, a little weirded out, really not used to the attention he’s showering on me.
