‘Thank God Flynn went there,’ says Alistair.
My mind returns to the conversation round Elsa’s kitchen table about whether finding the book was either fate or serendipity.
‘If he hadn’t chosen your bookshop,’ Alistair continues, ‘I wouldn’t be sitting here now.’
I cast him a ‘how so?’ look.
‘I found one of Flynn’s flyers in the shop with your picture on it,’ he explains. ‘Your husband told me the train had already left, but Flynn said I could join the trip in London.’
‘Do you live in Edinburgh?’
‘I’m split between there and my flat in the capital,’ he taps the postcard lightly in his hand. ‘Have been for twenty-five years. My wife and I moved to Edinburgh a few years after we adopted Flynn, he was five years old at the time. Edinburgh seemed a nicer place to raise a child than London.’
Something stops me from telling him I’d been tothe flat, that I’d actively sought him out. And all these years he’s been living beside me.
‘Meant to be,’ I whisper, aware of the vast place of worship behind us, wondering what God or the gods are trying to tell me.
23.
ELSA
‘May I join you?’ asks Frank, standing where I’m sitting in the hotel’s patio garden.
‘Of course,’ I say, gathering myself, having been lost in Marleen’s book.
‘What a beautiful evening,’ he says, and together we gaze up at the canopy of stars above the potted palm trees and softly lit maples.
‘Heavenly,’ I say as Frank gingerly takes a seat on the cushioned terrace chair. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Much better, if somewhat foolish,’ he confides, placing a rug over his lap. ‘Young Joe has been looking after me. Wheeling me round Shakespeare and Company, putting me in a taxi back to the hotel, that sort of thing.’
‘That was good of him,’ I smile, pleased that he’s been well looked after.
‘And yourself?’
‘Enjoying the tranquillity,’ I say, using the drink stirrer I took from the bar as a place-holder for mybook when I failed to find Fran’s bookmark. ‘Who’d have thought Paris would be more tranquil than home.’
‘In my experience, it’s often the quietest places where troubles run deepest,’ he says, clearing his throat.
The arrival of the waiter gives me time to contemplate what Frank might be referring to.
‘Where did you travel to with the army?’ I ask when the waiter has departed, hoping to gain some insight into his life story.
‘The Far East, Middle East, East Africa, you name it, I’ve been there.’
‘Did your family travel with you?’ I ask, remembering him mentioning a granddaughter, and he wears a beautifully worn wedding ring.
‘They moved with me from base to base, but never to where there was conflict.’
‘That must have been hard, to spend so much time apart,’ I say, noticing a distance growing in his eyes.
‘Harder on my wife than on me,’ he answers, rolling the blanket on his lap between thumb and fingers. ‘She never knew from one year to the next where she’d be with the children. It took its toll.’
‘On you both, I’m sure,’ I say. ‘But from the tough times come the best of times.’
‘That’s how it should be,’ Frank says, receiving his drink from the waiter. He takes a slug that suggests that how things ‘should be’ isn’t necessarily how they were, or are.
Marleen arrives in the courtyard, back from her talk at the temple, and I wave her over.
