Restless Read Free Page B

Monsieur Frellon that I would be taking you to a restaurant.'
    Monsieur Frellon was her boss. He was obsessive about employee punctuality.
    'Why would Monsieur Frellon permit that?'
    'Because he thinks I'm going to charter four steamships from him and, as I don't speak a word of French, I need to sort the details out with his translator.' He turned and pointed with his hat. 'There's a little place I know on the rue du Cherche Midi. Excellent seafood. Do you like oysters?'
    'I detest oysters.'
    He smiled at her, tolerantly, as if she were a sulky child, but this time not showing her his white teeth.
    'Then I will show you how to make an oyster edible.'
     
    The restaurant was called Le Tire Bouchon and Lucas Romer did indeed show her how to make an oyster edible (with red-wine vinegar, chopped shallots, black pepper and lemon juice with a roundel of cold-buttered brown bread to follow it down). In fact Eva enjoyed oysters from time to time but she had wanted to dent this curious man's immense self-assurance.
    During lunch (sole bonne femme after the oysters, cheese, tarte tatin, a half bottle of Chablis and a whole bottle of Morgon) they talked about Kolia. It was clear to Eva that Romer knew all the relevant biographical facts about Kolia – his age, his education, the family's flight from Russia after the Revolution in 1917, the death of their mother in China, the whole saga of the Delectorskis' peripatetic journeying from St Petersburg to Vladivostock to Tientsin to Shanghai to Tokyo to Berlin, finally, in 1924, and then, eventually, in 1928, to Paris. He knew about the marriage of Sergei Pavlovitch Delectorski to the childless widow Irene Argenton in 1932 and the modest financial upturn in the family's fortunes that Madame Argenton's dowry had produced. He knew even more, she discovered, about her father's recent heart problems, his failing health. If he knows so much about Kolia, Eva thought, I wonder how much he knows about me?
    He had ordered coffee for them both and an eau-de-vie for himself. He offered her a cigarette from a bashed, silver cigarette tin – she took one and he lit it for her.
    'You speak excellent English,' he said.
    'I'm half English,' she told him, as if he didn't know. 'My late mother was English.'
    'So you speak English, Russian and French. Anything else?'
    'I speak some German. Middling, not fluent.'
    'Good… How is your father, by the way?' he asked, lighting his own cigarette, leaning back and exhaling dramatically, ceilingward.
    Eva paused, uncertain what to tell this man: this complete stranger who acted like a familiar, like a cousin, a concerned uncle eager for family news. 'He's not well. He's crushed, in fact – as we all are. The shock – you can't imagine… I think Kolia's death might kill him. My stepmother's very worried.'
    'Ah, yes. Kolia adored your stepmother.'
    Eva knew all too well that Kolia's relationship with Irene had been strained at the best of times. Madame Argenton thought Kolia something of a wastrel – a dreamer, but an irritating one.
    'The son she never had,' Romer added.
    'Did Kolia tell you that?' Eva asked.
    'No. I'm guessing.'
    Eva stubbed out her cigarette. 'I'd better be getting back,' she said, rising to her feet. Romer was smiling at her, annoyingly. She felt that he was pleased at her sudden coldness, her abruptness – as if she had passed some kind of minor test.
    'Haven't you forgotten something?' he said.
    'I don't think so.'
    'I'm meant to be chartering four steamers from Frellon, Gonzales et Cie. Have another coffee and we'll sketch out the details.'
    Back in the office Eva was able to tell Monsieur Frellon, with complete plausibility, the tonnage, the timing and the ports of call Romer had in mind. Monsieur Frellon was very pleased at the outcome of her protracted lunch: Romer was a 'big fish', he kept saying, we want to reel him in. Eva realised that Romer had never told her – even though she had raised the matter two or three times – where,