The Last Letter from Your Lover

welcome casual human interaction.
    The concierge woke up visibly when he saw the limousine waiting outside. Suddenly he was rushing to open the doors, the smile that had been absent on his arrival now plastered across his face.
    Anthony ignored him. He greeted the driver and climbed into the front passenger seat – a little, he realised afterwards, to the driver’s discomfort, but in the rear he would have felt like an impostor. He wound down his window to let the warm Mediterranean breeze stroke his skin as the long, low vehicle negotiated its way along coastal roads scented with rosemary and thyme. His gaze travelled up to the purple hills beyond. He had become accustomed to the more exotic landscape of Africa and had forgotten how beautiful parts of Europe were.
    He made casual conversation – asked the driver about the area, who else he had driven for, what life was like for an ordinary man in this part of the country. He couldn’t help it: knowledge was everything. Some of his best leads had come from the drivers and other servants of powerful men.
    ‘Is Mr Stirling a good boss?’ he asked.
    The driver’s eyes darted towards him, his demeanour less relaxed. ‘He is,’ he said, in a way that suggested the conversation was closed.
    ‘Glad to hear it,’ Anthony replied, and made sure to tip the man generously when they arrived at the vast white house. As he watched the car disappear to the back and what must have been the garage, he felt vaguely wistful. Taciturn as he was, he would have preferred to share a sandwich and a game of cards with the driver than make polite conversation with the bored rich of the Riviera.
    The eighteenth-century house was like that of any wealthy man, oversized and immaculate, its façade suggesting the endless attention of several staff. The gravelled driveway was wide and manicured, flanked by raised flagstone paths from which no weed would dare to emerge. Its elegant windows gleamed between painted shutters. A sweeping stone staircase led visitors into a huge hallway, which already echoed with the conversation of the other diners and was dotted with pedestals containing huge arrangements of flowers. He walked up the steps slowly, feeling the stone still warm from the fierce heat of the day’s sun.
    There were seven other guests at dinner: the Moncrieffs, friends of the Stirlings from London – the wife’s gaze was frankly assessing; the local mayor, Monsieur Lafayette, with his wife and their daughter, a lithe brunette with heavily made-up eyes and a definite air of mischief; and the elderly Monsieur and Madame Demarcier, who apparently lived in the next villa. Stirling’s wife was a clean-cut pretty blonde in the Grace Kelly mould; such women tended to have little to say of interest, having been admired for their looks all their lives. He hoped to be placed next to Mrs Moncrieff. He hadn’t minded her summing him up. She would be a challenge.
    ‘And you work for a newspaper, Mr O’Hare?’ The elderly Frenchwoman peered up at him.
    ‘Yes. In England.’ A manservant appeared at his elbow with a tray of drinks. ‘Do you have anything soft? Tonic water, perhaps?’ The man nodded and disappeared.
    ‘What is it called?’ she asked.
    ‘The Nation .’
    ‘The Nation ,’ she repeated, with apparent dismay. ‘I haven’t heard of it. I have heard of The Times . That is the best newspaper, isn’t it?’
    ‘I’ve heard that people think so.’ Oh, Lord, he thought. Please let the food be good.
    The silver tray appeared at his elbow with a tall glass of iced tonic water. Anthony kept his gaze away from the sparkling kir the others were drinking. Instead he tried out a little of his schoolboy French on the mayor’s daughter, who replied in perfect English, with a charming French lilt. Too young, he thought, registering the mayor’s frown.
    He was gratified to find himself seated beside Yvonne Moncrieff when they finally sat down. She was polite, entertaining – and completely immune to him. Damn the happily married . Jennifer Stirling was on his left, turned away in conversation.
    ‘Do you spend much time here, Mr O’Hare?’ Francis Moncrieff was a tall, thin man, the physical equivalent of his wife.
    ‘No.’
    ‘You’re more usually tied to the City of London?’
    ‘No. I don’t cover it at all.’
    ‘You’re not a financial journalist?’
    ‘I’m a foreign correspondent. I cover . . . trouble abroad.’
    ‘While Larry causes it.’ Moncrieff