“Sorry.” I step back, almost unbalancing so he has to grab my arm to steady me.
“Where did you go?” he asks, releasing me.
“Me?”
“I repeated my question twice, but you were miles away.”
“Sorry.”
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
The question is too perceptive, too near the mark. “No, of course not. Why do you think that?”
“Because you’re saying sorry a lot, which you do when uneasy.”
“Just a bit embarrassed you saw me with my hair dripping wet this morning.” My autopilot comes to my rescue like a champion.
His eyes flick around my face.
“Sorry— er, sorry?” I stammer. What is wrong with my head this morning?
He studies me for a moment longer, then gives a tiny head shake as if dismissing a thought. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”
He sets off down the balcony, and I follow him past the windows and doors of several other apartments which are still unoccupied, until we reach the far end of the wing. He finally stops by the balustrade there and looks out over North Park. “There.” He points with his chin. “Tell me what you can see.”
The gardens spread below us. There are the exposed parts we’ve been working on. The tractor has cleared the land between the terrace and the first of the slate lines where we worked by hand. Weeds and dead bushes have been cut all the way down to just about ground level. From this height, the exposed slate lines are clear to see. Just as I had tried to explain last night, some radiate from a quarter circle and expand in one direction, others point another way, in groups of six or seven.
My gaze follows the lines. There is something about the shapes, something almost familiar, but what?
“I was standing here yesterday, before dinner,” Osian says, bringing me back to earth with thump. “From this point you get a good perspective. I stood here for ages trying to make it out.”
“Before dinner. Not after, obviously,” I say, then wish I could bite the words back.
This time, he stops and gives me a sharp questioning look. “Why ‘obviously’?”
I lean over the balustrade to hide my face which always shows my thoughts. What was it he said he was trying to see? All my knowledge of historical garden design tells me there should be a pattern. Squares? Circles?
“Evie? Can you please talk to me about whatever is on your mind?”
My autopilot takes over; unfortunately it uses the wrong words. “Only that you were with Nora after dinner—”
“With who?” he almost hisses. “Where the hell did that come from?”
It’s too late to retreat now. And I don’t want a return to suspecting me of being a snooping journalist. “I just didn’t want to… I mean, I saw you together last night.”
“You saw us what?” he challenges, but quietly. “In the dining hall, talking. Nothing else.”
“I’m sorry. And this is not my… Nervous, sorry. It’s a genuine apology. It’s just that I wanted to call you to join a discussion about the gardens and mosaics but you were sitting close and… And I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“There was nothing to interrupt.”
As if needing to end the talk, he leans over the balcony railings. “So this design thing—” He straightens up and turns to face me. This time he looks angry. “Is that what everyone thinks? That I slept with Nora?”
I stand there feeling cornered, wishing I could be anywhere rather than here now.
“For Christ’s sake, Evie. She’s Llewellyn’s girlfriend. What do you take me for?”
How did I become the accused here?
