He considered her answer for a few seconds. And then: ‘What did you think of my talk?’
‘It was interesting.’
‘Interesting,’ he repeated. ‘Is that all?’
‘What’s the answer you would rather I gave you?’
‘The same as any academic would want. I want you to tell me that I’m sensationally brilliant, that my thought process is unique, and it had you on the edge of your seat, hanging on my every word.’
‘If you need somebody to worship at the altar of your cleverness, I suggest you look elsewhere. After all, brilliance is not in short supply here in Oxford. And sadly, nor is sycophancy.’ In any other situation she would have been appalled to hear herself being so extraordinarily rude, but she couldn’t stop the condemnation pouring out of her.
But he just laughed. ‘Astraight-talking undergraduate, that makes a refreshing change.’
‘Astraight-talkingJunior Fellow,’ she corrected him. ‘And really, we mustn’t monopolise you anymore, you have many more people queuing to buy your book.’
‘Won’t you tell me your name?’ he said.
‘No need. Our paths won’t cross again.’
She had been wrong. Three days later he appeared at the main entrance to St Gertrude’s while she was checking her pigeonhole for mail.
‘At last,’ he said, leaning against the stonework, ‘I’ve tracked you down.’
As startled as she was, she kept her expression indifferent. ‘Which raises the question, howdidyou track me down?’ she enquired.
‘I remembered your friend’s name from signing my book for her and asked around. May I take you for lunch?’
‘I was planning to eat in hall.’
‘Is that an unbreakable plan?’
Before she could reply, he said, ‘Please say yes, I’d like the opportunity to prove that I’m not always an arrogant buffoon.’
‘Whatever my opinion of you is, I wouldn’t have thought it would matter to you very much. If at all.’
‘Come on, you know what it’s like for us narcissistic academics, we need everybody to love us.’
She couldn’t help but smile. And with that, she allowed him to take her for lunch. And for dinner the day after, and to bed the following week. Only then did he tell her that he was married. By then it was too late.
So when Isabella had spoken about an unhappy and neglected husband straying in search of emotional comfort, Annelise knew all about that.
But Edmund? Surely he wouldn’t do that to Mums? No, Isabella was wrong about him. They must just be having a private disagreement over something. Perhaps Edmund had been trying to get Hope to ease back with her workload, worried that she was overdoing it and would make herself ill again?
From downstairs Annelise could hear the telephone ringing. It rang and rang, and when she realised nobody was going to answer it, she went to do it herself. She reached the hall just as the telephone stopped ringing.
She was about to go back upstairs to her room and do some work on the paper she was writing, when the telephone rang again. She picked up the receiver. ‘Island House,’ she said.
Seconds passed. Then came a voice, a man’s voice: ‘Is that who I think it is?’
Her heart leapt.
‘Harry? Is that you?’
‘The one and only. Are you missing me?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Liar.’
