All The Fire

‘I am a biochemist, Miss Nicolas. A rather unsavoury subject for discussion at lunch, wouldn’t you say?’

Joanne was surprised. ‘I should think it’s a fascinating occupation,’ she replied.

He helped himself to salad and then said: ‘But not if one has a weak stomach.’

Joanne’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am not aware that my stomach is weak,’ she countered, rather impatiently.

‘Did I say it was?’ His urbane manner was infuriatingly detached.

Joanne endeavoured to tackle the food on her plate. At least his occupation suited the ruthless streak in his nature. She wondered if he had ever been married, or whether indeed he was married at present. He had not the gregarious open nature attributed to his countrymen in general and did not volunteer information with any enthusiasm. He was an enigma, and one which she ought not to be so intrigued by. Yet she was. Maybe it was his difference, his alien attitudes, his foreignness, that fascinated her. In any event, she deliberately turned her concentration to the food, determined not to give him the satisfaction of guessing her feelings. She had been engaged to Jimmy now for almost two years and in consequence this unusual involvement with another man, a stranger, was infecting her with a sense of restlessness, and it was as well that he was not too closely associated with her father.

‘Have you considered when you will leave?’ Dimitri asked suddenly, changing the subject completely.

Joanne lifted her shoulders. ‘Of course not. It’s much too soon to think of such a thing. Why?’

He drank some of his wine and would have poured more into her glass, but she put her hand over it, shaking her head. ‘I leave England at the end of next week,’ he remarked. ‘Is that too soon for you?’

Joanne’s eyes were wide with surprise. ‘The – the end of next week!’ she faltered incredulously. ‘But I never imagined anything so – so – precipitate! Yesterday you didn’t give me to understand that this was a matter of such urgency.’

Dimitri replaced his glass on the table, fingering its stem. ‘Perhaps I should be honest with you,’ he said slowly, and Joanne frowned.

‘What do you mean? Honest? Haven’t you been honest with me?’

‘I have been – how would you put it?’ He drew his brows together scowlingly, and Joanne realized it was the first time she had known him unable to put his thoughts into English. Then he nodded, with some satisfaction. ‘Diplomatic, that is it,’ he averred firmly.

Joanne sighed. ‘In what way?’

He shrugged. ‘Do not look so apprehensive, Miss Nicolas. It is simply that your father wished – hoped – that you might desire the opportunity to escape from England for a while until the memories of your mother were less painful to you. He suggested that a holiday with him might be welcome at this time.’

‘I see.’ Joanne pushed the remains of her meal aside, her appetite evaporating in uncertainty. ‘You didn’t tell me that yesterday.’

‘No. I considered it essential that you should decide on the most important aspect first; that of actually accepting your father’s invitation. I did not want to cloak the invitation with unnecessary details.’

Joanne sipped her wine rather tremulously. Things were beginning to move too fast for her. Already she was wishing she had not agreed to accept her father’s invitation without gaining Jimmy’s support, particularly after discovering that Dimitri Kastro had never expected her to refuse. And now – this! It was unnerving.

‘Even if I wanted to leave so quickly, I couldn’t possibly,’ she exclaimed. ‘I must give them notice at the practice in order to find a replacement.’

Dimitri lay back in his seat regarding her strangely. ‘The matter of your work you can leave in my hands,’ he replied summarily. ‘I guarantee to supply your employers with an adequate replacement within forty-eight hours.’

Joanne’s expression was ludicrous. ‘You can’t be serious!’

‘Why not? There are agencies in London capable of supplying slave girls for homesick Arabian oil barons!’

She hunched her shoulders helplessly. No matter what she said, what protestations she might make, he vaunted her at every turn.

‘I don’t know,’ she said now. ‘I just don’t know.’

She straightened as the waiter came to take their order for a dessert, and she made no demur when Dimitri ordered a strawberry gateau for them both.

For the rest of the meal they were silent, Joanne busy with her thoughts and unwilling to invite any more confrontations. How could she leave at the end of next week? What would Jimmy say? What reasonable excuse could she make for her actions? Unless he conceded that the sooner she went to Greece and got it over with, the better. She wished there was someone she could turn to for advice. But apart from Mrs. Thwaites she would get no encouragement from anyone, of that she was certain, and Jimmy’s parents were likely to regard her actions as nothing short of thoughtless. She was being drawn two ways at one and the same time, and she didn’t know which was right.

Dimitri Kastro ordered coffee and cognac, and then said: ‘Without wanting to appear discourteous, Miss Nicolas, I should tell you that your expression is very revealing. You’re uncertain and distrustful, and you haven’t the strength of your own convictions.’

Joanne sighed. ‘You must agree – I have a problem.’

He lit a cheroot slowly and exhaled the pleasant aroma in her direction. ‘The problem is of your own making,’ he commented shrewdly. ‘Deep inside you want to go. That is natural. Don’t imagine all difficult situations can be resolved by deciding what is wrong and what is right. It is only your conscience invading your subconscious that arouses self-doubt.’

Joanne looked through the arched window at the street beyond. On a dull day, the sun scarcely dispersing the heavy clouds that hung over the steeple of St. Stephen’s church, Oxhampton was not an inspiring sight and she wondered with perspicacity what her father must have thought of her mother for wanting to stay here when all his instincts, his yearnings, must have been towards a warmer, sunnier land. Had he subjugated his desires to her only to find her wanting in other respects? What had driven him to give up his wife and family? If he were the unfeeling tyrant her mother had made him out to be, why had he continued to send her money, and why had he sent Dimitri Kastro to find his daughter now that her mother was dead? These were only a few of the questions that tormented Joanne’s mind, and no amount of soul-searching could dispel her desire to know the truth.

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