‘No, but you only have to look at that outfit the doorman’s wearing to know what it’s like inside. I prefer the simple fish restaurants near the flower market. Which reminds me...’ Van put his hand on her shoulder, mak ing her come to a standstill.
Stooping, he sniffed, ‘Mm...that scent suits you.’
As they moved on, Anny noticed that Frenchwomen of all ages from teenage girls to women with matronly figures looked with interest at the man strolling beside her. Most young Frenchmen were taller than their fathers and grandfathers, but few were as tall as Van or held themselves with his air of assurance.
She basked in the pleasure of knowing that this evening she looked like other girls of seventeen and was out for the evening with a man who might be considered a bit too old for her now, but wouldn’t always be. Each year the age gap between them would become less important. She just had to pray that he wouldn’t fall in love with anyone else before she was ready for love. Seventeen was too young. She knew that. But eighteen was officially grown-up and nineteen was old enough for anything...even marriage.
The thought that in two years from now they might be walking hand in hand, and before the evening was over Van might have proposed, led her thoughts into the future.
Noticing her pensive expression, Van said, ‘Rêve can also mean daydream, can’t it?’
‘Yes...or illusion. Why?’
‘A scent meaning daydream has to be right for you. You spend most of your time in a daydream.’
‘Not most of it...only some of it. Doesn’t everyone?’
‘At seventeen, yes, I guess so. By the way I’ve asked another friend to join us. She lives in Nice. I met her last time I was here. Her name’s Francine.’
Anny felt her happiness evaporate as if it had been a balloon and he had deliberately punctured it.
‘Where did you meet her?’
‘I needed to buy some disks. Her father owns a computer store. Francine was filling in for her mother who works there. She’s at college, studying computer graphics for a career in magazines. She could be a useful contact for you.’
As soon as they met, Anny knew that Francine felt the same way about her as she did about the glamorous French girl. It amazed her that Van didn’t sense the antipathy between them, but he seemed unaware of it, his mind focused on the menu and wine list with the same serious attention the locals gave to their food.
Because the evening was so mild they were able to sit outside, under the restaurant’s awning. The two girls sat opposite each other with Van next to Francine. This made Anny feel even more of an interloper.
The meal was delicious but she would have enjoyed it far more had she and Van been à deux. First they had a thick fish chowder with large chunks of crusty bread. The waiter left the silver tureen and its ladle on the table. Francine had one helping, Anny two and Van three.
Then came a silver dish like a cakestand supporting a mound of crushed ice on which was arranged a variety of sea food.
Van and Francine were drinking wine, but for Anny, to her chagrin, he had ordered jus de pomme.
At least Francine had the grace to wish her a happy birthday. Perhaps if they had met in different circumstances they might have found things in common apart from the company of a man neither wished to share with another female.
It was clear that from Francine’s viewpoint the evening ended too early. She lived on the outskirts of Nice. Van put her into a taxi and discreetly paid the fare. Then he and Anny went home by train.
Van was not at Orengo for her eighteenth birthday, but she wasn’t too disappointed because he had already arranged to join them on board Sea Dreams when they sailed from the Riviera to Port Mahon, the capital of Minorca, the most northerly of Spain’s Balearic Islands.
Anny was overjoyed that he would be spending his vacation on the schooner. She hoped it would be a repetition of the good times they’d had among the Greek islands when he was at college and she was a carefree child.
Now the time was near when she would have to leave Bart and go ashore to earn her living, she was less carefree. The contessa’s health was another worry.
‘It’s time I was gone,’ she would say, several times a week. Then, reaching for Anny’s hand, forgetting she had expressed the same thought many times before, she would say, ‘I have had the best of my life. It’s such a bore, being old. How I envy you, dearest child...all the excitements ahead of you...falling in love...getting married... having babies.’
Anny did not say so but, in her opinion, while love and marriage and children were still extremely important, for her own generation of women another ingredient was needed to make up a happy life. Without a successful career, and the independence and fulfilment resulting from it, how could a woman feel she had justified her existence?
She wished she had someone with whom to discuss her career plans. Bart refused to accept that she was old enough to leave home. He regarded big cities as sinks of iniquity and thought eighteen was too young for her to be exposed to the hazards of life in Paris.
Anny hoped that while Van was with them he would back her desire for independence. She knew Bart’s opposition was partly because he would be lonely without her and loneliness would make him drink more.
But common sense told her she shouldn’t put off her departure because of Bart’s dependence on her and the bottle. He had been both father and mother to her and she loved him and worried about him. But he was not yet an old man. The only way she could care for him when he was old was by establishing herself in a well-paid profession.
A fortnight before Van’s arrival, she received payment for French syndication rights to an article. The money paid for various urgent necessities with enough over for Anny to feel justified in buying herself a denim skirt and a Sunday-best T-shirt with printed cotton appliqués on the front and back.
Two days before Van was due to arrive, he telephoned the palazzo and left a message with Elena that he would be bringing a girlfriend.
Anny was furious. ‘What cheek! He should have asked your permission, not taken it for granted.’
‘He knows we have room for her,’ said Bart.
‘If she’s anything like Francine, she’ll be nothing but a nuisance,’ said Anny. ‘I don’t know what he saw in her. I thought she was a pain.’
‘Maybe this one will be better. Maybe this time it’s serious,’ said her uncle. ‘How is he to know the sort of girl he prefers if he doesn’t try a selection? All the time he was at college, he concentrated on his studies. For several years after that he was obsessed with computers. They’re still his primary interest. But he’s a fine, virile young chap. He’s not going to stay a bachelor for the rest of his life.’
His words plunged her into gloom. If it turned out that Van was in love with this girl he was bringing, how could she bear to watch them being all lovey-dovey?
Instead of counting the days to his arrival, she began to dread the confirmation that Van’s heart was given to someone else.
Right at the back of her mind where she didn’t have to acknowledge it, even to herself, she had believed Van was hers...had always been hers. They might even have been together in some previous existence, although she wasn’t sure she believed in that possibility.
What she was certain about was that she and Van belonged together and it had been destiny, not chance, which had brought him to Orengo at a time when Sea Dreams was moored in the bay below the palazzo.
When Van and his friend arrived, Anny was in the