‘Hello,’ he said in his piping voice.
His bright gaze looked right at Anatole. Clearly interested. Waiting for a response.
But Anatole could make none. Could only go on standing there, frozen, as knowledge forced itself into his head like a power hose being turned on.
Theos—she has a son.
He dragged his eyes from the child—the sable-haired, dark-eyed child—to the woman who was the boy’s mother. Shock was in his eyes still. Shock, and more than shock. An emotion that seemed to well up out of a place so deep within him he did not know it was there. He could give it no name.
‘I didn’t know—’ His voice broke off.
Did her hand tighten on the child’s? He could see her face take on an expression of reserve, completely at odds with the warmth of a moment again when she’d been hugging her child.
‘Why should you?’ she returned coolly. Her chin lifted slightly. ‘This is Nicky.’ Her eyes dropped to her son. ‘Nicky, this is your—’
She stopped. For a second it seemed to Anatole that a kind of paralysis had come over her face.
It was he who filled the gap. Working out just what his relationship was to the little boy. ‘Your cousin,’ he said.
Nicky cast him an even more interested look. ‘Have you come to play with me?’ he asked.
Immediately both his nanny and his mother intervened.
‘Now, Nicky, not everyone who comes here comes to play with you,’ his nanny said, her reproof very mild and given as if it were a routine reminder.
‘Munchkin, no—your...your cousin is here because of poor Pappou—’
The moment she spoke Christine wished desperately that she hadn’t. But she was in no state to think straight. It was taking every ounce of what little remaining strength she had just to remain where she was, to cope with this nightmare scenario playing out, helpless to stop it. Helpless to do anything but hang on in there until finally—dear God, finally—the front door closed behind Anatole and she could collapse.
‘Pappou?’
The single word from Anatole was like a bullet. A bullet right through her. She stared, aghast at what she’d said.
Grandfather.
She could only stare blindly at Anatole. She had to explain, to make sense of what she’d said—what she’d called Vasilis.
But she was spared the ordeal. At her words Nicky’s little face had crumpled, and she realised with a knife in her heart that she had made an even worse mistake than saying what she had in front of Anatole.
‘Where is he? I want him—I want him! I want Pappou!’
She dropped to her knees beside him, hugging him as he sobbed, giving him what comfort she could, reminding him of how Pappou had been so ill, and was now in heaven, where he was well again, where they would see him again one day.
Then, suddenly there was someone else hunkering down beside her and Nicky. Someone resting his hand on Nicky’s heaving shoulder.
Anatole spoke, his voice a mix of gentleness and kindness, completely different from any tone she’d heard from him so far in this nightmare encounter. ‘Did you say that you’ve been doing some painting with Nanny?’
Christine felt Nicky turn in her arms, look at the man kneeling down so close. She saw her son nod, his face still crumpled with tears.
‘Well,’ said Anatole, in the same tone of voice but now with a note of encouragement in it, ‘why don’t you paint a picture especially for...for Pappou?’
He said the word hesitantly, but said it all the same. His tone of voice changed again, and now there was something new in it.
‘When I was little, I can remember I painted a picture for...for Pappou. I painted a train. It was a bright red train. With blue wheels. You could paint one too, if you like, and then he would have one from both of us. How would that be?’
Christine saw her son gaze at Anatole. Her throat felt very tight. As tight as if wire had been wrapped around it—barbed wire that drew blood.
‘Can my train be blue?’ Nicky asked.
Anatole nodded. ‘Of course it can. It can be blue with red wheels.’
Nicky’s face lit up, his tears gone now. He looked across to his nanny, standing there, ready to intervene if that were needed. Now it was.
‘What a good idea!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Shall we go and do it now?’
She held out her hand and Nicky disengaged himself from his mother, trotting up to his nanny and taking her hand. He turned back to Christine. ‘Nanny and me are going to paint a picture for Pappou,’ he informed her.
Christine gave a watery smile. ‘That’s a lovely idea, darling,’ she said.
‘Will you show it to me when you’ve done it?’ It was Anatole who’d spoken, rising to his feet, looking across at the little boy.
Nicky nodded, then tugged on his nanny’s hand, and the two of them made their journey back up the stairs, with Nicky talking away animatedly.
Christine watched them go. Her heart was hammering in her chest, so loudly she was sure it must be audible. A feeling of faintness swept over her as she stood up.
Did she sway? She didn’t know—knew only that a hand had seized her upper arm, was steadying her. A hand that was like a vice.
Had Anatole done that only to stop her fainting? Or for another reason?
She jerked herself free, stepped back sharply. To have him so close—so close to Nicky...
He spoke, his voice low, so as not to be within earshot of the nanny, but his tone was vehement.
‘I had no idea—none!’
Christine trembled, but her voice was cool. ‘Like I said, why should you? If Vasilis chose not to tell you, I was hardly likely to!’
Anatole’s dark eyes burned into hers. She felt faintness drumming at her again. Such dark eyes...
So like Nicky.
No—she must not think that. Vasilis’s eyes had been dark as well, typically Greek. And brown was genetically dominant over her own blue eyes. Of course Nicky would have the dark eyes of his father’s family.
‘Why does the boy call my uncle pappou?’ The demand was terse—requiring an answer.
She took a careful breath. ‘Vasilis thought it...wiser,’ she said. Her mouth snapped closed. She did not want to talk about it, discuss it, have it questioned or challenged.
But Anatole was not to be silenced. ‘Why?’ he said bluntly.
His eyes seemed to be burning into hers. She rubbed a hand over her forehead. A great weariness was descending on her after the strain of the last grim months—Vasilis’s final illness, the awfulness of the last fortnight since he’d died, and now, the day of her husband’s burial, the nightmare eruption into her life of the man who had caused her marriage to Vasilis.
‘Vasilis knew his heart was weak. That it would give out while Nicky was still young. So he said...’ Her voice wavered and she took another difficult breath, not wanting to look at Anatole but knowing she must say what she had to. ‘He said it would be...kinder for Nicky to grow up calling him his grandfather.’
She had to fight to keep her lips from trembling, her eyes from filling with tears. Her hands clenched each other, nails digging into her palms.
‘He said Nicky would miss him less when the time came, feel less deprived than if he’d thought of him as his father.’
Anatole