Follow a Stranger

normal cheerfulness had returned.

“I am afraid you will not meet my mother this evening,”

Marc said to him. “She has a headache. But I hope she will

get up for lunch tomorrow.” He looked sharply at Sam’s

face. “You look ill. Was it a bad flight?”

Sam grimaced. “I’m the world’s worst traveller. Don’t

worry, though, I’ll be fine now I’m back on terra firma.”

They dined quietly, in a very modern room with mosaic

tiling on the floor and pleasant, yellow walls. Kate ate

steak and salad, followed by a very sweet dessert made of

figs and cream, after which black coffee seemed very

appropriate.

Sam excused himself early, pleading a headache, and

Pallas went up to sit and talk to her mother for a while.

Kate was intending to go to bed early, too, but Marc said

that she would feel more like sleep when she had walked

around the garden for a while.

“The air is so pure here,” he said, draping her cardigan

around her shoulders, his fingers lingering on the nape of

her neck for a second longer than was necessary. She

shivered at his touch, and he glanced down at her, grey

eyes narrowed.

They walked round the garden without talking,

listening to the cicadas and feeling the cool dusk stealing

over the trees and flowers. The air was, as he had said,

fresh and sweet, with a faint scent of spring permeating it.

One tree was covered with purple flowers which Marc said

were called Judas flowers. High up on the hills the

mountain furze was in golden bloom and a final shaft from

the setting sun made the slopes glow like molten gold, then