Scrivener’s Tale. Fiona McIntosh

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      THREE

      The next morning at the bookshop passed slowly, but Gabe kept himself busy in the office catching up on paperwork. Eventually his rumbling belly told him it was nearing lunchtime. He emerged from the office stretching, wound his way down the rickety staircase and saw that the shop was all but empty.

      ‘I’m just ducking out for a baguette,’ he said. He didn’t offer to pick up for anyone else. Didn’t want that becoming a habit.

      The day had not improved with age. It was overcast and drizzly. He zipped up his jacket. He didn’t walk along the river, as the cafés here tended to ply their trade — and their prices — for hardy tourists. Instead he walked deeper into Saint-Germain unaware that he was being followed.

      ‘Bonjour, Gabriel,’ he heard a familiar voice call after him.

      He turned. Reynard waved to him. He was not alone. Standing alongside, dwarfed by the tall physician was a fragile-looking girl. Gabe could hardly ignore them. He smiled weakly.

      ‘Bonjour, Reynard … mademoiselle.’

      ‘This is Gabriel, whom I’ve mentioned,’ Reynard said to her.

      Gabe noticed how Reynard held the girl’s arm. There was something possessive in his stance. Reynard was nervous, too. Gabe took all this in with a brief gaze at the man and then shifted his attention to the reason they were surely paused in a damp, narrow street of Paris. She turned her dark and solemn eyes on him, but said nothing. He felt his breath catch slightly. She looked like a piece of exquisite porcelain; her skin was almost translucent it was so pale. Her ebony-black hair cut bluntly in a bob only accentuated her alabaster complexion as it skimmed the line of her jaw. It was a severe style yet she seemed to wear it with ease, and the texture was shiny and slippery like silk. In that moment he wanted to touch it.

      He cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, I hadn’t expected to meet anyone,’ he said, cutting a look at Reynard.

      ‘Gabriel, could you spare us just five minutes of your time?’ the man began, and when Gabe started to shake his head Reynard put a hand up. ‘A quick coffee,’ he appealed. ‘Two minutes … if you could just …’ His words ran out as he gestured at his companion.

      Again the dark eyes of the girl regarded him. How odd. He’d thought they were dark brown, but now he noticed they were the smokiest of greys, brooding and stormy … and troubled. In a moment of hesitation, he recalled Reynard’s fear that the girl might kill herself. He felt suddenly obliged.

      Just a few minutes couldn’t hurt. The smell of grilling meat and spices of cumin and coriander, anise and cinnamon wafted over from the kebab shops in the narrow streets around Place Saint-André-des-Arts, reminding him he was hungry. His mouth began to water at the thought of lamb with tzatziki, perhaps some tabbouleh and hoummos wrapped in a warm pita. It would have to wait. A swift coffee first.

      ‘Sure,’ he said, shrugging a shoulder and noticing at once how Reynard’s anxious face lit with surprise. Nevertheless, he appeared tense despite his relief at Gabe’s decision.

      ‘Over here’s a café,’ he said, pointing, then guiding his companion.

      Gabe followed Reynard noticing that his charge was as uninterested in her surrounds as she was in her companions.

      He sat down opposite the odd pair and smiled at her.

      ‘We haven’t been introduced yet,’ he said, but as he’d anticipated, Reynard answered before she could.

      ‘Oh, my apologies. Gabriel, this is Angelina.’

      His mind froze momentarily as though he’d been stung.

      ‘Gabriel?’

      ‘Sorry. Er, like the famous tea salon,’ he muttered. Then took a breath and smiled at them. ‘I was only staring at its sign last night.’

      She said nothing but fixed him now with an unwavering look. Her expression didn’t betray boredom or even dislike. He felt as though he were being studied. He’d experienced such regard before and allowed her to fixate without showing any discomfort in his expression.

      ‘Do you believe in coincidence?’ Reynard asked him in English.

      Gabe remained speaking in French to let Reynard know that he had no intention of isolating Angelina, if she didn’t understand English. ‘Do I believe in coincidence?’ he repeated. ‘Well, I know it happens too often to not be a reality of life, but I would never count on one, if that’s what you mean.’ He noticed Reynard was trying to catch the attention of the waiter. ‘Er, with milk for me,’ he said.

      Reynard nodded, conveying this to the waiter before returning to their conversation. ‘I meant,’ he continued, now in French, ‘do you believe in coincidence or do you believe in fate?’

      ‘I’ve never thought about it. But now that you make me consider it, I think I’d like to believe in predestination rather than chance.’

      Reynard raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s interesting. Most people would prefer coincidence. They don’t like the notion of their lives already being mapped out.’

      ‘You can change life’s pathway. I’m testimony to that. But then the question was hypothetical. I like the notion of fate. It doesn’t mean I believe it’s what runs our lives or that chance doesn’t have a lot to do with what happens to us.’ He returned his attention to Angelina, feeling highly conscious of her penetrating gaze. The winter sun was filtering weakly into the café and lighting one side of her face. The other was in shadow and just for a moment he had the notion that her spiritually darker side was hidden.

      The waiter arrived to bang down three coffees and their accompanying tiny madeleine biscuits.

      ‘Do you enjoy Paris?’ he tried.

      ‘I should tell you that Angelina is mute,’ Reynard said. ‘She is not unable to talk, I’m assured, but she is choosing not to talk.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s where you come in, I hope.’

      She hadn’t shifted her gaze from Gabe and now — as if to spite Reynard — shook her head and he realised it was in answer to his earlier question. He persisted. ‘If you could be anywhere, where would you go?’ He reached for his СКАЧАТЬ