feel on mine. Karen will never believe that he is a taxi driver.
“I do know, of course, that clothes are more of a challenge for women than they are for men, but—” He takes the suitcase and lifts it onto the back seat with an exaggerated expression of effort. The trunk is fenced off and lined with old rugs, for the dogs.
“I’m flying home afterward. To New York.” Since “good morning” has apparently gone out of fashion. He checks my face when he hears this, but he doesn’t comment.
“In.”
Slightly disgruntled, I climb into the passenger seat, and he slams the door behind me. As I watch him walk round the front, I see Karen and the girls lurking by the chestnut tree. Well, that’ll give them food for talk.
Giles accelerates down the lane toward the main road, and I cannot help feeling that he is not quite his usual sweet self.
“Are we late?”
“There’ll be traffic on the road and queues at the airport.”
Maybe he is not at his best in the mornings. I decide that I have too much on my plate today to start fretting about Giles Cleveland’s mood, especially since this whole thing was his own idea. So I keep quiet and settle into enjoying the view. His Barbour is on the backseat, and he is wearing a dress shirt underneath a rust-colored pullover. I would say he looks particularly handsome in it, but I suspect he would look handsome to me in polka dots and purple flares. There is a slight scent of soap in the air, and I indulge myself with a fantasy of Giles stepping out of the shower this morning. As far as I am concerned we could drive to Indiana in this car. I would watch his hands on the wheel, and his long thighs, and dream the journey away.
Last time we sat together in his car, he kissed me. And then I kissed him.
“Are you nervous?” he suddenly asks.
“Huh? Oh, about the conference. No, not really. Well, a little. Yeah, you know what? I am. But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”
He glances across, and for the first time today smiles at me. Thank God—I thought he didn’t like me anymore. But he does. He still likes me.
“Giles?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re not going to make me pretend I won’t mind if you come in, right?”
“Come in where? Ah.” I can see that he knew this subject would rear its anxious head sooner or later. “But I’ve been delegated to assess how well you carry yourself as an Ardrossan representative.”
I must have looked absolutely appalled, because he searches my face longer than the speed at which he is driving allows.
“I’m kidding. Anna—hey! Joke!”
“Oh, you horrible man! If I weren’t afraid you’d land us in a ditch, I’d hit you! Horrible man!”
“Yes, I know.” He grins.
I exhale noisily, still in shock. “Why are you coming, anyway?”
I would never have had the courage to ask if he had not wrong-footed me like this. But now the question hangs between us like a piece of lacy underwear pulled out from under the sofa cushions.
“To take you out to dinner tonight.”
Again he looks over, and I can see in the tension of the muscles around his mouth that some of his nonchalance is fake.
“All right,” I say quietly.
He looks straight ahead, and I really think that is all he will say on the subject.
“So your flight to New York is tomorrow.” This comes a full minute later.
“Yes, of course. Tomorrow afternoon.”
That has been eating him. I don’t believe it. He has been sulking.
“To be honest, there’s another reason I’m going,” he says, and I hold my breath. “A friend of mine—we go way back, he was my tutor at Cambridge—recently got a job at Notre Dame. I haven’t seen him for ten years.”
“At the English department?” I ask. “Who is it?”
“Paul French. He was at UCL before. I don’t suppose you know him?”
“We were never introduced, no, but I remember seeing him at various Shakespeare-related events. Ginger-haired, roly-poly. Exuberant.”
“That’s Paul. Anyway, how do you think your paper will go over?”
The butterflies in my stomach rise and flutter hectically, like a flock of pigeons flushed from the side of a building.
“I hope I’ve made it watertight enough to stand up under scrutiny, but there’ll be a number of historians there, you know, proper historians, not lame-ass cultural historians like me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a go at it. Or at me.”