My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online Page B

where the plane-trees put a bough or two between it and thefalling sun. The sound of rain, I realised, was the sound of their leaves, pattering and rustling in the breeze that had got up to cool the evening.
    I glanced down at the terrace below the balcony. He was there, sitting under one of the plane-trees, smoking. His chair was pulled up to the railing that edged the terrace, and one arm lay along this. He sat there, relaxed, looking at nothing, completely at ease. The car was standing where he had parked it before. If – as appeared to be the case – he had not located another ‘Simon’ to deliver it to, the fact didn’t appear to worry him unduly.
    I reflected, as I looked down at him thoughtfully, that it would probably take a good deal to worry Simon Lester. That quiet manner, that air of being casually and good-temperedly on terms with life … with it all went something that is particularly hard to describe. To say that he knew what he wanted and took it, would be to give the wrong impression: it was rather that whatever decisions he had to make, were made, and then dismissed – this with an ease that argued an almost frightening brand of self-confidence
    I don’t know how much of this I saw in him on that first day; it may be that I simply recognised straight away the presence of qualities I myself so conspicuously lacked: but I do remember the immediate and vivid impression I got of a self-sufficiency harder and more complete than anything conveyed in years of Philip’s
grand-seigneur
gasconading, and at the same time quite different in quality. I didn’t see yet where the difference lay. I only know that I felt obscurely gratefulto Simon for not having made me feel too much of a fool, and, less obscurely, for having so calmly undertaken to help me in the matter of the ‘other Simon’ …
    I wondered, as I closed the shutters again, if he had even bothered to make the gesture of looking for him.
    On the whole, I imagined not.
    In this, it seemed, I had done him less than justice.
    When I went downstairs I found him, hands thrust deep in trouser pockets, in earnest contemplation of the car, together with a Greek to whose bright blue shirt was pinned the insignia of a guide.
    Simon looked up and smiled at me. ‘Rested?’
    ‘Perfectly, thank you. And the tea
was
good.’
    ‘I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps you’re strong enough, then, to bear the blow?’ He jerked his head towards the car.
    ‘I thought as much. You’ve not found him?’
    ‘Not a sign. I’ve been to the other hotels, but there’s no visitor of that name. Then I went along to the museum to meet George here. He tells me that he doesn’t know anyone called Simon in Delphi, either.’
    The Greek said: ‘Only yourself,
Kyrie
Lester.’
    ‘Only myself,’ agreed Simon.
    I said, rather helplessly: ‘What shall we do?’
    ‘
Kyrie
Lester,’ said the Greek, watching him rather curiously, ‘could it not be, perhaps, that there
is
no other Simon? And that it is not a mistake? That someone is – how do you put it? – using your name?’
    ‘Taking my name in vain?’ Simon laughed but I knew that this had already occurred to him. It hadoccurred to me, too. ‘It doesn’t seem likely. For one thing, who would? And for another, if they did, and it was urgent, they’d surely have appeared by now to claim the damned thing.’
    ‘That is probably true.’
    ‘You can bet it’s true. But I’m going to get to the bottom of this very odd little affair – and not only for the sake of Miss Haven here, who’s worried about it. Look, George, you are sure about it? No Simons at all, however unlikely? A grandfather with a wooden leg, or a mule-boy aged seven-and-a-half, or one of the men working up on the excavations?’
    ‘About the last I do not know, of course, though assuredly you are right and they would have come to look for it. In Delphi, nobody. Nobody at all.’
    ‘Then the places nearby? You’re a native, aren’t you? You’ll