Old Enemies by Michael Dobbs Read Free Book Online

ornate marble fireplace, smiling ruefully from behind her glass of wine.
    Harry’s head was spinning. It wasn’t often he lost control of his feelings, but now he was very close. The steward was at his side with the tray of drinks; he grabbed a whisky, leaving the orange juice undisturbed. It gave him the chance to look at her. The hair was a little shorter, a more distinct shade of chestnut than he remembered, her high cheeks perhaps a little fuller, the clothes certainly better cut but she was now – what? Thirty-eight? Or was it nine? It had been so long ago, he’d tried so hard to forget.
    ‘Hello, Harry.’ Still the same breathless, husky voice, the same pouting, expressive lips. ‘It’s been a long time.’
    ‘That’s for sure.’
    ‘Paris, wasn’t it?’
    ‘The Left Bank.’
    ‘You remember.’
    ‘Every detail.’
    Lapérouse, a corner table. A Friday evening, shortly after eight, with light, mist-like rain that had required no more than a turned-up collar and springing step to make sure he wasn’t late – at least, that’s the way he remembered it. Waiting for her, alone at the table, too long, beginning to feel awkward, exposed, before she’d arrived, flustered, fumbling with her coat and her words, telling him it was over, that there would be no more secret trips, no more stolen moments. That she was sending him back to his wife.
    ‘How have you been . . . Terri?’ he heard himself saying. Her name emerged almost as an afterthought, on an unwilling tongue.
    ‘Fine. Really fine.’
    Her husband was a tall man who might once have been good-looking but who now sported a receding hairline and a developing stomach hemmed in by a double-breasted suit – always a mistake on a stomach, Harry thought. He was looking at them with a glint of curiosity through thick-framed designer glasses. ‘I’ll leave you two to catch up,’ he said, turning abruptly and leaving them alone on their island in a sea of noise.
    ‘You’ll have to forgive J.J.,’ she said. ‘He has a jealous streak. He’ll be checking up on us.’
    ‘He knows?’
    ‘Perhaps. I’ve never told him. He senses more than knows. Heard whispers, maybe.’
    ‘You weren’t the guilty party. I was the one who was married.’
    She smiled, an expression which on her lips always contained an element of provocation. ‘J.J.’s Irish. He never forgets the past.’
    ‘And I’m . . .’
    She nodded. ‘The past.’ Then she laughed, that soft, lilting sound like a trickling brook that he remembered and which had for a few terrifying months of his life so bewitched him. Yes, it had been witchcraft, for otherwise none of what had happened made sense. He’d been married to Julia, the most extraordinary of women, the great love of his life, and yet . . . Terri had come along and his life had been trashed. His fault, not hers, she hadn’t particularly encouraged him, had always held back, but he had pursued her in that relentless Jones style until all he could think about was her. Yet somehow Julia had managed to forgive him. They had rebuilt the marriage, crawled their way back through the pain, little by little, until the day Julia had been killed in a skiing accident, following Harry down the side of yet another mountain, and after that he had never found a way of living with the guilt. It had burned like acid through so many other relationships. He’d hated Terri for all that, because she’d finished it, and he’d never understood why, and because it was so much easier hating her than hating himself. And now she was here, standing in front of him, beneath a portrait of the virgin Queen Bess.
    ‘You know I’ve spent all these years avoiding you,’ he said. ‘Checking guest lists, walking out of receptions just like this, turning down invitations to dinner parties because I knew you and your husband would be there.’
    ‘I know. Me, too.’ No more laughter, only memories. ‘But you’re a very difficult man to avoid, Harry