Page 25 of Fire Must Burn

On the next level, tall, freestanding bookcases divided the room. She wandered through the centuries and civilisations from antiquity through the modern era. Then she spotted him in the middle of one narrow aisle, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, with said nose deep in a volume from the nineteenth century. The fair hair was now touched with grey here and there, topped by what looked like a brand-new homburg, and the glasses were not a part of any memory she had of him, but it was the same face, as beautiful as it was nine years before, the trace of melancholy that had infused it when he had returned from Spain now deepened.

Time to attract his attention in some subtle fashion, she thought.

Then she thought, the hell with subtle.

She walked boldly down the aisle, making sure to throw her left hip solidly into him as she passed.

He turned to glare at her as she kept walking.

‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said irritably. ‘Would you mind taking care where you’re going?’

She stopped, still facing away from him.

‘I bumped you fair and square, you Pembroke git,’ she said. ‘So weigh enough and pull to the banks.’

She turned, smiling, and his jaw dropped.

‘Sparks,’ he said. ‘Oh, my God.’

She wasn’t expecting the embrace. It happened so quickly that her arms were momentarily pinned to her sides, but she was able to free them enough to wrap them around him.

‘Excuse me, but that behaviour is not permitted in thisestablishment,’ a clerk admonished them sternly from the end of the aisle.

They quickly released each other.

‘Sorry,’ called Tony. ‘I was caught by surprise. Won’t happen again, I promise.’

‘See that it doesn’t,’ said the clerk.

‘Well, here we are,’ said Tony, turning back to her. ‘Once again acting inappropriately in an antiquarian bookshop. My God, Sparks, you are a sight for sore eyes. How long has it been?’

‘Nine years,’ she said. ‘We had dinner right before you left for Singapore.’

‘Well, the polite thing would be to say you haven’t aged a bit,’ he said, stepping back to look at her critically. ‘But the accurate thing to say is that you have aged gloriously.’

‘And you’ve become quite distinguished looking,’ she replied. ‘Tell me, what’s it like being over thirty?’

‘Ah, the thrust straight into my heart!’ he cried, his fist pounding his chest dramatically. ‘You’ll find out all too soon, if my arithmetic is correct.’

‘When did you get back?’ she asked.

‘A few weeks ago.’

‘And you didn’t call me straight away? Naughty boy!’

‘I thought about calling, but you’re not in the London directory and I didn’t know where you had got to,’ he said. ‘And life has been a whirlwind since I came home.’

‘You need to tell me everything,’ she said. ‘Over drinks. Which should start as soon as possible.’

‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a book waiting for me downstairs, and I’m going to add this one. What have you got there?’

She held it up, and he smiled affectionately.

‘Beetles, of course,’ he said. ‘Some things never change. Is every British water beetle in there?’

‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘They say he’s doing three volumes. What have you got?’

He held up a copy of Thucydides’History of the Peloponnesian War.