‘I’m at your command.’
Julia grinned at his dryness. ‘Quite like old times, isn’t it?’ She turned to wave out of the window as they passed an open-mouthed Richard.
‘I hope not,’ came the reply, with soft fervency.
‘I wasn’t that bad, was I?’
‘You … were Julia.’
‘You make me sound like a noxious pest.’
‘Not noxious. Obnoxious, perhaps.’
‘Are you making a joke?’ she asked, astounded.
‘I never joke, Julia, you told me so yourself. I don’t know how to laugh.’
‘That’s not fair, I apologised for all that,’ Julia protested, flooded with renewed guilt about what she had said to him. ‘Anyway, I’ve changed my mind about that, you do have a sense of humour … somewhere.’ She decided a change of subject was also in order. ‘You know it was really this car that threw me off the track the day we met. I couldn’t believe that the brother Richard described could drive a Maserati.’
‘How did Richard describe me?’ Mildly amused.
‘Oh … Mercedes, BMW ..
‘Ah … solid, dependable, Teutonic’
‘Certainly not a rich and dashing Italian.’
‘Do you always deal in superficialities?’
‘Only when they’re all I have to go on,’ Julia shot back. ‘What does the G. B. stand for? Not Grievous Bodily by any chance?’
A slight twitch of the straight mouth showed that he followed the reference. ‘George Bernard.’
‘Was your mother a Shaw fan?’
‘I doubt that she ever read a play in her life.’
Julia hesitated, considering the inadvisability of probing the flat statement any further. Was that resentment towards his mother that she detected? Had she been lacking in intellect, or just uneducated? Julia badly wanted to know, but the desire to shield him from summoning ugly memories was stronger.
‘I like Hugh,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s just the name for a large man.’
‘You are obsessed by my size, aren’t you,’ he murmured, hand moving to change down gear fluidly as he approached a corner.
‘I know, I can’t help it. I’ve had some traumatic experiences with big men.’ She told him about the enormous Italian she had worked for in Rome, the one who kept pinching her.
‘You needn’t fear that from me.’
‘I know.’ He wasn’t a man who encouraged any kind of familiarity. ‘I bet you don’t go much for small women, anyway. I bet all your girlfriends are tall and slim and keep their hands in their laps like Miss Farrow.’
‘Let’s keep Ann out of this, shall we?’
‘I think she thought I had a crush on you and was trying to attract your attention by the pool,’ said Julia, and pounced on a tiny change of expression. ‘She did, didn’t she? Did she say something afterwards … delicately of course … to suggest I shouldn’t be encouraged in my infatuation?’
‘Julia.
‘She did!’ Julia could laugh about it now. ‘I hope you were horribly pompous in reply.’
‘What did you do about Signor Gianelli?’