Free The Realms of Gold by Margaret Drabble

really. I’ve got drink and pills, there’s nothing else one can do about it, is there?’
    â€˜Not really,’ he said.
    And they sat there for a few more minutes, until the brown-suited attendant came round, and said the train would be leaving shortly, and that dinner would be at seven. To her surprise, at the sound of dinner, she felt quite hungry. Eating would take her mind off her tooth, maybe.
    Hunter left, politely saying goodbye, wishing her a pleasant journey. She shook his hand, and then inclined her cheek, so that he could kiss it. He kissed the bone over her aching tooth. She felt very friendly towards him, for he had after all been the means of renewing her life with Karel. He had seen Karel, in the flesh, quite recently. She almost wanted to tell him of the role he had played, but having decided on discretion, thought she would stick to it. Anyway, he probably sensed it, as he was no fool. Cleopatra had hauled her messengers up and down by the hair when they brought bad tidings. Antony had been reduced to sending his schoolmaster to sue for peace. She looked at Hunter as he stood there on the platform below the open window, expecting wings or a halo, almost, or some other archaic sign of distinction to sprout from him or encircle him. He was a nice boy, a worthy messenger, a pleasant and probably talented (if lazy) archaeologist.
    â€˜Don’t wait for the train to go,’ she said.
    â€˜I want to,’ he said, standing there below her on the platform.
    â€˜Give my regards to Karel,’ he said, ‘when you see him.’
    â€˜I will,’ she said, ‘I will.’
    He looked like a piece of plot, standing there. An extra character, about to return to his mislaid car and his own life.
    â€˜I hope your tooth isn’t too bad,’ he said. ‘You must get it seen to, in Paris.’
    The train lurched forward. She put her hand through the window and he squeezed it. They were so high, continental trains. He was still staring at her intently as the train drew out. He admired her.
    She returned to her compartment and sat on the bed and poured herself a drink. She was pleased with the Hunter episode. She thought she had handled it well. She looked out of the window, and watched the station and the city. It was dusk, and beautiful. She thought of Karel, and the day she had met him here: the train had pulled into the station in the early morning, through an amazing pink and lilac dawn, and her heart had been so full of love and anxiety, and she had taken a taxi to the hotel where they had arranged to meet, and there he was in bed asleep. It would be like that again, she would have all that again. What a fool she had been to lose him.
    â€˜Husband, I come,’ she thought to herself, thinking again of Cleopatra and grand passion. ‘Now to that name my courage prove my title.’
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    David Ollerenshaw, by this time, was back in his own Institute. It stood next door to the octopus research laboratory, on the sea front beneath the date palms. He too, like Frances, had paid a courtesy visit to see the octopus, and several to the public aquarium, where he had stared at the fish and the coral, and pondered on the possibilities of marine geology. He was bored. He was held up, waiting for some rocks in a bag, and some information about the rocks, which he was hoping to feed into a new kind of computer. The rocks should have arrived three days earlier. He had spent the three days idly, strolling along the front, gazing at ships, going to films in foreign languages, reading periodicals in the Institute library, drifting into zoo and aquarium and museums and churches, and wondering whether he needed a new pair of glasses. There was something wrong with his eyes, but he was damned if he was going to have them tested abroad.
    He was quite used to being abroad, and quite used to being alone. He didn’t mind either. He was just a little bored, by the lack of action. And he