‘What is the matter, Signer Farrell? Has anything happened?’
I had reached the table where I had left the Contessa. ‘No,’ I answered quickly. ‘Nothing has happened.’ My glass was still half-full and I drained it at a gulp.
‘You look as though you have seen a ghost,’ she said.
‘A ghost?’ I stared at her. Then I sat down. ‘What made you say that?’
Her brows arched slightly at the abruptness of my tone. ‘Have I said something wrong? I am sorry. I am not good at idiomatic English. What I mean to say is that you look upset.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, wiping my face and hands with my handkerchief. ‘I get these attacks sometimes.’ I was thinking of that time in Naples when I’d been waiting at the Patria for a boat to take me home. I’d had the same feeling of tightness inside my head. It had been like an iron band being slowly screwed down across the brain cells. I’d been two months in hospital then. Was I going the same way again? ‘Hell! I can’t be imagining it all.’
‘What is that you say?’ She was staring at me curiously and I realised I must have spoken aloud.
I called the waiter. ‘Will you have another drink?’ I asked her. She shook her head and I ordered a double cognac.
‘You should not drink so much,’ she murmured.
I laughed. ‘If I didn’t drink—’ I stopped then, realising that I was in danger of saying too much.