Restless by William Boyd

heart but she could not lie to herself any more: her father had embarked on a slow form of terminal decline – doughty old age was behind him, now he was entering the final fraught struggle of his time on earth. She thought he had aged ten years in the few months she had been away.
    Irene was cool and incurious about her new life in England and said, when Eva asked about her father's health, that he was doing very nicely, thank you, all the doctors were very pleased. When her father asked her about her job she said she was working in 'signals' and that she was now an expert in Morse code. 'Who would have thought it?' he exclaimed, something of his old vigour returning for a moment or two, putting his trembling hand on her arm and adding, in a low voice so Irene couldn't hear, 'You did the right thing, my dear. Good girl.'
    Morris tapped on her elbow, jerking her out of her reverie, and passed her a piece of paper. It was a question in French. She looked at it incomprehensibly.
    'Romer wants you to ask it,' Morris said.
    'Why?'
    'I think it's meant to confer respectability on us.'
    Therefore, when the junior minister had finished his speech and the moderator of the press conference asked for questions, Eva allowed four or five to take place before she raised her hand. She was spotted, pointed at – ' La Mademoiselle, là - and stood up.
    'Eve Dalton,' she said, 'Agence d'Information Nadal.' She saw the moderator write her name in a ledger in front of him and then, at his nod, she asked her question – she had no real idea of its import – something to do with a minority party in parliament, the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond, and their policy of ' La neutralité rigoureuse'. It caused some consternation: the junior minister's reply was brusque and dismissive but she noticed another half-dozen hands being raised for follow-up questions. She sat down and Morris gave her a covert smile of congratulation. After five more minutes he signalled that they should leave and they crept out, leaving by a side entrance and crossing the Grand Place at a half-run through an angled, spitting rain towards a café. They sat indoors and smoked a cigarette and drank tea, looking out through the windows at the ornate cliff faces of the buildings round the massive square, their sense of absolute confidence and prosperity still ringing out across the centuries. The rain was growing heavier and the flower sellers were packing up their stalls when they caught a taxi to the station and then drove back steadily and without delays or diversions towards Ostend.
    There were no military convoys on the road at Ghent and they made good time, reaching Ostend by seven o'clock in the evening. On the journey back they talked casually but guardedly – as did all Romer's employees, Eva now realised. There was a sense of solidarity that they shared, of being in a small elite team – that was undeniable – but it was really only a veneer: no one was ever truly open or candid; they tried to restrict their conversation to frivolous observations, bland generalities – specific times and places in their past, pre-Romer lives were never identified.
    Morris said to her: 'Your French is excellent. First class.'
    And Eva said: 'Yes, I lived in Paris for a while.'
    In her turn she asked Morris how long he had known Romer. 'Oh, a good few years now,' he said and she knew from the tone of his voice that it would not only be wrong to ask for a more precise answer but that it would also be suspicious. Morris called her 'Eve' and the thought came to her suddenly that perhaps 'Morris Devereux' was no more his real name than 'Eve Dalton' was hers. She glanced over at him as they motored towards the coast and saw his fine features lit from below by the dashboard lights and felt, not for the first time, a dull pang of regret: how this curious job they were doing – regardless of how they were working towards the same end – consistently managed to leave them essentially divided and