“It really is beautiful here,” I said after a few moments.

“The weather helps,” James replied. “Although, it’s just as beautiful on a cold, wet day—only a different kind of beauty. They wind down the awnings, so it’s quite cosy. And, it’s a great place to watch the world go by.”

Just then, a canal boat drifted past. I smiled to myself. “Literally.” I turned towards James. “You know, I used to live in London. Did I tell you that?”

“No, I don’t think you did. How long ago?”

“Quite a while. I was in my twenties. Actually, my sister and I moved here together. I went back to Australia after a couple of years and she stayed.”

“So, London wasn’t for you?” Was he just making conversation, or did I detect something more in his tone? “Uh, I don’t know if I’d put it that way, exactly. I loved my time here—well, eventually. Cat and I arrived with all these grand ideas of what life would be like, but for the first little while, London nearly chewed us up and spat us out.”

“In what way?”

“Well, it’s expensive, even compared with Sydney.” He nodded, but I wondered if a man who was worth millions could truly understand what I meant. “We were lucky—we got work right away. I’d been teaching a couple of years, and Cat was a recent graduate, so we signed up with a teaching agency. But it took a while to get established, you know, to figure out where we wanted to live and to meet people.

“The teaching paid quite well, even though the work was gruelling, so we were able to move out of our bedsit within a month—which was a good thing. I mean, I love my sister, but sharing a bedsit …” I let the thought hang in the air, smiling to myself at the younger Parsons sisters who’d bickered the whole time. “And then we moved into a flatshare with two other girls and it became more fun, less of a grind. I started touring not long after that.”

Maria arrived at our table with two wine glasses and the bottle of sancerre, interrupting our conversation. One-handed, she placed a glass in front of each of us, then showed the bottle to James. He gave a slight nod, and she nimbly removed the cork and poured a sip for him to taste.

“I’m sure it’s fine, thank you, Maria. Please go ahead.” She poured a glass for me, then one for James and, without a word, disappeared with the rest of the bottle.

“So, you said you toured? I’m not sure what that means.”

“I worked in travel, leading tours in Europe. I started with Ventureseek a few months after we moved to the flatshare, but I kept my room, so I had a home base.”

“So, you’ve seen quite a lot of Europe, then?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “Lots of the touristy parts and I always had fifty other people to worry about, so there wasn’t a lot of time for real travel, to immerse myself. That’s why this trip to Greece was so important to me. It was the first time I’d been there by myself and it was kind of perfect, you know, the pace of it. Lots of time for contemplation.”