Annabeth’s house was easy to reach, and there was nobody on the boardwalk this afternoon. Stewart wouldn’t have cared if there had been. His policy had always been to treat fame as if it didn’t exist. He employed no bodyguards. He didn’t travel with an entourage. The only assistant he’d ever had had been the one the studio hired to help with his fan mail while he was playing Commander Rees. She’d been a very nice, sensible, middle-aged Scotswoman whose idea of a night on the town was shrimp and pasta at an Olive Garden followed by three stiff shots of unadulterated whiskey when she got home. Mrs. Mackindle, her name had been, and Stewart still sent Christmas cards to her place in Aberdeen.
He got to Annabeth’s house and knocked on the door. Annabeth had The Well-Tempered Clavier on the stereo. It was a good stereo, a Bose, that her sons had bought her because she liked music. The disc of The Well-Tempered Clavier she was playing featured a harpsichord, which was what it was supposed to feature, instead of a piano, which most of them did. He knocked a second time, just in case she hadn’t heard him, and the door opened.
“Hello,” Annabeth said. It was a door to the kitchen, not the one to the living room, because that one faced the sea. “I’ve got more tea on. You look good. This is very odd.”
“I want to talk to you about something,” Stewart said.
Annabeth was already headed back toward the stove. The kettle was blowing, but not sounding, because she had put the whistle up.
“I think Marcey may have fallen asleep,” she said. “I really don’t know what to do about the mood she’s in. I mean, you can’t just make up ten years of schooling in an afternoon. Not that I’m necessarily wedded to the idea of education taking place in schools. But you can’t go from not reading anything at all except menus to reading Yeats just like that. I finally got her to give it up and gave her Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She likes Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”
“She probably thinks it’s song lyrics,” Stewart said. “Is she going to stay here all day? Is she moving in? She does have a house to go to.”
“Oh, I know,” Annabeth said. “I think she’s just worried about the publicity, you know, and the photographers. I mean, she does realize they’re not much in evidence today, but she seems to be sure they’ll be back any minute. Is that right? Will they be back any minute?”
“Sooner rather than later,” Stewart said, “which means it makes even more sense for her to be in her own house instead of here. She’s got at least some security in that place.”
“She’s also alone. She said she always used to have people with her, but Carl Frank made them leave.”
“They all travel with huge groups of people,” Stewart said. “Paid friendship, if you ask me. Anyway, the huge groups of people don’t usually come to work with them, and Carl Frank had had enough of the schedule going to hell, so he packed them all home. I live alone. You don’t worry about something happening to me.”
“Of course I worry about that. But you can take care of yourself. You’d probably do pretty well in hand-to-hand combat. She seems a lot more vulnerable.”
“I can take care of myself,” Stewart said. “But right now, there’s something I want to talk to you about, so if she’s asleep, that’s all well and good.”
There was a sound from the living room, and Stewart realized that what he was hearing was Marcey Mandret, moving around. The disc had finished playing. He heard clicks and whirrs and then the sound of another disc, still The Well-Tempered Clavier, starting up.
“Well,” Annabeth said. “She must be awake. I’ve got those Moravian spice cookies you like over there in that tin. Let’s bring them into the living room and relax.”
“Let’s not go into the living room just yet,” Stewart said. “There really is something I want to talk to you about.”
Annabeth turned to look at him, quizzical. “You aren’t going to confess to a murder, are you? Because I did think about you and Kendra Rhode, and you didn’t seem to have time. Or maybe I’m wrong. About the time.”
“I don’t know,” Stewart said. He reminded himself that, for all her perfections, she was still an American. Then he admitted to himself that he often rather liked Americans. Next to the Brits he was used to dealing with at home, they had a terrific work ethic.
“Listen,” he said. “I was thinking. In spite of all this mess, the filming can’t go on here longer than another two to three weeks. After that, I’ve got three months before I start another project. I think we should go to Australia together.”