The Witches of Cambridge (22 page)

“Much as I hate to disagree with you, my most eminent professor,” Hamish says, “I’m afraid I must. If the man doesn’t thank his lucky stars for you every day, if he doesn’t court you with roses and champagne and sing ballads under your balcony every night, then the man is a cad. And an ungrateful git, to boot.”

Kat giggles. “I don’t have a balcony.”

“Well, perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe you should have one built. It’s sure to bring out the inner Romeo in every man who passes by.”

Kat takes another gulp of Guinness, then gazes up at Hamish. “You’re sweet,” she says, slurring the last word so it sounds more like
sweep.

“Oh, no,” Hamish says, with a theatrical sigh. “Please, I’d rather be a cad.”

Kat giggles again. “Okay, sorry. But, you know, I’ve always thought Romeo was highly overrated. I mean, he was so fickle. First declaring his undying devotion for—what was her name?—Rosaline? Then suddenly he meets Juliet and he’s all over her. Who’s to say, if he hadn’t killed himself, he wouldn’t have been in love with a different girl before the week was out?”

Hamish smiles. “So you’re saying the man had no consistency?”

“Exactly.” She sighs. “No staying power. There are those of us who give our hearts to someone and stay faithful for years—despite all common sense to the contrary—we’re steadfast, committed, loyal, dependable, constant—”

“—fools.” Hamish gives her a wry smile.

For a moment Kat is silent, her eyes welling up, and Hamish is suddenly terrified he’s made a huge mistake, stepped too far over the line. Then Kat bursts out laughing and grabs hold of Hamish’s knee. Sparks of shock and delight fire up his spine and he sits completely still, waiting to see what she might do next. It would be too much to hope for, surely, that she might…

“You’re right,” Kat says, gasping to catch her breath. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve been a fool. A total, complete, and utter fool. Giving the best years of my life to, to—a fantasy.”

Hamish, emboldened by far too much alcohol, very slowly and very gently slips his arms over Kat’s shoulders and gives her a little squeeze. She lifts her head toward him and gazes up into Hamish’s eyes. He holds his breath. And then, with their lips only inches apart, just as he thinks it might actually happen—the thing he hasn’t even dared to imagine possible, except when he’s alone in the privacy of his own bathroom—Kat suddenly puts her hand over her mouth, whispers “oh, no,” and promptly throws up.

—

Héloïse wakes. Her vision is blurred and her head aches. She lifts her head off the bed and rubs her eyes. Then she hears the knocking on the door. It stops, then starts again.

“
Foutre
.” Héloïse pulls herself up and stumbles across the room. Catching a glance of herself in the mirror, she curses again. As she staggers down the stairs, pulling her fingers through her hair, Héloïse wonders who the hell is calling on her uninvited. Amandine would have phoned first. It’s only when she opens the door and sees Theo on her doorstep that she realizes she’s still wearing her silk slip. Héloïse steps back and hides her body behind the door, then, remembering how hideous she looks, hides her head as well.

“I’m sorry for surprising you,” Theo says, “but you sounded so distressed on the phone. I waited awhile and I couldn’t stop worrying, I was scared that maybe you might have…”

Héloïse thinks of the paracetamol in the bathroom cabinet and her promise to Amandine.

“Can I come in?”

“No!” Héloïse calls out from behind the door. “I mean, I’m a mess…You don’t need to worry, anyway, I’m fine, really.”

“You don’t look fine,” Theo says, still standing on the doorway. “That is, you—you’re still beautiful, of course, but—”

Héloïse can’t help but smile. She glances behind her at the coat rack, pulls off a long black cashmere coat, and wraps it tightly around her. Taking the front door key off the hallway table, she pats her hair once more, then slips out the front door and shuts it behind her. Now standing only a few inches from Theo, Héloïse looks up at him.

“Can we sit in your car?”

Theo smiles. “Of course. It’s this one here.”

He points to a small white car a few feet away, then steps up and opens the passenger door.

“
Merci
,” Héloïse says as she slides inside the car.

Theo shuts the door softly. Moments later, when he’s sitting beside her, Héloïse glances at him.

“Nice car. Very clean.”

“Thank you. It’s electric.”

“
Pardon?
”

“It doesn’t use fuel. It runs on batteries,” Theo says. “It’s better for the environment.”

“Oh, I see.”

Theo smiles again. “I’m not very good at small talk. I—Maggie and I were married for so long, we were virtually telepathic. I sort of lost the knack.”

Héloïse glances over and catches Theo’s eye. She returns his smile. “Yes, me too.”

“We’re like two teenagers.”

Héloïse nods, then she thinks of what teenagers get up to in parked cars and shakes her head. Theo reaches out his hand, then retracts it.

“Don’t worry,” Theo says. “I remember.”

“
Pardon?
”

“I know how you’re feeling. I was a complete wreck when Maggie died, for years afterward. I could barely leave the house for months. I wanted to die; for a long, long time I dreamed of dying. I didn’t do anything, because of Ben, but I wanted to. That was all I wanted to do.”

Héloïse nods. She can feel tears at the edges of her eyes and blinks them back.

“I would love for us to be friends,” Theo says. “I would love for us to be more than friends, or at least test that out…But I know it might be a long time before you’re ready to even think about anything like—”

“How did you do it?” Héloïse blurts out. “How did you become normal again?”

Theo is silent for a while. “Little by little, day by day, bit by bit. And then, one day you wake up and you want to be alive again. It sneaks up on you, I suppose. But you can’t force it to happen any faster than it will.”

“I thought I was,” Héloïse says softly, “I thought I was getting better and then…”

“You get setbacks, it’s all part of the process,” Theo says. “Be gentle with yourself. You lost the love of your life. Some days it’s all you can do just to keep on breathing.”

Héloïse nods again, tears slipping down her cheeks. She glances down at her hands clutched together in her lap. The fingers of her right hand twitch and she slowly reaches out across the car for Theo. He wraps his fingers around hers—the same fingers she saw in her vision—and holds her gently.

“Thank you,” Héloïse whispers, “thank you.”

—

“What if she hates me?”

“She won’t hate you.”

“She might.”

Eliot hugs his wife and kisses her on the cheek.

“She’ll love you just like I do.”

Amandine smiles. “Not just like you do, I expect.”

“Well, yes, maybe not.”

Eliot and Amandine are sitting at a table for four in Gustare. It’s nearly half past twelve on a Saturday afternoon. Héloïse is at the playground with Bertie and Frankie, while Eliot and Amandine wait for Sylvia and her mother.

“I don’t think they’re coming,”Amandine says.

“They will.”

“They’re already half an hour late.”

“Yes, well, Tina has never been the best timekeeper, I must admit. But she usually turns up in the end.”

“Usually?” Amandine sighs. “We should have gone to London, we should have met them there.”

Without taking his eyes off the door, Eliot reaches for his wife’s hand and squeezes her fingers.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be here.”

“Do you want another espresso?” Amandine pushes her chair back from the table and stands. “I’m having another espresso. Maybe two.”

She walks around the table but, just as she steps toward the counter, Eliot grabs for her hand again and pulls her back.

“They’re here,” he hisses, “they’re here.”

Amandine looks up to see the sullen teenager, along with an older, thinner, blonder version of her, pushing her way through the door.

“Oh,” Amandine exclaims, falling back into her chair as quickly as she can. She pats down her hair, smoothing her fingers through it for the fiftieth time that hour, then straightens her silk shirt and adjusts her long cotton skirt. Neither Sylvia nor Tina, Amandine notices, has made a similar effort with her wardrobe. Not that it matters, since both mother and daughter are quite stunningly beautiful. Amandine watches Tina cross the café floor as if it’s a catwalk, the delicate feet of her long, thin, denim-clad legs sashaying between the table, her elegant fingers brushing through a river of endless blond hair, her enormous blue eyes blinking, narrowing with distaste as she surveys the tiny café. She slides into the chair opposite Amandine, who now feels like a fat, bald dwarf and would have preferred that Eliot’s ex-girlfriend had sat a little farther away.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Amandine lies, extending her hand toward Tina, who shakes her head.

“Dirty taxi fingers,” she sniffs, wiggling them to showcase the dirty germs swarming all over her fingertips. “Is there a toilet in this place?”

Eliot and Amandine exchange a look.

“It’s just downstairs,” Amandine says, trying to blank out the image of teenage copulation that’s just flashed up in her mind, “at the back, on the right.”

Tina sighs, standing again. She casts a glance at Eliot as she sashays toward the stairs. “Double espresso.” She nods at Sylvia. “And no caffeine for her, no matter how much she begs. No pastries either.”

Sylvia, who still hasn’t sat down, watches her mother go. As Tina disappears, Eliot stands and hugs his daughter, who stiffens slightly.

“Thank you so much for coming,” he says, “it means a great deal to us. What would you like to drink? Orange juice? Apple?”

“If she’s having a double espresso, I’ll have one too.”

Eliot looks stricken. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but your mother said no. I agree with her too, you’re a little young. How about a cup of tea?”

Sylvia rolls her eyes. “I suppose. And a slice of pizza.”

Eliot nods and hurries off to the counter. Amandine watches him chatting with Cosima as she flicks on the cappuccino machine and stacks up a generous pile of almond biscuits onto a plate. Partly to pretend she isn’t feeling great big crashing waves of pure hatred rolling off Sylvia in her direction, Amandine focuses her gaze on her husband’s back and Cosima’s face. She’s too far away to feel exactly what Kat’s sister is feeling, but by the look on her face she’d swear it was love, pure love. Almost maternal. Strange. Very strange.

“So,” Sylvia snaps. “You’re the woman my dad’s shagging now.”

Amandine turns to Sylvia. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me.”

“Yes,” Amandine says carefully. “I did.”

“He’ll dump you too, you know, just like he dumped my mum. Men always do.”

“I, um,” Amandine hesitates. “I’m not sure that’s true.”

Sylvia rolls her eyes again. “Shows how much you know.”

“Well, I suppose I haven’t had very much experience. Your father was my first boyfriend, really.”

“Oh, jeez,” Sylvia says, eyes widening, “that’s so pathetic.”

“Really? I thought it was rather—”

And then, to Amandine’s undying relief, Eliot arrives with a tray full of food and drink. Amandine helps him unload it. Sylvia crosses her arms.

“They only had pizza with red peppers and mushrooms,” Eliot says. “Is that okay?”

Sylvia shrugs. “I’ll pick them off, I s’pose.” She snatches the cup of tea off the tray and then begins picking at the pizza.

A small but high-pitched shriek sounds from across the café. “Put down that pizza! Right now, young lady, don’t make me slap you!”

Eliot and Amandine look up at Tina striding toward them. Sylvia doesn’t look up but just rolls her eyes, taking a huge bite of pizza before dropping it onto the plate. Another angry squeal emanates from Tina as she reaches the table. She holds her open palm above her daughter’s head and, for one horrible moment, Amandine thinks she might actually carry out her threat. Instead, she takes her other hand to squeeze open Sylvia’s mouth, then scoops out the masticated pizza with her fingers and drops it onto the table.

“Gross.”

“It’s your own fault, missy,” Tina snaps. “I told you no carbs except on Sundays. How do you expect to lose weight when you never stop gobbling?”

Amandine wants, more than anything, to tell this woman not to speak to her daughter like this. She wants to nudge Eliot and tell him to say something. But she doesn’t. She just gives Sylvia a look of great sympathy and bites her tongue. But when the girl’s eyes fill with tears, Amandine can’t stop herself.

“I’m sure she doesn’t need to lose weight,” Amandine says softly. “She’s already so thin, and very beautiful.”

Tina snorts. “Well, she won’t stay that way unless I do something about it. She’ll be”—Tina casts a disapproving eye over Amandine—“fat and frumpy before you know it.”

“I doubt that,” Amandine says. “I don’t think it’d be possible.”

Ignoring her, Tina eyeballs her daughter. “Right, missy, get up. We’re going to find you some healthy food, grilled chicken and a Diet Coke. And we”—this time she eyeballs Eliot, and throws a meaningful glance in Amandine’s direction—“will have to lay some ground rules if you’re gonna have visitation rights, okay?”

Eliot looks at her, then at his daughter, then nods.

Tina takes Sylvia’s hand and begins pulling her out of the café. She turns around to her ex and Amandine. “We’ll be back in a bit, when you’ve finished scoffing all those buttery biscuits, then we can talk some more, okay?”

Amandine gives a short nod and Eliot manages a half smile. They sit in forced silence until Tina and Sylvia are out of the café and halfway down the street.

“I hate Tina,” Amandine whispers.

“I know. Me too.”

“I feel so sorry for Sylvia.”

“Me too.” Eliot sighs.

Amandine reaches for a biscuit. “Sylvia hates me.”

“She doesn’t.”

“She does, she really does.”

Eliot takes a biscuit. “Well, okay, but it won’t last. You’ll win her over, you’ll see.”