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Sylvie grinned back. What a gorgeous, kind woman her old pal was; she deserved much better than she got.
‘How’s Tim?’ Marielle asked, looking at the tea menu. How could she possibly choose between forty variations?
‘Rampant as always,’ said Sylvie.
Marielle hooted.
‘Are you complaining?’
‘I certainly am not,’ said Sylvie adamantly. ‘I consider myself very lucky. Not sure what’ll happen when I start losing it and dribbling but I’m enjoying myself for now.’
‘You shouldn’t be wondering about what’s to come when you have no need,’ said Marielle. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to even consider that Sal would leave me a young widow. You have to believe you’ll live for ever.’
Sylvie smiled sympathetically. She’d never met Salvatore, which was just as well really because she didn’t do ‘lovable cads’. A cheat was a cheat in her book and they weren’t to be forgiven. But it wasn’t her judgement call. Marielle had been happy with him in those last years and Salvatore had finally realised what he had in her.
The breakfast special arrived, three tiers of cake plates with warm croissants, pain au chocolat and cinnamon whirls on the bottom, potato rosti cakes with bacon and poached eggs in the middle, avocado and scrambled eggs and tiny glasses filled with various yogurts and muesli on the top.
‘We’ll never eat all this,’ said Marielle.
‘Let’s give it our best shot,’ replied Sylvie, cutting into a croissant and smothering it with honey butter. ‘How are things with you? Any news about the Ciaoissimo bastards?’
‘No. Sadly they haven’t gone bankrupt and no freak meteorite has landed on their property.’
‘Nothing more from Cilla?’
‘No also to that. I think we’re best staying away from each other for the time being.’
‘How’s the lodger? Has she managed to remember anything else?’
‘Bits and bobs,’ replied Marielle, with an unconscious sigh that Sylvie registered. ‘Not enough to get her back to where she should be.’
‘I hope she isn’t outstaying her welcome. She’s been there longer than anyone else has.’ Sylvie bit down on her croissant with unaccustomed savagery.
‘Not at all,’ replied Marielle. If it hadn’t been for that missing purse, she thought she could have quite happily let Sabrina stay in the flat for ever. She had been such unassuming, gentle company, at least before it had gone wrong. Shehad even tried to forget it and move on. There was only thirty pounds in the purse and when she’d rung the bank to stop her card, they’d told her no one had attempted to use it. She wished now she’d just had a conversation with her face to face about it before it had got so big in her head. She was too soft; everyone was right about her, giving people far too much scope to hurt her.
‘You know you can talk to me about anything in confidence if you ever need to,’ said Sylvie, suddenly serious.
‘I know,’ replied Marielle. ‘And the same goes for me with you.’
‘I would always turn to you first,’ said Sylvie, glancing upwards at the clock on the wall. They’d be there now. By the time they finished this breakfast, Marielle’s problem, the one she wouldn’t share with them because she was likely too embarrassed about it, would be long gone.
Sabrina felt stupidly cheerful that morning, as if some of yesterday’s early sunshine had lodged inside her and was sloshing around, and it was all the fault of Teddy Bonetti. Though he hadn’t really done much to cause her to feel as if she had springs in her shoes, other than to say he had enjoyed spending the day with her and he liked her.
He had driven her home last night and she thought he might have kissed her on the cheek as she said goodnight, but he didn’t. But she could see that he wanted to and had held back for the reasons he had mentioned in the restaurant – and that was enough to make her smile all the way up the stairs to the flat like a teenage girl whose heart started thudding every time she caught so much as a glimpse of a certain teenage boy. She smiled all the way through her shower and through the cup of tea she made in an effort tounwind because the fizz in her veins wouldn’t be letting her go to sleep any time soon.
When she did get to bed, she wondered if the translation of all those stutterings was that he meant she had a place in this life if the other one – the real one – turned out to be somewhere she didn’t want to go back to. After all, she’d left it, hadn’t she? But had sheleftit. For ever?
She couldn’t stay in this limbo for much longer. Whatever was trying to protect her had done its duty; now it had to let her into the truth of who Sabrina Anderson was. Whatever bad stuff was behind the door, her daughter was there too and if that meant she had to break it down in order to find her again, then so be it. She was strong enough now, she was sure of it.
The last thing she’d done that night was pray.
‘Dear God, I’m ready to know everything now. Please help me.’ That’s all she needed to say to him if he was listening.
She was just getting her shoes on for work when the flat doorbell rang. She walked down the stairs to answer it. She opened the door just a little to see who it was, but as soon as she had, it was pushed hard from the other side and Diana, whom she’d met in the fish-and-chip restaurant when she and Marielle had had lunch there, barged in, followed by three other women.
‘Good morning,’ said Diana. ‘Can we have a word? It’s about Marielle.’
‘Of course,’ said Sabrina, slightly confused because Diana didn’t sound half as friendly as she had the last time they’d met. She went back up the stairs into the flat with the women following behind her.
