The Patron Saint of Lost Souls

by Menna Van Praag

  He shrugs. ‘That’s why we’ve not … Congratulations.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I take it you’re now dating the guy you used to think about while you were fucking me.’

  Viola sighs. ‘Do you have to be so …’

  ‘Do you have to be so … timide?’

  ‘What’s – never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Viola turns and walks away.

  ‘Wait!’

  She stops and walks back into the kitchen. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t stop fighting,’ Henri says, ‘just because you’re in love.’

  Viola looks at him. ‘Who says I’m in love?’

  Henri sighs. ‘I’ve not seen you leave work before 2 a.m. in – what? – the past six months. But, I don’t care how great this guy is, don’t do that thing girls always do. You’re better than that.’

  Viola frowns. ‘What thing?’

  Henri sighs. ‘Women. They’re amazing, until they fall for some guy, then they give up everything and lose themselves in the relationship. It’s pathetic.’

  ‘Women don’t do that,’ Viola says, though she really has no idea one way or the other. ‘And I certainly won’t.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  Viola regards Henri suspiciously. ‘Why are you encouraging me to compete with you?’

  Henri shrugs, as if he doesn’t care one way or the other. ‘What’s the fun in winning if it’s not really a competition?’

  Viola laughs. ‘So, you’re still so sure you’ll win, no matter what?’

  ‘But, of course.’ He walks towards her. ‘Still, a good fight is a glorious thing.’ When he’s standing only a foot in front of Viola he gives her that look, the way he’s looked at her every time they fucked. ‘When it’s between two worthy adversaries.’ Henri reaches up to tuck a stray curl behind Viola’s ear. ‘Don’t you think?’

  Viola pulls away before he can touch her. ‘Oh, I’ll give you a good fight,’ she says. ‘You can count on it.’ And then she turns again and walks away.

  ‘Are you sure it’s OK that I stay the night?’

  Mathieu nods. ‘So long as you don’t mind hiding out here until I take Hugo to school?’

  Viola smiles. ‘We’re like teenagers, hiding from our parents.’

  ‘I know,’ Mathieu says. ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? But I just, I don’t want to – he’s suffered so much already and …’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Viola says. ‘You don’t have to—I understand. I feel the same way. And I’d hate to be the cause of him suffering any more.’

  Mathieu sighs. ‘I’d hoped he’d be OK by now. At least, I thought he wouldn’t still be feeling everything so keenly. It’s been … it’s over three years since … she died.’

  Viola sits up in bed, folding her knees and pulling the sheet up to her chin. ‘And don’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  Viola rests her chin on her knees. ‘Feel everything so keenly. I mean, you loved her.’

  Mathieu nods.

  ‘And just because she died, you didn’t – you haven’t – stopped loving her.’

  Mathieu says nothing, but now Viola nods.

  ‘And she was his mother. She’s irreplaceable.’

  Mathieu sighs.

  ‘I mean,’ Viola says. ‘My mother drives me crazy. And half the time I’m escaping her. But, I know, when she dies … I’ll probably never stop expecting her to call. And Hugo was so young, too young to start being driven crazy by his mum. So, for him she’ll always be perfect.’

  Mathieu looks at her. ‘I thought you knew nothing about children.’

  Viola shrugs. ‘I’ve learnt a thing or two from my crazy mother,’ Viola says. ‘She has her moments. You’ve just got to pick and choose her pearls of wisdom from her mad rantings about men.’

  Mathieu raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yes? I think I’d like to meet her.’

  Viola smiles. ‘Never.’

  Mathieu looks mock-appalled. ‘You mean, you’re not even going to invite her to the wedding? That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?’

  Viola reaches to give him a light slap. ‘Stop joking about that.’

  ‘About what? I’ve never joked about your mother before, you’ve never even – this is the first time you’ve mentioned her.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Viola says. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’

  Now Mathieu sits up. ‘Virginie and I got married four months after we met.’

  Viola nods. ‘Well, that’s very romantic. But we’ve only known each other a month, less – twenty-four days.’

  Mathieu smiles. ‘But who’s counting. So, we’re being slow. Virginie proposed to me the night we met.’

  ‘She proposed to you? Impressive.’

  Mathieu nods.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But then I’d been in love with her for weeks already, so that was easy.’

  Viola frowns. ‘How could you have loved her before you’d even met her?’

  Mathieu sighs. ‘Oh, my child, how little you know of love.’

  Viola slaps him again.

  ‘I’d seen her. She was famous, at university. I saw her often, although she’d never seen me.’

  Viola smiles and lifts her head. ‘So, you have a long history of stalking? Perhaps I should have known that, before I got involved.’

  ‘I wasn’t stalking,’ Mathieu protests. ‘I was just shy. And, anyway, you were stalking me too.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ Viola objects. ‘I was merely keeping an eye open, just in case you happened to pass by.’

  Mathieu laughs. ‘Well, I’m only glad Cambridge is so tiny, or we might have lived our whole lives here and never seen each other again, always missing each other around every corner.’

  ‘It’s funny to imagine, isn’t it?’ Viola says. ‘How much of our lives are determined by total coincidence.’

  ‘Coincidence?’ Mathieu says, incredulous. ‘It was nothing of the sort. It was serendipity, fate. It was meant to be. If I hadn’t seen you on Trinity Street that day I would have seen you another day. I don’t know how it would have happened, but I’ve no doubt it would.’

  Viola grins. ‘Fate, eh? I had no idea you were such a hopeless romantic.’

  Mathieu leans in to kiss her. ‘Oh, ma chérie, there’s so much you don’t know about me.’

  She holds back. ‘All good, I hope.’

  ‘Most of it.’ Mathieu smiles. ‘Did I mention I’m a Scientologist?’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Open it and see.’

  ‘Tell me first,’ Viola says. ‘I’m no good at surprises.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Mathieu says. ‘What would life be without surprises?’

  ‘A lot more predictable.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Viola fingers the edge of the envelope. ‘Just give me a clue.’

  ‘It’s a good surprise.’

  Viola hesitates.

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘Alright, alright,’ Viola says, then rips it open.

  She stares at the tickets.

  ‘Paris?’

  ‘Yes, Paris,’ Mathieu says, his voice high, excited. ‘Paris for Christmas. What could be better than that?’

  ‘That’s … wow.’

  ‘Aren’t you pleased?’

  Viola looks up. ‘Of course, I am. I’m really, really touched.’

  Mathieu frowns. ‘But? I can sense a “but” coming.’

  ‘But,’ Viola hesitates. ‘I’m really sorry, I can’t go.’

  Mathieu’s frown deepens. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, first of all, my interview – the cooking competition – is on Christmas Eve. And—’

  ‘So, then we’ll catch a later train,’ Mathieu says. ‘When is it? We’ll catch the last train to Paris from London. We’ll arrive late. My brother can pick us up from the station. It’ll be fine, it’ll be perfect.’

  Viola shakes her head. ‘I can’t.’
>
  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For one thing, I can’t guarantee—I don’t know exactly when the competition will be over.’

  ‘Well, when does it start?’

  ‘Eight a.m.’

  ‘So, surely it’ll be done by—’

  ‘No,’ Viola says. ‘There’s five of us cooking, I don’t know what anyone else has planned. I wouldn’t want to let you down, if I couldn’t make it.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, you wouldn’t be – you could just call me that evening, let me know,’ Mathieu says. ‘And we’ll wait for you, if …’

  Viola shakes her head. ‘That doesn’t seem fair.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, that’s not—’

  ‘Stop saying that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stop calling me silly.’

  Mathieu frowns. ‘I’m not calling you silly, I’m just saying – look, why are we fighting about this? I don’t understand. It was supposed to be a nice surprise, I meant to … I thought you’d be happy about it.’

  Viola seems about to say something else, then sighs. ‘I’m sorry. It is. It is a nice surprise, it’s a lovely gesture.’ She pauses. ‘It’s just …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look.’ Viola takes a deep breath. ‘You know what you’re doing with all this’ – she circles her hand in the air – ‘relationship stuff. I haven’t got a clue.’

  Mathieu reaches up and takes her hand and holds it, between his palms, to his chest. ‘But aren’t we good?’ he asks. ‘Isn’t everything OK? I thought you were happy.’

  ‘I am happy,’ Viola says.

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’ he asks. ‘Why don’t you want to come to Paris?’

  ‘Oh, Matt, I do want to go to Paris,’ she says. ‘It’s just – it might be better to wait, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, the timing – it’d be better after the competition and …’ She pauses, picking her words as she watches him, his eyes anxious, wide. ‘And, perhaps, when … when Hugo isn’t so … wary of me.’

  Mathieu sighs. ‘So that’s what this is about.’

  ‘No,’ Viola protests. ‘It’s not only that, not at all. I know it’s Christmas but we can go to Paris anytime. This is all going so quickly and, I really need to focus right now, the competition is only a few weeks away and—’

  Mathieu lets go of Viola’s hand. ‘You want to slow down? Is that what you’re saying? That this is going too fast for you?’

  ‘No, no,’ Viola says. ‘It’s just …’

  ‘What?’

  She avoids his gaze. ‘I’ve … I’ve spent my whole life focusing on my career, on my cooking, on being the best I can possibly be. And now, now I’m up for – I could be the youngest head chef at the La Feuille de Laurier. And, I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means everything to me—’

  ‘Everything?’

  Viola sighs. ‘No, of course you and—’

  ‘You don’t love me?’ Now Mathieu forces her to meet his gaze.

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Viola says. ‘But you’re asking me to choose, between you and my job. And it’s more than a job to me. It’s … me. So you’re asking me to choose between you and me.’

  Mathieu pulls back. ‘I’m not, I wouldn’t. Of course I wouldn’t ask you to do that. I-I didn’t realise that’s how you felt. You never told me, so how was I supposed to know?’

  ‘You’re right,’ Viola says. ‘I’m sorry, you weren’t. I didn’t … I should have said. I just, well, I didn’t want to have this whole’ – she circles her hand in mid-air again – ‘thing. I didn’t want to upset you.’

  Mathieu manages a wry smile. ‘Well, thank goodness we avoided doing that.’

  Viola reaches for him. ‘I’m sorry. It’ll all be easier after all this is over. When I’ve won, or lost. When I don’t have to work like a crazy person every hour of the day any more.’

  Mathieu lets her take his hand back, finger entwined. ‘Perhaps,’ he says. ‘But I can’t imagine you’ll stop working like a crazy person, job or not. It’s who you are.’

  Viola frowns. ‘Are you calling me crazy?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mathieu smiles. ‘Completely and utterly crazy. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jude no longer asks her niece over breakfast what she wants to do that day, since she already knows the answer. They don’t say much to each other while Jude dusts the antiques and Gertie paces a furrow in the Persian rugs waiting for the next customer to walk through the door. Now and then Jude glances at her niece, smiling at her desire and hoping that it’s soon fulfilled.

  ‘I want to live here,’ Gertie says.

  Jude puts down her duster. ‘Here? Really? But, we don’t have a kitchen, a bathroom or even a proper bedroom – this isn’t really a house.’

  Gertie stops pacing. ‘Yeah, but I bet it was once, hundreds of years ago. It feels like a house. It feels like …’

  Jude waits for Gertie to finish. She knows now to not prompt her niece, not to pursue her silences with words, like a fox trying to ferret a rabbit out of a hole, but instead wait for Gertie to emerge from her silence in her own time.

  ‘Home.’

  There it is. And, in that moment, Jude knows that, no matter the chaos or the expense, she will turn Gatsby’s into their home.

  ‘I wanted to go back to Mum’s house, before,’ Gertie continues. ‘And I don’t like your flat. But I … I love it here, I don’t want to leave.’

  ‘Then we won’t.’

  For the following four hours, while Jude dusts, Gertie chatters about her plans for moving, how she’s going to set everything up, how they’ll sleep upstairs in the office, how they can fit a tiny kitchen and bathroom on the second floor, how they can eat their dinner downstairs on the counter among the antiques, how, how, how …

  When the first customer walks in, Gertie instantly stops talking and looks up. She waits for the woman to venture further inside, waits for her to start settling into the shop, to begin absorbing the feeling of the furniture, the smell of things steeped in history, the essence of beauty revealed and wishes fulfilled.

  Then Gertie walks towards the woman, who is now examining the engraved glass book cabinet, her fingers tracing circles of awe along the elaborate curls. She crouches next to it for some time before realising that Gertie is standing next to her. The woman glances up, startled out of her reverie.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ she says. ‘I was just looking. Isn’t it lovely?’

  Gertie nods.

  ‘It will look so beautiful in my bedroom. I know just what I’ll put inside – not just books but my very favourite—’

  ‘Sorry,’ Gertie says. ‘But it’s not for you.’

  ‘What?’ The woman asks, taken aback. ‘You think I can’t afford it? I don’t care how much it costs. I know it’s mine, I can feel it.’

  Gertie shakes her head. ‘You want it to be, like you want him to be. But he’s not yours either and you can’t change that.’

  Now the woman looks at Gertie as if she’s seen a ghost. ‘What – how do you know that?’

  At last, the effortless shrug. ‘You can buy it, if you want,’ Gertie says. ‘But it won’t bring him to you. I promise.’

  Jude gazes at her niece, wondering where her visions come from, along with the way she speaks when she’s speaking to customers – as if she’s some sort of wizened, wise soothsayer.

  The woman stands, tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she says, though self-doubt pulses through her words. ‘He will fall in love with me, if … I don’t need anything from your stupid shop to help me. I’ll do it alone.’

  Gertie doesn’t say anything, she just gives the woman such a sorrowful look that Jude can tell that she’s not simply sad for this stranger but for herself. And it’s all Jude can do not to hurl herself across the shop floor and pull her niece into her arms. With great
force of will, she stays rooted to her spot next to the grandfather clock.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gertie says, suddenly seeming so much older than her eleven years. ‘But not all wishes come true.’

  Chapter Forty

  ‘I think I’ve found a solution to the problem.’ Mathieu sits at Viola’s kitchen table, watching her cook.

  ‘What problem?’ Viola asks, stirring the pea and mint soup.

  ‘The Paris problem.’

  Viola grinds up lavender leaves with her pestle. ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘I was going to take you to Paris,’ Mathieu says. ‘For—’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  ‘Well, I was thinking, I could take you a few days before Christmas,’ Mathieu says. ‘That way it wouldn’t collide with the competition. And you could have a few days to relax before the big event.’

  Viola sprinkles the lavender dust into the soup.

  ‘What do you think?’

  She stirs the soup again.

  ‘Vi?’

  Viola turns, still holding the wooden spoon.

  ‘You don’t want to go?’

  ‘No, it’s just …’

  ‘You’re always saying that.’

  ‘Well …’

  Mathieu sighs. ‘You’re always saying that too. Whenever you’re getting ready to reject me.’

  ‘Hey, that’s not fair,’ Viola objects. ‘I’m not rejecting you. It’s ju—I won’t be able to relax until this competition is done.’ She thinks. ‘I’d be no fun to be with at all. It’d be a waste of a trip to Paris.’

  ‘But, haven’t you prepared enough?’ Mathieu says. ‘You’ve chosen your menu. And you must have cooked each dish a thousand times – it won’t get better if you cook it a thousand times more.’

  ‘I’ve not cooked it a thousand times,’ Viola says. ‘And anyway, if I have, it improves every time. I’m refining, polishing, testing slight variations on the ingredients – just like you do when you’re writing your research. I bet you polish every paper, editing every word until you think it’s perfect, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mathieu admits.

  ‘Well, it’s just the same for me.’

  ‘Alright,’ Mathieu says. ‘Point taken. So, how about a night in a posh hotel? Relaxing – even a little – is also an essential part of preparing for a major competition.’