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We sit at the same outside table and order a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé. The last time we were here Alister gave me a serve about my seminar performance and I came close to making a run for it. Tonight is a date. An even better reason to make a run for it, but so far I’m sitting at the folding table on the folding chair, sipping wine and deciphering the menu, while my companion does the same.
I tell him about Genevieve and Gaston.
“Congratulations,” he says.
“I didn’t do anything, Alister. Genevieve barged in. Gaston couldn’t run away. The rest is history.”
“You did everything. You made the contact that made the barging possible. I tried to talk you out of it, remember? But you ignored me as usual. And you were right. You should start respecting your intuition.”
“It wasn’t intuition. I had my own reasons for wanting to speak to Gaston. I thought he might have some insights into my disappearance. In the end he didn’t, but he did a translation for me.” Which has caused me no end of trouble.
“You reminded him he’s still a man. That’s important to any guy, especially a guy like him. That’s why he didn’t send Gennie away. By the time he’d spent time with you – an attractive woman who didn’t mind his company, who brought him pastries and greeted him with a kiss on the cheeks – he was ready to allow Gennie in.”
“But she’s his wife.”
“And he’s hurt her badly. All the more reason for him to cut her dead. You’d softened him up enough to let that first moment pass.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“You never give yourself credit.”
“Can we talk about something else? Listing my finer qualities is my least favourite subject.”
“I’ve noticed. What would you like to talk about?”
It’s the old question and I laugh. I dodge the forbidden things – such as the imminent arrival of Miguel – and tell him about Davina.
“I’ve always thought there’s something secretive about her,” he says. “She’s vibrant but she holds something back.”
“Her real identity by the sound of it. Fabienne thinks I should be wary of her, but she hasn’t told me what she knows.”
I don’t mention the whole chameleon-lizard connection. It’s too bizarre, even for me.
“It depends on what Davina’s hiding,” he says. “Her real name, her true identity, but why? You and I have changed our names and our reasons aren’t sinister.”
His professional name is Lester. Long story.
“Speak for yourself.”
He laughs. “What do you think about Davina? She’s your friend.”
“So I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.” Something I learnt from Gretel when she stood up for me as a child. “Davina said she’ll tell me the whole story when I get back.” If she’s still there.
The entrées arrive. Spicy French-style dim sums that only look Chinese.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” Alister says. “I’m leaving town before Gaston’s party.”
“You can’t. He’s invited you. I don’t think he knows many people. You’ve got to come.”
“It wouldn’t be fair on Gennie. I won’t cramp her style.”
“What about my style? I promised Gaston I’d be there, and I won’t know anyone else besides Genevieve.”
“I’ve made up my mind.”
“But I’ve only just told you about Genevieve and Gaston. You’d already decided.”
“I’d decided to leave soon. I just hadn’t decided when.”
“So this is a farewell dinner.”
“In a way. I’m going to Honolulu, so I’ll see you when you get back.”
So casual. He’s cooled off. I’ve been getting up the courage to kiss him again – maybe even tonight – then see where it leads after a glass or two of Dutch courage. But he’s had enough. Taking that phone call from Judy a few days ago, when we were on a trajectory to his boudoir, was one obstacle too far. The long game I thought he was playing just got short. Very short.
Shit.
He’s watching the emotions flitting across my face. I know I’ve got one of those readable faces. Where’s that donkey skin now? Ugly would be better than transparent. I take a sip of wine to give my thoughts some space to do an editorial loop. Space... He’s given me the space I asked for, and now he doesn’t want me any more. But I want him.
In a kind of trance, I hide my hands under the table and slip off my spoon bangle. When the soup arrives, Alister has a word to the waiter and I drop the bangle into his bowl. It’s stupid to think a fairytale is going to be the blueprint for my future, but I’m cutting my intuition some slack.
He finds it, of course. It’s not hiding coyly at the bottom of the bowl like Donkey Skin’s ring. It’s wallowing there like an anchor in a bathtub.
He laughs. “How did this get here? Are you giving it back?” He’s not supposed to be laughing. “Sounds final.”
“It’s just a fairytale thing,” I say. “Like the slipper or the ring. You find it and you’re so obsessed you have to track down the woman who fits it.”
“Then marry her and make her my queen.”
I blush. “Now I feel like an idiot.” Again. So much for intuition.
I try to grab the bangle back, but he’s wiping it on his napkin. “I know who it fits. So I’ll keep it until I find her.”
“Too deep for me,” I say. “And you can’t keep it. I need it back.”
“Why?”
He hasn’t remembered that a spoon was one of my clues.
“It’s my talisman. Like my dress.”
“Good. I’d love to know how it works. And you can have it back. But I liked the idea of trying it on the wrist of every maiden in the land. I might have met someone...legendary.”
Clever. “OK. I deserved that.”
He slips it onto my wrist and keeps hold of my hand. “What did you think just now, when I said I was returning to Hawaii?”
“Your soup’s getting cold.”
“Have you ever studied psychology, Selkie?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll remember the concept of ‘fact’ and ‘frame’.”
“Remind me.”
“A fact is just a fact. I’m returning to Honolulu. The frame is the meaning another person attributes to the fact. For example, someone might think I’m leaving...because I don’t love them any more.”
Shit.
“But that ‘frame’ isn’t correct.”
I swallow. “So why are you leaving?”
He pauses and I notice his eyes. Bright. He’s almost in tears. “A private investigator thinks he’s found Deshi. My son might be living in Honolulu.”
“Wow. That’s huge.” But a word has popped into my head. No. As if my intuition knows it isn’t him. I push it aside and say instead, “You’ve been looking for him for a long time.”
He nods. “I tried on my own at first. That was hopeless. I was grieving for Fleur and my desperation only closed doors. Everywhere I turned, her relatives in San Francisco shut me out. Fleur’s cousin was the only one who’d talk to me. He told me to back off, but he put me onto a Chinese PI. As soon as I could afford it, he started the search. It’s why I couldn’t come to the airport when you left Honolulu. We had a meeting. He had some promising leads.”
The word ‘labyrinth’ comes to mind.
“We thought we’d found him about five years ago...”
I mentally finish the sentence: But it wasn’t him. Maybe there’s a queue of young Eurasian guys wanting to be Alister’s son. Looking for a long-lost daddy. Or an inheritance. I wish him luck and mean it.
To celebrate our last night together, we go for the ‘bombes Beijings’ – renamed by mutual wit and too much wine. Then the evening is over. We both know I won’t be going back to his place, so he walks me home. A quick tumble on his rented bed the night before he leaves town isn’t going to be how it happens. And the space between us that I’d tried to smother with my insecurities has been filled by the living spectre of Deshi.
Our kiss on Fabienne’s doorstep takes its cue from the end of an old movie – romantic, lingering, sweet. Full of promise.
***
Neither Genevieve nor Gaston gets in touch. It’s a good sign. They’ve forgotten about me. I check Gaston’s bloglo but there’s no new entry. I’m guessing she’s moved in and they’re getting to know each other all over again. A bittersweet time. Five missing years to catch up on over a few days, then...wham, she’s back where she was before, without her man. I remember the remission of the girl at uni with MS. Is the suffering easier for having had that one brief glimpse of joy?
Judy calls with the news we were both expecting. The fire assessors have ruled an electrical fault, not arson. It confirms what Andrew’s alibi showed.
She summarises from the report. “It started in the kitchen, under the fridge. It seems that one of its back feet was standing on the cord.”
Already I’m on alert. “So why didn’t the fridge wobble?”
“They don’t comment on that. But over time the sharp metal edge of the foot must have frayed the cable right through, causing a spark. There was some shredded paper behind the fridge. A mouse nest, according to Andrew.”
The mousetrap. A smokescreen. Smoke and mirrors, to overdo the puns. Because I’ve remembered what’s been bothering me.
“It’s a setup.”
“How can you say that?”
“It’s exactly what happened to Andrew’s uncle – how his factory burnt down.”
I tell her about the bar fridge in his uncle’s office, how the foot was on the cord and how it wore right through the insulation until one night it sparked.
“OK,” Judy says. “I believe you. But how could Andrew manipulate that? He wouldn’t know when the fire was going to happen.”
“No. That’s what’s so perfect about it. Fray the cord a little to get it started and wait.”
“But it might never cause a fire, and he was living in the house. Those old weatherboards went up like a bonfire.”
“I’ll bet he’s installed smoke alarms recently. And the main bedroom’s a long way from the kitchen, with new double doors opening onto the stone veranda.”
Judy’s quiet for a few minutes. “There’s nothing you can do, Selkie. The uncle’s fire isn’t evidence. Even if you tell the assessors, they can’t prove any of it. The frayed cord looks like an accident. Andrew’s even got a photo of the mousetrap, of him pushing it behind the fridge.”
Thanks to Juliet. Thank God he didn’t kill her.
Judy’s right: there’s nothing I can do. Except wait for her next email outlining the costs involved in suing him for half the insurance money. I hang up feeling the rage and impotence that Andrew always inspires.