SOME PEOPLE HAVE GURUS. I have Enid Lazzari, the red-haired midget, who has calves that suggest ultra marathon running and wears expensive business suits when she’s not in her China-girl outfits. It appears I shall never escape her. Even now, after so many months, I know she’s out there and part of me expects her to call. When she eventually does, a few weeks after the traffic cops’ visit, I’m unsurprised.
‘Beware of strangers from afar,’ her singsong voice says late one weekday night when presumably she knows Simone will already have gone to bed.
‘Hello, Enid. Isn’t that a tad melodramatic, even for you? What are you doing with yourself these days? Are you still hiding away in the last palace of the empress?’
‘Do not mock what you do not understand, Ms Dante. Have you heard from Gabriel lately?’
Enid is the psychotherapist who once treated my husband for night terrors. She will not have it other than that her patient is Gabriel Montaigne, son of Marie-France Montaigne, the boy who’d once lived in a cult.
‘You mean Daniel,’ I say. ‘Oh yes, of course. I missed his call yesterday but he calls regularly. He tells me about his new life in Montreal and how much he likes it there. It’s cold all the time so he can stay indoors and work on the next book, and best of all – wait for this − nobody knows where he is! It’s a writer’s paradise.’
‘I thought that was Ireland.’
‘What do you care anyway? You’re just Daniel’s quack doctor that keeps him stuck in the past.’
A small sigh comes down the line. ‘I’d forgotten how stimulating our late-night conversations could be.’
‘And Canada’s huge. You can go on one of those snowmobiles for days and days, and every time it snows your tracks get obliterated. That’s why Daniel never hid away on St Helena. Too small.’
‘Ms Dante, I do not have all the time in the world.’
‘I suppose you’ve heard from him.’
‘Once or twice.’
She is an infuriating woman. What on earth does Daniel see in her? Why does he stay in touch with her?
‘Is he still having the dreams?’ I ask in spite of myself.
‘You know the rules. I am not at liberty to discuss my patient.’
Your patient. I hate you.
‘So who are these people from afar? That’s why you called, isn’t it?’
‘There are rumours. So many forces released, so many open doors, a maze of possibilities … It’s difficult to know. She escaped – that was not supposed to happen. A whirlwind with the girl at its centre. It must play itself out.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘Messengers from Gabriel’s past are in town. The past is never as far from the present as we think. Goodnight.’