Without taking her eyes off me, Stella whacked Maury across his paunch. “You have to try the stuffed neck,” she said. “Apparently it’s to die for.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a go at that,” Hugh said.
“Have you ever tried it?” she said. “I only ask because Hugh isn’t a very Jewish name.”
Hugh ignored the comment. “Yes, many times—at Tally’s nana Ida’s. She’s a wonderful cook.”
“Isn’t she? Although I have to say, her
plava
cake tends to be a bit on the dry side.”
Hugh and I exchanged glances.
“And don’t fill up on the bread,” Stella said to nobody in particular. “You need to pace yourself.” Suddenly she started wagging her finger at me. “So who’s been a naughty girl and not returned my salad spinner?”
“I’m very sorry, Stella, but all the wedding presents were at Josh’s flat, so I left them to him to take care of.”
“Don’t worry. It wasn’t expensive and we got a hefty discount at the cash and carry, and if you put it down to a business expense, you get back the tax, so it practically didn’t cost us anything.”
“That’s good to know,” I said.
Hugh and I had just started looking at the menu when, knock me down with a matzo ball, Scarlett and Grace walked in, and behind them was Josh’s cousin Napoleon and his partner, Ed.
I started waving and calling out to Scarlett. She nudged Grace, who waved back.
“What are you guys doing here?” I said to Scarlett. “I thought you were at cousin Loretta’s.”
“We were. I mean, we are,” Grace said, “but my entire family is at her house weeping and wailing. I don’t get it. My aunt Desree was a hundred and three. Scarlett and I just had to get out for a couple of hours. We were on our way into town when we saw the crowd outside this place and thought we’d try it.”
“And they ended up behind us in the queue,” Napoleon said. “Small world.” He turned to me. “It’s so good to see you, Tally.”
“You, too.”
“Look, are you OK with me being here? If it’s too painful, Ed and I can go.”
If I was honest, it did feel uncomfortable being in Napoleon’s company again. I associated him with Josh and my wedding day. On the other hand, he’d been so kind to me that day and he was behaving the same way now. He really was a sweet, thoughtful soul.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I’d like you to stay.”
He smiled. “Thank you. So how are you?”
“I think I’m getting there.”
“The healing process takes time,” he said, “but you’re looking good.”
“She’s too skinny,” Stella piped up.
Something made me want to ask Napoleon if he’d heard anything from Josh, but self-preservation kicked in and stopped me.
Scarlett hugged Hugh and said how great it was to see him after all this time.
People who didn’t know one another were introduced, and Stella insisted on chairs and another table being added to the one we already had—causing complete chaos, because from then on, the waiters could hardly navigate around us. Then Stella suggested it was too hot where we were and maybe we should ask to move. Maury said that if she made any more fuss, he was leaving. We stayed put.
“So what do you do?” Stella said to Napoleon. He told her he was a psychotherapist.
“And you, Ed?”
“I’m actually a sex therapist.”
“No! Fascinating. I’ve never met a sex therapist. So you help couples who are having difficulties with the—er—physical side of things.”
“Yes. Mainly gay couples.”
“OK, but you must know a bit about straight relationships. I mean, if we’re talking about frequency, what would you say is normal?”
“I’m not sure that there’s any such thing,” Ed said. “If a couple is happy with their sex life, then whatever the frequency, that’s normal for them.”
“You know,” Stella said, “Maury’s always had a low sex drive. Once, twice a month. Then our youngest was born with red hair, and we both have dark hair. I could see only one reason for it. Rust.” Stella cackled. Poor Maury just rolled his eyes. Everybody else just looked embarrassed.
Stella drew Ed closer and lowered her voice. “And you know, his penis—when it’s, you know, ahem, erect—it’s completely bent. It’s like a banana.”
Scarlett and I, who could hear everything, didn’t know where to look.
“It’s called Peyronies disease,” Ed said, totally deadpan, as you would expect from a sex therapist. “Usually it’s harmless, but he should get it checked out.”
“Really? You know, I’m such a hypochondriac. So was my mother. She used to swallow M&M’s with water.”
“So who’s ready to order?” I said, trying to get the subject off Maury’s banana penis.
Everybody said they needed a few more minutes.
Just then the waiter appeared with Cokes for Stella and Maury, which they had ordered before we arrived.
Stella sipped her Coke. “You sure this is Diet?” she said, frowning at the waiter.
“Absolutely.”
“It doesn’t taste like Diet. Maury, taste this. Let me taste yours.”
Maury rolled his eyes. “Would it hurt you to have regular once in your life?”
“Just swap.”
They swapped. Stella tasted Maury’s Coke and handed it back. Then she tasted hers again and made me, Scarlett and Grace taste it. Only when everybody had agreed it was Diet Coke did she let the waiter go. By then the glass was half empty.
Finally we ordered. The service was excellent. Pretty soon chicken soup, chopped liver and boiled fish balls were arriving along with cucumbers, olives and baskets of bread. Conversation-wise, Scarlett and Grace seemed to be really hitting it off with Napoleon and Ed. Hugh and Maury were discussing opera, which I couldn’t help finding surprising. I’d always assumed that Maury had hidden shallows. I ended up with Stella, who told me she was about to undergo “major surgery.”
“It’s an ingrowing toenail,” Maury butted in.
“What do you know? I’ve been in agony for months.” She turned back to me. “Of course, it wasn’t easy finding a surgeon. If you call the nurse and he can fit you in, you know to put the phone down immediately.”
Two hours later we got the bill. Stella put on her reading glasses and spent ten minutes going through it. “This isn’t right,” she kept saying. “We never ordered that. Who had an extra order of latkes?”
It took twenty minutes, but eventually we got it sorted. It turned out that the restaurant hadn’t made a single mistake, but Stella still refused to leave a tip. Maury left one anyway, along with the rest of us.
Afterwards, we said our good-byes. Stella promised to invite everybody to dinner but didn’t take a single phone number or e-mail address. After Stella and Maury had gone, Scarlett asked if anybody was up for going to a bar in Soho. Napoleon and Ed were game, but Hugh and I both had extra-early starts the next day and opted to head home. Just before we parted company I found myself turning to Napoleon. In the end I couldn’t resist asking if he’d heard from Josh.
He shook his head. “No. He seems to have gone quiet. All I know is that he’s decided to stay in Edinburgh for good.”
“So you don’t know if he’s got a new job or whether he’s seeing anybody?” God, why was I punishing myself like this?
“I don’t.”
I nodded. There was nothing else to say.
Hugh and I started walking back to the car. “That must have felt awkward,” he said. “Napoleon showing up.”
“It was a bit. But he’s a lovely chap.” I told him about Napoleon breaking the news to me that Josh had done a runner and how kind he had been.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get any time together tonight,” I said.
Hugh smiled. “What an evening, though. I have to say, I’ve never met anybody like your cousin Stella. She’s dreadful, but at the same time oddly entertaining.”
I said he was being polite and that
entertaining
wasn’t the word I’d choose.
We reached my flat and Hugh turned off the car engine. “Tally, I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you since I got back. Could we maybe do this again?”
“You mean as in go out on a date?”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Hugh, I’m just not ready. Plus we had our chance once, and we blew it.”
“I know, and I look back on it as one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Be honest—haven’t you ever wondered how things might have worked if I hadn’t gone to Australia?”
“Of course—particularly in the beginning. But time passed. I started dating again and then I met Josh.”
“Look,” he said, “I’m going to be away quite a bit over the next few weeks, so let’s just keep it casual and just meet up from time to time. How does that sound?”
“OK. I’d like that.”
He leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I hadn’t been expecting it, and it took a few seconds to get over the shock. Once I had, I found myself kissing him back. That feeling of being dead inside had suddenly lifted.
“I’ve never gotten over you,” he said as we pulled away.
“Hugh, please. We agreed on keeping this casual.”
“That was casual.” He laughed. “Formal is with tongues.”
I smacked him playfully on the arm. “Night-night. Speak soon.”
“I’ll text you,” he said.
Chapter 13
Scarlett called me first thing to say she and Grace were heading back up north and asked me if I minded if we didn’t do lunch because she’d forgotten she had a gig tonight and wanted to work on her material. I said that was fine, and we spent the next ten minutes gossiping about Stella. I said I didn’t know how Maury put up with her, and she said that Mum said there was another woman.
“Oh, by the way,” Scarlett said, “I hope it wasn’t too uncomfortable for you having Napoleon and Ed show up like that.”
I said it had felt weird for a moment or two, but then I’d been fine.
“The thing is, we had a really great time with them after we left you. And you’ll never guess what. They want to have a baby. Ed is up for being the biological father. And they have the same ideas as us about shared parenting.” She paused. “Look, it’s all theoretical and up in the air at the moment. I mean, we hardly know Ed and Napoleon, but in principle, would it bother you if Napoleon became part of our family? I mean, he is related to Josh. Would that create a bad vibe for you? The last thing I want to do is to make you unhappy.”
I took a few moments to consider. “Funnily enough, I think I’d be OK with it. Napoleon is such a sweet guy. It must have been awful for him having to break the news to me about Josh, and he was so gentle. I’ll always be grateful to him. No, I don’t have a problem with Napoleon.” I paused. “So what happened with that other couple—Tom and Richie?”
“Tom’s still dithering. He can’t make up his mind, and we can’t hang on forever. I thought we might invite Ed and Napoleon to Yorkshire for the weekend. They seem like such lovely people. Grace and I really want to get to know them.”
“Well, I wish you luck. It would be wonderful if it worked out . . . Scar, changing the subject, do you think it’s significant that Hugh kissed me last night and I felt, you know—certain stirrings?”
“You know, I got the feeling last night that he wasn’t over you. Look, the attention is flattering after what you’ve been through, and you’re bound to feel stirrings. All I’d say is take it easy. It’s still too early to start trusting your emotions.”
I went to put the kettle on. While I was waiting for it to boil, I thought about Scarlett’s advice. She was right. I was still getting over Josh. A rebound relationship was the last thing I needed.
I took my tea into the living room and noticed my laptop sitting on the coffee table. I realized that I hadn’t checked my e-mail since the previous afternoon. I took a sip of tea and opened it. There was a long missive from Henry Dixon asking if I’d heard from CLR regarding some kind of a settlement. I hadn’t. I would e-mail him when I got to the office. There was also something from my contact at the Home Office—telling me in a very polite, roundabout way to stop nagging them about the Nasreen Karimi case and that a decision would be reached in due course. There was also an attachment from Rosie. It was the last few chapters of
The Sand Collector’s Daughter
. For some reason—curiosity, I guess—I found myself spooling down, almost to the end.
North Uist. The sand is white, fine, ethereal, touched only by the waves and the occasional lone traveler. I was that lone traveler, and what a journey I had made. Tracing my father’s obsession had sent me to every sandy shoreline that caressed the immortal and restless sea. I trod carefully, as if my footfall might rouse some ancient magic, bestowed upon this barren land by the white-robed druids.
And there he was. I was certain that the man who knelt on the sand with furrowed brow was my father. His white hair blew so gracefully in the defiant Hebridean wind. His blue eyes shone brighter than the azure waves that kissed the shore. As I approached, his gaze remained firmly on his final conquest, the piece of the puzzle that would depict the life of a strange and inscrutable man: the North Uist sand. I knelt down next to him. “Hello, Father,” I said.
The End
I sat on the Tube thinking about Rosie and her writing. Before long she was going to pluck up the courage to show
The Sand Collector’s Daughter
to somebody else, and whoever she showed it to was going to assume—like Scarlett had—that it was some kind of parody. She was in danger of getting seriously hurt, and I couldn’t sit back and let that happen.
Somebody needed to let her down gently, but thinking about it—and I wasn’t wimping out—I wasn’t sure that I was that person. I was no literary expert. The likelihood was that she wouldn’t take my analysis seriously. Or if she did, she would come away feeling hurt and angry. Betrayed even.
What I needed to find was a publisher or perhaps a literary agent who could offer her constructive criticism and advice.