The Goddess Rules (34 page)

“It’s not as if he was serially unfaithful. He just liked a pretty girl,” Kate said defensively.

“Maybe,” Mirri said sagely. “But I wasn’t sure that he wasn’t going to cause you pain again. So I had to see for myself.”

“Oh right,” Kate said sarcastically. “So you decided to seduce him yourself.”

“Yes.”

“No,” Kate screamed at Mirri now. She felt anger pouring from her but Mirri remained calm. “I’ll tell you how it was. You are a bitter, envious woman whose one hope of love has turned to dust and you couldn’t bear to see me happy. I was engaged to a man, I had a future, and you were jealous.”

“Oh, come on, Kate.” Mirri was genuinely shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her that Kate could even begin to construe things this way. “You know that’s not true. You’re like a daughter to me,” she said, for the first time voicing a feeling about Kate that she’d had since she’d arrived. She’d felt protective of her and frustrated by her bad decisions, but she had firmly believed that she wanted only the best for this girl who was so unlike herself, yet perhaps had all the qualities of selflessness and naÏveté that Mirri lacked. In a way they were like the perfect pair. But it dawned on Mirri now that maybe Kate had never seen things this way. Sure, she’d seen Mirri as a helpful friend at times, but Kate didn’t need a mother. She had one. It was Mirri who wanted a daughter.

“You are nothing like a mother to me,” Kate said in a hard, even tone. “A mother would never behave like you’ve done. You’re so self-obsessed that you wouldn’t know how to think about another human being. That’s why the only creatures you can actually persuade to love you are animals.”

“Kate, you can’t say that.” Mirri looked as if she’d been slapped around the face.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Kate said. “And I know that Jake was a cheating bastard, I wasn’t as stupid as you thought I was. But I also wanted to believe in something and I wanted to be part of something and he was a chance for me to have that. Which may not have been the most noble, pure reason for getting married but it’s as good as most people’s reasons.”

“I’m sorry,” Mirri said.

“Yeah, well, it’s fine. If you’re really sorry you can do something for me,” Kate said, pushing herself away from the tree trunk with her hands.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to,” Mirri promised.

“Great. Then wait here.”

Five minutes later Kate walked out onto the lawn carrying a bundle of bed linen in her arms.

“What’s this?” Mirri had been expecting a more profound gesture.

“It’s my laundry. If you’re sorry then the least you can do is clean up your mess.” Kate dropped the pile to the floor beside Mirri. “I don’t iron the sheets, by the way. Just the pillowcases and the duvet cover.”

“But Kate . . . ,” Mirri called out as Kate strolled back to her shed with a satisfied spring in her step.

“Tomorrow’s fine to bring them back. I’ve got a spare set,” Kate called out without turning around. Then closed the shed door behind her for the night.

Chapter Twenty-six

For a whole week Kate had managed to resist Mirri’s charms, flowers, apologies, excuses, and even a box of chocolates from Fortnum and Mason. She had flatly refused to carry on with the portrait of Mirri, suggesting that Lucian Freud might be delighted to take up where Kate had left off. Even Leonard had been down to the shed, sheepishly looking for the magic formula that would persuade Kate to pick up her brushes again. But she wouldn’t budge. She’d accepted the loss of her relationship with Jake, and in a way she had even accepted that in the long run, and totally inadvertently, it really did seem as if Mirri might have done Kate a favor. But what she couldn’t accept was the betrayal of her friendship with Mirri. She had grown to love Mirri in a way far beyond the way she loved the men who’d come and gone over the summer. Kate had learned to be adventurous and exacting of herself and she’d learned to let go and have fun. And even though she’d fallen at the last hurdle—by accepting Jake when really she didn’t even want him—she’d still come a long way thanks to Mirri. And now her idol had been shattered and her feet of clay well and truly exposed. It wasn’t so much that she felt betrayed as she was just disappointed.

“You don’t have to speak to her. Just come and finish the painting. It’s very important to her.” Leonard had cornered Kate in the kitchen. She’d tried to wait for Mirri to leave the house each day, or for the curtains to be drawn on the top floor, which meant that Mirri was taking her siesta, and then she’d bomb up to the house and collect her post, show her face to Leonard, or raid the fridge. So far she’d avoided Mirri. But now it seemed she had enlisted him as messenger.

“I don’t want to be in the same room as her,” Kate said.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit sanctimonious?” Leonard asked in a concerned way. “You’ve admitted to me that seeing the back of Jake was secretly what you wanted. And misguided though Mirabelle might have been—her intentions weren’t bad.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Ah, well, I tried.” Leonard shook his head ruefully. “I’ll be sad to see the back of her, though. I know she can be a royal pain in the backside but she’s brought a bit of life back to this place. The pair of you have.”

“What do you mean see the back of her?” Kate asked as she plucked a grape from the fruit bowl.

“She’s off back to Africa at the weekend.” Leonard pointed to a British Airways ticket on the table with the rest of the post.

“She’s not?” Kate immediately felt her legs weaken. She knew that whatever she felt about Mirabelle Moncur, she didn’t want her to leave. Not yet anyway. Still, she tried to hide how unsettled the thought had made her. “But why?”

“Well, she came for the portrait of Bébé and you’ve delivered that. And she wanted one of herself, which you quite understandably don’t feel able to complete. So what else is there?”

There’s Nick Sheridan,
Kate thought.
That’s why she came.
But now that dream was shattered for her. Kate felt a deep pang of sadness for Mirri. Strangely she felt much more sorry for her than she did for her own situation. Kate was young and she’d move on, but Mirri—without Nick she’d probably turn her back on the idea of love forever.

“I’ll do it,” Kate said in a split second. “But tell her that it doesn’t mean anything apart from the fact that I’m a professional, I never renege on my promises, and I need the money to pay the mortgage on my new house since my boyfriend and I split up.”

“I shall tell her,” Leonard said with a twinkle in his eye. “And I must say that I couldn’t be happier.”

“It’s a work thing. Not a friendship thing,” Kate reminded him firmly.

“I know, I know, and I can’t wait to see your splendid portrait,” he said as Kate took a handful of biscuits and some strawberries back to her shed.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“You’ve given me a mustache.” Mirri walked over to the easel and scowled as she looked closely at her upper lip in the painting.

“It’s shadow. I’m going to lighten it later,” Kate told her.

“Do I have a mustache?” Mirri walked over to the mirror and tilted her lips toward the light. “I don’t want to be like one of those old women who look like a nanny goat with a beard.”

“Would you mind just sitting down, please?” Kate said in a humorless voice.

“Of course.” Mirri was chastened and sat down in her chair again. “Maybe one day you’d like to see the Picasso?”

“I’ll go to a gallery if I want to see a Picasso. I think Africa’s a bit far to travel. Especially to see a bad one.”

“But it might not be as bad as I think. I mean what do I know? You’d be able to tell me whether it’s really any good or not.”

“I doubt it,” Kate said, and determinedly mixed her paint. It had been like this for three days now. Mirri trying to make amends and Kate being truculent.

“Do I have to tell you once again that I am sorry for what I did?” Mirri asked with a frustrated sigh.

“No, it’s okay. I heard you the first time,” Kate said. Although she really hadn’t wanted Mirri to leave London she was also stubbornly refusing to acknowledge to herself that she would have been desolate without her around.

“Do you miss Jake?” Mirri asked.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d have cared whether I did or I didn’t.”

“I care about you. I care that I made you unhappy.” She tried to keep her head in the right position for the portrait.

“Maybe it’s just guilt that you feel,” Kate said dispassionately.

Mirri stared at Kate for a minute before she opened her mouth. “No it’s not, it’s love that I feel.” She stood up and looked as if she might tear her hair out. And if not hers then Kate’s. Kate froze with her paintbrush in hand as her sitter suddenly began to rail at her. “I thought that we were friends. I thought that for once in my life there was a woman I liked who I learned something from. And I thought that I was helping you, which it’s obvious now I wasn’t. But if you continue to be such a stick-in-the-ass, uptight
rosbif
then I would prefer it if you didn’t finish my picture because right now you’re just trying to punish me and I’m sure you’re planning to paint horns on it.” Mirri was standing right up close to Kate and glowering at her. They glared at one another for a long moment, Kate in a state of shock, but knowing that she deserved to be yelled at, and Mirri with a face like an elastic band that had just snapped.

But as they stood face-to-face, staring one another out, Kate was struck by a massive and irrepressible attack of the giggles. It started as a quiver in her upper lip but became a twitch around her mouth, then it spread to her nose and developed into full-blown hysteria.

Mirri was more furious than ever. “What is so funny?” she demanded.

“Actually it had crossed my mind,” Kate spluttered between laughs.

“What had?” How dare Kate not take her seriously? She’d been taking Kate’s fury seriously since the day she’d seduced Jake. And now the girl was laughing in her face.

“I was going to paint horns on you.” Kate bit her lip to control her laughter.

“You were not,” Mirri protested crossly.

Kate nodded. “I was.”

The two women looked at one another again before both gave way to demented, snorting howls of mirth that drifted through the house and out into the garden.

“Are we friends again then?” Mirri asked, wiping the tears from her face.

“I think we probably are,” Kate said as she finally got her breath back. Mirri took Kate’s hands and then caught her in her arms. They hugged one another tight.

“I’d much rather have you in my life than Jake,” Kate said in Mirri’s ear.

“Am I supposed to be flattered?” Mirri pulled back a little and smiled.

“Well, yes, actually, because as you probably know, he’s a great kisser.” Kate threw herself onto the bed and lay on her side, her hand propping up her head.

“Ah, this is true.” Mirri grimaced at the recollection of what she’d done. “But I have had much, much better.”

“Me, too,” Kate announced.

“You? Really? Who?” Mirri was surprised.

“Louis.”

“Lovely Louis?”

“Mais oui.”
Kate smirked. Then a look of sadness washed over her face. “Well, it was fun while it lasted anyway.”

“You should go after him,” Mirri said seriously.

“Somebody else already has. She’s called Grace. She’s got hair like Julie Christie.”

“Ugh, Julie Christie. Who cares about her hair?” Mirri waved her hand dismissively.

“No, it’s too late. But that’s okay. I’m taking a breather from men.”

“Can I show you something?” Mirri asked.

“Yes.” Kate rolled over onto her stomach and watched as Mirri walked over to her dressing table. She pulled something out of her top drawer. “This arrived yesterday.” She handed Kate a cream envelope.

“From Nick?” Kate sat up on the bed and crossed her legs. “Is it?”

Mirri stood still and nodded.

“Can I read it?” Kate carefully opened the envelope and took out the creamy card notelet with a red border.

“Of course you can read it.” Mirri waited expectantly.

“He wants to meet up,” Kate told her.

“I know.”

“Next time he’s in London.”

“I know.”

“He wants to take you for tea,” Kate continued. “He can’t tell you how delighted he was to hear from you.”

“Isn’t it exciting?” Mirri clapped her hands together.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you weren’t speaking to me,” Mirri pointed out.

“I’m sorry.”

“No,
I’m
sorry,” Mirri reiterated. “Now what on earth am I going to say to him on the telephone? What am I going to say to him when I see him? Shall I tell him I’m in love with him? Pretend that I just want to have tea? And what—” Mirri looked truly anxious. “—what shall I wear?”

At which point Kate burst into fresh peals of laughter. “Oh my God, don’t tell me that I have to spend the rest of my life worrying about things like that,” she groaned. “Am I really going to get to sixty and be as superficial as I am now?”

“Probably not, darling.” Mirri looked at her disdainfully. “I’m sure when you get to sixty your hair will be gray, your stomach will be held at bay by your enormous beige knickers, and your nanny-goat beard will have little bits of your lunch stuck in it.”

“That’s disgusting,” Kate yelled. “Anyway I think you’re wrong. I think I’m going to be every bit as tarty and muttonish as you.”

“Muttonish?” Mirri asked quizzically.

“Mutton dressed as lamb.” Kate smiled cheekily. “Just like you.”

When the day of Mirri’s date with Nick arrived she didn’t look remotely muttonish. She had tied her hair back in a ponytail with just a few wisps falling out, a rose-colored scarf knotted around her neck, and a raincoat.

“Is it okay?” Mirri asked.

“You look perfect,” Kate said, “like you should be meeting your lover at a railway station.”

“Well, I am meeting him in St. James’s Park for elevenses, it’s almost as romantic.” Mirri looked at herself one more time in the mirror. “He’s going to think I look so old,” she lamented.

“You’ll probably think the same about him.”

“Do you think we’ll have anything to talk about?” She turned to Kate and squeezed her hand nervously.

“You’ve never had a problem talking before.” Kate was trying to get Mirri out the door and into the waiting taxi. She looked at her watch. “You’re going to be late. At this rate he’ll have left.”

“I wouldn’t mind. I don’t think I want to go. What do I want a man for anyway?” Mirri fussed with her scarf.

“You don’t. You’ve had plenty of men. You just want this one in particular.” Kate opened the front door to usher her out.

“Or not.”

“Only one way to find out.” Kate was about to give Mirri a good-luck kiss on the cheek when she clutched Kate’s hand again.

“Please come,” Mirri pleaded.

“I can’t. It’s a date.”

“No, just take me to the door. Then you can see what he looks like and whether he seems to be happy to see me and—”

“Okay, I’ll come to the door. But I’m not going to spy on you. If you can’t tell whether he likes you or not with all your experience, then you should just give up and go back to the cats forever.” Kate grinned and pulled a jacket off the coat stand by the door.

“Thank you, thank you.” Mirri tugged Kate by the hand and out the door.

The taxi pulled up on the mall and its engine hummed while Kate tried to eject Mirri from the back. “You have to get out,” she hissed, “he might be walking down to the restaurant, too, and watching, and you don’t want to look like a fourteen-year-old.”

“I’d kill to look like a fourteen-year-old.” Mirri remained glued to her seat. “Can you see him?”

“I don’t know and I’m not about to look because it’s silly. You’ll see him for yourself when you get out and meet him like you’re supposed to.” Then Kate turned to the taxi driver, who had already done his “Eh, ain’t you that Catherine Deneuf?”—which hadn’t made him popular with one of the passengers in the back.

“How much do we owe you?” Kate asked.

“Fifteen quid.” He pointed to the meter, which had just ticked over another forty pence as Mirri dragged her heels. Kate had decided to get out in the park and go for a walk while Mirri had her date. And afterward they’d meet up for a debrief. Unless of course Mirri was having her debrief elsewhere, in which case Kate would just get the tube home. Finally Mirri budged from her seat and Kate practically dragged her along the path toward the Inn the Park restaurant, with its turf roof and shadowy verandas.

“Have fun,” she said, and then vanished into the verdant, jungle-like lushness of the rainy park.

“Mirabelle?” A man in the corner of the room, in a navy-blue sweater, with dark hair graying slightly around the ears and temples, stood up as Mirri walked hesitantly through the doors of the restaurant. He had a newspaper open on the table in front of him and beckoned her with a generous smile. Mirri raised her hand in a gesture of recognition, although she didn’t recognize him even slightly, and meandered through the small tables toward him. As she stood before him her hands shook. She didn’t feel as though she were “coming home” or any of the things she had imagined might happen in his presence again. She simply felt a rush of nausea.

“Nick.” She was going to clasp him by the hand when he took her shoulders and looked into her eyes and then at her face as though he wanted to memorize everything. In fact, he was really just remembering. Then, without warning, he hugged her into such a bear-like grip that her scarf slid around her neck and her arms were clamped to her sides. Which was just as well, because she didn’t know whether she would have returned the gesture even if she had been capable.

“Oh my God.” He pulled away and looked at her. “I can’t believe it’s you.” Then he checked himself. “Sit down, sit down, now, what can I get you?”

“Oh, well, tea will be fine,” Mirri said politely. She stole a surreptitious glance at him as she repositioned her scarf and slipped off her raincoat. He was taller and broader than she’d remembered—she’d shrunk him over the years to the point of being able to fit him into her pocket—but then maybe he’d also grown in stature, which always made men seem larger. His eyes were the softest, warmest brown and his face was tanned in a countryside way that was much more fly-fishing than yachting on the Costa Smeralda. And the feathery breaks of gray in his black hair just made him look more appealing and watchable than he ever had been at thirty. Mirri cursed men for the glamour they always seemed to acquire with age. Then she noticed he was stirring his tea and unabashedly staring at her, so she had to hope that she still had a few of her charms left.