Twice Upon a Time (30 page)

And then he saw it – the tiny freckle on his cheekbone. The one thing that differentiated him and his brother. She hadn’t painted Ludo at all. She had painted
him
. His throat closed with emotion.

He stepped back from the artwork and took it all in.

This is how she sees me
, Gus realised wonderingly. And perhaps he was like that with her, he realised.

Gus turned on his phone and dialled her number.

She didn’t answer so he tried Ludo, but he didn’t answer either.

Gus stood helplessly, trying to work out what to do next, when he heard footsteps behind him.

‘Looking for someone?’ Ludo asked with a raised eyebrow.

Gus nodded curtly. ‘Where’s Cinda?’

‘She doesn’t want to see you,’ said Ludo. ‘I’m here to collect her things.’ He turned and walked up the hallway towards Cinda’s room.

‘But I love her!’ blurted Gus, feeling pathetic and angry at the same time.

Ludo turned to him, his face dark, his eyes narrowed. ‘Do you?’

‘Do
you
?’ countered Gus.

‘No, I don’t,’ said Ludo simply. ‘But I like her a lot, enough to want to protect her from people who don’t have her best interests at heart.’

‘I swear, Ludo. I love her,’ pleaded Gus.

Ludo shook his head at his brother. ‘Even if you do, what fantasy land have you been in that you think that you two could ever be together? You know the reality of your position.’

‘Then fuck it all,’ said Gus. ‘I’ll give it all up for her.’

Ludo gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘You say that, but you won’t. You’ve always been the dutiful son. Mother and Perrette will wear you down eventually. You might as well give in to them now.’ And with that, Ludo shut the door to Cinda’s room, leaving Gus standing alone in the hallway.

36

‘Drink this,’ said Alex, handing Cinda a cup of herbal tea.

‘Thanks. But go back to your party,’ said Cinda, curled up on the sofa in the suite upstairs. Ludo and Alex had brought her there to recover from the events of the evening.

‘Oh they don’t even know I’m gone,’ laughed Alex. ‘I left the champagne flowing and the food circulating.’

‘Where’s Ludo gone?’ asked Cinda.

‘To the apartment to get your things. He’ll be back soon,’ said Alex with a sympathetic expression. She sat down next to Cinda on the sofa. ‘So . . . Perrette’s pregnant?’ Alex said slowly, almost as though she was trying to believe it herself.

Cinda nodded and felt her eyes fill with tears.

‘Hmmm,’ said Alex cryptically. ‘That doesn’t mean he can’t be with you though.’

‘Yes, it does,’ snapped Cinda. Then she softened. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that my father left my mother when he found out she was pregnant. He needs to be with Perrette and the baby; it’s the right thing to do,’ she said, brushing away a tear.

Alex took a sip of her wine. ‘But you love him,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ replied Cinda, as the door opened and Ludo walked into the suite, carrying several bags. His secretary stood in the doorway behind him, holding Cinda’s large backpack.

‘Put them in the master bedroom,’ said Alex, who then turned to Cinda. ‘You can stay here as long as you like.’

Cinda shook her head. ‘No, I can’t. I can’t freeload off you or Ludo anymore. I have some money from the painting – I can take care of myself until I go home.’

Jonas burst into the room with Gideon following him, their faces worried.

‘God, is everyone here?’ Cinda laughed bitterly. ‘Nothing like a Cinda crisis to bring in the troops.’

‘I texted Jonas and told him we were upstairs,’ explained Alex as Jonas rushed to Cinda’s side.

‘You can’t leave Paris,’ said Jonas, his face filled with sorrow.

‘I have to,’ said Cinda. ‘I’m going to go away for a while, get my head together. This whole trip has been one massive spinout.’

Ludo sat on the chair opposite her. ‘Do you want to go back to Sardinia?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I think I just want to be alone for a while, if that’s okay,’ she said. ‘I want to go where I want, paint whatever I want. I need to fall in love with painting again.’
And not
fall in love with my subjects,
she thought, and a small sob escaped her mouth. She looked at Ludo. ‘He can’t be with me, can he?’

Ludo shook his head sadly. ‘No.’

‘Does he know that?’ she asked. ‘Has he always known that?’

Ludo paused. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he was hoping for a miracle, I don’t know. But our mother will make him marry Perrette, especially now she’s pregnant.’

Cinda sighed and stood up. She smoothed out her dress and turned to Gideon and Jonas. ‘Thank you for making me look like a princess tonight,’ she said, and saw tears well in Jonas’s eyes.

‘Don’t you start as well,’ she yelped, and fell into his arms crying.

They hugged and he pulled away, his arms still around her.

‘I thought you were going to get everything on this trip as well, Cinda-bella. It feels massively unfair.’

Cinda had a vision of her mother in their kitchen after another broken love affair, and she said something to Jonas that she’d heard her mother say countless times: ‘Life isn’t fair, least of all in love. Then Cinda continued ‘Some win, some lose and it seems I got the shitty hand this time
.
But it doesn’t define me. Look at my mum, she’s had her heart broken more times than anyone I know and she’s okay.’

Jonas kissed her on the cheek and held her close. ‘You know, if I weren’t in love with Gideon, I would make you my Queen of Everything.’

Cinda pulled away and smiled at her best friend. ‘I’m going to bed. Tomorrow I’ll start again,’ she said, looking at the morose faces around her.

She took herself to the master bedroom where her bags had been left, and lay on the bed, crying until her eyes hurt and her throat was sore and she fell asleep, exhausted.

When she woke in the morning, there were only a few brief seconds of not remembering before her heart broke all over again.

Cinda realised that she couldn’t stay in Paris a minute longer. She showered, pulled on her old jeans and the jumper and boots from Alex. Then she slid her arms into the jacket Gideon had given her.

She had waited enough for her life to start. It was time she took control. Ignoring the heavy sadness that had settled on her heart, she got her things together, taking only what she could carry in her pack and putting the rest into a corner.

She found some stationery in the desk drawer and wrote a note for Alex, propping it up on the mantle in the entrance hall on her way out.

I have to leave Paris. I will send for the rest of my things
when I know where I’ll be staying.

You’re wonderful, Alex. Thank you for being my friend.

Thank you for your support and generosity.

Cinda
x

And with that, taking a final look around, she let herself out of the apartment, took the elevator down to the street and hailed a cab.

‘Charles de Gaulle,’ she said to the driver as he lifted her pack into the back of the car.

Settling in her seat, she sent a text to Jonas.

I’ve left Paris. I’ll let you know where I’m going when
I get there. I love you. Look after Gideon and yourself. A thousand thank yous to you and Gideon. Xoxoxox

Looking out the window, she said a silent goodbye to Paris: to Monet’s garden; to Alex, Gideon and Jonas; to Ludo. But most of all to Gus.

His life was mapped out and she couldn’t be a part of it – not even if she were a princess. Perrette was pregnant, and nothing trumped that.

So now was the time for Cinda to start creating the life she wanted.
I might not be enough for Gus but I’ll always be enough for
myself
, she thought stoically as the car pulled up to the airport terminal.

Inside the airport, she looked up at the departure board. She could go anywhere, but one place leapt out at her. She walked over to the counter and put down her passport and credit card. ‘A one-way ticket to London, please.’

Winter

37

Cinda walked up the stairs to her small bedsit in Notting Hill. She had refused Alex’s offer of her Mayfair townhouse, much to Alex’s frustration.

‘What’s the point of having nice things if I can’t share them with people?’ Alex had asked huffily.

‘I appreciate the offer,’ said Cinda over Skype, ‘I really do. But I just want a quiet life for a while. I like Notting Hill, it’s a fun neighbourhood. It feels almost like Sydney.’

‘At least let me introduce you to some of my friends there,’ said Alex. ‘If I show them the photos of the painting of Ludo, you’ll probably get a few more commissions.’

Cinda thought for a moment. Over the past months in London she had realised her money from the painting of Gus wouldn’t last long, and she was beginning to tire of wandering around galleries, thinking about Gus.

‘Okay,’ she agreed, ‘I’ll meet some people.’

‘That’s the way. You have to move on,’ said Alex. They never talked about Gus, but his presence hung over every call.

Cinda hadn’t heard anything from Gus since she had arrived in London. Whereas Jonas called every night and most days.

‘You don’t have to call me so often. I’m okay,’ she’d said to him that morning.

‘I just want to make sure you don’t put your head in the oven,’ he said.

Cinda, still in bed, looked wryly at the tiny kitchenette in her bedsit. ‘It’s a microwave, so it’s more about heating up frozen lasagne than doing a Sylvia Plath.’

‘That alone could kill you,’ said Jonas, and Cinda had laughed for the first time in a while.

Most days she managed to get through okay, but at night, when it was cold in her little flat, the tears would come. She was angry with herself for crying so much. They had always known it couldn’t go anywhere. So why did she feel like part of her was unfinished?

True to her word, Alex arranged for Cinda to attend a lunch with some of her school friends.

‘What did you tell them?’ asked Cinda when Alex called her with the details.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Alex.

‘You must have told them something about me,’ said Cinda, feeling the anxiety rising in her. What if they were all like Perrette?