The Patron Saint of Lost Souls

by Menna Van Praag

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jude admires her niece. This effortless glamour must be hereditary and her half-sister must have inherited it from her own mother, since their father didn’t have a pinch of style to bestow on either of his daughters. Jude sees that Gertie will grow into an exceptionally beautiful and, no doubt, extremely elegant woman. It’s no wonder then that she’s disgusted by her dowdy aunt.

  ‘Anyway,’ Jude picks up the safe subject again, ‘Gatsby’s isn’t a place for people to do their Christmas shopping. It’s where they come when they’re wishing for something.’

  Gertie stares at her fingers but Jude can tell she’s listening.

  ‘If their wish is pure,’ Jude drops her voice in the hopes of holding her niece’s attention, ‘then they’ll find something here to help them make it come true.’

  ‘Really?’ Gertie asks, curious despite herself. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well …’ Jude tries to think of another example but only her most recent disappointment comes to mind. ‘A week ago a man came here – he and his wife were trying for a baby. Maybe it was taking too long and they were worried … Anyway, he found a little china doll—’

  ‘And the doll will help them have a baby?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jude says, ‘I believe so.’

  ‘How?’

  Jude shrugs.

  ‘So, how do you know it will work?’

  ‘People come back, sometimes, and tell me,’ Jude says.

  Gertie lets her gaze sweep slowly, reverently, through the shop. ‘How many people have come here?’ she asks, still looking.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Jude admits. ‘I’m not very good at keeping records.’

  ‘Approximately?’ Gertie persists.

  ‘Well, when it’s not Christmas time, perhaps one or two every day – although sometimes several days can go by without anyone coming in and then, occasionally, three or four will descend all at once.’

  ‘Ah,’ Gertie says, seeming to calculate something. ‘OK, that’s OK.’

  ‘Good,’ Jude says, though she doesn’t ask what is ‘OK’, she’s simply pleased that it is.

  The shop door opens and a cold Christmas wind blows a young woman inside. Jude and Gertie – bursting into a grin – both glance up. Jude is about to tell her niece to hold back, to wait and see what the customer wants, but realises she doesn’t have to. For, although Gertie is practically prickling with excitement, she doesn’t move from her position on the chair. Gertie just watches the woman drifting around the shop, until she gravitates towards the counter, until she’s studying the special trinkets contained within the glass case upon which Jude and Gertie are leaning. A few minutes later, she looks up.

  ‘I don’t really know why I’m here,’ she says. ‘I’m not looking for anything in particular.’

  Jude is about to respond, but Gertie beats her to it.

  ‘That’s perfect,’ she says. ‘Our shop is the right place for people who aren’t looking for anything in particular.’

  ‘I didn’t want to waste your time,’ the woman says.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Gertie responds. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’

  Jude smiles at her niece’s use of ‘our’. She notes how the woman relaxes and softens. Gertie is a natural. Inwardly, Jude beams. She sees, too, how Gertie forgets her sorrow while focusing on their customer.

  ‘Do you like to write?’ Gertie asks.

  The woman looks up, her attention having been caught by the delights contained within the glass counter again, surprised. ‘I do. How did you know?’

  But Gertie just smiles, enigmatically. ‘Would you like to try the pen?’

  Without waiting for an answer, she steps down from the chair, slides open the back of the glass cabinet, and – very gently – removes the black and gold fountain pen from the second shelf. The girl hands it to the woman as if it were the most precious thing on earth. The woman takes it in kind.

  Remembering herself, Jude ducks behind the counter for several scraps of paper and removes a small glass bottle of purple ink from the third shelf. She places them upon the glass.

  ‘It’d be best on a writing desk, but—’

  The woman nods. ‘I have one, but I’ve never had a pen like this before.’ She strokes it between thumb and forefinger, as one might stroke the chin of a beloved cat, and Jude knows then that writing with it is just a formality, the pen is already sold.

  ‘How did you know?’ Jude asks, after the girl has left, her new pen wrapped in box with a bow, hurrying out into the snowy streets.

  Gertie is silent.

  ‘How did you know what she wanted?’ Jude persists. ‘How did you know her wish?’

  That shrug again. Jude swallows a sigh. She’s about to press her niece but then, instead, she waits.

  ‘I don’t know how,’ she says. ‘I just knew. I watched her and I had … I saw a picture in my mind, of her sitting at a desk in a shop full of letters, writing with that pen. I couldn’t see what she was writing, but I could see how happy she was. I felt it in my body, really strong.’

  Jude gazes at her niece, incredulous. In all the years she’s been the custodian of Gatsby’s she’s never, not once, had an experience like the one her niece is describing.

  ‘That’s incredible, Gertie.’

  The shrug returns. ‘I didn’t do anything. It just happened, that’s all.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ‘Let me guess, you can’t come over because you’re cooking?’

  Viola sighs.

  ‘I heard that,’ Daisy says. ‘I don’t understand why you can’t—’

  ‘Actually,’ Viola interrupts. ‘I’m just on my way out.’

  ‘On a date?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘No! Really?’ Her mother squeals. ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘It’s not a date, strictly speaking,’ Viola says, since she hadn’t expected to admit even the existence of Mathieu to her mother, not for a very long time. Not, perhaps, until she sent out the wedding invitations, should such a thing ever happen. But now that she’s on the phone, Viola finds that she wants to talk about him, wants to say his name, wants to divulge every little detail she knows.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  Viola considers, then plunges in. To hell with it. ‘I met a man called Mathieu. I’m going to dinner at his house tonight.’

  ‘Ooooh!’ Daisy explodes, as excited as if Viola had just revealed she’d won the lottery. ‘That’s amazing!’

  ‘Well …’ Now, in the light of her mother’s enthusiasm, Viola finds herself wanting to play it down. ‘We’ve not known each other long, only a few days, a week tops. So, it’s still early days, I don’t know if anything will come of it.’

  ‘A week and he’s already cooking for you? That means a lot to a man. He must be in love,’ Daisy gushes, ignoring her daughter’s caution completely.

  ‘Oh, Mum, don’t be ridiculous. No one’s in love. It’s just a date, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, pish,’ Daisy says. ‘A drink is a date. A coffee in a cafe, a slice of cake, if you’re lucky. Not a dinner, not in his home. That’s something else altogether.’

  ‘And I’m meeting his son,’ Viola says, then immediately wishes she hadn’t. Instantly she feels the shift over the airwaves.

  ‘His son?’

  ‘Hugo. He’s eleven.’

  ‘Eleven? So, this man is married?’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘But he has a son.’

  ‘His wife died.’

  Viola hears her mother draw a sharp breath, as if Viola had just confessed to cannibalism. Silence.

  ‘Three years ago,’ Viola says, since it’s clear Daisy isn’t going to say anything else for a while. ‘He’s French. He’s a history professor at St Catharine’s. He’s lovely. Handsome. Sweet.’ Viola stops, since she’s just told her mother far more than she’d ever intended to. Judgemental silence, she realises, is a very effective interrogation tool.

>   ‘You’re making a mistake,’ Daisy says, at last. ‘I’m sorry, but you are. You can’t compete with a dead wife. No matter how he felt about her in life, no matter how much she might have annoyed him, she’s always perfect in death. She can’t make any mistakes there, she won’t—’

  ‘I’m not trying to compete with her,’ Viola says. ‘I know he loved her, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t be able to …’ She trails off, unable to admit this desire out loud.

  ‘Oh, Vi.’ Daisy sighs. ‘Why do you always have to make it so difficult for yourself? Can’t you just find a nice single man without any baggage? You’re only thirty-six for goodness’ sake. I’m sixty-four, I have to contend with widowers and divorcees, you don’t.’

  ‘A dead wife and a son aren’t baggage,’ Viola snaps. ‘And you’re sixty-seven, I don’t know why you keep pretending otherwise.’

  ‘Oh, Vi, you have no idea. You’ve not lived. You’ve not suffered and I’m glad for it, but one day—’

  ‘Not suffered?’ Viola exclaims. ‘What about Dad? It wasn’t just you who lost him, you know. I loved him too.’

  This statement evokes a different kind of silence, just as she knew it would. Whenever Viola needs to shut her mother up all she needs to do is mention her father in this way and Daisy Styring clams up, nursing a private heartache, a private grudge that she refuses to share with anyone, even her only daughter.

  ‘Look, Mum, I’ve got to go,’ Viola says. ‘I don’t want to be late, OK? Bye.’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Daisy says, just before Viola hangs up.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ‘I don’t think he liked me.’

  ‘Of course he liked you,’ Mathieu says. ‘That’s just Hugo. He’s not the most effusive child in the world. Hell, he’s a boy and virtually a teenager, at that. I’m usually lucky if I can exact more than three words out of him at the best of times. He’s always been that way. I remember, on his first day of school, Virginie and I were walking him home and we asked what he’d done all day. “I ate and I played,” he said.’ Mathieu smiles. He’d been exaggerating Hugo’s reserve, for Viola’s benefit, but this story is true and it always makes him smile. ‘And that was all we could get out of him, no matter how hard we tried.’

  ‘He wouldn’t look at me,’ Viola says. ‘Not once, all through dinner.’

  ‘He’s just shy.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Viola says, unconvinced. She shifts on the sofa beside Mathieu, looking at her untouched coffee cup on the table a few inches away. Then she turns to look at him. ‘You’re staring.’

  Mathieu smiles. ‘I am not.’

  ‘You are.’ Viola smiles too. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘I want to kiss you.’

  Viola’s silent.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mathieu says. ‘Is it OK I said that?’

  She glances up at the ceiling. ‘What about Hugo?’

  Mathieu laughs. ‘Once he’s asleep he’s out. We could have a rave down here, he wouldn’t notice. Let alone …’

  ‘… an innocent little kiss.’

  Mathieu raises a single eyebrow and gives her a slightly wicked grin. ‘Well, I must admit, I can’t promise it’ll be all that innocent.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Viola says. ‘Well, in that case …’

  And she leans forward, across the distance between them, and kisses him. It is soft at first, gentle, tender. And then, all of a sudden, it isn’t. Mathieu leans into Viola, his hands around her waist, pulling her closer, and she slides underneath him, feeling his whole body pressing down on hers, chest to chest, legs intertwined, four feet finding their way together. Viola slides her fingers into Mathieu’s hair, pulling him closer, closer, closer, until there’s barely a breath between them. And, suddenly, all Viola wants is to feel him completely, every piece, every inch, until they’re one and the same.

  Afterwards they lay together on the sofa, Viola now atop Mathieu, his arms around her, hands resting on her back.

  ‘I feel I could lay here for ever,’ she says. ‘I can’t remember the last time I felt so … No pressure to do anything else but be here with you.’

  Mathieu smiles. ‘I’m glad. As do I. Although, I confess, I don’t normally feel the need to do anything else than what I’m doing. I suppose I’m a little lazy that way.’

  ‘Hardly. You don’t get to be some fancy Cambridge University food professor by being lazy.’

  ‘I’m not fancy.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Viola says. ‘You’re French, you can’t help it.’

  Mathieu laughs. ‘Then I’ll take this as a compliment.’

  ‘You should, it is.’ Viola lets out a little sigh. ‘God, I can’t imagine not feeling any pressure to do anything. It’s all I feel, all the time.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Ever since I was a kid.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Viola gives a slight shrug. ‘It’s got me where I am, I suppose.’

  ‘Still, it must be stressful to live like that,’ he says.

  ‘Have you ever been in a professional kitchen?’ Viola smiles. ‘What do they say? If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. It’s true.’

  ‘Well,’ Mathieu considers. ‘I certainly couldn’t live like that.’

  ‘It’s stressful, but it’s exciting too,’ Viola says, sliding off him and sitting up. ‘Never a dull moment. I love it when we’re really busy, it’s like … performing magic tricks at a hundred miles an hour, riding rollercoasters, jumping off bridges, out of airplanes—’

  ‘Yeah, you see, I couldn’t even watch other people doing those things, let alone do them myself,’ Mathieu says. ‘I prefer life with plenty of dull moments. In fact, I think dull moments are highly underrated.’

  Viola laughs. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Mathieu nods. ‘Dull moments are where all the great joys of life reside: looking into the eyes of someone you love, savouring an espresso and croissant, hearing your child laugh. I believe, at least it’s my experience, that it’s in the relative stillness and silence of life that the most touching moments occur.’

  Viola chews her thumbnail thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’ve had many of those,’ she says. ‘So, maybe that’s why I need the excitement instead, to make up for it.’ She glances up at the carriage clock sitting on Mathieu’s mantelpiece. ‘Speaking of which, I’ve got to go.’

  Mathieu pulls himself to sit up beside her. ‘Why? Where?’

  Viola laughs. ‘Home, of course. It’s nearly one o’clock. I don’t think you were inviting me to stay the night, were you?’

  ‘Well …’

  Viola raises her eyebrows. ‘And what would Hugo say if he found me at the breakfast table? He’s hardly my biggest fan already, I don’t want to put him off for ever.’

  Mathieu sighs. ‘You’re right. It’s – I’ve never done this before, I don’t know the … protocol.’

  ‘Slow,’ Viola says. ‘I think the protocol is to take everything very slowly.’

  Mathieu smiles. ‘So, how many widowers have you been with?’

  ‘Oh, more than I’d care to count.’

  Mathieu laughs. ‘And here I was thinking it was your first time.’

  ‘First time? Are you kidding? I’m a veteran.’

  ‘OK, stop now,’ Mathieu says. ‘I’m getting scared.’

  ‘You’ve got nothing to be scared of,’ Viola says, pulling herself up off the sofa. ‘But I should go anyway, I’ve got work.’

  Mathieu frowns. ‘Work? At one o’clock in the morning? What sort of work is that?’

  Viola raises an eyebrow. ‘Well, I can’t keep the other widowers waiting, now, can I? It wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘Stop,’ Mathieu says. ‘It’s not funny any more.’

  Viola smiles. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’ve got an interview, for the head chef position at the restaurant, I’ve got to prepare.’

  ‘Prepare? Now?’

  Viola shrugs. ‘Now’s as good a time as any
. It’s in less than two weeks and there’s another—’ She’s about to say his name, but even though they’ve not touched each other since that night, it doesn’t feel right. ‘I’ve got stiff competition. I can’t afford to let my guard down.’

  ‘You can’t afford not to sleep, either.’

  ‘I don’t sleep much. Maybe I will after it’s all over.’

  Mathieu regards her. ‘After you become the head chef? I think you will sleep less then, not more.’

  ‘Hey,’ Viola says. ‘Don’t jinx it.’

  ‘Don’t go.’

  Viola steps back over to the sofa, bends down and kisses him. ‘I’ll be back soon. If I’m invited, that is.’

  Mathieu reaches up to pull her into his lap. ‘You’re invited now.’

  Viola laughs. ‘Why don’t you and Hugo come for dinner at my place on Monday night?’

  Mathieu frowns. ‘Monday night’s a school night, Hugo’s in bed by seven-thirty.’

  ‘Oh, shit, right, of course,’ Viola says. ‘Well, I always work Friday and Saturday nights, so that’s out. But we could eat very early on Monday, if you like.’

  Mathieu raises an eyebrow. ‘Like five o’clock?’

  ‘OK.’ Viola laughs again. ‘We can do that. Monday at five it is.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The following day Gertie and Jude return to Gatsby’s, at Gertie’s insistence, straight after breakfast. Gertie, still wearing the clothes she picked the day before, makes a beeline for the counter.

  ‘Wait,’ Jude says.

  Gertie pauses and turns.

  ‘Why don’t you look around?’ Jude suggests. ‘You might find something you like.’

  Gertie doesn’t reply.

  ‘If you do, you can keep it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ Jude sweeps her hand to gesture at every beautiful, enchanting object before them. ‘Make your wish,’ she says, ‘take your pick.’

  ‘I can choose anything? Anything I want?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jude says. ‘Though you’ll find, really, that it will choose you.’

  Gertie smiles then, and the sight of it triggers a rush of joy in Jude that lingers in her chest. She watches her niece tiptoe through Gatsby’s, eager but tentative, her eyes darting from object to object, then returning to rest on each, her fingers hovering above everything, never touching the surface. Anticipation radiates from Gertie’s every movement, thrilling sparks of expectation igniting the air.