The Patron Saint of Lost Souls

by Menna Van Praag

  ‘What do you want to eat?’ Jude asks.

  Gertie shrugs.

  ‘OK,’ Jude says, ‘what don’t you want to eat?’

  The shrug again.

  Jude walks over to the front door, trying to lift the mood. ‘OK, fried livers and ox tails it is then, my favourite.’

  Gertie makes a face.

  ‘Pizza?’ At some point Jude’s going to have to exercise a bit of authority and inject some vegetables into their diet but, for now, she’ll acquiesce to Gertie’s every whim.

  Gertie hops down from the counter. ‘Can we order takeaway?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Jude says, though she much prefers the homemade pizza at Gustare. ‘What sort do you want?’

  Gertie walks to the chaise longue and ensconces herself firmly upon it. Jude hopes that no one will come in and claim the seat anytime soon, since her niece seems to have claimed it for herself. Although, Jude considers, since Gertie also seems to take the matter of customers so seriously she’d probably give it up quite easily, if she felt it belonged to somebody else.

  ‘Pepperoni.’

  Jude goes to the phone, remembering her father as she picks it up.

  ‘Why don’t you have a husband?’

  Jude puts the phone down and looks up. ‘Sorry?’

  Gertie kicks her legs out in front of her.

  ‘Ah, well …’ Jude contemplates how to best answer the question, before realising she can’t. ‘I don’t know.’

  Gertie fixes her with big brown eyes. ‘Don’t you want one?’

  Jude nearly bursts out laughing. ‘No, it’s not that. I just haven’t found one that might want me.’

  ‘Oh.’ Gertie considers this. ‘So, where do you look for them?’

  ‘Um, well, I don’t really,’ Jude admits. ‘I mean – some men come into the shop, but never any who want to be with me.’

  ‘You don’t meet many potential husbands in here, do you?’ Gertie considers the problem. ‘I know a lot of boys at school,’ she offers, ‘but they’re all a bit young for you. You need another place to look for husbands.’

  Jude laughs. ‘Really? And where would you propose?’

  Gertie considers. ‘France,’ she says. ‘Or Italy.’

  ‘Oh?’ Jude asks. ‘And why not England?’

  ‘Mum always said they were the sexiest men in the world.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Gertie shrugs. ‘We went to Paris last summer and saw lots of them.’

  ‘And did she find one to marry?’

  ‘No. But quite a few of them asked her.’

  ‘So, are you saying we should go to Paris to find me a husband?’

  ‘No, cos then we’d have to leave here. And I don’t ever want to leave here. But you could go by yourself and leave me in charge of the shop.’

  Jude raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I could now, could I?’

  Again, the elegant shrug. ‘You did say I know the customers better than you do, so …’

  ‘Well, that’s certainly true,’ Jude admits. ‘But I think I might get in trouble, if I went swanning off to Europe in search of a husband, leaving my eleven-year-old niece in charge of Gatsby’s. Don’t you think?’

  Gertie sighs. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m afraid I’d have a much harder time finding a husband than your mum. She has distinct advantages that I lack.’

  ‘Like what?’

  A flare of gratitude ignites in Jude’s chest. ‘Beauty. Charm. Wit. General loveliness. Men like that sort of thing.’

  As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Jude realises that her niece will probably ask how on earth she knows all this, given that she never met her sister. How the hell will she explain that? Fortunately, though, Gertie doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Gertie says, giving her aunt the once over. ‘But you’re not too bad.’

  Jude laughs. ‘Why, thank you, that’s high praise indeed. I’m touched.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gertie continues, ‘you just need a haircut, some new clothes and maybe start wearing a bit of make-up.’

  ‘Oh, OK! Well, if that’s all it’ll take for me to find a husband, then I’ll get right to it,’ Jude says. ‘We’ll get started tomorrow.’

  ‘Or tonight,’ Gertie says. ‘After pepperoni pizza.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ Jude says, thinking again of her father. ‘But first, before pizza, I’ve got something to tell you.’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Viola is woken just before four o’clock in the morning by her phone ringing. Her first thought, as she fumbles about in half-sleep swiping and pressing and knocking expensive accoutrements off the gilt-edged bedside table, is death. Her mother. It must be her mother. Who else does she know who’s closer to the possibility? Unless it’s someone who’s not close at all, a shock, a car crash, a tragedy. But then, who else does she really know? The life of a chef, especially an obsessive one, doesn’t leave time to cultivate friendships.

  ‘Hello? Hello?!’

  ‘Vi?’

  ‘Yes?’ Adrenalin still floods Viola’s veins, even while she’s vaguely aware that a doctor, or whoever it is who makes these fatal hospital calls, would not be addressing her thus. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Henri.’

  Viola pulls herself up from the silk sheets to sit up, glancing at Mathieu sleeping beside her.

  ‘What’s—Why are you calling me?’ She grapples for sense in her fuzzy mind, as her thumping heart starts, slowly, to settle. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘The competition,’ Henri says. ‘It’s today. This morning. In two hours.’

  ‘What? No, it’s not—’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Look, Henri, if this is your idea of a stupid, crazy joke then I’m going to—’

  ‘It’s not,’ he says. ‘I’m not joking, Vi, I promise. You need to get here, now. It starts at six o’clock.’

  ‘No, no, it’s in two days. The twenty-fourth, I …’ Her words fade away as the enormity of the truth descends. She can hear it in his voice, the truth. And, anyway, Henri may be plenty of things (a flirt, a playboy, an arrogant prat) but she’s never known him to be a practical joker.

  ‘But-but, what happened?’ Even though it hardly matters, still she needs to know. Perhaps knowing will slow everything down, will unwind the escalating events, will give her more time.

  ‘Jacques’ boyfriend surprised him last night with a Christmas trip to Barbados. They leave tonight, so he’s moved the competition forward to this morning.’

  ‘But, but – why’s he not calling me?’ Viola demands, her heart thumping again, while she still prays that somehow, somehow this is still a crazy, sick joke. ‘Why, why, why?!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Henri says. ‘Because I’m the senior chef, I suppose. He told me to call everyone. You’re the first. So, get off the phone and get your beautiful bottom down here, sharpish.’

  ‘Yes, yes, OK,’ Viola snaps and hangs up. The clock on her phone shines up at her: 4.02 a.m. It starts at 6 a.m. And she’s in London. Taxi. Train. Taxi. Shit. Shit. Shit! Viola flings herself out of bed then dashes through the rooms retrieving discarded clothes, pin-balling from silk sofa to silk chair to antique dressing table to golden-clawed bathtub, yanking on jeans, bra, T-shirt and jumper as she goes. As she’s scrambling under the bed for her underpants, before deciding she can do without them, Mathieu stirs.

  ‘What? Vi?’ He’s groggy still and there’s a pause as he pulls himself off his pillow and Viola can feel him glancing around the darkened room as she pulls herself out from under the bed. Mathieu starts at the sight of her.

  ‘Vi? What—Why, what are you doing down there?’

  ‘I’m late,’ Viola says, standing and turning, and grabbing her bag off a stripped silken chair. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  Mathieu frowns, pressing a finger into the corner of an eye and rubbing. ‘Late? For what? What are you doing? Where are you going?’

  But Viola is already at the door, slip
ping on shoes while simultaneously pulling it open. ‘No time,’ she calls out to him, stepping into the corridor. ‘Sorry, I can’t wait – I’ll call you!’

  And then, door sliding softly closed, she is gone, leaving Mathieu sitting up in bed, frowning deeply and gazing after her.

  Viola can’t wait for the lift, so she careens down the six flights of stairs, taking the steps in twos and threes before landing in the foyer and hurtling to the reception desk.

  ‘I-I … I need a taxi,’ she pants. ‘Now. Now … Now.’

  The startled girl blinks at her.

  ‘Now!’

  Nodding, the girl picks up the phone and dials. Viola dances behind the desk, feet tapping, whole body shaking.

  ‘Where are you going?’ the girl asks, regarding her nervously.

  ‘King’s Cross,’ Viola snaps. ‘But I need it right now, can you get one here’ – her voice rises to a near-shriek – ‘right now?!’

  The girl points a shaking finger to the enormous glass doors at the end of a long carpet. ‘You could try outside. There are usually taxis waiting out there, or coming oft—’

  Without waiting, Viola runs towards the doors, pulling at them, then pushing, before a doorman on the other side reaches for the handle and pulls too, so that Viola tumbles out onto the street. Picking herself up, not bothering to brush herself off, Viola looks up at him, her head still spinning.

  ‘I need – I need, a taxi, right now, please, please—’

  ‘Of course,’ he says, while stepping forward into the road and, quite miraculously, flagging down a taxi entirely out of nowhere.

  Viola tumbles into the dark cave of the black cab, spluttering thanks to the heroic doorman while barking, ‘King’s Cross, King’s Cross!’ to the cab driver.

  ‘I’ll give you a fifty-quid tip if you don’t stop at any lights,’ Viola shrieks as the taxi speeds off down the street.

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, miss.’

  ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning!’ Viola protests, grappling about in her bag for purse, money, notes to wave in his face. ‘You won’t crash into anyone – what’s the harm?!’

  ‘Please sit down, miss. And put on your seatbelt. It’s the law.’

  ‘I don’t have time for—’

  The taxi screeches to a halt.

  ‘Alright, alright!’ Viola falls back into her seat and scrabbles about for the seatbelt. ‘It’s on, it’s on,’ she shouts, as she’s unfurling the black strap, as she’s feeling for the clip. ‘Drive! Drive!’

  The taxi revs up and screeches off again.

  Viola’s legs jiggle frantically, compulsively, as if she’s driving and running both, as if she must move every molecule of muscle and air if she’s to reach her destination in time. But, when the taxi finally, after what feels to Viola like a full four-hundred-thousand fraught, furious, frantic minutes later, pulls into the entrance to King’s Cross Station all is darkened and silent.

  ‘Eighteen pound twenty,’ the driver says.

  Viola unclips herself, pulls a twenty from her purse and thrusts it at him.

  ‘But, why—Where is everyone?’ Viola says. ‘Why is it all so dark?’

  ‘It’s four-thirty in the morning,’ he says. ‘The first train doesn’t go till five-ten. I did wonder why you were in such a tearing hurry. Thought maybe you had a hot date.’

  ‘What? What? No, but—!’ Viola is shrieking again, tugging at the taxi door that won’t budge. ‘No, it can’t be, that’s too, it’s too late. I need to be – I’ve got to be …’ Then, in the depths of despair, inspiration strikes. Hope.

  ‘I’ll give you a hundred pounds to take me to Cambridge,’ Viola snaps. ‘Two hundred.’

  ‘Sorry, love, I’d like to help you out, but no way I’m risking the M25 this time of the mornin’ – I’m afraid you won’t find a cabbie round here who will – I wouldn’t likely be back till dinner time.’

  ‘Three hundred. Four – five hundred!’

  But the taxi driver just shrugs. The lock on the door clicks but Viola doesn’t move.

  ‘Look, love, you gotta get out, alright? And sharpish.’

  Blindly, Viola pushes through the door and stumbles out onto the pavement. She looks up at the silent train station, blinking in the half-light. And then she bursts into tears.

  The train pulls into Cambridge at 6.08 a.m. and even though she is late, she isn’t monumentally late, so still she hopes. When, once ejected from the station, she’s met with a total absence of taxis, that dwindling hope evaporates a spider’s thread, but still she runs. Runs down Station Road, down Hills Road, across Parker’s Piece, panting, gasping, lungs burning, thighs aching, down Clarendon Street and towards Midsummer Common. She doesn’t stop, not to catch her breath, not to call Henri – she realises as she runs that she’d forgotten, as she’d paced the aisles, to call Mathieu on the train, that he’ll be worrying about her now – not for any traffic light. And, when she finally arrives at the doorstep of La Feuille de Laurier, Viola collapses. It takes every ounce of non-existent energy left to lift her arm and rap her knuckles on the wooden door. She’s still knocking, nearly two full minutes later, when Jacques finally opens the door.

  He looks down at her. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

  Viola opens her mouth, but doesn’t yet have breath to answer.

  ‘You’re late,’ he snaps. ‘You’re so fucking late. We’ve started without you.’

  ‘I-I …’ Viola gulps air, grasping for apologies, flailing. ‘S-s …’

  Jacques glares down at her. ‘Talent isn’t everything,’ he snaps. ‘Timing is essential too.’ Then he slams the door. And, in the rush of air and despair, Viola hears the fatal words ‘you’re fired’ before the door cracks into the frame, the death knell of her final hopes echoing through the freezing morning air, reverberating in her chest, in the hollow corridors of her bones until, at last, Viola drops her head, tears falling to soak her jumper – she realises, vaguely, that she’s left her coat at the hotel – as she cries.

  Her blurry eyes alight, then, on the finger of her left hand, on the ring of gold foil, fashioned from a Ferrero Rocher wrapper that Mathieu had ordered from room service, along with the bottle of Dom Pérignon, to celebrate their engagement. He was wearing a matching ring, which seemed only fair, given that she’d been the one to propose. Viola recalls, in some distant corner of her mind, in a misty bank of memories, how she’d spun around the room, giddy on champagne and joy, how Mathieu has kissed every inch of her skin, how they’d gobbled up every chocolate and afterwards taken a bath together, bellies swollen, and wrapped their fingers together, lifting the foil rings from the water. She can’t feel the joy now, can’t even evoke the echo of it, as she sits with head bowed. Viola feels nothing now. She is numb. She is frozen, inside and out. She is without joy. She is without hope. She is without anything that matters any more.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Jude walks along the long, warm, white corridor of the hospital with Gertie trotting along beside her, hummingbird in hand. Jude hadn’t suggested visiting her father, but Gertie had insisted. In the end, although she considered sugar-coating the facts, Jude had been honest about everything – that he was probably about to die – and, the minute she heard this, Gertie wouldn’t hear another word until it was agreed that they would go straight to the hospital.

  Now, as they get closer to the ward, Gertie slows.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Jude asks.

  Gertie doesn’t answer.

  ‘Are you scared to see Granddad?’

  Gertie shakes her head.

  ‘Tell me,’ Jude says. ‘I might be able to help.’

  Gertie considers. ‘I’m just worried, that’s all.’

  ‘About what? Granddad?’

  ‘No,’ Gertie admits. ‘I don’t know him, so I’m not that sad, really.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Jude says. ‘I knew him very well and I’m not sad either.’

  Gertie frowns.

  ‘I
know, that makes me a terrible, cold-hearted person,’ Jude says. ‘But he was a horrible, horrible father. I spent most of my childhood wishing he’d die. He just took his sweet time about it.’

  Gertie looks at her aunt, eyebrows raised, aghast.

  ‘I know,’ Jude says. ‘I shouldn’t think things like that. But I do. Anyway, that’s not the point. What are you worried about?’

  Gertie holds her hummingbird to her chest and sets her eyes to the floor. ‘Those people are coming tomorrow, aren’t they?’

  ‘The social workers,’ Jude says, having entirely forgotten. She really must start writing these things down. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  Gertie taps her foot against the Formica of the hospital corridor. ‘I … I’m worried that they won’t let us live in Gatsby’s,’ she says. ‘I’m worried they’ll say it’s,’ – she makes quote marks in the air – ‘“not an appropriate environment for a child” – then I’ll be really, really sad.’

  Jude feels another crack cut a path across her already splintered heart. ‘I won’t let that happen, OK? I promise. We’ll do whatever we have to do so they let us live there. We’ve already got a sort-of bedroom upstairs, right? We’ll add a tiny bathroom and a stove, whatever we need. We’ll turn the shop into our home. All right?’

  Gertie nods, her eyes shining, her whole body quivering with joy. Then she turns and hurries off down the corridor. Jude follows.

  Dr Ody isn’t at all as Jude imagined him. He’s decidedly short, rather rotund, quite bald and probably in his late forties. But his smile is the kindest she’s ever seen and, she notices, he wears no wedding ring.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he says. ‘I’ve just checked on him. He’s asleep. But he may wake soon. And I’ve always believed that patients can feel the presence of their loved ones, even if they aren’t fully conscious.’