Marina Kemp - Nightingale

‘You should also pour it onto the coffee from a height,’ she said. She poured, let it rest, stirred it carefully with a knife lying in the sink. ‘Now we leave it again before we plunge.’

She walked over to the door again and stood there to light her second cigarette. ‘What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘The hand. Where would it take you?’

Marguerite shrugged. She tried hard to think of somewhere, anywhere. ‘I don’t really know.’

‘Surely Paris?’

‘God, no.’ Suki’s eyes focused more intently on her face and she regretted the strength of her reaction. ‘Too hectic,’ she said, to explain herself. She lifted the cafetière and placed it down on the table. ‘Am I allowed to plunge it yet?’

Suki gestured with one hand as she blew out a jet of smoke. ‘You are allowed,’ she said, smiling. ‘Slowly, though. What was I saying before? My house. Yes, it’s lovely. But I hate that fucking place.’

Something about the immediacy of the comment made Marguerite laugh. Suki seemed surprised, and laughed too.

‘It’s all twee little houses and paper-doily curtains and the same small-minded little people wandering around talking about how big their aubergines grew last harvest.’ She took a long drag. ‘I’m not even exaggerating. That’s the kind of thing they talk about.’

‘But there must be some normal people,’ said Marguerite.

‘No, the point is that they are normal. Too normal. Paralysingly normal. There are some good ones – little Luc, the librarian. A very smart guy. We have quite a famous writer living in the woods, Edgar DuChamp.’ She looked at Marguerite expectantly, but she shook her head; she’d never heard of him. ‘And there’s Madame Brun, a barmy old woman – three metres tall or something – who only wears black. Have you seen her?’

Again, Marguerite shook her head. ‘What about your husband?’

‘Philippe?’ Suki forced a laugh. ‘He’s worse than the rest.’ She stared into the distance for a moment, scratching her neck with one of her long painted nails, and for a moment Marguerite was reminded of a bird of prey. ‘I’m just kidding, he’s not that bad. But I get so bored, Marguerite.’

The use of her name jarred, suggestive of an unearned intimacy. As if she sensed it too, Suki threw her unfinished cigarette away and came back to sit at the table.

‘I haven’t even explained why I’m here,’ she said. ‘So this fête. Hear me out – it’s actually not as bad as you’d think. It happens every May, and it’s just the village selling various things and showing off their produce or their latest haircut. And everyone brings their ugly little dogs that look like rats and they dress them up in ugly little outfits.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve made it sound dire, haven’t I?’ Again she laughed, and it occurred to Marguerite for the first time that she might be nervous. ‘But anyway, so I’m bored and what the hell, I’ve signed up to do a stall.’

‘What kind of stall?’

There had been a small change in Suki’s expression, a flicker of something in her smile. Marguerite noticed a faint blush rising up over her cheeks.

‘Last year I ran a fancy-dress stall for the kids. I piled up all the amazing scarves and headpieces and costume jewellery I have – I love collecting these things – and bunged them on the stall and invited all the children to dress up in them.’

‘That sounds like a great idea.’

‘Well, yes, I thought so too. But the problem is absolutely no one let their kids come and use the clothes. I actually heard one woman tell her nephew not to touch anything from “the mystic’s little box of tricks”.’

‘The mystic?’

‘They call me the mystic. I think they think I’m some kind of witch doctor or something.’

‘Why?’

Suki shrugged. ‘My hijab? It makes me want to shake them. I want to say, there are no witch doctors, there’s no voodoo in Iran. We’re more civilised than the lot of you.’ She looked quickly at Marguerite, watching for offence, and affected a more relaxed expression. ‘Maybe they just confuse “Suki” with “Sufi”. Though actually they’re too ignorant to know what Sufism is.’

‘It sounds ridiculous either way.’

‘Yes, it is. Ridiculous. And I felt ridiculous standing behind a stall dressed in my most beautiful clothes with the entire contents of my wardrobe displayed in front of me and not a single child even allowed to come near. And they wanted to, you know? I could see it, especially the little girls. They were itching to try on all the pretty things.’ She got up and lit yet another cigarette by the door. ‘So I’m not making that mistake again this year. This year, I’m running a simple bric-a-brac stall. You’ve seen my house, you’ve seen all my things. Well I have piles more hidden away in my attic and Philippe’s been at me for years to clear it out, so I thought, right, let’s see if they’ll stay away from my stall this time. Greedy little shits.’

She was slouching a little as she spoke, staring intently at a point on the doorframe, sucking at her cigarette. The soft beauty Marguerite had caught earlier was gone; she looked sad, shrunken, hard.

‘I think it sounds like a good idea,’ Marguerite said, though she thought the opposite. If they wouldn’t let their children dress up in her clothes, why did Suki think they’d want her ornaments?

But Suki looked at her gratefully. ‘You think so? I think so too.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, it’s probably stupid to bother getting involved, but I just can’t bear hiding away in my house pretending I don’t know they all hate me. I live in Saint-Sulpice too. I have a right to be there.’

‘Of course.’

‘So. I want you to come to the fête and I want you to pretend to buy a few of my things.’

Marguerite laughed; she had expected something more onerous.

‘I know it’s pathetic,’ Suki said, smiling ruefully. ‘Will you do it though? I have money here, for you to spend.’ She fiddled with her bag again, took some notes out. ‘Here’s fifty euros. You can even keep whatever you buy. I’m basically giving it to you.’

‘Okay. I can come, but not for long.’

‘That’s fine. But you’ll definitely come?’

Marguerite felt uncomfortable, constricted, as she always did when she was asked to make a commitment.

‘As long as Jérôme is okay.’

‘Great. Okay. You’ll be there.’ She came in to put the money on the table. ‘Well, I’m going to let you be now, but thank you. I won’t forget it.’

She leant forward to kiss Marguerite on each cheek. Above the smoke, she smelt of vanilla or coconut – something too sweet.

She didn’t wake Jérôme for lunch; she let him sleep, and he only called her to him mid-afternoon by knocking on his headboard, so faintly she barely heard it.

‘I feel much better,’ he said when she went in. But his face was still wax-coloured, and his lips, usually wide and strangely full for a man, were puckered and pale.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘What are those?’ He pointed weakly at a small blue jug she’d placed on the table when he was asleep, holding a cluster of wild flowers she’d found in the garden. He looked at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher. It was wary, she thought, but not irritated; there was a softness in his face.

‘I found them in the olive groves, growing wild. Someone really needs to take over the garden; it could be so beautiful.’

‘It was,’ he said. ‘You’ve spent a while outside. You’re a little sunburnt.’

‘Surely I’m not,’ she said, touching her cheeks. ‘I wasn’t out there for long.’

‘Not burnt, a little tanned.’ He smiled, the very faintest of smiles.