Falling in Love with English Boys Page 9

  “You see, my lord,” I said with forced cheer. My voice sounded shrill in my ears. “Champagne and I are a sorry match.”

  I thought I heard him grumble something about investments, but it was lost to a burst of laughter from the merry party in the next box. Then he was plying the bottle again, I was trying to discourage him, and suddenly Papa’s fist hit the table, spilling yet more and startling me into stillness.

  “Drink the bloody champagne, Katherine!” he snapped. They were the only words he addressed to me during the brief but torturous meal.

  What have I done to displease him so?

  Chilham gloated. He honked and snorted. I took to sipping (how sour it was!), then tipping out the contents of my glass when neither man was looking. I believe I emptied the better part of two bottles onto the already unclean floor.

  I was altogether too glad to quit the box. I barely noticed the man in brilliant silks and brocades passing, a chattering monkey atop each shoulder. Nor could I find any pleasure in the knowledge that the fireworks would soon begin. I wanted only to be home, in bed, losing the memory of a dismal night to one filled with friends—and possible sweethearts.

  I did not notice at first when Chilham quitted the brilliantly lit and busy avenue for a darker side path, much less occupied. The copious amount of drink seemed to have quieted his snufflings, leaving him free to drone on about the culinary joys of mushrooms.

  By the time I paid attention, we were deep in shadows. I had heard of these paths. They are where couples go for their romantic trysts, where men behave not like gentlemen and ladies not at all like ladies. It was not a place I wished to be at all, and most certainly not with Lord Chilham.

  I looked about, but Papa was nowhere to be seen.

  I turned, ready to hurry back to the lighted promenade, back to where Papa was most certainly looking for me. But in the very next moment, my unwelcome companion had both of my hands gripped in his. His were decidedly moist. Feeling a bit alarmed and slightly ill, I tugged. He held fast.

  “Katherine!” he breathed, much too close to my face. He smelled of sour champagne and onions. “Most lovely, most charming Katherine.”

  “Sir!” I jerked away and retreated until a prickly hedge brought me up short. “This is most improper!”

  “Oh, but I have your parents’...well, your father’s permis ...” He paused, head turning from side to side as if in search of something. “My intentions are not improper, Cousin.” He peered intently into the darkness. “What . . . ? Hmm.” And back at me, as if I were somehow causing a distraction: “Ah, well. You cannot possibly mistake my intentions . . . What was that?”

  I had heard nothing, but glanced around, too, hoping desperately to see Papa, hoping for any rescue from the moment. All I could detect was a soft rustling from the plants some yards away, and the soft giggle of someone far happier in her situation.

  “As I was saying, Cousin Katherine. I do believe it is something of a certainty that we . . . Confound it! What is it?”

  I very nearly jumped from my skin when a hand clamped about my wrist and tugged me firmly away from Chilham and from the shrub. Heart pounding, hopeful, I turned to see not Papa, but a tiny woman peering up at me from under a broad head scarf. It was difficult to see anything in the dim light, but I could make out the shape of a bowed back beneath her shawl, and eyes glittering from deep sockets. The fingers about my wrist were gnarled, but had the strength of youth.

  “ ’ Tisn’t safe for the likes of you in a place like this, missy.” There was a hint of far-off lands in the soft cackle, and a touch of humour. “All sorts’ll be thinking to take advantage.”

  Chilham noticed her then. “Take your filthy hands off the lady!” he commanded snuffily. “Begone, before I summon the watch.”

  She tilted her head and seemed to study him closely for a moment. Then: “Nay, thought not. Ye’ve no place in what’s to come. Begone yerself.”

  He puffed up so visibly that I feared for his buttons. “Why, you vile old—”

  She waved her free hand at him. Abruptly, his words were lost to a fit of sneezing.

  “Does the young lady wish to hear her fortune?”

  Mesmerised, I nodded, but it was difficult to hear much of anything above Chilham’s noise. The old woman tugged at my arm until I was bent nearly double. “Cross my palm,” she commanded into my ear. I knew she wanted money. I fumbled in my reticule and found a half crown. She folded it into her fist.

  “Ye young chickies,” she grumbled, “only wanting t’hear of love and marriage. Am I right?” Well, of course she was. “Even if ’tisn’t what matters most. So be it. Yer beloved . . . Yer beloved is a man of words. Listen.”

  I did. Chilham sneezed.

  I listened. “Well?”

  “Not to me, foolish girl! To him. To your beloved.”

  She let go of my arm and started to turn away.

  “Wait. Please. My beloved is a poet, is he not?”

  “If so ye say . . .”

  Suddenly there was a whistle and a crack, and the sky was briefly lit by a thousand brilliant sparks. All over the Gardens, people cheered.

  “Mind those dear to you.” The woman shook a finger at me. In the darkness, it looked skeletal. “Mind them good!”

  More fireworks boomed and sparkled. I spied Papa then, standing at the branch of the path, calmly smoking one of his Egyptian cheroots. I hurried toward him, thinking he must have been there all along. Then, deciding I’d best be absolutely certain the old Gypsy had said “words”—rather than “swords” or something far less portentous (truly, soldiers are so very common, after all—Charles and Nicholas and the Goodwin brothers and the fat princes . . . and poets so rare), I turned back.

  She was gone, vanished into the shadows.

  I am not entirely certain, but I believe in the last flare of fireworks, her nose did appear veined enough to be almost the colour of . . . a plum.

  Chilham’s sneezing subsided after that, but he could not seem to regain his earlier vigor. Papa said nothing on the ride home, but it was clear he was in no better form than when we had left the house hours before. He and Chilham disappeared into the library as soon as we reached the house. Neither took leave of me.

  Once in bed, I thought of Chilham’s speech.

  “You cannot mistake my intentions, Cousin.”

  I could. I could quite easily and with pleasure. I would very much like to mistake his intentions. I wish, too, that I could be mistaken in Father’s desires on the matter.

  Could he, could he truly wish to see me wed to awful Lord Chilham? Is a title worth so much? Or am I worth so little?

  No. I am certain it is not. I am not.Yet, there are his lectures and scoldings and could it have been just that he was strolling too far behind us tonight to see what Chilham intended? I cannot think on the matter now. Perhaps tomorrow.

  Mama came in just as I was falling asleep. She had been out, too, at one of her literary evenings, I would think. She looked unusually pretty, in good health and a new sapphire dress that glowed in the light of her candle. She did not look happy, though.

  “Katherine.” She ran one hand gently over my brow, as she had done when I was small and she would come in each night to be certain all was well. “Did anything . . . unusual happen tonight at the Gardens? Anything I perhaps should know?”

  I was so sleepy. Different images flitted through my mind.

  “A Gypsy woman told my fortune,” I murmured.

  Above me, her face relaxed. “Oh? And what did she destine for you, my lovely girl?”

  “I shall marry a man of swords,” I told her.

  “Ah,” she said, and smoothed my hair from my face.

  I thought to tell her no, the Gypsy had said “words,” but I must have fallen asleep.

  July 11

  Stronger

  What doesn’t kill us . . .

  Mr. Sadiq was a science professor in Baghdad. I learned this over dinner tonight with the Sadiq family. And here
is how that happened:

  I was in the shop, keeping Elizabeth company while she worked, and trying to decide between Wine Gums (think Gummi Bears with serious ’tude) and Liquorice Allsorts. No chocolate this week. I’m bargaining with Fate:

  If I am very very good and abstain from what I love best, the gods of love will smile favorably upon me, and Will will call.

  Will hasn’t called. It’s been four days since I saw him. It could be nothing. (“I’m sure he has every intention of calling!” From Consuelo. “But they’ve such dismal senses of time, boys.”) He didn’t specify when he would call. It could be that he’s been busy. And has a dismal sense of time. (“Prats. All of them.” Imogen.) It could be that my heavy chocolate consumption has made my rear view appalling, and the fact that, if he’s half as fab as he seems, I think I could really really like him has turned me into a blithering idiot, not fit for average company, let alone his.

  “Cat, you pinheaded eejit!” Elizabeth, not mincing words, again, as I sigh over the liquorice. “You’re fab. Losing your mind, but fab nonetheless. He’s losing out. Period. If he has a single brain cell in that inbred aristocratic head of his, he’ll come worship at your feet.” I love Elizabeth. “Now, your mum’s got that museum do tonight, right? Right. You’re coming home to have supper with me.”

  It was true. Mom did have an event at the BM. A dinner for visiting researchers or something. She invited me. I declined. To her credit, she didn’t push. Even my mother knows there’s a limit to how much dust, real and figurative, that a girl can take.

  So, it was whatever I scrounged up for dinner (note for future reference: “Pot Noodles,” especially the “Bombay Bad Boy” flavor, are pretty yummy, colorful, and available one aisle over, two shelves down from the chocs) or a glimpse into Elizabeth’s home life. “Your parents . . . ?”

  “Think ‘hospitality’ is a sacred duty. They’ll be chuffed. Dad likes you.”

  I hesitated. For like a second. “Sure. Should I . . . um . . . bring something?”

  “Box of chocolates?” Elizabeth kept remarkably poker-faced for an impressively long time. She thinks my chocolate abstention is hilarious. She took pity on me eventually. “My mum likes lilies.”

  So three hours later, Elizabeth, the lilies, and I walked out of the Finsbury Park Tube station. The Sadiqs’ neighborhood is famous, Elizabeth told me, for the mosque and the fact that Arsenal Football Club has its stadium nearby. There did seem to be a lot of red-and-white shirts around. It was my first trip to a part of London not found in most guidebooks and Hugh Grant movies. To be honest, I’d expected it to look a little more . . . exotic, maybe? Stop rolling your eyes, Djenan. I’m being honest, after all. Y’know, like Will said. Uncensored.

  So I expected to see minarets and gold embroidery and women in burqas. They were there, sure. But so were belly shirts, gangsta hoodies, and a lot of very pale people in ugly jeans. A sociological polyglot, the (s)mother would call it, trying to expand my frame of reference. It just kinda looked like South Street to me, right down to the bling-y accessory shop sandwiched between the mobile phone store and the pub.

  We walked for a few minutes, away from the shops and into a narrower street lined with identical orange-brick houses with supersize white trim and tall windows. The Sadiqs’ flat is the whole bottom floor of one of them. As we entered the foyer, we could hear the only-slightly-muffled thump of drums coming from upstairs. In the offbeats, I could just make out a sort of garbled moaning. It wasn’t a recording.

  “Swedish medical students,” Elizabeth told me, as if that explained everything.

  We were barely through the door when two versions of Elizabeth, in descending size, came at us. “Mum’s working late; Aunt Suha’s on the phone!” the smaller one announced, bouncing up and down. She looked about twelve. “Dad’s talking to her now. The wedding is on!”

  “My sister Joanna,” Elizabeth announced as she lifted her bag full of—chocolate, of course—what else?—out of her sister’s reach. “Jo, this is—”

  “It was still off until Wednesday,” the taller cut in. She looked twelve, too, but the black Pink shirt made me guess at fifteen or so. “Then his parents gave Shaz a new car . . . well, not a new new one, but only a couple of years old, and said they’ll give her a house when she marries Youssif.”

  “This is Sarah,” Elizabeth told me. “She’s obsessed with bad telly and the Eastenders-like drama of our cousin’s engagement. Sarah—”

  “Youssif’s hideous!” Joanna proclaimed.

  “A toad!” Sarah agreed.

  “He’s rich,” Elizabeth said, “and he might be a perfectly decent bloke—”

  “Ewwwww!” they both groaned.

  “Fine, he’s a toad all around. She won’t end up marrying him.” To me, Elizabeth explained, “Suha’s my father’s sister. She lives in Jordan, with her aforementioned daughter, who may or may not actually be marrying the rich but wholly unattractive son of a rich but boorish car dealer. It’s an ongoing saga, fast losing its salacious appeal.” She waved the bag like a hypnotist’s watch in front of her sisters. “Now you will both pay attention to me. This is my friend Cat from the States. Do not eat this chocolate in front of her. She’s bargaining with Fate.”

  Sarah got the bag. “Hiya!” she said to me. “Fate is an impervious foe.”

  “Brilliant!” Joanna announced. Whether to me or the choc, I have no clue.

  “To the table!” I heard Mr. Sadiq call from somewhere down a hall.

  Their flat looks like ours at home. Lots of books and comfy furniture and not quite enough room for everything in it. There were fashion mags on every flat surface. One gray cat was sleeping on the windowsill. Another one lay on its back, all four paws in the air, on one of the Middle Eastern-looking rugs. Kinda like Andouille does on our rugs. Only I doubt theirs are from IKEA. Theirs glow a little.

  Elizabeth pulled me past her sisters. “Come on, then. If Mum’s late at the hospital, Dad’s cooking. So be warned.”

  “Warned . . .?” I asked.

  “He’s an experimental cook. Tonight’s menu is braised snake.”

  Okay, so I’m halfway into what’s obviously the dining room, trying to think of how I can possibly explain that I go into anaphylactic shock if I eat legless reptile—without sounding like the lily-livered American coward that I am—and she lets me actually get to “I . . . er . . . ah” before letting out that killer laugh.

  “You really are an eejit, you know.” She sighed, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “We’re probably having some form of pasta pesto.”

  I hate Elizabeth. I love Elizabeth.

  We had rotini with turnip-green-and-walnut pesto. Mr. Sadiq watched me take my first bite as if I were, in fact, prone to anaphylaxis. It kinda tasted like garlicky turf. How do I know how turf tastes, you ask? Do please recall my brief stint at Taney baseball. (Ten points to whichever of you can find out what happened to Trevor Wilson. Haven’t thought of him since he fell for that ballerina from St. Peter’s and so ended my twelve-year-old aspirations of getting to first base.)

  “Delicious,” sez I. Actually, it really was pretty good. Mr. Sadiq beamed. The Junior Sadiqs rolled their eyes in perfect unison, and all was well in the world.

  My dad cooks. Kinda. The soon-to-be-stepmonster talked him into taking a series of couples’ cooking classes last year. He went to one. He learned to make stuffed baked potatoes. He makes them stuffed with canned chili. Or tuna. Or their innards mixed with canned soup. He gets a little grumpy when Samantha the STBS asks him to leave her potato unbuttered, unsalted, unstuffed. He stomped out of the kitchen once when I reminded him that I haven’t liked tuna fish since . . . well, since forever, actually.

  “There you are, Dad,” Joanna said on hearing about my dad’s culinary prowess. “You could mix potato innards with basil pesto.”

  “Or rocket pesto,” Sarah added.

  “Or potato pesto, perhaps,” from Elizabeth.

  Mr. Sadiq took it all with his fa
miliar dignity. “There will be no sweet for any of you ingrates. And I have made Victoria sponge with—”

  “Pesto!” all three girls said together.

  “Yes, yes, most amusing.” To me, Mr. Sadiq announced, “A chef I am not, but I like to combine interesting ingredients. I have not entirely left the science professor behind.”

  “You were a professor?”

  “I was. Chemistry, at a technical college in Baghdad.” He must have noticed my surprise. He smiled, a little sadly. “Ah, yes, I had a career before the shop, a life before London. But then, you could not have known that, and I daresay many of the shopkeepers in your Philadelphia look much as I do.”

  He’s right. They do.

  “How many Iraqis have you met, Catherine?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” I admitted. “Two or three that I know of.”

  “And they were teachers? Doctors? Engineers?”

  “No,” I admitted. “They were driving taxis.”

  “Just so.” Mr. Sadiq nodded. “In this country of opposite sides,” he said, “I am not a good driver.”

  He wasn’t talking about driving. As much of a Homer as I felt right then, I knew that. I felt about six inches tall, goils.

  Mr. Sadiq didn’t mean to make me feel bad. Or maybe he did, in a nice way. Maybe I deserved it. But the girls barely blinked. “No worries, Yank,” Elizabeth assured me as she carried an armload of plates from the table. “We think all Americans are stone stupid.”

  “Complete pilchards,” Joanna agreed cheerfully.

  “Self-centered, egomaniacal, earth-destroying bullies,” Elizabeth added with glee.

  Sarah grinned. “With crap taste in music.”

  “And books.”

  “And television.”

  “And crisps.”

  “And chocolate.”

  “Enough!” Mr. Sadiq commanded finally, but with that last, sadly true pronouncement, I could only concede utter defeat and tuck happily, with everyone else, into a seriously excellent sponge cake.