Love Is a Thief (20 page)

‘Sorry, ladies,’ he said, pronouncing the s’s as if they were th’s. ‘So sorry.’

‘I think, darl, what your grandmamma is trying to say,’ Delaware said, taking my hand, ‘is that
you
are not too old.’ They all looked at me, wide-eyed, Beatrice swaying heavily from side to side. ‘Now I know, sweetie, that your heart is so broken right now, darl. I’ve been there.’ She was breathy, like Sue Ellen in
Dallas
. ‘I’ve really been there. But sometimes you have to move on even before you are ready to move on. You have to get back in that ring and you have
to throw that first punch even if you don’t think you’ve got the strength or the desire.’

‘I read a book recently—’ we were back on Grandma ‘—about devaluation. Actually the book was on global economics, not one you need to read cover to cover but one that is applicable in this instance. You need to
devalue
your experience with Gabriel. You need to
devalue
what he is and was to you. He needs to become one of a number of men and experiences in your lifetime. And there are two ways we are going to achieve this. One is by making a list of all the things you loved about Gabriel
and
all the things you like about other people. You might love Federico’s fashion and creativity, or the way George Clooney swoons, or Peter Parker, there must be something you love about Peter Parker?’ I had a flashback to the last door-slamming time that I’d seen him. ‘You might even love Chad’s unwavering self-belief. Put all these qualities on that list and make a description of your perfect man with all his perfect qualities. And you will immediately see that Gabriel only forms a small part of that list, a very low percentage. And that is how we start to devalue him and what he brings to the table. He doesn’t bring everything to the table. He never did.’

‘If I was you, darl, I would also cut out some photographs of different men, maybe there are some actors or singers you think are beautiful, we could get some pictures from a magazine and stick them on this list too.’

‘Great idea!’ Grandma shook her fist in the air with excitement. ‘Great idea! A list with pictures, a list showing
you that Gabriel is one of a number of beautiful men, with limited qualities and abilities.’

‘Next, darl, you need to
physically
move on.’

‘Like move countries?’ I was confused. ‘Because I have already moved, twice if you think about it, once to France and then once back from France. I don’t really want to move again, not just yet.’

‘No, we mean that you need to start seeing other people.’

‘Oh. Well, I don’t want to. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the enthusiasm. I can’t. I don’t want to. I won’t. No.’ The response felt more reflex than conscious.

‘We thought you might say that, didn’t we?’ Grandma said to Delaware. ‘So we are going to take baby steps. What we would like, and, yes, this is a formal Love-Stolen Dreams request before you try and wriggle out of it, is that from now on, every time you go out and do something related to your Love-Stolen Dreams column you can’t come back until you have kissed someone there.’

‘What?’

‘Not in the French way, darl, unless you want to. Just kiss someone, on the lips, or the cheek if you prefer, a quick peck, that’s all. I bet the last kiss that had meaning for you was a kiss with Gabriel, wasn’t it, darl?’

‘I guess so,’ I said, blushing bright red, touching my cheek where Peter Parker had kissed me in Hyde Park. Delaware looked at me suspiciously. Grandma took over.

‘Well, if you kiss someone on the lips every day or week or two weeks it will devalue kissing in general, normalise it, and you are increasing your odds because the more frogs you kiss, the more likely you are to meet a prince and in the
interim you are entertaining us with the kinds of experiences and conversations we are no longer privy to.’

‘I don’t want to find a prince and I don’t think me looking for one is in any way complementary to my current objectives. In fact it feels contrary to what I am telling everyone else to do.’

‘Darling, your objectives were to help people realise their potential
within or without a relationship
. You were never anti-relationships. And you might meet someone one day and when you do all these experiences will help you stay connected to yourself. So we think it’s valid if you kiss as many people as possible. Now we would also like where possible if you took photos of everyone you kiss and we will stick the photos on here.’ She pressed a button and a screen dropped down from the ceiling with a world map on it. There was an A4-sized headshot of me in the middle (11 years old, train-track braces).

‘Seriously, Grandma? That was the only photo you could find?’

‘This is going to be our record of your Love-Stolen Dreams kissing journey,’ she said enthusiastically.

‘That is just classic, yes, it is, yes, it is.’ Federico wandered into the kitchen followed by Leah, who was bellowing into her iPhone. ‘Well, hello, campers!’ he said with jazz hands. ‘And that photo really is Cadbury’s Dairy Milk in that it is never going to get old and it is never going to stop making me feel good, no, it is not.’ He grabbed a jug of Margaritas and started topping up all their glasses. ‘So, Lady Bears, Leah asked me to bring her here because she is going
to teach us how to crystal heal and I am cherry bakewell excited about it.’ Leah was still talking on her phone.

‘No, no, he can’t stay up later than 8 p.m. No, he can’t. Since when did an under-5 become the more knowledgeable in the parent-child relationship?’ She rolled her eyes at us. ‘Well, of course he’d say I feed him ice cream before bed. He says a lot of things. Last week he told me he created a spaceship and flew it into the ear of Grandpa Jim, but I didn’t call
Science Weekly
and schedule an interview for them with our spaceship-building son. I told Henry he was a clever boy, then I made him finish his mashed potatoes.’ She held her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘It’s my ex’s turn to have Henry,’ before wandering off into the lounge. ‘No, no, he can’t watch that film, no, no, I have never let him do that before—’

‘Who wants more Margaritas, Lady Bears?’ Federico said, pouring the last of the jug into Beatrice’s glass before we all realised that she was in fact asleep head first in a plate of cold pasta.

‘More Margarita!’ yelled Grandma, before zigzagging her way to the kitchen. Federico copied her. Delaware stayed in her seat next to me.

‘Sweetie, humour us. Do you think you could do that? Make us smile. Let us have a little glimpse back to the past. You never know, you might just enjoy it. And I really think this will help you move on in ways you can’t even imagine or appreciate just yet. I truly believe this is the best way to sever the invisible bonds that can keep us connected to another person. So please trust me because we are trying to set you free.’

request | kiss a frog every time I come to a pond

Grandma’s newest request had made me feel dizzy, dizzier than the earlier Margaritas. I didn’t like the idea of kissing a bunch of low-life punks every time I went out to take back some Love-Stolen Dreams. Captain Hook didn’t have to snog every dirty crim he ever met. He was the captain of his own ship; the master of his own destiny; he would have made Love walk the plank then held his pistol in the air yelling, ‘ooohh ahhhh,’ before feasting on red wine and giant chicken legs. No, this whole kissing idea was a real headache for me, an
actual
headache, so with a migraine beginning to caress my left temple (as opposed to me caressing everyone I ever did meet) I disappeared to find some painkillers before my enforced session of crystal healing.

grandma’s walk-in wardrobe

Grandma has
never
compromised on closet space. Her walkin wardrobe offers me comfort on a level not even a
KitKat
can compete with. It is cavernous and never-ending like the wardrobe that takes you to Narnia. Familiar items of clothing hang from the rails that line the walls: vintage fur coats; hundreds of boxes of shoes; delicious
Chanel
suits; beautiful pieces of jewellery displayed in silk-lined cabinets. There are also items from my past. Grandma has carefully packed away my christening outfit; pictures I painted her; misshapen clay pots I made at playschool. Grandma still used them. One for buttons, one for foreign currency, one was filled with odd pieces of ribbon. There was a tatty friendship bracelet I’d given her aged seven; the hospital wristband from my birth. There is even a small piece of fabric
that I’d sewn her initials onto. And somewhere, somewhere in this delightful walk-in wardrobe was an impressive medicine box that very much blurred the boundaries of current British medical legislation.

I was on my sixth unsuccessful box when I discovered them. Not the Asian pain medication I sought, but a box filled with letters; hundreds of neatly packed letters, batches of them tied in ribbon. Some were incredibly old, some more recent, with stamps and watermarks from all around the world, all with the same handwriting, all of them addressed to Grandma but not to our house, to a PO Box address I didn’t recognise. I’d never seen any of these letters before. I pulled out a handful and noticed the handwriting; slanting slightly to the right; angular and precise. I chose a letter with a postmark from 10 years ago and carefully opened it.

Dear Josephine
,

I am settling in well in Paris, thank you. There is an amazing research facility attached to the university, and the apartment is wonderful. In fact everything has been impressive so far, with the exception of my French. No amount of lessons could have prepared me for the speed everyone speaks. Most of the Parisians are rude and switch immediately into perfect English. Occasionally they are patient. In the café where I have breakfast every morning the waiters allow me the time and good grace to try to order in French. I’ve seen them laugh a few times but in general they try to help. And there is an amazing teacher at college who speaks French with me for a few hours
every Wednesday, it’s part of a language exchange programme. It’s strange because, although they are not the same age at all, there is something about the teacher that reminds me a little bit of Kate, which has made me feel slightly homesick. How is she?

Who was this person? Why were they asking about me? I flipped to the last page of the letter.

I’ll send you the dates when I am next free to meet. I hope all is well there.
Love, Peter Parker

‘Ah! It’s like your childhood all over again!’ Grandma beamed as everyone trudged into Grandma’s room to find me. ‘She used to spend hours playing in my wardrobe as a child, didn’t you, darling?’

‘What’s that?’ Leah said, grabbing the letter out of my hand. ‘And why are you so pale? Are you going to throw up again? Federico said you did the same thing at Mary’s. Are you pregnant?’

‘As if,’ Federico said, trying on one of the fur coats. ‘It would be God’s child if she was.’

‘I was looking for painkillers,’ I said, looking up at Grandma. She looked from me to the box of letters on the floor.

‘Well, that doesn’t look like the medicine box, does it?’ Grandma said, grabbing up the box and then the letter from Leah’s hand. ‘And, darling, you know better than to read
other people’s letters. I thought I had brought you up better than that.’

‘Grandma?’

‘Now where are these painkillers?’ She started rummaging through the cupboards, pulling out a big box, opening it up on the ground next to me. ‘Painkillers, painkillers,’ she muttered as she picked through the contents of the box.

‘Grandma …?’ I felt nervous to even ask the question. ‘Have you been in contact with Peter Parker the entire time he’s been away?’

Federico gasped. Leah looked as if she was holding her breath. Delaware swayed and tripped backwards into the
Chanel
suits. Grandma stopped very still, staring into the box of drugs.

‘Grandma, how could you not say something?
Why
wouldn’t you say something? You saw me! You saw how upset I was when he left! He just vanished, without a word, my best friend, he totally disappeared, and you were in touch with him the whole time?’

The oncoming migraine was beginning to thump against my skull like an attention-seeking child. Grandma took two tablets out of a box and placed them in the palm of my hand, gently closing her hands around my own. The tablets weren’t soluble.

‘Kate,’ she said quietly, ‘I don’t think this is the moment for us to talk about this. In fact, I don’t think I can have this conversation with you. It’s not my place to. So, get yourself a glass of water to take those tablets, no one ever thought clearly with a headache, and then I think it’s time everyone left. I’m sorry, Leah. I know you were looking forward
to healing us but I am suddenly very tired. We’ll have to do it another time.’ She left us in her wardrobe; Delaware amongst the suits; Federico, Leah and I just staring at each other.

‘Kat-kins,’ whispered Federico. ‘Literally … what the mother fluff just happened? That was intense, wasn’t it? Did anyone else feel that? That was episode-ending, in a dramatic way, and I’m thinking to myself, I’m thinking, why does no one give a peanut butter sandwich that Beatrice is still asleep in a pasta ready meal for one?’

the golden swan—federico cagassi—41 years old

I
guess I couldn’t avoid doing this forever. So, my name is Federico Cagassi and love has taken away my career progression. You know, I know, we all know that I should be at a more senior level at
True Love
. I should be Editor. I should be Chad. But as I want to work with Chad, not without him, I have chosen to work under him. So that is what I have given up for love, yes it is, yes it is, yes it is
.

Firstly I want to state for the record that it’s not all bad. I think of
True Love
as my baby. I spend almost all my waking hours working on it. I still get shivers every time I walk past a shop window and see our newest edition on the shelf, or someone reading it on the tube, or the day our server went down because we had so many hits on the Love-Stolen Dreams website. So in many ways I haven’t given up anything at all, except perhaps a job title and a bit of extra money, a lot of extra money actually, and invites to parties—Chad gets all the invites to parties. And he gets the freebies. I get some: the ones he doesn’t want. Just last month I walked into my apartment and for a second I
thought I’d taken a wrong turn and accidentally ended up in the gift section of Harrods, there were so many presents in there. But Chad always gets first pick, first dibs, at the invites and at the freebies. I didn’t get a look in when the new iPad arrived, no, I did not
.