‘It’s not that you’re not attractive or anything—’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Gabriel with a grin.
‘—but I was feeling a bit desperate and so was behaving quite out of character. It’s just not me to be like that.’
‘I know,’ said Gabriel. ‘And I do understand. I’ve been there too. I’m sorry to hear about you and Luke Nicholas.’
Marianne suddenly glimpsed the pain she’d seen in his eyes at Christmas. She wasn’t one for village gossip but she had picked up that Stephen’s mum had left them. She felt a burst of solidarity with him. Things hadn’t worked out the way they’d hoped for either of them.
‘And I’m sorry to hear about your wife,’ she replied.
‘Probably for the best,’ mumbled Gabriel.
‘I don’t believe that,’ said Marianne. ‘As a fellow member of the Lonely Hearts Club, I can tell you’re lying.’
‘And you’d be right,’ said Gabriel. He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to being friends and Lonely Hearts together.’
‘To friends and Lonely Hearts,’ echoed Marianne and clinked her glass against his. ‘To never falling in love again and a pox on heartbreakers everywhere.’
Noel put his key in the lock, and turned it. Damn. Didn’t seem to be working. He blinked myopically down at his keyring, which mysteriously had found itself a twin. Oh. Hang on.
‘Wrong key,’ Noel slurred. ‘That’s it.’ He stood swaying on the doorstep, got the key in the lock, turned, and hey presto.
‘Ssssh,’ he said to the wall as he fell against it. ‘Mustn’t wake everyone up.’ Cat had been most insistent on that point, after he’d come home from someone’s leaving do the previous week and sung ‘Pinball Wizard’ so that the whole house had heard. He couldn’t help it if the DJ had been a Tommy fan.
Noel reached out for the light but the bulb popped. Bugger. He fumbled his way down the corridor towards the stairs that led down to the kitchen. There was usually a stash of new bulbs in one of the kitchen drawers.
As he got there he heard a noise. He paused at the top of the stairs.
There was a bang and a muffled shout.
There was definitely someone down there.
Noel crept back to the family room and rooted round in the dark for a suitable implement. He grabbed something long and hard. That would do.
Taking a deep breath and feeling emboldened by the alcohol firing through his veins, he crept back down the stairs again.
Nothing. There was no one there. He must have imagined it.
Noel was about to head upstairs again when he heard the dustbins crash outside. Noel paused, his heart in his mouth. Now what was he supposed to do? It was all very well coming over all Neanderthal and protecting your family in theory. He wasn’t quite so sure that he’d really like to put it into practice. Particularly now, when he’d started sobering up rather fast.
He crouched tensely in the dark. There were muffled sounds coming from outside. It clearly wasn’t a cat. Then he heard the kitchen window opening. Feeling sick to the pit of his stomach, Noel flung himself into the larder. Some hero he’d turned out to be.
Suddenly there was a loud crash and lots of shouting.
Noel came roaring out of the cupboard with his weapon held aloft.
Light flooded the kitchen.
Cat was standing sleepily in the doorway. ‘What the—?’
Noel sheepishly put down his weapon—a plastic cricket bat—to see Magda and her boyfriend sitting helplessly on the floor.
‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ Catherine stood in her dressing gown feeling a combination of bewilderment, fury and embarrassment. Sergei and Magda were arguing frantically in Russian and Noel was standing waving a plastic cricket bat in the air.
‘I thought we were being burgled,’ said Noel.
‘I sorry, Cat-er-ine,’—God, that singsong whine again, how Cat hated it—‘I forget key. I not want to disturb. So Sergei say, climb in through window.’
‘Did he now,’ muttered Cat.
Sergei was looking as apologetic as a wannabe Russian mafioso would allow himself to look. ‘It was my fault,’ he said. He flashed Cat a smile that was clearly meant to be winning, but which reminded her so much of Vladimir Putin, she felt utterly repulsed. ‘I didn’t want to make Magda trouble.’
Repressing the comment that Magda could make trouble all by herself, Cat grudgingly accepted his apology.
‘It’s very late,’ she said. ‘So, Sergei, I think it’s time you went home.’
‘Oh,’ Magda looked stricken. Oh God. That Look.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Cat. She glanced at Noel who clearly was having the same horrified thought she was.
‘Sergei, he have nowhere to go,’ said Magda. ‘He fight with landlord, and now he homeless.’
‘Well, he can’t stay here,’ said Noel. They’d always been very strict with their au pairs—they could do what they wanted outside the house, so long as they respected Cat and Noel’s rules within it.
‘Please No-el,’ Magda pleaded, ‘he has no bed tonight. He can stay here, please?’
Cat looked helplessly at Noel. It was gone midnight and, if Sergei really had nowhere to go, it was a bit harsh to throw him on the streets. She felt herself weakening. Shit, she always weakened in the face of Magda’s dogged persistence. The trouble was, if she didn’t give in, she was treated to hours of Magda sobbing and right now it was too late and she was too tired to cope with that.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘He can stay, but just for tonight. I want you to promise me you’ll find Sergei somewhere to live in the morning.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you, Catherine, you are very nice person,’ said Magda, hugging her with such effusiveness Cat began to think that it might have been better to brave the tears.
She and Sergei quickly disappeared upstairs, as if worried that Catherine might change her mind.
‘Well done,’ said Noel. ‘You’re always the one saying we should be tough on Magda.’
‘Don’t,’ said Cat. ‘It’s late, I’m knackered, and I couldn’t cope with the thought of Magda’s hysterics.’
‘Good point,’ said Noel, finally putting down the cricket bat and going to shut the kitchen window firmly. ‘I can’t believe you
