Kathleen Tessaro 3-Book Collection: The Flirt, The Debutante, The Perfume Collector

Sitting in her dressing gown on the back steps, Olivia fumbled with a box of kitchen matches, trying to light an ancient, stale Gauloise she’d found in an old handbag.

She wasn’t a real smoker. There was no style to the way she jammed the cigarette between her lips or struck the match so hard that it snapped in two. The Gauloise was a serious cigarette – thick, acrid. There was smoking and then there was napalming your lungs. But she needed napalm; her mind twisted wildly, to and fro, trying to justify the evidence, while her heart cracked with the same agonizing resistance of an old tree being felled, its trunk snapping painfully, slowly in two.

It was gone. Her world. The entire answer she’d formulated to the question of how to live life.

How could he do that to her? What made her so … so disposable?

Taking a deep drag, she choked and spluttered.

When she was done, she’d go back in and ring Simon. He’d have to get someone else. Today was a day for taking tranquillizers washed down by vodka, not for striking out in new directions.

In front of her, the newly erected fountain made a relentless dribbling noise like a leaky faucet. It was a horrific Baroque-inspired confection; a gold-encrusted seashell bowl surrounded by piles of fat, frolicking cherubs and dolphins spitting water. Expensive, ugly, derivative.

She thought about the shiny aluminium gulley cutting, as Ricki put it, like a blade through a bright square of green grass. If only she’d had the courage to listen to her. Taking another drag, she coughed and, pulling her dressing gown tighter, shivered in the brisk morning air.

‘Here.’

It was Ricki, holding open a box of Marlboro Lights.

Olivia’s face went red.

Before she could say anything, Ricki knelt down, taking the Gauloise from her fingers.

‘Let’s get rid of that, shall we?’ She tossed it into the fountain, where it fizzled out, bobbing up and down in the golden bowl. ‘What are you trying to do – kill yourself?’

Not a bad idea, Olivia reflected.

Then Ricki shook out a couple of cigarettes, popped both into her mouth and lit them with a battered black Zippo. She passed one back to Olivia.

It was all done so smoothly, so confidently. With what her mother would’ve called ‘élan.’

‘Thank you.’

Ricki nodded, settled down next to her, stretching out her long legs.

They sat, smoking in silence.

After a while, Ricki nodded to the fountain. ‘So, do you like it?’

Olivia struggled to find something nice to say. ‘You did a good job.’

‘Yeah,’ Ricki laughed, ‘but do you like it?’

‘It’s ghastly,’ she admitted, too exhausted to be polite.

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

They stared at it.

‘It’s not too late. We could still get rid of it.’

‘But it’s what I asked for.’ Olivia looked miserably at the pudgy gold putti. ‘You gave me exactly what I said I wanted.’

‘So what?’ Ricki shrugged. ‘You’re allowed to change your mind.’

What a dangerous concept.

‘Am I?’

‘Sure. Any time.’

They finished their cigarettes.

Ricki stood up. Holding out her hand, she pulled Olivia to her feet.

‘Thanks.’

‘And you’re … you know … OK?’ Ricki’s dark eyes were full of concern. ‘You seem a bit stressed.’

It surprised Olivia. No one really asked her how she was. Arnaud certainly didn’t, the staff wouldn’t dare.

‘I’m OK.’

Ricki nodded. ‘Good.’

‘Thanks for the cigarette.’

‘No problem.’

Olivia was about to go in when suddenly she stopped, turned. ‘Actually, my husband moved out of the house yesterday.’

It wasn’t the sort of thing one said to the gardener. She hadn’t intended mentioning it to anyone yet, not even Mimsy.

‘Really?’ She was refreshingly undramatic. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. We don’t seem to get on.’

There was a pause.

‘The truth is, he’s cheating on me.’

What was the sudden spate of honesty?

Ricki shook her head. ‘Cunt!’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What a cunt!’ she elaborated.