Marguerite unfolded it: it was a flyer for a spring fête in the village. There were bad illustrations of lambs and ducklings with big eyes and long eyelashes.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Suki said. ‘Why is Suki giving me an invitation to a ghastly spring fête, I can’t think of anything worse. Right?’
‘Well, not ghastly.’
‘Marguerite!’ Suki let her head fall back to look at the sky. ‘Don’t be so polite! I know perfectly well you would have no interest in a village fête.’
She looked at her, raising an eyebrow in a way that seemed rehearsed, imitated perhaps from someone onscreen.
‘Okay, it doesn’t exactly sound like my kind of thing,’ she said.
Suki watched her for a moment. ‘I know I’m sort of foisting myself on you,’ she said, ‘and you have absolutely no wish for my company.’
Marguerite started to protest but she raised her hands to stop her.
‘Stop, don’t say anything. But I’m going to keep trying, because I don’t think it’s right that you’re out here in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no company whatsoever. Apart from Lanvier.’ She rolled her eyes and took a last, concentrated drag on her cigarette, little lines appearing around her lips as she sucked. She dropped the butt onto the ground beside her and stamped it out, leaning against the doorframe. ‘The reason I’m here is because I need your help.’
‘Aha,’ said Marguerite. She stood. ‘Coffee?’
‘Badly needed, yes please.’
She took the kettle to the sink, closing her eyes as she let the water run. She heard cupboards open and close; when she turned, Suki was busying herself shaking coffee into a large, beaten-up cafetière Marguerite had never used.
‘I have an instinct for where things are kept,’ she said, smiling. ‘That had to be a cups and cafetière cupboard. Just as I bet you keep saucepans in that one, down there. Am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You see? It’s like I have an instinct for good housekeeping but no knowledge of how to implement it. You’ve seen my place, it’s a total bombsite.’
‘It’s a great location.’
‘Yes and no. I love being able to spy on everyone. And I can avoid them all, I simply wait for the coast to be clear before I walk out the door. But on the other hand, I’m stuck right in the thick of it. I get so claustrophobic there. Sometimes I picture a huge hand coming down and tearing the house from its foundations and carrying it thousands of miles away.’
‘Where would it take the house?’ asked Marguerite. ‘The giant hand.’
‘Iran. The mountains. Lorestan province.’ The kettle clicked and steam rose; Marguerite made to pick it up but Suki reached out to stop her. ‘You mustn’t pour it when it’s still boiling. It should be about 85 degrees. I’ll do it.’
Marguerite stood back as Suki removed the kettle lid and together they watched the steam escape and thin. Suki took it from its perch, lifted it high above the cafetière.
‘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