‘How can it be your favourite … if you’ve never read it?’
And I want to yell at him, ‘Cos the woman who kept me chained up in a cage was a Russian-loving lunatic, you stupid, spoilt Swiss idiot.’ I want to scream and shout. And next thing the plates are all smashed on the floor and I don’t know how I got so angry so quickly. I’m breathing hard and Gabriel’s standing there, with suds dripping off his fingers.
Next day at breakfast, on new plates, Gabriel isn’t talking; he’s reading Solzhenitsyn.
I eat the bread, drink the coffee, look out of the window.
I say, ‘Can you read all right with your sunglasses on?’
He just gives me the finger.
When we’re washing up, and he’s put the book down, he has another go at me, about art this time. He goes on and on about Monet and Manet and stuff like that. I don’t know what he’s talking about. All Black Witches can’t be like this, can they?
I tell him, ‘I don’t need a lecture about art. I need to get out of this stupid apartment and see Mercury. There’s a deadline.’ I throw a few swear words in there too.
When he’s gone I remember a book Arran gave me once. It had sketches in it by da Vinci. I’d almost forgotten about that book. They were good sketches. I find a pencil in a drawer but there’s no paper, so I rip a blank page out of Gabriel’s book.
After I’ve finished the drawing I burn it. But the fire smokes badly.
At breakfast on day three he says he’s finished One Day in the Life of … and he likes it. Then he asks me why I like it.
And of course there are a million reasons. Does he expect some fancy reply or something?
‘So,’ he asks, ‘why do you like it?’
I say, ‘Because he survives.’
Gabriel nods. ‘Yes, I’m glad about that too.’
While we wash up he talks about climbing. He really likes climbing. He stops washing and starts to climb up the kitchen cupboards. He’s good … precise and fast. He says his favourite place for climbing is Gorges du Verdon, which is in France.
He asks me where my favourite place is.
I say, ‘Wales.’
When he goes I rip another blank page out of his book and draw him climbing up the kitchen.
Day four and Gabriel’s on to poetry. I’ve got to give him ten out of ten for trying, but if he’s attempting to piece together the story of my life poetry isn’t going to add much. I mean – poetry! Then I start laughing. Really laughing. We’re Black Witches, hiding out from Hunters, White Witches fear us … and we’re washing up and talking about poetry. I bend over at the waist I’m laughing so much. My stomach aches.
Gabriel watches. He doesn’t laugh with me, I don’t think he knows what I find so funny, but he smiles. I manage to calm down but I keep sniggering like a kid every now and then while Gabriel is talking about some great poet. He even recites a poem. It’s in French, so it’s rather lost on me, but I don’t laugh at that.
I ask about his accent. His mother was English and his father is Swiss. Gabriel was born in France and lived in America with his father and younger sister for a year. His English is excellent, but his American is better and he speaks English with a weird French-American accent. He says that he came back to Switzerland after he got his Gift. He hasn’t said what his Gift is and I don’t ask.
That afternoon I’ve had enough. I sneak out, go down to the lake and then head out of town towards the hills. When I get back I can’t find the right road and have to go down to the lake to get my bearings. People are hurrying home or into bars and cafes. They each have a phone hiss to them and the city is a low engine rumble in my head. I walk along the road that skirts the lake. The mountains are now hidden in low cloud and although I know they are there I can’t see them; even the huge lake is diminished to a pond edge by a bank of mist over it. The boats on the quayside are vague shapes in the fog. I can hear two voices, men speaking French. They go quiet.
I turn and see a figure in black watching me and as slow as I can make myself do it, while a gallon of adrenaline is urging me to flee, I saunter away. A whistle sounds: a Hunter’s call to her partner. Now I run.
I keep to the backstreets and find an entrance to a bar and hang around in the corner where I can see into the street through the window. The street is busy with fains. Eventually I step out and make my way cautiously back to the apartment but don’t see the Hunter again.
I’m back just before dark and go straight on to the terrace.