The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [120]
Stevie’s bowl had been full of milk and honey then—Didi refused to give her coffee: ‘You won’t grow if you drink coffee, azizam—my darling!’
Stevie had stayed small anyway, but whenever she reminded Didi of this, her grandmother would say, ‘Imagine how much smaller you would be if you hadn’t taken my advice!’
‘Well, Peter and I are both as well as could be,’ said Didi. And indeed, the old lady radiated health and sparkles.
‘I can see that,’ Stevie laughed. ‘Peter’s even grown a little fur!’
‘The fresh mountain air does him good—it can fix anything.’
‘Does he ever leave the stove?’ Stevie stroked the gentleman’s new fluff. ‘I can’t see him stalking about in the snowdrifts.’
‘Of course he does. Yesterday, we went out walking. I wrapped him in my shawl and he sat on the sled while I towed him.’
Stevie raised an eyebrow at Peter who pretended, very convincingly, to be fast asleep.
‘I think he might be onto a good wicket with you, Didi.’
‘Well, you can hardly expect the poor man to wander out without his coat—’ Not wanting to offend her guest, Didi’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Even his paws are still hairless.’
She looked closely at her granddaughter. ‘And how are you little azizam? You look a touch pale.’
Stevie shrugged lightly. ‘I haven’t slept much. There are ghosts keeping me awake at night.’
‘Ghosts,’ Didi repeated. ‘They only haunt the people who can see them, the people who give them attention. It’s what they feed on, you know.’
‘I tried not to see them, Didi, but, well, one of them popped up at a party last night . . . Joss Carey.’
‘Oh dear. I really hoped he had fallen off the edge of the earth.’ Didi took a small rock hammer from a drawer in the table. ‘I found some beautiful old tiles the other day, look.’
She laid out several tiles in varying shades of blue—teal, aquamarine, indigo, ice-blue—and began to smash them into little pieces with the hammer. Didi liked to make mosaics.
She spoke in between hammer blows. ‘The best way to forget a man’—BANG—‘is in the arms of another.’ BANG. ‘Nothing mends a broken heart quite like falling in love again.’ BANG.
Stevie shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’m up for all that right now.’ The mere thought of romance exhausted her. ‘I’m perfectly happy flying solo.’
‘Rubbish,’ Didi declared, exasperated, the tiles on the table now a sparkling carpet of blue shards. ‘So you picked the wrong man: a mistake, but not a tragedy. It’s certainly not something you should allow to alter the course of your life.’
Stevie drummed her heels on the side of the stove, her stocking feet soaking up the warmth.
‘Well, I haven’t met anyone yet. I can’t help that.’
Didi’s long fine fingers sorted the ceramic bits into their separate colours. ‘As long as your eyes are truly open,’ she said finally. ‘Often it’s right there in front of you and you just have to recognise it. Love is not quantum physics, it’s a matter of clarity.’
She reached for the coffee pot and carefully refilled her bowl. ‘One can meet the most divine people in the world, but if one doesn’t recognise them as such, well, one might as well hang with filth.’
Didi took up the hammer and smashed a large piece of tile for emphasis.
‘I am clear. I think love was clouding everything. Finally I’m free of it.’
‘Joss wasn’t real love, Stevie,’ Didi said gently, putting down the hammer. ‘He was a sort of . . . romantic infatuation, and the two are very different things. When one is in love, one feels it is quite enough to be oneself.’
Stevie blushed. Her grandmother’s mind often had the uncomfortable accuracy of a precision-guided missile.
‘Anyway,’ continued Didi lightly, dangerously. ‘Who is this Henning fellow you went to Moscow with?’
Stevie blushed even deeper. ‘A friend—and just a friend. Don’t get ideas, Didi. In the modern world, men and women can be just friends.’
‘Oh I agree. I have men friends. Only at my age things