‘I mean, of course I’ll miss him. We kind of got accustomed to one another. But that’s not enough, is it? Just liking someone and being kind of accustomed to them? What kind of marriage would that have been? Without any spark at all?’
‘I suppose so.’ Destiny thought about Henri—not that marriage had ever been on the agenda, although Henri had jokingly suggested it a couple of times.
‘I would have ended up being married to someone who could have been my brother!’ Some of the liveliness resurfaced and Stephanie managed to eat a couple of mouthfuls of food before closing her knife and fork. ‘I realised that what I wanted was thunder and lightning and fireworks, not just feeling good because I was out with someone most women would give their eye teeth to be seen with. Anyway, I also realised that Callum’s always treated me like a child. I think he thought that if he spoke to me in more than two-syllable sentences, I might not understand what he was saying!’
‘And did you tell him all of this?’
‘What would have been the point? It’s not like I felt any urge to fight to hang on. I was relieved that we were going to be parting company. Sad but relieved.’ She finished her glass of wine and refilled it. ‘So now here I am, back on the market, in search of true love.’ She tried to look dramatic and mournful but the effect was ruined by tell tale giggles.
‘You’ll find a partner in less time than it would take me to kill a snake,’ Destiny told her, finally closing her knife and fork with a warm, replete feeling in her stomach. ‘Think about me and my problems of finding true love! Out in the middle of nowhere! I shall end up a grey, sad little soul—or should I say big soul?—devoting my life to other people while no one devotes their life to me.’
‘You have Henri.’
‘You remembered his name?’
‘I have a very retentive memory when it comes to certain things.’
‘Henri…’ Destiny stood up and began clearing the table while Stephanie began washing up. ‘Henri is… Well, more of a friend…’
‘With or without the spark?’
‘We get along so well…’
‘You’re avoiding the question.’
‘He’s a lovely person. Kind, thoughtful but not boring or fuddy-duddy.’
‘Have you slept with him?’
‘Stephanie!’ She was frankly shocked by the question. Confidences of that nature belonged to a language she had never spoken.
‘Well, have you?’ Stephanie persisted.
‘I…well… You have to understand…’
‘You haven’t.’
‘Well, no…’ Destiny’s face was bright red and she made a big production of wiping the kitchen table to try and hid the fact.
‘And have you been tempted to?’
‘It’s awfully difficult on a compound, Steph. It’s very comfortable, and we all have our own living quarters, but still…’
‘Enough said. I’m beginning to get the message!’ And they looked at one another with an instant of perfect comprehension. As if by unspoken but mutual consent, they spent the remainder of the evening chatting about everything under the sun apart from Henri and Callum, and when at ten-thirty Stephanie finally uncurled herself from her chair to head to bed, Destiny thought with a pang that she would miss her stepcousin. Miss the frivolity and gossip and giggling that she never got on the compound. She would miss someone taking an interest in what she wore and how she did her hair and offering advice on colour schemes. She would miss the girlish chat about men and their ways and the cosy, secret bond that seemed to exist between women which was a whole great world away from the one in which she had spent most of her life. For the first time she thought of her compound in Panama with a certain amount of detachment, and realised that she had needs that could never really be fulfilled there.
‘I’ll stay down here for a while longer,’ Destiny said, walking with her stepcousin to the door, and was surprised when she received a hug and a broad smile.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Stephanie said to her. ‘You’re a darling.’
‘Well. Thank you.’
‘And don’t be late up. A girl needs her beauty sleep.’
Her mother had used to tell her that when she had been alive and the cliché brought tears of nostalgia to her eyes.
Destiny settled into a comfortably maudlin mood, aided and abetted by the glass of port which Stephanie had produced with a flourish and insisted that she drink, and was sitting in the smallest of the sitting rooms when she became aware of the sound of footsteps.