“Then it’s a date. We can sort out the details tomorrow—and do let me know how things go with Mimi. Ring me anytime.”
HEATHER HAD LET herself get so starry-eyed over her date with Daniel that she’d forgotten to ask him what sort of gift she ought to take to his grandmother. It didn’t seem right to show up at Miriam’s empty-handed, but she could hardly hand over a bottle of wine at ten in the morning. Food was tricky, since Heather had no idea if Miriam had any allergies or was diabetic or simply didn’t like certain things. But she had a feeling that flowers would be a safe bet.
Dermot was at the front desk when she headed out, and was able to recommend a good florist around the corner from the hotel. “Ask for one of their hand-tied posies,” he advised. “I get one for my mum every Christmas and she loves them.”
Armed with the posy, which looked and smelled like it had come out of Nan’s garden, though its thirty-five-pound price tag would have horrified her grandmother, Heather found her way across London to Hampstead station. According to the map Daniel had sent her, she had only to walk down the hill a little before heading east to Wells Manor, one of several blocks of century-old mansion flats that overlooked Hampstead Heath.
The manor’s redbrick exterior was patterned with zigzagging rows of a light-colored stone, the overall effect making the building look, rather comically, as if it were wearing an argyle sweater. An ancient intercom system was set into the wall of the vestibule, and she found the button for Kaczmarek without trouble; there were only sixteen apartments in the entire place.
Miriam answered right away. “Hello? Is that Heather? Do come up. I am on the top floor. I shall wait by the lift.”
The inner doors unlocked with a click, and Heather walked into an entrance hall that was impressive and homey at once, with polished oak paneling, burnished brass fixtures, and a tile floor with an intricately patterned border. An elevator was straight ahead, the broad flight of the central staircase curling around it. It had a scissoring gate that passengers had to pull shut behind them, and in every movie Heather had ever seen with such an elevator, it ended up getting stuck. The stairs it was.
She was hot and sweaty and out of breath by the time she got to the top floor, and for a moment, just as she came eye to eye with Miriam for the first time, she fretted that the other woman might disapprove of her. Her sundress was wrinkled, her makeup was melting away, and her nose told her that the all-natural deodorant she’d swiped on an hour before had failed her entirely. It didn’t help that Miriam was the picture of effortless French chic in a white linen tunic and slim, ankle-length trousers. Even the silk scarf she’d knotted around her neck was perfect.
“It is so nice to meet you,” she said, still puffing a little, and held out the posy.
“What a lovely surprise,” Miriam said, and sniffed at the flowers appreciatively. “But come here first.” She gathered Heather into a fierce, heartfelt embrace, only loosening it enough so she might kiss her on both cheeks. “At last, at last. Do you know, I hardly slept last night? I was so eager to meet you. And now you are here and you look so much like Ann. The same pretty hair, and the same eyes, you know. But let us not linger here—come with me and we will have some coffee, and I will put your beautiful flowers in water.”
Miriam led her into the flat, and even though they were in an apartment building it felt like a big old house, with high ceilings and a wide hallway and parquet floors the color of maple syrup. The walls were closely hung with oil paintings, brightly colored modern prints, and photographs of a gaggle of children at different ages, all of them evidently related in some fashion or another. In one picture, Miriam stood arm in arm with a tall, distinguished man with a shock of white hair and pale blue eyes—Daniel’s eyes, Heather realized—and she was holding up an enameled medal in a velvet case.
“That was taken at Buckingham Palace,” Miriam said. “Such a happy day.”
Heather nodded, because she wasn’t sure what to say, and then they were in the kitchen, and instantly she felt at home. There was an enormous French gas stove, the kind that had brass handles and enameled blue doors, and the counters were made of marble, and there was a set of copper pots hanging from a rack on one wall, and on the other was a dresser piled high with mismatched blue-and-white china. On the windowsill above the sink there were pots of herbs and a carved wooden rooster with a quizzical expression on his face.
Miriam went to a compact espresso maker on the counter next to the stove and switched it on. “My daughter bought this machine for me,” she explained. “She was worried I would burn myself on my old stovetop espresso maker. It is tremendously convenient but the coffee is not, I think, quite as good. Would you like a cappuccino?”