She frowns slightly, pretending not to understand.
‘Don’t play the innocent,’ I hiss, keeping my voice low so that the others won’t hear. ‘I saw you and Tom together in the park the other day.’
‘Oh, Zoe, we need to talk . . .’ she begins, extending a placatory hand towards my arm. I shake her off.
‘This is hardly the time or the place for that,’ I retort.
‘But we’re only trying . . .’
I cut her off again in mid-sentence, her use of the word ‘we’ making my anger surge again. ‘It was perfectly obvious what the two of you were up to. Do me a favour, don’t insult me by trying to justify yourself, on top of the humiliation and damage you’ve already caused.’
She reaches for my arm again and this time I wheel away from her, the heel of my shoe catching the glass and kicking over the tea as I do so. She stoops to pick up the glass, pulls a tissue from her sleeve and tries to mop up the spill. ‘Leave that,’ I say, so sharply that several heads turn towards us. ‘I’ll sort it. Go and get on with your work – they’re waiting for you.’
Tears spring to her eyes and she winces at the sudden harshness of my words. But she seems to realise she’s already made enough of a scene. Madame Habib is approaching and so Kate backs away, reluctantly returning to her place at the quilting table.
As I kneel and blot up the puddle of sweet-smelling liquid with a wad of paper towels, I surreptitiously wipe the hot tears of rage and pain from my cheeks too. Then I tell Madame Habib that I’m going to leave early today as I have a headache. She fusses over me, telling me her husband will gladly drive me home, but I refuse the offer and tell her I’ll take a taxi. I can’t bear to be in the same room as Kate for a second longer.
My hands itch and burn, feeling dirty and contaminated, and I run upstairs to the bathroom on the top floor the minute I get home, washing them again and again, as if that will help calm my troubled mind.
Eventually, I pat them dry on a towel and go through to pick up Grace, hugging her close, the soft weight of her in my arms comforting me far more than I am able to comfort her. She picks up on my distress and begins to fret, pulling away from me as she strains to be put down. Her rejection stings my already bruised nerves and I am suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to shake her violently and scream. I quickly put her down on the bed, horrified and frightened by the powerful impulse. How could I ever feel like that about Grace? I disgust myself. Is it any wonder Tom doesn’t want to be with me any longer?
She reaches for the pink rabbit that sits on her pillow and begins to chew an ear, watching me warily. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I sob. She reaches a chubby hand to my cheek in forgiveness, and then holds up the cuddly toy to share it with me. I lie beside her, stroking her hair until we are both soothed. Then I reach for the sandalwood box of Josie’s treasures and bring them out, one by one, to show Grace, distracting myself from my torment. She chuckles and murmurs at the sight of them, her coos as soft as a turtle dove’s, and I dangle the gold Star of David above her, letting the light catch its angles as it spins slowly at the end of its fine chain.
‘I wish she was here,’ I say. And I mean it with all my heart.
Later, once I’ve fed Grace and she’s fallen asleep, her lashes fluttering on her cheeks, which are as rosy as a sunrise after her bath, I settle myself in the armchair by the window and listen to the evening sounds of the city. The call to prayer floats on the warm air above the background hum of the traffic. As those noises fade, I can hear the soughing of the ocean wind over the rooftops and I turn my head a little to let the breeze caress my cheek. I feel wrung out, exhausted from my anger and my grief and the tears I’ve shed today. But most of all I feel alone.
I reach for the leather-bound journal, hoping to find solace and distraction in the company of the girl I’ve come to think of as a friend. I leaf through the pages, rereading the last section about Josie’s fourteenth birthday in a city stripped to its bones by a plague of locusts in a time of war. Her words make me smile and they give me strength, her indomitable spirit shining through.
Then I turn to the next page of the journal and I freeze.
The words written here aren’t at all what I was expecting to read and I’m unable to take them in properly at first. I read them again, more slowly. My heart pounds in my ears and my hands tremble.
‘No,’ I whisper.
But there’s no denying the words on the page, written in Josie’s looped handwriting, a little smudged here and there. Could she have been crying as she wrote this?