The Three Loves of Sebastian Cooper, page 30
In the morning Noemie sent Seb a text saying:
I’m sorry. I love you.
Seb replied:
Sorry I took the car – use the shuttle bus if you’re going to the park – it leaves from the front desk every 15 minutes.
That was it. Functional and practical. The emotions needed putting aside for a few days.
At breakfast on the street, as vintage convertible cars whizzed up Collins, Millie called Clair on FaceTime while she was on her lunchbreak at the John Radcliffe.
‘Miami! How? Why?’
Clair knew there was more to the story than the kids were letting on, but she could see they were happy and healthy – and they didn’t want to worry her so they kept it light and protected their dad – but she looked at Seb pointedly and said she’d call him after her shift.
After filling up on pancakes with bacon and French toast, they headed to the Wolfsonian for opening time, where Millie got lost in an exhibition of Cuban magazine covers and Jasper started taking pictures. But it was too sunny to stay indoors, so Seb led the kids on a walking tour around the Art Deco district between 10th and 15th streets, zigzagging between Washington, Collins and Ocean Drive, past Essex House, The Carlyle, the Clevelander and the Breakwater, the kids marvelling when Seb told them that the ground beneath them used to be a tropical swamp.
Millie loved the Versace mansion and the Miami Modern buildings, Jasper particularly loved Española Way, although most of the time he spent looking through his lens.
At lunch they sat in the 11th Street Diner, a former Art Deco railroad dining car, restored and polished to shiny silver perfection, as they scrolled through the photos on Jasper’s camera.
‘You’ve got some great pictures there, buddy,’ Seb said proudly as a waitress brought buffalo wings, a pulled pork melt and a waffle fried chicken sandwich, with three gargantuan milkshakes in three different colours. They spent a minute working out which milkshake was which, until Millie had blood orange, Jasper had peanut butter and Seb had French vanilla.
‘The food’s way better here than at Disney,’ Millie enthused, pulling apart a chicken wing.
‘I know right.’ Seb shrugged. ‘Best diner in the world huh? I knew you’d love it.’
For a few minutes more they sat in fast-food bliss. Then Jasper broke the happy silence, his mouth straightening into an anxious line.
‘Are we going back to her, Dad?’
Seb finished his mouthful and wiped ketchup from the corner of his lips onto a tissue napkin.
‘Yes, we are. Tomorrow. Noemie brought us here. We’ll go back, we’ll have a brilliant last couple of days. We still haven’t seen the light parade and we’ve got all the lakeside fun on Friday. It’ll be great!’
‘I kind of want to stay here,’ Millie said, looking guiltily between her brother and her dad.
‘Well, we’re not going back yet. We’ll go in the morning. And when we do we’ll have a great time. We’ve got one more day at Disney, so let’s make the most of it. We’ve hired paddleboards – apparently there’s the best ice cream in the world at the lake. You’ll have so many cool stories to tell your friends.’
Neither seemed that excited, but they focused on the here and now, the best food in the best diner with the best dad in the world.
When Clair called back on Seb’s phone, he took it out of his pocket guardedly and told the kids it was a work call.
‘Order me the most ridiculous dessert you can,’ he said as he excused himself from the booth and stepped outside into the hot sunshine, finding a strip of shade against the diner exterior wall so he could see Clair on his phone.
‘So what’s the real deal, Seb? Are the kids OK?’
She was still in her scrubs, leaning against the spiky exterior wall of the hospital, pebble-dashed and grey, and he could see smokers outside the hospital doors beyond her. ‘I’ve been worried all afternoon.’
‘Nothing to worry about, really.’
Seb told Clair that there had been a little trouble in paradise, but the kids were fine – better than ever. And they’d rejoin Noemie in a day or two.
‘Shit, Seb. You walked out on her?’
Clair shook her head; she knew how heartbreaking that felt. But part of her was immensely relieved that this time it wasn’t her. That maybe he wasn’t as into this new woman as she had feared. Anyone who would try to take her children out of the country without their mother’s permission, or spend god knew how much on a holiday with a new boyfriend, was clearly unhinged. She could tell from Millie’s texts that she was holding something back. Clair didn’t really want the kids around unhinged, but had tried not to say so.
He didn’t tell her about the marble ashtray – she would have told him to come home immediately.
‘Really, it’s fine. We just needed a breather – it was pretty intense. She was fine about it.’
Clair knew Seb was lying and gave him a doubtful look.
‘As long as the kids are OK.’
‘They are – god, you should see how into the Deco stuff Millie is! And Jaspy has been taking loads of pictures. He wants to make a photobook when we get home. They love it here, Clair. I love it here.’
‘I love you Seb,’ Clair blurted. Before she leaned her head back on the hospital wall and put the back of her hand to her forehead. She rubbed her tired eyes.
‘Hey?’ Seb laughed.
Clair paused, her face flushed red, her hair dishevelled after a long shift. Then she lifted her head and looked straight into the screen.
‘I love you, Seb. I mean, I hated you for a few years, but I love you. I love how good a father you are. They’re OK?’
‘They’re OK.’
Seb smiled, appreciatively. He then saw his smile reflected in the shiny exterior of the diner, on the face of a man in shorts and a lilac T-shirt clutching a phone. The man looked so happy his heart swelled. It was all he wanted. To be a constant, solid, honest father. No curveballs, like his dad had thrown him. That was why he was so adamant he would take Millie and Jasper out of the toxic situation, the anger in Orlando.
‘I love you too,’ Seb said. There was a pause while they looked at each other and tried to understand what that meant. An ocean between them had opened up and subsided again. But all they felt was gratitude and friendship.
A neon-pink sign saying COCKTAILS & DINNERS buzzed in the diner window, an illumination in the bright daylight, bringing Seb back to where he was.
‘I’ll make sure the kids FaceTime this afternoon, before you go to bed, yeah?’
Millie and Jasper overruled their dad on the pudding as they were all so full from lunch (and had spotted a cool yogurt parlour further up Ocean Drive that morning), so they spent the afternoon ambling in the sunshine, taking pictures, walking the boardwalk, dodging the tourists clumsily riding segues, laughing at the beefcakes working out, marvelling at the magazine photo shoots, until they all stopped at the same time, outside an art gallery with a large glass window and a familiar-looking painting on the wall inside it.
‘Oh my god!’ Millie said. ‘I so recognise that! Didn’t you…?’
Seb nodded.
‘It’s still there!’ he said to himself. ‘Let’s go in.’
He opened the door and let Millie and Jasper pass through it as a gallery worker nodded and said, ‘Hi, how are ya?’ while the three of them scattered around the light and airy space, taking in all the pictures. Except they couldn’t help the pull of the painting they recognised. Jasper raised his lens.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, no pictures,’ said a woman in an origami-style dress. ‘But there are postcards in the gallery shop through there…’ She pointed. Seb and Jasper gave each other a knowing look – the officious gallery manager couldn’t know Seb had already bought a large, numbered, limited-edition print of it anyway.
Millie sidled up behind them.
‘It’s bigger, more colourful, more… impressive in real life.’
They all tilted their heads gently in unison.
‘Where’s your one, Daddy? I don’t remember it going, but it’s not there any more, is it?’ Jasper asked.
‘Desiree has it. And she might have even given it to Violeta, I don’t know.’
‘It’s cool,’ Millie said. ‘So old-fashioned.’
Millie and Jasper had never even had a modern landline in their home. All they knew was mobiles. These archaic dial phones looked like something from another era, a lifetime ago.
‘Yeah,’ Seb said, fixated in awe. Hands in his shorts pockets. He had seen the original here before, six years ago, but only now, as he got lost in the mechanical cables, wires, communication, as he got lost in cogs and conversations, it made his heart actually hurt. He pictured her. Her dimples. The way her eyes lit up, the same rich gilded glimmer as much of the painting. The same glimmering ochre as Klimt’s kiss. And he took a deep breath.
‘I miss her…’ Jasper mused.
Seb looked at him in surprise.
‘Huh?’
‘Desiree, I miss her,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ Seb said as he rubbed Jasper’s back.
Seb bought a postcard of Long Distance Relationships from the gift shop, and late afternoon, as the kids called Clair and gave her a grand tour of the penthouse, Seb sat at the suite’s desk, looking out to the ships harboured on Dodge Island with the sun setting behind them. The enormous cruise liners heading to the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, or Europe. The Disney Cruise ship, identifiable by the huge black silhouette of Mickey’s head and ears atop it. Under its foreboding gaze, Seb wrote the postcard, and put it in his jacket pocket for the concierge.
‘Right, let your mama get to bed. We’re going to a fish shack for dinner…’
75
JUNE 2019, NORTHILL, OXFORDSHIRE
‘Thank you, Dave,’ Desiree said as she edged out of the back seat and stepped onto the dark pavement behind her car. Clair breathed a sigh of relief, easing Jasper off her lap as she followed. It had felt a bit weird to be sitting thigh-to-thigh to the woman who had ruined her life.
Desiree opened the passenger seat at the front to help Violeta out.
‘No problem. Where are you stopping tonight?’ Dave asked as he mirrored Desiree in case Violeta needed more help. Dave was a man who was interested in logistics.
‘Oh, there’s a little hotel along the seafront from Granny’s care home, that’ll do me. I’ll take her out for breakfast, then head home in the morning.’
She looked at Violeta’s subdued face. That was if they made it that far. It was getting so late she thought she might have to stop halfway at her parents’.
Clair ushered the kids out so they could say a proper goodbye to Desiree, and they stood side by side waiting in the night while Desiree helped Violeta into the Smart car and buckled her in, laying a blanket snugly around her. Millie and Jasper wanted to laugh – she looked like a little caterpillar in a cocoon. One wearing enormous glasses and a floral hat.
Desiree turned around, straightened herself out, then said, ‘Come here…’ to Millie and Jasper, feeling free to hug them now, as Clair watched on smiling. She put an arm around each of them and squeezed them in.
‘You guys stay in touch, yes? I want to hear all about what you’re up to.’
‘Sure.’ They both nodded.
‘Message me any time you need anything,’ she said to Millie. ‘In London… or if I do ever make it to New York, you’re always welcome to visit.’
Millie gasped quietly as Desiree gave Clair a look of that means you too.
Jasper seemed too tired to contemplate anything except curling up under his rocking robots bedding and sleeping for the whole weekend. Perhaps his dad might even visit him in his dreams.
‘Sounds excellent.’ Clair smiled as the kids got back into the Skoda.
‘Come on, you, bed…’ Dave said to the collective.
Desiree and Clair stood on the pavement, the row of shops – a bakery, a paper shop, a small post office and a hairdresser – all closed behind them.
‘Good luck, yes?’ Clair said, formally. This was when they knew the hard work really started.
‘Yes, you too,’ Desiree replied. ‘Can’t wait to see the wedding pictures – I hope it all goes well and you just… enjoy it.’ They looked at each other as Clair nodded.
‘Thank you.’
To Desiree’s utter surprise Clair threw her arms around her, squeezing her swiftly, the woman who had broken her heart; the woman her husband had left her for; the woman who had made her feel sick and broken and inadequate. The woman who was standing alone with nothing except a long journey into the night ahead of her.
Desiree squeezed her back.
‘Drive safely, yes?’
Desiree smiled, before getting into the car.
She looked over at Violeta, who was already asleep, as Dave, Clair and the kids pulled off from behind her, back to the house on Priory Green.
‘Come on, then, Granny,’ Desiree said to the silence. ‘Let’s get you home.’
76
NOEMIE
May 2019, Florida
‘Stop it, girls! Arrêtez ça!’
The shout made Millie jump, but she calmed herself by focusing on Gabriel and the breadstick house of cards she was building for him on the checked picnic blanket. He was so transfixed at the tower he didn’t notice his mother get up and slap his older sisters each on the back of the head. They had been bickering over a cheese triangle until it was crushed in Alice’s hand. Spiteful eyes taking pleasure as Mila failed in her efforts to grab it, until worms of processed cheese oozed out of tears in the broken foil.
Noemie continued to shout at her daughters in French: things Millie didn’t understand but she got the gist of, as she entertained Gabriel and stole glances at his mother. Millie couldn’t help thinking how ridiculous Noemie looked, standing on the banks of a beautiful lake, watermelon slice in one hand, shouting at her daughters while wearing a white bikini so small Millie could almost see her entire bottom.
‘Arrêtez de vous battez maintenant!’ Noemie shouted, as she dragged Mila away, almost by her hair, and pulled her onto the rug where Millie was sitting with Gabriel.
‘Assieds-toi et tais-toi!’ she commanded, before wafting her brow with an ooh la la.
As Mila complained about the cheese in her hair, Millie scanned the lake side for Samuel, waiting in the queue for one of the famous ice creams that just looked like a Mr. Whippy to her, from a hut by the water’s edge. His face was melancholy, not that of a child about to buy an ice cream. Beyond him Millie tried to make out the figures of her dad and Jasper on the lake, to see what fun they were having, but she couldn’t see them, there were too many paddleboarders, windsurfers, jet-skiers and waterskiers between them and her. Still, she imagined how they might be laughing and wished she were with them. It felt safer than being on the bank of the lake with Noemie and her kids.
‘We’ll take it in turns,’ her dad had said. ‘Jasper first, then you, that OK?’ Millie had nodded OK and the minutes dragged while she waited. She decided to build another breadstick level, hoping Gabriel would smash it down so she would have something else to do.
Start again.
Noemie peeled the triangle of her bikini top down and rubbed Piz Buin into her nipples.
‘You ’ad some lunch, Millie? Help yourself…’ She gestured.
Millie looked at the cool box and rug, the spread Noemie had gathered from the breakfast buffet in the resort’s restaurant, and didn’t fancy any of it. She had a sick feeling in her stomach.
‘Thanks, I’m not hungry.’ She smiled politely, with a slight shake of her head.
‘Is Samuel getting you an ice?’
‘No, I really don’t fancy anything.’
Noemie studied Millie’s face and tried to guess what she was thinking. She rubbed cream on the small moles under her boobs and Millie tried not to look.
‘What you get up to with your dad in Miami, huh?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ Millie answered nervously, turning back to the breadstick tower. She didn’t want to say what a cool time they’d had. How they had pleaded with their dad to spend longer there – Beto, the hotel manager, had said at breakfast on Thursday morning, ‘Mi casa su casa…’ and invited Seb and the kids to stay longer. But Seb had said they had to get back to Orlando; they had a flight to catch.
On the drive back north Jasper asked his dad why he had lied and he said he didn’t really know: they sort of did in a few days. After a silence Seb admitted he was worried about Samuel, Alice, Mila and Gabriel. He needed to help them all get home. But there was fun to be had on the lake first.
‘It couldn’t have been nothing. Nothing sounds boring!’ Noemie said, her half-smile veiling her deep-rooted anger.
‘Oh, you know, we just hung out…’
Noemie didn’t like the teenager’s frugality with words. She didn’t like not knowing what Millie knew. She didn’t like the fact that Seb would choose Millie over her if push came to shove. She dropped her sunglasses from her head to her nose to obscure her ire, and slicked back her oiled blonde hair as she slumped onto the picnic blanket and angled her pert boobs at the sun.
‘Squeeze your stomach muscles, Jaspy, that’ll give you more control…’
Jasper stood gingerly and tried to balance his puny frame on the paddleboard as small waves created by a passing jet-ski made it wobble.
‘Dad!’ he gasped.
