‘But the oven…?’
‘I don’t know what happened but it seems alright now. I just turned it on and it’s working.’
Cathy could take a wild guess at what had happened, but it was a theory she could never air – at least, not here and now.
‘I don’t think…’
Tansy’s head appeared now too, and her face wore the strangest expression. She was smiling.
‘Yes, stay,’ she said.
Cathy stared at her. Was she hallucinating? What had been in that spritzer at the pub? She’d never seen Tansy smile in all the weeks she’d known her, and certainly had never been able to envisage a day when she might actually be invited to spend time with her. There had to be more to this than how it looked. Cathy hated to be suspicious but she couldn’t help but feel Tansy was up to something. If she was, what on earth could it be? But she could hardly refuse the offer now because of how it would look to Matthias, and if Tansy really was suddenly in the mood to hold out an olive branch then Cathy wouldn’t want to jeopardise that either.
‘I suppose I could stay for a short while,’ she said, feeling a bit dazed. ‘I wouldn’t want to keep anyone up late, though.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Tansy said. ‘You do want tea, don’t you? You always drink tea at cookery club.’
Without waiting for Cathy to reply, Tansy went back into the kitchen again.
‘What happened?’ Cathy asked Matthias.
‘I have no idea. Something must have shorted, overloaded the circuit somehow, but I can’t see what it was. I’ll have to get an electrician to have a look at it, just to be certain it isn’t a dangerous loose connection or something.’
Cathy nodded, although she hadn’t actually been asking about the power cut, more about his niece’s strange transformation into someone who actually might like her.
‘I could have perhaps talked Tansy through flicking the trip switch back on over the phone but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something more serious… I’m really sorry we had to come back so early.’
‘Of course,’ Cathy said. ‘If it was my house I’d want to check too – you can’t be too careful, especially with Tansy and Guin in here.’
‘I knew you’d understand,’ he said.
Cathy wished she could say she did, but right now she didn’t understand any of it. One thing was fairly obvious to her – Tansy had tripped the electric deliberately. Cathy didn’t know how but she was sure of it. Why was a different matter, and why she was suddenly being pleasant to Cathy was even more of a puzzle.
‘Come on through,’ he said. ‘What do you want to drink? I’ve got gin and brandy in.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Cathy said, following him into the kitchen. ‘Surprise me.’
‘One day you’re going to regret telling me to surprise you,’ he said with a chuckle.
Matthias’s kitchen was small but cosy, an old wooden table taking up most of it, with heavy oak units and Spanish wall tiles. It was a bit dated, and suggested to Cathy that he’d either lived here alone for a long time, or moved in and not cared too much about how long it had been since it was last decorated. But it was clean and neat and he obviously took pride in keeping it that way. Tansy was back at the table, staring into a laptop, but she looked up as Cathy took a seat.
‘Where did you go?’ she asked.
‘Oh, nowhere special,’ Matthias said.
‘But where?’ Tansy closed the lid of her laptop and looked at Cathy now.
Matthias put a glass of amber liquid in front of Cathy and she detected the smell of brandy and perhaps lemonade in there.
‘What was that pub called?’ Cathy asked.
‘Oh, it was just the Keys,’ Matthias said.
‘The Cross Keys?’ Tansy asked carelessly. ‘Oh, there… Isn’t that where you used to take Aunty Sidonie?’
‘No,’ Matthias said firmly.
Cathy stared at him, realisation hitting her like a brick. Who was Sidonie? He’d never mentioned any sister other than Erica and Michelle and neither had Erica. In fact, Erica had very definitely stated that there were only three of them.
He looked suddenly uncomfortable.
‘Oh,’ Tansy said. ‘I thought it was.’
‘No, it wasn’t. Tans…’ he added, ‘do us a favour and take Guin outside; I think he wants to go to the toilet.’
‘No he doesn’t,’ she said. ‘I took him just before you got back. So, where was the pub where you used to take Sidonie? She used to love it, didn’t she?’
‘Tansy, not now…’ he growled, throwing her a warning look.
‘What do you mean?’ Tansy replied, a look of pure innocence on her face. ‘You don’t usually tell me I can’t talk about Sidonie and Beau. We talk about them all the time usually… Oh! Is it because Cathy is here?’
Cathy looked from one to the other, the cogs in her brain whirring at speed. Matthias looked as if he wanted to kill Tansy, but she simply gave a serene smile. Tansy was clearly up to something, but what?
‘Sidonie used to cook amazing dishes, didn’t she?’ Tansy said. ‘You used to say it was the best food you’d ever had.’
‘Tansy…’ he warned, but she ignored it.
‘I suppose it’s because she’s French and they make the best food, don’t they? And she never got fat no matter how much she ate, did she? She’s still thin now. She was thin after she had Beau too, wasn’t she? I don’t think anything would make her not thin and not pretty. So pretty. And she had a lovely French accent too. We all loved her, didn’t we? Erica misses her too – she said so. Said she was the best—’
‘Tansy!’ he roared. ‘I know what you’re trying to do and you’d better stop right now!’
‘I’m not trying to do anything.’
‘Go to your room please.’
‘I don’t have a room.’
‘To the spare room then! The one you’re using right now!’
‘But I’m talking to Cathy.’
‘It’s alright,’ Cathy began, but Matthias cut across her.
‘No, it’s not. These things are for me to tell you and I was going to. I was trying to tell you tonight.’
‘I thought you would have done already,’ Tansy said, and the look he gave her now was enough, even for her. ‘I’ve just got to go and…’
She scurried off, but not before Cathy had caught a fleeting look of satisfaction on her face. Whatever stunt she’d been trying to pull – and Cathy was beginning to think she’d worked out what it was – she’d obviously thought it a success.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You must think this is the most dysfunctional family you’ve ever come across and I wouldn’t blame you if you ran now and didn’t look back.’
Cathy tried to give him an encouraging smile, even though the ground felt very unstable beneath her right now. ‘Why would I do that? Show me a family that isn’t dysfunctional in some way and I’ll show you a lie.’
‘Yes, but some are definitely worse than others.’