Stray Love by Kyo Maclear Read Free Book Online Page B

cheeks still lathered with cream, he placed his face very close to the mirror. He held the edge of the razor to the bottom of his right sideburn, then stopped and stood back. He studied his face in the speckled mirror, turned his head to one side and then the other. He pushed his hair off his forehead.
    “Look, Marcel. I’m still young,” he said. “Much younger than I feel.”
    He wiped the shaving cream off with a damp towel, rinsed his face in the sink, put his shirt back on. He left it half unbuttoned, exposing the pale ladder of bones below his throat, and walked back to the kitchen to prepare dinner. He made poached eggs and slipped them onto the plates without disturbing the yolks. We sat at the table and I watched as he mopped up the last bit of egg with his toast and chewed it slowly.
    I thought of the wind lifting Pippa’s hair like ribbons.

C HAPTER 2

Stray Encounters
    W E MET PIPPA AGAIN IN LATE SPRING . It was drizzling and we noticed her across the Common, getting out of a taxi. She was struggling to remove something from the cab and when we crossed the street towards her, she seemed relieved to see us.
    “Mish, Oliver,” she said, her eyes brightening. “Just in the nick of time. I could use a hand.”
    We helped her remove a sewing machine and a wooden ironing board from the boot of the cab.
    When the car pulled away from the curb, she looked me over quickly and said, “I like your new hat.”
    I was wearing a yellow rubberized hat and matching coat with metal clasp closures. Oliver had secured the hat tightly under my chin so it wouldn’t fly off in the wind as the last one had.
    “Thank you,” I said. “I like your new hair.”
    Since we last saw her, Pippa had cut her hair into a chin-length bob.
    She smiled and gave a shiver and said, “Shall we proceed?”
    She picked up the sewing machine in its carrying case, and we followed behind with the ironing board. The rain pattered onto the pavement.
    “A quick cup of tea?” said Pippa, when we reached her flat.
    “We’d love to,” I said.
    “We can’t,” said Oliver.
    “Please, Oliver,” said Pippa, sliding her hand along his arm, one easy movement, as if she had known him forever.
    His eyes met hers for a moment, then he said, “All right, then, a quick cup.”
    I don’t know if it was the living room’s warm glow—an effect created by several cloth-covered lamps, which cast everything in a hazy pinkish light—or if it was Pippa’s natural, cheery hospitality. But the moment I stepped inside, I felt at home.
    This was odd because, in reality, Pippa’s unruly flat could not have been more
unlike
home—at least the tidy, organized one I shared with Oliver. At Pippa’s, there were mannequin parts, bolts of fabric in reds and burgundies, piles of fibre-board boxes. There were shelves crowded with china animals, books and fringed pillows. In one corner, there was a stuffed partridge, a set of deer antlers and the number 3 pinned to a tailor’s dummy.
    Oliver took the room in quietly, calmly, almost knowingly, as if he had already pegged Pippa as a woman who would live this way, with mysterious layers of things piled upon things. I felt a shift in his mood. On the doorstep, he had acted as if he wanted to turn around and leave. Now he removed his coat, his overshoes, with the manner of someone settling in to stay a while.
    Pippa looked down at Oliver’s socked feet with a smile and said, “I don’t remember the last time I had a man over to visit.”
    “Really?” he said, doubtfully.
    She halted, took a deep breath and exhaled. “I have no time for anything lately. I’ve just started as a window designer forMarks & Spencer. They hired me to work at the flagship store over at Marble Arch. My job is basically to sell raincoats in the summer and beach frocks in the winter. But I like to try out new ideas at home. Thankfully, Stasha—my sister—doesn’t mind. Did I mention that we share this flat? She lived with me in France