Page 9 of Cuckoo

‘You have a fantastic eye, Claire. Many other students don’t have this natural skill, it’s something very special,’ she said another time, sipping on her lemon tea with a pleased smile.

These brief words of praise I held close to my heart. They warmed me from the inside out. Katya’s home felt like a magical safe haven for me, a place where I could laugh and express myself, drink tea and play grown-ups with this amazing woman who taught me more about happiness than she did about art.

We’d have tea and biscuits and she’d show me how to mix watercolours, then teach me how to set up a still-life scene using a variety of her bizarre and curious artefacts. Ammonites and quartz crystal pendants, scratched old pocket-watches and paper flowers; Katya’s home was full of creativity and imagination, innovation and originality. ‘Fruit bowls are overdone and unwelcome here,’ she would announce with a smoker’s laugh, waving around an African mask she’d sourced from a junk shop in Notting Hill before adding it carefully to ourmise en scène.

Never one for convention, Katya had a pet lizard. It was a bearded dragon called Caitlyn, and I had initially been afraid of the strange, scaly creature. But after severalweeks of having Caitlyn’s beady little eyes watching me from her glass tank, I eventually came to find comfort in her presence.

I’d turned up to Katya’s one day to find the lizard lounging lazily on the kitchen table, a mixing bowl of flour in front of her.

‘Today, Claire, we are going to be trying our hand at the art ofsculpture,’Katya announced.

I eyed Caitlyn warily, but the lizard lay there peacefully, occasionally blinking but all in all looking as though she had absolutely no intention of moving anywhere at all.

‘It’s like mixing up a magical potion– all you need is a little salted flour and water… and poof!’ Katya liberally splashed some water into the mixing bowl at that point. ‘Home-made clay!’

I watched in fascination as the flour turned into a sticky then smooth clay, which Katya kneaded on the table with quick, expert hands beside the very unimpressed lizard.

‘I don’t know what to make,’ I told her when she dropped a ball in front of me, several little picks and instruments laid out for me to use.

‘Well, Caitlyn’s not here on vacation, Claire! She’s here to be your model and muse! Every sculptor needs a good muse, after all,’ she told me with a smile.

And so we spent that afternoon sitting at her kitchen table, rolling and kneading and poking and prodding at our clay until I had a very lumpy-looking rendition of a lizard, which Katya praised to the skies. Her sculpture, on the other hand, looked like something that a museum might display in thereptile section, though she assured me that mine was ‘an astounding use of technique for a first try’.

The next week I returned to my Caitlyn sculpture, by then fully dried and ready to paint. I’d gone for bright pink with yellow spots and spikes, which Katya assured me was an ‘inspired decision’. We laughed together, music playing, and she taught me how to stipple with a brush for texture, and to paint tiny scales using the edge of a brush for a realistic effect. It was wonderful.

The following week was the last time I saw Katya. Mother had driven me there as usual, but when we knocked on the door, there was no response. I stiffened, immediately concerned. Katya was always home. Mother sighed impatiently, knocking on the door several more times before tapping her toe histrionically.

‘Let’s wait in the car,’ she eventually suggested. The air around us had turned cold and brittle. Katya’s car was not in the drive.

Five agonisingly slow minutes passed before we heard the crunch of tyres on gravel and Katya’s car turned in to her driveway. She had her window rolled down. Mother lowered hers to match.

‘I’m so, so sorry! I was caught in traffic and—’

‘You have wasted my time,’ Mother interrupted, her face dark with anger. ‘How dare you not be here on time for us when we are paying good money? You’ve let my daughter down!’

‘I’m sorry, it won’t happen again… the roads were so icy.’

‘Too right it won’t happen again. We won’t be comingback, you can be sure of that!’ Mother shouted, spittle flying from her mouth as she rolled up her window and pulled away from Katya’s house.

I turned to look back at Katya, clutching my painted lizard in my hands as we drove away from the one house where I’d felt at home.

I never did learn how to glaze my sculpture.

Chapter Eleven

I realise I’ve thrown my phone across the room, where it now lies on the floor, mocking me. I stare back at it, thankful it hasn’t cracked, urging it to ring, to vibrate with explanations from Noah. We will look back on this misunderstanding and laugh. We have to.

Suddenly, as though I’ve manifested it, my phone buzzes. I lunge myself across the room at an impossible speed, only to let out a frustrated huff of disappointment. It’s Sukhi.

Have you heard from him? Can I call?

No. To both– I’m sorry, struggling a bit and not in the mood to speak,I fire back. I realise I haven’t spent much time outside of work with Sukhi and feel a little overwhelmed by her reaching out so soon after my embarrassing debacle.

I stare at the screen and watch three dots appearing, and then disappearing, several times. She’s obviously unsure how to reply. Can’t say I blame her. What do you say to a woman who has found out that her fiancé has gone missing and doesn’t work in the job she thought?

Eventually, a new message appears.

I found him on social media. I know where he works, Claire.

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