‘Strawberry? Pink ice cream? It’s for girls, Cohen.’
He stiffened. ‘I’m not a child any more, Rushi. I don’t eat ice cream.’
‘Ice cream?’ Rushi shook her head at him. ‘For shame, Ford. This is gelato, and the finest in London. So, what will it be? Come on, come on, it’s on the house. You’re Esther Sedler’s boy, after all.’
Cohen paused, considering Rushi’s words. Esther Sedler’s boy. Was he really? Had he ever truly been his mother’s child?
Rushi stared at him. ‘Well?’
‘Coffee. Black,’ Cohen replied, his words automatic and cold. Rushi looked at him with something akin to disgust. Disgust, mixed with a little pity.
‘Black coffee,’ she mused. ‘Hmm. Well, have a measure of syrup in it, if nothing else.’ She looked him up and down. ‘You look like you could use sweetening up.’
Almost involuntarily, his eyes flickered back to the woman in yellow gingham, but Rushi’s response was lightning quick.
‘Not her,’ she told him. ‘She’s not for you.’
Rushi joined him at the table, sinking into the wooden chair with a grateful sigh. ‘Alright then.’ She gave his arm a poke. ‘Give me this gift, then. The one your mother sent. The one that is so important you rushed it here without hesitation.’
Cohen dug into his bag, pulling out a wrapped parcel, trying not to feel the guilt Rushi was attempting to winnow out of him.
He was so tired of feeling guilty all the time.
‘I should’ve brought it sooner,’ he said again, but Rushi only shrugged.
‘You were a selfish child,’ she replied. ‘And now you are a selfish man. It doesn’t matter. Your father was the same. All about his own skin, he was.’
She looked up then, with something in her eyes that might have been sorrow, or regret, or merely a trick of the light. With Rushi, you could never tell.
‘I was sorry,’ she said abruptly, ‘to hear of his passing. He was your father, after all. A selfish one, it’s true, but your father all the same. And your mother loved him, even when everyone else told her she shouldn’t. They all said that your mother chose poorly, did you know that? They told her to choose again. To marry a more appropriate boy.’
‘What did you tell her?’ Cohen asked before he could stop the words from leaving his mouth.
Momentarily, guilt seemed to cross Rushi’s face. ‘I told her to follow her heart. That’s what I did with my Guido. Well, it worked out for me, but not so well for your mother, in the end.’ Rushi sighed. ‘But she loved your father anyway, and she carried on loving him even after he left. She spent a long time waiting for him to walk back through her door, you know. She probably still is, even though he’s now crossed a threshold from which he can never return.’
‘She’s married again now,’ Cohen admitted. ‘Trust me, she isn’t waiting any longer.’
‘I know, and good for her.’ Rushi nodded. ‘But you never get over your first love. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?’
Cohen looked down, suddenly struggling for words.
Rushi sighed again. ‘I hear your own marriage didn’t work out. What happened? Your mother was sketchy with the details when we spoke about it.’
A familiar dart of bitter anger hit Cohen, and he scowled. ‘The details don’t matter,’ he said. ‘She left. That’s all I need to know. It’s all anyone needs to know.’
He looked up to find Rushi staring at him. ‘What?’ he asked, instinctively defensive.
But Rushi only shrugged. ‘You know, your mother always told me there was more to your father than what he showed to the world.’ She peered at Cohen intently, as though peeling away at the covers of his soul. ‘Will the world say the same about you though, young Ford? Hmm?’
Cohen looked down and swallowed hard.
‘I, uh ...’ He trailed off, his thoughts broken by the sudden presence of a woman, who stood beside them, looking at Rushi as though awaiting orders.
As she stood near him, Cohen felt something inside him melt a little. The stiff lines of his body, set by Rushi and thoughts of his father and self-recriminations, seemed to ebb away in the gentle tide of her presence. He smiled up at her and was immediately rewarded with a shy smile back. He didn’t try to hold down the feeling of triumph that swept through him, and he looked to Rushi, hoping she had witnessed this exchange between them.
But Rushi was looking at them both with a regretful, bittersweet expression.
‘I never introduced you,’ she said, indicating to the woman. ‘Cohen, this is my daughter, River. I adopted her when she was three years old.’
