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"You can carry on!" she called

She heard hi"

He was silent for a while but for the chop and scrape of his meal preparation A saucepan lid rattled, she heard the click-roar of a gas fla lit, and then water ran into a ," he said at last

Jazz felt strangely disappointed But as she drifted into a light doze, buoyed by the beautifully ater, there was so silence

"Men," heracross from her in the restaurant Jazz was fourteen at the time She picked at her food She'd never been a fan of pasta, but her mother loved Italian, so Jazz never complained

"What about them?" Jazz asked after a while Herthere, as though it would expound on itself

Her hed "I suppose I need to talk to you about thehed She couldn't help it

"Mum," she said, "I know all about that!"

Her na As she chewed she looked at Jazz, exa her face, her hair, her mouth and neck "You're such a beauty," she said

Jazz posed prettily and fluttered her eyelashes "Follow my mum"

"Of course you do" Her lanced around, her expression neutral It was like a nervous tic her mother had developed Jazz hoped she never ended up that paranoid, that afraid

"You may know about that, but not what leads to it There's sex and there's seduction One is an act and one an art, and you need to be able to identify and deal with the artist"

"Okay," Jazz said "Let uess A Dali would woo s in a different way, and a Warhol would just show me his dick"

"Jas

"I have an appreciation of art, Mother"

"You've done it at school, you eography sitting in the classrooet a true understanding"

"Fine Sohed, and for an instant her eyes were taken with that wretched look of sadness that filled them froht her e life of theirs would someday lead "Trust is hard to come by," she said

"You tell me that all the --"

"I mean it! Trust no one, Jazz!"

"What, ever?"

"Never! You can't, sweetie They'll tell you you're beau-tiful and buy you such things, sing to you and take you places But you can't put your fate in anyone else's hands That's especially true ofto seduce you"

Terence knocked on the bathroom door "You awake in there?"

"Am now" Jazz sat up, startled, and her eyes flicked to the unlocked door

"Dinner's bubbling away nicely You've got about fifteen ht" She wiped her hands across her face Damn, that was stupid of me!

As she climbed from the bath, dried, and dressed in the clothes Terence had laid out for her, Jazz s under the door Cookingbread

She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply With the United Kingdom she usu-ally ate food that could be cooked in a es or steaks under a vent They never went hungry, but when Harry was in one of his more paranoid moments, he ive theher up Meal times had been quiet, the food eaten quickly and frouessed that now things would be different

Dried and dressed, she exited the bathrooh into the kitchen Terence was at the cooker, stirring soain

"Nice bath?"

"Very, thank you"

"No problely up and down, taking in the rolled-up jeans and shirtsleeves "They look better on you"

"More my sort of clothes anyway I don't usually dress up What's the apparatus?"

"Oh," he said He continued stirring, bobbing pieces of meat beneath the surface of the thick, aroht we could chat over dinner"

"Okay," Jazz said "I'll help you serve it up I've done everything you wanted today, and I think I've passed the tests pretty well"

"Tests?" he asked, raising an eyebrow

"Don't piss me around, Terence"

He blinked "I hoped you would ee from the bath calmed and laid back"

"I a you, I've felt like I' around hed, a sad sound that reminded Jazz of her mother "It does Pass me that spoon, would you?"

Jazz re in the oven and watched Terence serve their meal

He did it with-out any arty flourishes, yet he had created a dish that would not have looked out of place in any restaurant Jazz had ever been to Bowls of saffron rice, ladles of curried lahly chopped shallots, and on the side, dishes of onion bhajis splashed with mint sauce Jazz helped him carry the plates to the table, then he returned to the kitchen and eed with several jars of chutneys

"You don'tthe label on one of the jars

Terence shook his head "I know ood at every disci-pline"

"What's your art?"

"I would have thought that was obvious" He forked in the first

"Stealing is an art?"

Terence paused with the next mouthful raised halfway "You seriously ask me that?"