Simply Heaven (37 page)

‘Am I? Oh God. What is it?’

‘Godda go, Sis,’ he says. ‘People to do, places to see.’

‘No, come on, Costa. Don’t leave me like this …’

‘Wait and see, greedyguts.’

‘You bastard. What did he get you?’

‘Nothing remotely like yours, Princess. Oh Jeez I’ve really got to go now. There’s a pair of hotpants with my name on them and they’re getting into Danny Rogers’s car as I speak. Love you.’

‘Love you,’ I say, but he’s gone already.

‘My brother –’ I tell Rufus as we go downstairs – red patterned carpet, dark varnished oak banisters, sacrilege on this wood, but what can you do? – ‘says you’d better be nice to me or you’ll have him to answer to.’

‘To be honest,’ says Rufus, ‘it’s answering to you that really fills me with fear.’

The hotel dining room has been done out overnight. The staff must be having a great festive season. The room is festooned floor to ceiling in tinsel, the carpet covered in
faux
polar bear rugs, the normal chandeliers replaced with new ones from which huge opalescent icicles dangle. Each time someone comes through the double-doors from the kitchen, the draught catches them and produces, instead of the tinkling you’d expect, the dull rush and clitter of clashing plastic. The windows, largely covered by a drawn curtain, are further obscured by a covering of spray-on snowflakes. And amid all this theme-park fakery, the tables themselves have been done up like props for the medieval banquet in
Westworld
.

It’s gorgeous. I find myself laughing with pleasure like a kid.

The guests, even more overawed than usual by the opulence of their surroundings – you don’t get a lot of English talking in loud voices in public at the best of times – have dropped from customary mutter to wide-eyed whispers and minimal movement. The waiting staff, mostly matronly fiftysomething women, have been made to dress up like Santa’s elves. Bells attached to the toes of their curled slippers, they jingle as they walk and avoid meeting anyone’s eye. For many of them, this is probably the most dignified moment of their lives, and they all seem determined to make the most of it.

Beatrice, never one to be intimidated, sits halfway up our table – Dad, of course, has managed it so that we are, effectively, sitting at the high table, an eleven-person affair on a raised dais under the main window, dripping with giant iron candelabra and holly wreaths – with a face like a slapped arse and a pair of gaudy green earrings on her that look like they might have been part of a matching set with the famous lost emerald. And all along the tabletop, beneath her raised nose, pile upon pile of gifts. Wrapped in gold, silver, tinsel, ribbons. Mum must’ve been beavering away up there in their room every minute she wasn’t laughing at the house. Beatrice is ignoring Mum and Dad, who are, oblivious, talking to Tilly, who has put on a pair of festive plum pudding earrings for the occasion. They bobble about at her cheeks in a determinedly cheerful manner, though she herself looks pretty grim.

I go and sit next to her. There’s a slight film of sweat on her forehead.

‘Hell,’ I say, ‘you’re not going to do a yuletide parturition on us, are you?’

Tilly shakes her head. ‘It’s just indigestion or something,’ she says.

‘Well, go and lie down, woman.’

‘No.’ She’s firm. ‘I’m not going to make a fuss.’

‘It’s not a fuss. You should take care of yourself.’

‘Fuss,’ she says. ‘Please don’t make one yourself.’

I shrug. ‘OK. But if you look any worse I’m going to.’

Tilly sips at her water.

‘Merry Christmas, Mrs Wattestone,’ I say to Beatrice.

‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘And there’s my boy! Happy Christmas, darling! Come and give your granny a kiss!’

Rufus presses his cheek fondly to the old bag’s powdered dewlaps. ‘Happy Christmas, Granny, darling. Happy Christmas, everyone.’

Everyone responds. A few seconds later, Mary and Edmund arrive, and the greetings start up again. Then Yaya, then Roly, my parents and, last of all, Hilary in a gold brocade waistcoat. The word is dapper. And I don’t mean it as a compliment.

‘Happy Christmas,’ they say.

‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas.’

‘Merry Christmas.’

It’s a Wonderful Life
without the feel-good factor.

We sit. An elf jingles over and places a champagne glass in front of me. Fills it up.

‘Ah, champagne,’ says Edmund.

‘Cristal,’ says Mum.

‘The best,’ says Dad. ‘We had it sent down by carrier. From Harrods.’

I take a sip. Belch quietly.

‘Good shop,’ says Mum.

‘We always used to call it “Horrids”,’ says Beatrice.

‘Very good,’ says Mary.

‘Isn’t it run by Jews?’ asks Beatrice.

‘No,’ says Rufus. ‘An Egyptian.’

‘All the same,’ says Beatrice. ‘Actually, it was Marks and Spencer, wasn’t it? They were Jews.’

‘Anyway,’ says Mum with surprisingly tactful haste, ‘cheers, everybody.’

‘Bottoms up,’ says Dad.

‘Your health,’ I say.

Everyone else sort of murmurs and raises their glasses halfheartedly as we clink ours together.

‘My son married a Jewess,’ continues Beatrice, unperturbed. ‘Dreadful. Awful mistake. Tried to warn him, of course, but the young … what can you do?’

There’s a moment’s uncomfortable silence. I don’t have the faintest idea what she’s on about, but even our kind know that this isn’t the sort of conversation you have over the dinner table. Tilly picks up a cracker, says in a loud voice, ‘Did these come from Harrods as well, Don?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘The good ones.’

‘Of course, a society needs the Jews,’ continues Beatrice. It’s weird how her gaganess shows in some ways and not in others. My cheeks are burning out of sympathy for Rufus. ‘To keep the wheels of trade turning.’

‘I’m going for some air,’ says Tilly.

‘No, don’t go yet!’ cries Mum. ‘We’ve presents to do yet!’ She leaps to her feet, almost toppling her glass in her haste to change the subject.

Under the kerfuffle, Rufus leans over and says: ‘Granny, that’s enough about the Jews. Nobody wants to hear it.’

‘I was only saying—’ she begins, and he raises a finger to his lips. Then he turns and goes, ‘Look! How embarrassing! I’m so sorry, darlings, I’m afraid we’ve come completely unprepared. We don’t usually do Christmas presents, as a rule.’

‘No,’ says Beatrice. ‘Usually we go to church.’

It hangs in the air. No Jews in church, it goes. Goes away.

They’ve bought presents for everyone.

‘I say,’ says Roly, eyeing a gold-plated cigarette lighter. ‘Wow. Spiffing.’

‘Thought you might like it,’ says Ma. ‘Just the thing for impressing the ladies.’

‘I shall take up smoking forthwith,’ he says.

‘Not at the table, though, darling, please,’ says Mary.

‘Of course not, dear lady.’ Roly sits back and polishes the lighter with his cuff. There’s a little glow of pleasure on his cheek. He’s genuinely chuffed.

Which is a good thing, really, because Hilary looks at his diamond-inlaid golfing tie-pin, manages to mutter something about thanks and lays it straight down on the table. Mum, fortunately, is so excited about the whole process that she doesn’t take it in at all. For Mum, the shopping is the best bit of Christmas. And Easter. And Australia Day. And birthdays. And Saturdays. And the rest.

‘What’d your husband give you, Princess?’ she asks.

I show her. It’s around my neck. I found it on the pillow this morning, when I woke up. Tell you what: he got a lovely present in return.

‘Nice,’ says Mum. She’s sprouted another ring herself, I notice. She could do some serious damage if she got into a fight, these days.

‘That’s a family necklace,’ says Beatrice.

‘That’s right, Granny,’ says Rufus. ‘Good spot. Suits her, doesn’t it?’

‘And I promise,’ I assure her, ‘not to just go and
lose
it.’

Bea clamps like a bearded mussel. The Callington Emerald, it seems, is a valuable device for the silencing of matriarchs.

Edmund seems pleased with his hunting flask. Gold plated it may be, but it’s practical. And apposite, if you get my drift. Yaya’s got her usual crucifix and rosary beads. She’s had the same every year since I remember. That and a life of luxury and all the halwa she can stuff in her gob. Beatrice has a new hat. I don’t know where Mum heard about the hats – I guess I must have mentioned them in a call home – but she’s done the old girl proud. It’s made of peacock feathers. A huge, attitudinal saucer of feathers, straw and net. She gazes on it with the awe of a child seeing its first carthorse, and she’s shut up about the Jews. She holds it up to the light, gawps with open mouth. A hit, then.

A stunned silence emanates from Mary’s corner. Mum, I can see, is more excited about Mary’s gift than any of the others. Keeps peeping out of the corner of her eye to see when she’s opened it. My mother-in-law, meanwhile, is struggling for a reaction. I don’t know if you remember that bit at the end of
Terminator 2
where the bad terminator is getting melted up in the furnace and its face keeps popping back up out of the molten steel in, one by one, all the different incarnations it’s had throughout the movie, but that’s what Mary’s face looks like right now. I see: horror; offended taste; pride; the giggles; depression; manners; disapproval;
noblesse oblige
all flicker across her visage in a matter of a second. Mum’s picked a corker.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ she stutters out eventually. ‘It’s so … generous …’

‘Do you like ’em?’ asks Mum confidently.

Mary draws out a plate that’s obviously part of a set. I can only see the back, but recognise the mark of Australia’s premium producer of heirloom porcelain. They advertise regularly in
Women’s Home Journal
and the TV listings rags.

‘They’re …’

Mary loses the ability to speak for a moment.

‘… extraordinary,’ she finishes.

‘They’re a set,’ says Mum.

‘So I see,’ says Mary. Lays the plate down on the table and reaches into the box for another. I see that the picture transferred on to the surface of the plate seems to be of a sheep-shearer, complete with a panicked-looking ewe gripped between his thighs.

‘
Trades and Crafts of Old Australia
,’ says Mum.

‘Well I never,’ says Mary. ‘I’ve never seen anything like them.’

‘That one’s a sheep shearer, see,’ says Mum. ‘And you’ve got your opal miner, your swagman, your fencer, your rabbit-catcher, your aboriginal tracker …’

‘Well I never,’ says Edmund. ‘The things they think of.’

‘The carpetbagger, the fencer, the jackaroo …’ continues Mum.

I hear Hilary murmur: ‘What? No convicts?’

‘They’ve got hanging wires,’ says Mum, ignoring him, ‘so you can put them on the wall, out of harm’s way.’

‘Modern heirlooms, those,’ says Dad. ‘They’ll be worth a few quid eventually.’

‘Got a certificate of authenticity,’ says Mum. ‘Limited edition. Not just any old tat.’

‘Why … thank you,’ Mary manages. ‘It’s too kind. I’m … embarrassed.’

‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ says Mum kindly. ‘You weren’t to know we were going to be turning up on your doorstep.’

‘You’ll have to think of a really
special
place to put them, won’t you, Mary?’ says Hilary nastily.

I raise a glass to him. ‘Cheers, Hilary. And Happy Christmas to you. Like the bow tie, by the way. Very …’ I give it a couple of beats, ‘…
Christmassy
.’

Hilary pretends not to hear me.

Tilly is gazing, aghast, at what’s come out of her wrapping paper. It looks to me like a giant teddy bear. Then I see that she has an envelope in her hand, and her eyes are full of tears. ‘I can’t take this,’ she says. ‘I can’t. It’s too much.’

I glance over. It’s a voucher for baby stuff. Harrods, of course. The amount makes even me draw my breath in sharply. Tell you what, they may be parvenus, but you can’t fault my olds for generosity.

‘Enjoy it, lovey,’ says Mum. ‘You’ve got to welcome a kiddie into the family.’

‘Yes, but …’ says Tilly.

‘No buts. Just take it. We’d heard you’d had some bad luck lately.’

‘Oh had you?’ says Mary. There’s an ominous tone to her voice. ‘Well, I’m glad people are seeing fit to wash our dirty linen in public.’

‘It’s not public, Ma,’ says Rufus. ‘They’re Melody’s family.’

Christmas is shaping up well, then.

The staff emerge from the kitchen with the first courses. A plateful of smoked salmon with a little dish of caviar on the side is placed in front of me by a grey-haired woman dressed entirely in red felt. The Katsouris half of the table choruses thank-yous. The Wattestone contingent behave as though the food has arrived by magic, pretend they don’t see the wait staff at all. I’ve sort of got used to this over the period of my stay – as long as you understand that being used to something is not the same as accepting it as right – but my family exchange glances. I know what they’re thinking. How rude. Trying to act like they’re royal or something. I thought it myself when I first noticed it. Where we come from, you only behave like that if you’ve got tickets on yourself. Or you’re from Melbourne, which is the same thing.

‘Anyway,’ says Rufus once the servants have gone, ‘while we’re on the subject of Tilly, darling, I’ve got a present for you as well.’

He digs in his pocket and places a bunch of keys on the table in front of his sister. She looks at them like they’re some sort of alien artefact whose use she doesn’t understand.

‘What are these?’

Rufus gives her one of those faux-patronising pats on the shoulder. ‘Keys, darling.’

‘I know they’re keys,’ she says slowly, ‘but what are they for?’

‘Limehouse Cottage.’

Her eyes widen. As, I notice, do Edmund’s, Mary’s and Beatrice’s.

‘What do you mean, Limehouse Cottage?’

‘Yuh, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘It was the one of the untenanted ones that had least to do to it to get it liveable. And I wanted you to … you know … before the baby was born.’

God, I love him. He’s so wonderfully inarticulate when he’s doing something emotional.