Sisteria (12 page)

It was his turn to stand up now. He walked over to the French windows and stood with his back to her.

‘Oh, stop being so bloody melodramatic, Mel,' she said with a half-laugh. ‘I'm sure Beverley's told you over and over again there's no sex involved... But it's not simply jealousy we're talking about here, is it? Somehow I get the feeling there's more. I haven't forgotten Beverley telling me what a proud man you are. You can't abide the thought of her being the one to sort out your finances, can you? To be the one who rescues the pair of you. That must hurt, Mel. That must really hurt.'

He made no effort to move.

‘It's funny, Naomi,' he said as he finally turned to face her, ‘I always credited you with having hidden shallows rather than hidden depths.'

‘So I'm right, then?'

‘Maybe,' he shrugged.

‘Get over it, Mel, for Chrissake. I'm offering you a straw to clutch at. It's a final chance for you to get off Skid Row. So what if it's Beverley who gets you out of the shit? Who cares. Getting out is what matters. The way I see it, you have no alternative. None at all.'

Melvin said nothing. She was right. He went back to his chair and sat down again.

Naomi watched him close his eyes and squeeze the bridge of his nose. She smiled. She knew she had won. She walked over to the walnut credenza and picked up a bottle of Scotch.

‘Drink?' she said, turning towards him.

‘No. I'd better get going.'

‘Well, I'm having one.'

She poured herself a victory triple.

‘Look, if it helps, Mel, I'm suffering too, you know. A few weeks ago I was told I couldn't have children. Do you know how that feels?'

‘I can imagine. But a woman like you, with all your money, I mean, couldn't you have sent your personal shopper to Africa or South America and bought a baby?'

Naomi came back with her drink.

‘Yes, I suppose I could have adopted. But I wanted Tom to be the father. And as far as choosing a mother goes, genetically speaking, Beverley is the next best thing to me.'

‘So, if I agree to go along with this, you've got to promise me something.'

‘What?'

‘Promise me you're on the level, Naomi, and that there are no schemes or hidden agendas here. If Beverley gets hurt, so help me, I'd... I'll...'His hands had formed to fists.

‘What's the matter?' she said, smiling. ‘Don't you believe I'm infertile? I'll give you the number of my gynaecologist if you like...'

‘No. That's OK. That won't be necessary. Just promise, that's all.'

‘I promise,' she said.

He was vaguely aware of her not looking him in the eye.

‘Oh, and one other thing. Don't tell her I came to see you. She knows I feel a bit jealous, but she doesn't need to know how I feel about the money. She'll think I'm bloody barking.'

‘OK, fine. Whatever... I'll walk you to the lift.'

He stood up. They walked in silence as far as the front door.

Suddenly he stopped and gave a nervous half-smile.

‘At least you saw sense and put magnolia in the hall,' he said.

‘Fromage frais, Mel,' she snarled. ‘It's sodding fromage frais.' She opened the front door.

***

Naomi came back into the flat. Standing with her back against the front door, she looked heavenwards and let out an almighty ‘Yesss!' Picking up her Scotch from where she'd left it on the hall table, she went into the bedroom and opened the chest of drawers. From it she removed the battered white envelope which was buried deep beneath a mountain of knickers, tights and bras. Fingers trembling, she pulled out the two letters, read them and kissed them. When she'd finished she took a huge glug of Scotch. Christ, she thought, Beverley got pregnant straight away with Benny and Natalie. So long as Tom didn't lose his nerve and sperm still swam up her sister like salmon returning to their spawning ground, in a few weeks' time Beverley could be expecting.

‘And I,' she said softly, as she folded the letters, ‘will be on my way to clinching the biggest fucking deal of my entire career.'

She put the letters back in the drawer, threw back her head and drained her glass.

***

Naomi had just sat down at her desk the next morning when the phone rang. She looked at the caller display. It was Beverley. She rested her hand on the receiver for a few seconds and prayed to God that Melvin hadn't changed his mind and persuaded Beverley not to go ahead with the surrogacy. She picked up the phone.

‘Beverley,' she said, doing, her best to sound casual, ‘hi. So, how are you?'

As she listened she closed her eyes and offered up another quick prayer. A moment later her eyes were wide open.

‘Omigod, you will?' she squealed. ‘Bev, this is just such amazing news. I just don't know how to thank you. If you were here I'd give you the hugest hug imaginable. I just can't wait to tell Tom. I'm over the moon, Bev. Just over the moon...'

Chapter 10

‘So, anyway, I rang the company that supplied them, explained to some dozy girl there that they'd gone all speckled - well, not so much speckled as mottled, really - and she puts me on hold. After fifteen minutes sitting listening to a loop of “I Will Survive”, I'm thinking, you have to be joking, and I put down the phone.' Rochelle had popped into Beverley's unannounced on the way home from one of her charity ‘luncheons'. Now she dipped her spoon into her milky coffee and skimmed off the head which had formed while she'd been recounting her unhappy tale.

‘Can you believe it?' she continued, lowering the dripping, head-draped spoon towards her saucer. ‘Twelve hundred quid Mitchell had just shelled out and as soon as I have a complaint they don't want to know.' She put down the spoon and picked up her fork. She stuck this into a slice of Beverley's home-made cheesecake.

‘God,' she said with her mouth full, ‘I only had lunch a couple of hours ago. I may as well slap this straight on my thighs.'

‘What thighs?' Beverley said, biting into a rice cake. ‘Look at you. There's nothing of you. You'll just work it off at the gym.'

‘No, I've given up the gym,' Rochelle said, still chewing. ‘These days I just shop faster. Much more fun... So, Mel was OK, then, about you going ahead with the surrogacy?'

‘I wouldn't say OK exactly. I mean, yes, he's agreed, though I think he's less than comfortable with the idea. But I think, for him, the money is just too tempting to turn down.'

Rochelle nodded.

‘Thing is,' Beverley went on, taking a sip of her hot water and lemon (apparently it acted as an appetite suppressant, but it didn't seem to be working), ‘I'm really worried how he'll react if and when I get pregnant.'

‘Look, you've said yourself that for him the money's the thing. Believe me, he'll find a way of coping.'

‘I hope so.'

‘So, Naomi must be thrilled.'

‘God, yes. I told her this morning. You should have heard her. She just kept going on and on about how happy she was.'

‘Bet she did,' Rochelle mumbled.

Beverley leaned across the table, broke off a tiny corner of Rochelle's cheesecake with her fingers and popped into her mouth.

‘So what about the kids and Queenie?' Rochelle asked. ‘How have they taken it?'

‘Mum doesn't know yet. She's been away for a few days. Millie, her friend from the day centre, went down with flu and Mum's gone over to look after her. She's due back this afternoon. Funnily enough, once she's got used to the idea, I don't think she'll be a problem. I reckon she'll see it as a way for the three of us to really become a family again.'

‘And the kids?' Rochelle prompted.

‘They've taken it surprisingly well.' Beverley said. ‘I mean, like everybody else, they can't understand why on earth I would want to do it, bearing in mind that Naomi's been such a cow in the past, but once I'd explained how much she'd changed over the last few years, they really warmed to the idea. Natalie got quite carried away, in fact. She's been doing this women's studies course at school and reckons becoming a surrogate is “the ultimate expression of true sisterhood”. She even asked me if I'd give a talk about it to the sixth-form girls. I said I didn't see why not, and do you know, from that moment her behaviour really started to improve. I don't think she's been stroppy or moody since. Who'd have thought me agreeing to give a twenty-minute talk to the sixth-form would have brought about such a dramatic change in her? I have to say, Benny went a bit quiet when I told him about the plan. Said he didn't feel right about me giving away his baby brother or sister. But I'm pretty sure he'll come round once he realizes the baby isn't going to disappear and we'll all get to visit.

‘There is one strange thing he keeps on about, though. He says if it's a boy we should try and persuade Naomi not to have him circumcised. I mean, we're Jewish. Of course Naomi would want her son circumcised.'

‘Oh, teenagers get bees in their bonnets,' Rochelle said, with a shrug. There was a brief pause in the conversation.

‘Anyway, to get on to important matters,' Rochelle laughed, ‘what do you think of my new outfit? Isn't it great? The top's Dolce and Gabbana. Cost Mitchell a fortune.'

Beverley eyed the sheer slate-grey Lycra netting.

‘If you really want my opinion,' she said, ‘I think it's hideous. You may be thin, Rochelle, but you're not sixteen. For heaven's sake, the whole world can see your bra. And what Jewish woman walks around with a huge sequinned portrait of the Virgin Mary across her front?'

‘Don't be so stuffy, Bev,' Rochelle said, laughing. ‘It's not meant to be serious. It's just a bit of fun. Look, I got the bag to match.' She held up a tiny black cloth bag. This time the Madonna was hand-painted. Next to her was a smiling baby Jesus. ‘I mean, it's not as if I've given up being Jewish or started going to church like Natalie…'

The moment the words came out, Rochelle slapped her hand across her mouth like a schoolgirl.

‘What?' Beverley had been about to swallow a mouthful of lemon water and it was as much as she could do to stop herself choking. ‘What did you say? Natalie's been going to church?' She put down her cup. Incredulous didn't begin to describe the expression on Beverley's face.

‘Look, I wasn't going to say anything. Not with all this other stuff going on. You've got enough on your plate just now.'

‘Come on. I'm a Jewish mother, for God's sake. I'd shrivel up and die if I didn't have something to worry about. What's she been up to?'

‘OK... well, Allegra comes home late one night last week and tells me that she and Natalie had gone along to some church hall in Muswell Hill, just round the corner from Natalie's school, for one of those Slap Cosmetics make-over evenings. “Saving Your Face”, she said it was called. Leg said Natalie was desperate to go because she wanted to get some tips on how she could make her nose look smaller.'

Beverley raised her eyes heavenwards.

‘I tell you, Rochelle, I don't know how long it'll take me to conceive, but I swear the moment I bank that first cheque from Naomi, I'm taking that girl to Harley Street to see a cosmetic surgeon.'

‘That may not be necessary,' Rochelle went on. ‘I think Natalie may have other things on her mind now… So, anyway, they arrive at the church hall only to discover they'd got the date wrong, and some bunch of born-again Christians with a sense of humour had played around with the name and they had called their meeting “Facing your Saviour”. So, as soon as all the happy-clappy stuff begins, Leg gets up to go. Only Natalie refuses to budge because by this time she's being given the eye by some Leonardo diCaprio lookalike who's sitting the other side of the aisle in a ‘‘Men Behaving Godly” T-shirt.' Rochelle paused and then said softly, ‘Leg says they're going to the pictures on Saturday night.'

Seeing Beverley's face was now almost drained of colour, her voice trailed off.

‘This is all Melvin's fault,' Beverley said, running her fingers through her hair. She stood up and started to pace round the kitchen. ‘If he'd let me send the kids to a Jewish school, this could never have happened. I'm going to lose her, Rochelle. I know it. Six months from now she'll have turned her back on her religion, her culture, her family. This born-again nutcase will force her to convert. Then they'll get married in church. Most of my family will refuse to come to the wedding...'

‘Bev, calm down and stop being so bloody daft,' Rochelle said, half-irritated, half-amused by Beverley's panic-stricken reaction. ‘Listen to me. You are not going to lose Natalie, simply because she's seeing a Christian boy. It's called Jewish rebellion. All the kids do it. They're too scared to take drugs, so they eat bacon and prawns and go out with gentiles. It's a phase, Bev. Believe me, it'll pass.'

Beverley sat down again.

‘You think so?'

‘Trust me,' Rochelle said, patting the back of Beverley's hand. ‘I know how these things work. Look at that wally Allegra went out with last summer, the one who thought he was saving the planet by refusing to drive the car his parents had given him for his eighteenth. The first week she thinks this is oh-so-right-on and she joins Greenpeace. By the second, the Jewish princess in her can't stand slumming it on the night bus and she chucks him.'

Beverley gave a half laugh. ‘But at least he was Jewish.'

‘Yeah, but you take my general point.'

‘I guess,' Beverley said. ‘It's funny. There was me thinking Natalie's mood swings had evened out lately because I'd agreed to give this talk to the sixth form, when in fact the real reason she's so happy is because she's found herself a boyfriend.'

‘And it would be cruel to get in the way of that happiness,' Rochelle said firmly.

‘Yes, I know. I mustn't interfere,' Beverley said with a sigh, as she felt herself coming round to her friend's way of thinking. ‘It's just that it feels sort of strange, I suppose. I guess I'd always assumed that when she started going out with boys, they'd be Jewish. But thinking about it, I can't say it's come as the greatest surprise of my life. I mean, she's hardly had the strictest Jewish upbringing. Look at her father. You know how ambivalent Mel is about religion. Whenever anybody asks him what faith he is, he always says he's Jew-
ish
.'

Rochelle chuckled. ‘So, you'll go easy on Natalie?'

‘I've got no alternative. If I come down on her like a ton of bricks and forbid her to see this lad, she could do something really daft, like run off with him.' She lifted her cup and drained it.

‘S'pose I'd better talk to her. Let her know I'm OK with it.'

Rochelle nodded.

‘And if she does decide to convert, I know the chicest little caterer you can hire for the baptism party... does these wonderful nibbles - like mini portions of fish and chips in newspaper and tiny little steak and kidney puddings.'

‘I'll let you know,' Beverley laughed, picking up the empty cups and taking them to the sink.

‘Oh, by the way,' Rochelle said, ‘I keep meaning to ask you...' She reached into her Madonna handbag and pulled out a piece of folded newspaper. ‘Have you seen this?' She opened out the paper and began walking over to the sink.

‘It's a picture of Naomi and her bloke arriving at the Savoy for the launch of Naomi's cook-in sauce.'

Beverley reached out and took the paper in a rubber-gloved hand.

Facing her was a picture of Naomi in an exquisite black off-the-shoulder cocktail dress. Standing next to her was a tall, thick-set man in his late thirties, she guessed, with collar-length wavy hair and an angular jaw that looked like it had been hewn from marble.

‘Gorgeous, isn't he?' Rochelle purred.

‘S'pose', Beverley said, rubbing her nose, which had started to itch, with the back of her rubber-gloved hand. ‘Naomi did say he was a bit of a dish.'

‘A bit of a dish?' Rochelle repeated in astonishment. ‘A bit of a dish? Left over lasagne's a bit of a dish. Half a bowl of borscht is a bit of a dish. This man's a full-on blinkin' banquet. Look. Just look at him.'

Beverley looked. There was no getting away from it. Tom Jago was, indeed, a full-on blinkin' banquet.

‘Thanks anyway,' said Beverley. ‘I suppose it's nice to have a photo of your child's father.' She put the cutting down on top of a pile of red bills.

***

Sitting at his desk in the tiny office at the back of the shop, Melvin picked up the phone. For what must have been the twentieth time that day, he punched out Vlad the Impala's number.

‘Pick up, you ex-commie bastard,' he muttered. ‘Pick the fuck up.'

Melvin was more desperate than ever to retrieve his five grand. He still had an overdraft to clear, and, with no guarantee that Beverley would conceive immediately, he could hardly offer Mr McGillicuddy a quarter of a million pounds' worth of collateral on the understanding that it was based on a putative pregnancy.

But in addition, Melvin was still finding it hard to acknowledge his wife as their financial saviour. Having his inability to provide for his family effectively thrust down his throat was causing him profound torment. After meeting Naomi, he had begun to think he could live with it, but now, increasingly, he couldn't. Despite Beverley's protestations that helping her sister was her prime motivation, Melvin was convinced that the money must have played a huge part in her decision to become a surrogate for Naomi. Consequently, he had become fixated with the idea that if he could find some way to make their fortune quickly, even at this late stage, he might yet persuade Beverley to drop the whole ghastly surrogacy idea.

If by some miracle, he thought, Vlad the Impala was still in the country, still had his money and by an even greater miracle was willing to return it, he would put the whole lot on a horse. Mitchell had the occasional flutter. If he didn't know how to find a dead cert, then he would know somebody who did. Of course Melvin knew he would probably lose the lot. Knowing his luck, the horse would develop a politically based aversion to competitive sport five minutes before the off and stage a protest by refusing to leave the box. But what the hell? he thought. His self-esteem, his manhood, his pride were all about to be ripped away from him anyway. Losing the five grand on a horse couldn't possibly make him feel any worse.

The phone continued to ring. He was just about to give up when he heard Vladimir's voice.

‘Vladimir - is that you? About bloody time. I've been trying to reach you for days.'

‘Ah, Myel-vin,' Vladimir said warmly. ‘Good to hear from you, my friend. I was going to call you. I been away from office.'

‘I'd worked that much out,' Melvin said sharply. ‘So, where have you been?'