Sisteria (17 page)

‘Whose, Japan's?'

Everybody laughed. All except Rochelle, who, having heard Mitchell crack this joke umpteen times, simply raised her eyes heavenwards.

Usually Beverley could have relied on Melvin to lead the conversation over lunch, while she dashed back and forth into the kitchen, but despite his best efforts he wasn't on top form. Fortunately, Mitchell was. (The more engrossed Rochelle became with Tom, the less she nagged and the happier Mitchell became.)

For the next couple of hours, while Rochelle continued to knock back far more wine than she was used to and flirt outrageously with Tom, Mitchell banged on about the euro. Occasionally he broke off to point out to his wife that if she leaned any further in Tom's direction, her breasts would be in his broccoli, but she ignored him.

‘So you don't think thirty-five's too late to think about starting an acting career?' she purred.

‘No, no, not at all,' he said brightly. ‘If you're serious, go for it.'

Beverley nearly choked on a roast potato. Rochelle would be forty-six next birthday. She shot Tom a glance which she hoped said ‘Sorry about my friend - are you coping?' He smiled back to indicate that he was.

Like his mother, Benny was happy to let Mitchell take centre stage. Not that he gave a toss. Mitchell talking bollocks or his father talking bollocks - it was all the same to him. All he wanted was to be left alone to fantasise about Lettice. Although he hadn't pulled her as such, she was still giving him the occasional hair flick and sexy smile. All that was getting him down was his lack of progress foreskin-reclamation-wise. There didn't seem to be the remotest possibility of his developing even a soupçon of foreskin in the near future. Although he had eventually plucked up the courage to go to the angling supplies shop in Palmers Green, and was now hanging heavy fishing weights from the thirty-two-millimetre rubber washer, the shaft of his penis, apart from being red and sore most of the time, looked much the same as it always had.

***

Natalie, too, was spending much of her time these days living inside her head. She was in love as well. Whereas Benny's was unrequited, Natalie's was very much reciprocated. Duncan Newbegin, the Leonardo diCaprio lookalike she'd met at the born-again Christian church service, never stopped telling her how much he adored her. Of course, being a committed Christian he refused to sleep with her. But she was in no doubt that he wanted her. During their closed-mouth kisses, she could always feel a higher power rising from beneath his Bible Belt.

She had to admit her mother had been brilliant about her going out with a Christian boy. ‘If he makes you happy, Natalie,' she'd said as she hugged her, ‘then I won't stand in your way and nor will your father.'

The problem was, her relationship with Duncan had become a tad more complicated than she'd bargained for. Despite her mother's liberal attitude towards her seeing a Christian boy, she wasn't sure Beverley would be quite so open-minded if she discovered her latest bit of news.

Duncan, beautiful, sweet-natured Duncan Newbegin, who swore it was her long hair and huge brown eyes he'd noticed long before her nose, talked to her endlessly on the phone about how he had found Jesus and begged her to come to another service with him. After weeks of gentle persuasion she went along to his parents' church in Barnet.

In the beginning, she went because she was petrified that Duncan would dump her if she didn't. Now she was hooked. Despite her best efforts to fight it, the happy-clappiness of it all, the warmth and vitality of the services, had drawn her in and touched her soul. Moreover, through Duncan she was making new friends who, unlike her supposed mates at school, clearly didn't give a damn about her nose. For the first time in her teenage life, nobody was making Concorde jokes. As her self-esteem grew, her desperate need for a nose job began to fade.

Now, after months of secret church-going, Bible witness classes and revivalist meetings, Natalie had made a momentous decision; a decision which would change her life.

As she made circles in her gravy with the end of her knife, she fingered the silver crucifix hidden under her thick-ribbed polo neck.

***

Melvin was vaguely aware of Mitchell usurping his role as host, but didn't particularly mind. Having run out of small talk with Tom, he began staring at the sideboard - or, more accurately, at one particular Christmas card sitting on the sideboard. The Littlestones, being Jewish, received a mere handful of cards each year. There was always the one from Alma, and a few from the children's non-Jewish school friends, plus a huge card from Rebecca and Brad Fludd-Weintraub.

Although Melvin and Rebecca hadn't seen each other in two decades, she'd steadfastly refused to lose touch and sent a Christmas card every year. On Melvin's say-so, he and Beverley never returned the gesture. This was because Melvin knew it would lead to Rebecca insisting the four of them got together at some West End restaurant the next time she and Brad were over from New York. That meant buying suitable clothes and being in a position - although he knew Rebecca would never accept - to pick up the tab.

Getting together with Rebecca would also have forced Melvin to come quite literally face to face with his entrepreneurial failure. It was bad enough seeing Rebecca on TV every five minutes and being reminded of what might have been. A real live meeting would, he had no doubts, obliterate what little remained of his self-esteem.

The theme of Rebecca's large embossed Christmas cards was always the same - the Fludd-Weintraub summer vacation. Each year, beautifully mounted on the front, was what looked at first like a casual holiday snap. Only on second or third glance did it become clear, and even then only to somebody who possessed an artistic eye (which Melvin liked to think he did), that the photograph was of a standard more often associated with
Vogue
or the
National Geographic
and was about as casual and spontaneous as a royal garden party.

It seemed to Melvin that there was hardly a beach or ski-slope in the world on which the tanned, smug (so he'd decided) Fludd-Weintraubs hadn't frolicked and cavorted. Clearly they agreed, because last year's card had presented them at their most exotic location yet - the Amazon basin; in the background were tents and a huge camp fire on which some animal was being spit-roasted. In the foreground was Rebecca, looking as exquisite and slender as ever in combats. Brad was standing next to her in white trousers and matching open-neck shirt. Each of them had an arm round a ferocious-looking spear-brandishing tribesman smeared from head to toe in thick warpaint, his bottom lip stretched by a wooden implant to grotesque saucer-like proportions.

In the bottom right-hand corner, the Fludd-Weintraub children, their laughing faces also covered in paint, were apparently trying to teach a third tribesman how to play soccer.

Last year Rebecca had included her traditional five-page family newsletter. This was divided into twelve monthly headings. It contained an exhaustive account of the remodelling of the Fludd-Weintraub residence in Montauk, an inventory of Rebecca's transatlantic comings and goings, not to mention a record of the children's academic and sporting achievements, as well as their orthodontic ups and downs.

This year, however, the card couldn't have been more different. It looked expensive, but was clearly shop-bought. There was also no newsletter. Underneath the ‘Happy Holidays' greeting was Rebecca's signature. Below this she'd added a postscript: ‘Militant. Thinking of you, as always. Much love, Becca.'

Rebecca had never included a personal message in the newsletter or Christmas card. Nor did she sign them in person. Why had she started now? It had occurred to Melvin that maybe the business was in trouble. That would account for the cheaper card and the absence of the printed signature. But it was unlikely. Even if Tower of Bagel had gone bust - which he doubted, because the financial pages would have been full of it - Rebecca still had an enormous personal fortune. Even in the direst of commercial circumstances, she was never going to be hard up.

And what did the ‘thinking of you, as always' bit mean? Was it even remotely possible that she thought about him as much as he thought about her? That she'd never stopped thinking of him? The idea was absurd. Nevertheless it was one Melvin hadn't been able to get out of his mind.

To make sure Beverley didn't start reading as much into the message as he had, he'd smudged the ‘Militant' bit with a wet finger in the hope that she would imagine it said, at least, ‘Melvin'. When this merely made it look ridiculous, he poured coffee over the bottom of the card, hoping Beverley would believe it was accidental. In the event, she didn't even notice it.

***

As Beverley offered round seconds of the flaky turkey (due to her salmonella anxiety, she'd insisted on giving it an extra hour in the oven), Mitchell was discussing health. In particular, his health. When he'd finished delivering a tube-by-orifice account of his recent barium enema, Rochelle took up the theme and began telling the story of a friend of hers who had recently been diagnosed with melanoma.

‘Ideal for worktops,' Queenie butted in, shaking a huge dollop of cranberry sauce on to her plate. ‘Irene down the road just had her units covered in kingfisher-blue melanoma. Looks lovely with the yellow wall tiles.'

Queenie had no idea why everybody was laughing, but aware that she suddenly held centre stage, she reached across the table, grabbed Tom's sleeve and seized her moment. It was what she'd been building up to for weeks. One of the reason she'd so desperately wanted Tom and Naomi to come for lunch was because she'd promised her day centre buddies, Lenny and Millie, that she would tell Naomi all about the scandal. ‘Media coverage,' she'd said. ‘That's what we need. Leave it to me.'

Queenie had been on her feet since six and her hip was playing her up. She was also upset about Naomi not being there. Not only had her hopes of a reunion been dashed - albeit temporarily, she hoped - but now she would have to depend on Tom to relay the day centre story to Naomi. All this, combined with the two glasses of champagne she had knocked back, had exhausted her. As a result, her account of how Martin, the new catering manager at the day centre, and Lorraine, ‘the head one', were serving up inedible food and stealing money, came out in a long, unfocused ramble. This included detailed accounts of what food was served at various friends' grandchildren's weddings, who wore what, who managed to offend whom and who should have been sitting at the top table but wasn't.

‘So,' Tom said eventually, ‘how long has all this been going on?'

‘How long is a piece of cake? I mean, the food started to deteriorate a couple of months ago. The thing is, it's got even worse since then. Now they're making us pay what they call a condiment charge. In other words, every lunchtime we have to hand over ten pence for our salt and pepper. Two bob. Can you believe the bloody liberty of it? Two bob for a bit of salt. Then there's the money we all laid out for a coach trip to Brighton. That never happened, and now Lorraine's refusing to refund us. Say it's something to do with the Common Market, and she's only allowed to pay us back in euros. I tell you, Tom, we're helpless old people and they're fleecing us, the pair of them.'

‘Mum, why on earth didn't you tell me about this?' Beverley asked. ‘If I'd known about the cancelled trip and the money going missing, I'd have gone straight to the police.'

‘We discussed it, but we - that's me, Lenny and Millie - thought it would be better to gather up more evidence on the QT and then pass the story on to Naomi. “Day centre supervisor and her lover conning senior citizens.” I thought it would make a good article for her programme. Plus I've read in the papers about how Naomi uses hidden cameras and microphones to catch crooks in the act. That's just what we need - evidence on film that they're stealing from us. So, Tom, d'you think Naomi might be interested?'

‘Quite possibly,' he said. ‘Funnily enough, she's been going on for weeks about this new controller at Channel 6 wanting more stories involving the elderly. Apparently he's been putting quite a bit of pressure on her to come up with something. Of course, I can't say for sure, but this might just fit the bill. I'll speak to her when I get home.'

‘Promise?'

‘Promise.'

Queenie beamed. Her instinct that the day centre scandal would make a great story for Naomi's show had been right. She couldn't wait to tell Lenny.

***

Beverley turned up the radio. Singing along to ‘Away in a Manger', she sat herself down in front of the turkey carcass and began tearing off bits of leftover meat which she dropped into a Tupperware. Natalie and Melvin had done the washing-up (Melvin saw it as an excuse not to have to make conversation with Tom) and were now in the living room with everybody else, watching
The Great Escape
.

‘Here you are, Mum. Dad and Nat forgot these. Where do you want them?'

She looked up to see Benny coming into the kitchen carrying a pile of dessert plates, their spoons stacked neatly on top.

‘Oh, thanks, sweetheart,' she said. Natalie had washed up, Benny was putting chairs away and gathering up missed plates. Her children's you're-pregnant-now-Mum-let-us-do-that behaviour was clearly not a fleeting thing.

‘Just put them anywhere you can find room,' she told Benny, waving a greasy hand.

He put the plates down and turned to go.

‘Come here,' she said.

He went over to her.

‘Now bend down.'

He bent.

She planted a huge kiss on his cheek.

‘Thanks, Benny... for being so nice lately. I really appreciate it, you know.'

‘My plesh,' he said, beaming.

‘Mum,' he said after a moment or two.

‘What, love?'

‘This baby... I mean, I know you're supposed to be having it for Naomi and everything, and I know she's paid us stacks of dosh, but isn't there some way we could keep it? I mean, couldn't you tell her you've been thinking and that you've changed your mind? Me and Nat were talking last night in her room, and although we both think what you're doing is absolutely amazing, we couldn't help thinking how great it would be to have a baby around. I could take it to West Ham.'