Sisteria (25 page)

As she saw it, the very least she owed Melvin was to finish it with Tom. But guilty as she felt, loathe herself as she did over it, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Several nights a week they would meet, go out for dinner, and almost at once Tom would tell her he loved her. Then he would start fantasising about their future together with the baby, and despite herself, Beverley would join in. Very occasionally, Tom would take time off work and they would drive to Putney and take walks along the river. One day they decided to play tourists. They took an open-top bus ride, went to the Tower of London and ended up late that afternoon at St Paul's Cathedral. They climbed the stairs to the Whispering Gallery and spent ages messing around with the bizarre acoustics and murmuring silly messages from one side of the vast dome to the other. Still giggling like a pair of teenagers, they went downstairs to the café in the crypt and had tea and scones.

Most of the time, however, they went to bed and spent hours having the kind of sex that left Beverley reeling and walking on air for days afterwards.

Even when she'd thought they'd finished making love they rarely had. She remembered how, two days ago, she'd been standing in the kitchen eating another of her beetroot and salad cream sandwiches while he was buttering himself some toast, when he suddenly put down his knife, turned to her with a mischievous smile on his lips and said sorry, but he just had to have her one more time before she went home. He took hold of her shoulders and pinned her against one of the tall kitchen cupboards. As he kissed her he undid the buttons of the shirt he'd given her to wear and began biting and sucking her nipples. Then he pulled the crotch of her pants to one side and shoved two fingers hard inside her.

‘Tom,' she cried out, her mouth full of bread and beetroot, ‘at least let me put down the blinkin' sandwich.'

Laughing, he took it from her and threw it down on the worktop. A moment later he had undone his fly buttons. She watched his erection spring out of his jeans. Then, gripping her buttocks, he thrust himself into her over and over again.

He came quickly, leaving her gasping with frustration.

‘Come over here,' he said softly, pulling her to the wooden peninsula unit standing in the middle of the kitchen. Directly underneath was a shelf. On it there lay a row of large cook's knives.

‘Christ, what are you going to do?' she gasped.

‘Don't be daft,' he laughed. ‘Go on, climb up and lie down.'

Giving him a quizzical look, she laid herself down. The unit was almost the same length as her body.

‘Now then,' he said, ‘shuffle towards the end.' He pulled off her pants and told her to open her legs.

She let them flop open, and he stood between them and began running his tongue over her clitoris. Her gasps turned to loud grunts as he subtly altered the pressure, and went from light, fleeting, tantalising licks to firmer, longer caresses. She was on the point of orgasm when he moved away. She begged him to come back, but he didn't. She was vaguely aware of him picking up a tall silver object from the worktop.

She cried out like a wild animal as she felt the cold, smooth metal make contact with the opening to her vagina.

‘What you have to realize,' he said, ‘is that I haven't so much got designs on you, as in you.'

Slowly, bit by bit, he eased into her the rounded end of the Alessi lemon squeezer.

***

If there were two or three days in a row when she couldn't get to see him, Beverley sat on her bed and wrote him long, long letters telling him how much she loved him and was missing him and about all the wondrously disgusting things she wanted him to do to her.

‘I know I've got to end it,' she'd said to Rochelle on the phone the day before, ‘but I love him... and the sex is just so utterly indescribable...'

‘Don't, Bev, please. You'll only me feel worse. Me and Mitchell did it last night and I'm still suffering from post-coital depression.'

They both giggled.

‘Look,' Rochelle went on, ‘if you're sure you really do love Tom, maybe you should start thinking about leaving Mel. It would be cruel to stay with him under false pretences. He's not a fool. He's soon going to see how miserable you are and realize something's up. That you don't really want to be with him. Chances are it'll end eventually anyway.'

‘Possibly, but I just haven't got it in me to desert him. He needs somebody to come home to. Somebody to love him and look after him. I owe him, Rochelle. If I hadn't agreed to take Naomi's money, he'd still be OK. Then there's Naomi. I promised her and Tom this child and look what I've done to her. She and Tom would still be happy if it weren't for me.'

‘The hell they would,' Rochelle shot back. ‘Now you're just being ridiculous. Only the Prince of Darkness could be happy with that woman.'

‘Well, at least I have to give them a chance to patch up their relationship. I must end it with Tom. And soon. The longer I leave it, the harder it will be.'

Beverley was replaying those last words in her mind and wiping away the tears when the phone rang.

She carried on wiping for a few more seconds. Then she turned towards the bedside table and picked up the receiver.

‘Hello,' she sniffed.

‘Is that Beverley? Beverley Littlestone?' It was a woman. She sounded extremely nervous.

‘Who is this?' Beverley asked curtly. She never gave her name to strangers - even harmless-sounding ones.

‘Look, you don't know me,' the voice went on. ‘My name's Mo. Mo Newbegin.'

The woman's voice went up at the end of each statement, as if she were in some doubt about her own identity.

‘Oh, right,' Beverley said, her voice immediately friendly. ‘Duncan's mother.'

‘Yes. I'm Duncan's mum. For my sins.' She gave an uneasy giggle.

‘Goodness, this is so embarrassing,' Beverley said. ‘I feel awful about never having met Duncan. I keep asking Natalie to invite him over, but she always finds an excuse. I'm convinced she thinks I haven't come to terms with the religion thing and that I'm going to cause a scene, but...'

‘Look,' Mo broke in, ‘that's sort of what I wanted to talk about. You see, I've got Natalie here. I'm afraid she's in a bit of a state and she asked me to call you.'

Beverley froze with terror.

‘Oh my God. What's happened? Is she all right?'

‘Don't worry. She's absolutely fine physically. She's just a bit upset. Well, very upset really.'

‘But how come she's with you? She told me she was going shopping with her friend Allegra.'

‘I think that may have been a little white lie. She's actually been here for the last couple of hours. Look, I don't quite know how to put this, but she's asked to stay with us for a while.'

‘How d'you mean?' Beverley said, sounding confused. ‘What - overnight?'

‘No,' Mo said gently, ‘for a bit longer actually. It's just that under the circumstances, Natalie thought it best if she came to live with us. Just for a while. To give the two of you some space... until you get used to the idea.'

‘Live with you? What idea?' Beverley exclaimed. ‘Sorry, Mo, I'm losing the plot here. Why on earth would my daughter want to come and live with your family?'

‘She's been trying to tell you about it since Christmas, when it was first planned, but she kept getting cold feet. I know how hard it's been for her, what with you being of the Jewish persuasion...'

‘Nobody persuaded us, Mo,' Beverley shot back, her hackles not so much raised as standing to attention. ‘You make it sound like we worship some kind of ethereal double-glazing salesman.'

‘Oh, sorry. No, I didn't mean it like that. Please don't think we're anti-Jewish. We've got nothing against the Jews. No, not at all. And we don't think you tortured and murdered our Lord at all. Well, not you personally. And we even like Vanessa... well, tell a lie - my husband Clive can't stand her actually. Every time she comes on he calls her “that kosher pig”, 'scuse my French. I mean no offence.'

‘None taken, I'm sure,' Beverley said curtly. ‘Look, Mo, I don't mean to be rude, but do you mind telling me what the bloody hell, 'scuse my English, you are on about?'

‘Well, it's Natalie...'

‘Oh, for pity's sake,' she barked, sounding exactly like Naomi all of a sudden, ‘will you please spit it out?'

‘You see... well... Oh, Lord, where do I start? OK. You see, a couple of times a year we hold a special service at church where everybody stands up and gives their personal testimony about how they came to be born again. Take me, for example, five years ago I became a neo-virgin. My hymen grew back overnight. It was a miracle, an absolute miracle...'

‘Mo, I sense a distinct lack of spitting,' Beverley growled.

‘Well, you see, the next service is at the end of the month and it... it always ends with half a dozen people being... Look, the fact of the matter is...' She took a deep breath.

‘Natalie is going to be baptised a month next Sunday.'

***

Melvin got back from his therapy session, during which Wim had once again made it clear, in the most gentle of terms, that he should forget Rebecca. But suppose, he cogitated, just
suppose
, Wim was wrong. It wasn't impossible. He was only human. What was more, the man wore a fez. Wonderfully helpful as Wim had been, surely that fact alone had to cast a shadow over his credibility. How many times had Melvin walked down the street, seen a man wearing a Salvador Dali moustache and a brocade fez and remarked to himself: ‘Ah, there goes a sensible, rational human being'? How could he sit back and let this bloke, who looked like he'd been dispatched to the Friary by surrealist central casting, tell him how to run his life?

He sat himself down on the edge of the bed. Without thinking, he yanked open the drawer in the bedside cabinet and took out his wallet. Somewhere among his long-ago-cancelled credit cards and photographs of Benny and Natalie as babies was a scrap of paper. On it was Rebecca's home telephone number in New York. All her printed Christmas messages had included her number. Two or three years ago he'd written it down and kept it hidden in his wallet ever since. At the time he had no idea why he'd done it. Back then, although he had feelings for her, he certainly had no desire to meet her. He'd been far too ashamed of his business failure for that.

He looked at the paper. He still felt ashamed and humiliated, but not as badly as he had back then.

He looked at his watch. Three thirty. Ten thirty, New York time. He picked up the phone from the top of the bedside cabinet and placed it on the bed next to him. Then he lifted the receiver. Giving no thought to the fact that the Friary charged the same extortionate rates for phone calls as most hotels, or the likelihood of his wife walking in at any moment, he dialled Rebecca's number.

***

Long ring, long gap
. He could feel his heart starting to race. Suppose Wim was right. Maybe ‘Thinking of you, as always' meant nothing. Perhaps she was just being polite. She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she wrote that.

It's what you say, he thought. It was like being on holiday and giving your address to the Dullard-Borings from Widnes who'd latched on to you for the entire fortnight. You insist they look you up when they're in the neighbourhood. You don't mean it. You're just being polite and at the same time hoping the fuck they don't get out of Widnes much.

Long ring, long gap
. What if Brad answered? What was he supposed to say - ‘Hello there, you don't know me, but I'm one of your wife's old boyfriends and I'm simply phoning to say I that in twenty years I've never stopped loving her'? He was on the point of putting the phone down.

Long ring...

‘Fludd-Weintraub residence.' Sing-song voice. Not even a hint of Yorkshire. Puerto Rican at a guess. Clearly the maid.

Melvin swallowed hard.

‘Er, oh, hello. Would it be possible to speak to Mrs Fludd-Weintraub?'

‘May I ask who's calling?'

‘Could you just say it's Militant.'

‘Pardon me? Is that Millie Tan?'

‘No, that's Militant.'

‘Mr Milligan?'

‘No, it's Militant. You know as in belligerent, combative, aggressive.'

‘Sorree?'

‘Mi-li-tant. That is M for mother, I for India, L for Lima...'

But before he could finish, Val, Bernard and Cilla, who'd been quiet for the last few minutes, suddenly started going at it again at full volume. It appeared that Val and Cilla were arguing in favour of a cup of decaf, while Bernard was complaining that the caffeine gave him palpitations.

‘Shut the fuck up down there, you cunting bunch of psychotic bastards,' Melvin yelled. ‘I can't hear myself think.'

‘Meesis Weintraub,' the maid shouted, ‘you come queek. I think I got some wacko crazy man on the phone...'

‘No, no, I didn't mean you. Sorry,' Melvin blustered. ‘It's just some people next door making a noise. Look, tell Mrs Fludd-Weintraub it's Mr Littlestone. I'm an old friend.'

‘OK,' the maid said, ‘I tell her.'

There was a pause.

‘Meesis Weintraub,' he heard her calling, ‘shall I hang up? Wacko crazy person now say he Old Fred Flintstone.'

***

When Beverley arrived at the Friary just after four, bearing half of Marks and Spencer's fruit department, her husband seemed noticeably distracted. Even when she broke the news of Natalie's forthcoming conversion to Christianity, all he did was smile vaguely and say, ‘That'll be nice.'

Several times she waved her hand in front of his face and said jokily, ‘Beverley to Mel. Come in, Mel.' He immediately came back to earth, but was gone again a few seconds later. She hoped to God he wasn't taking a turn for the worse.