The Price of Love and Other Stories (25 page)

You see, Mother is very beautiful, and she used to be a model, but she told me once that she regretted she never quite managed to get the successful stage career she wanted. I think she wants me to do that for her. I tell her she’s still beautiful and there’s still lots of time for her to be a big film star, but she just says I’m sweet and I don’t really understand. I don’t suppose I do. There are so many things I don’t understand.

Take Uncle John, for example.

I think the trouble all started because of Uncle John.

He wasn’t really my uncle, he was a business colleague of Father’s, but we called him uncle anyway. That was before we started seeing less and less of him because he was getting really strange. Not in a nasty way, of course, or we wouldn’t have had anything to do with him at all. Mother wouldn’t have him in the house, like she won’t have Ruth’s father. Uncle John just has some silly ideas about a big change coming that’s going to affect us all, and he’s not always happy about the way Father conducts his business, or about him marrying Mother. Father says he ought to keep his mouth shut, but Uncle John can’t seem to help himself, and we all get embarrassed when that distant look comes into his eyes and he starts his rambling. And Mother leaves the room.

I suppose we’re not exactly the most normal family in the world. Most of my friends come from normal families, but not us. Mother was married to my real father for many years, and I am their only child. Then, though my father was still alive and she wasn’t a widow or anything, like Carly’s mother, she went to live with Father. I never see my real father anymore, and sometimes that makes me feel sad. I think about him and the way he used to sit me on his knee and wipe away the tears when I was unhappy, and that makes me unhappy all over again.

But to get back to Uncle John. Things had been uncomfortable for a long time. I had heard him arguing with Father, though I never really understood what they were talking about. Mother tried to be nice to him at first, after his fights with Father, even sometimes reaching out to stroke him, the way she does Tabby, our cat, but he always flinched from her and treated her even worse than he treated Father. I’d like to say that he was always nice to me, but most of the time, he just ignored me. I didn’t really care because, to tell the truth, I was a little bit frightened of him, especially when he got that faraway look in his eyes and began talking about things I couldn’t understand. I don’t think anyone else understood either, because I’d even overheard people saying they thought he was mad. Father always defended him and said that he had his uses, but sometimes you could see it was really an effort, especially when Uncle John called his business immoral and told him that it was all going wrong because he had married Mother and that Judgement Day would soon come for us all.

I suppose, in a way, it did, but not exactly the way Uncle John imagined it.

The day it happened was a Saturday, Father’s birthday, and I saw Uncle John with Mother, talking by the outside pool that morning when they didn’t know I was watching them. There was nobody else at home except Bennett, who was up in his flat over the garage, and Mother had just been swimming. She was still wet, the water dripping from her hair and legs, relaxing with a martini and a Danielle Steel in
one of the loungers beside the pool, still wearing her pretty flowered bikini. Uncle John was in a dark suit and a tie, though it was a hot day. His face was tanned dark brown and oily with sweat, and he had curly black hairs on the backs of his hands.

I couldn’t hear very much because they were far away and the window was closed, but he was shouting at her, and I heard him say the words “whore” and “bitch” and “adulteress” before he finally turned and left. I remember the words because I didn’t know what they meant and had to look them up in the dictionary. I didn’t understand what the definitions in the dictionary meant either, so that didn’t do me any good. I wanted to ask Mother, but I thought that if I did, she would know I had been eavesdropping on her and Uncle John, and she would be angry. Father is not the sort of person you can ask things like that. He’s far too busy to be disturbed with such trivia.

Anyway, after Uncle John left, Mother was upset and didn’t seem able to relax with her martini and her Danielle Steel. She put the book down – some of the pages were wet from her hands – finished the drink quickly, then came into the house. The next time I saw her, maybe two hours later, she was dry and dressed in the kitchen, preparing some canapés at the island. It was Father’s birthday – an important one, Mother said, with a zero in it – and that evening there was going to be a special birthday party with all his family and friends and tons of food and presents. Most of the food was being catered, of course, but Mother always likes to make “a little something special” for us all.

“Sal,” she said. “I wondered where you’d got to. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, Mother,” I answered. I could tell by the way she was looking at me that she was trying to figure out if I’d seen her and Uncle John arguing earlier. I tried to give nothing away.

“You’d better get ready,” she said. “It’s nearly time for your ballet lesson.”

“I’m ready,” I told her. And I was. I had my tutu and my ballet shoes packed in my backpack.

“Bennett will drive you,” she said.

“Where’s Father?” I asked.

“Your father’s playing golf. He went with Uncle Tony.”

“OK.” I knew that Uncle Tony sometimes came by and picked Father up. He had a brand new Mercedes-Benz and he liked to show it off. Uncle Tony’s all right, though. He always gives me chocolates or comics when he visits.

Mother paused and wiped her hands on a towel. “Sal, you know what tonight is?”

“Father’s birthday, of course. I’m going to get him a present after ballet. A box of his favourite cigars.”

“That’s nice, sweetheart. But, you know, I was just thinking how nice it would be if you did something special for him too.”

“Like what?”

“Dance for him. You know how much he loves to see you dance.”

It was true. Father did love to see me dance, and he would always offer me any present I wanted in the whole world when I danced especially well for him. “What sort of dance?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something new, something he hasn’t seen before. How are you doing in those belly dancing classes?”

“Not bad. It’s fun. I don’t have much of a belly, though.”

Mother smiled. We both knew that I was a bit on the skinny side, but she always told me it was a fine balance, and the last thing a pageant judge wanted to see was folds of puppy fat. Maybe with belly dancing, though, it’s different. I just don’t feel I have anything to roll around, if you know what I mean. No belly to dance with.

“Well, what about some ballet?” she said. “What are you learning at the moment?”

I told Mother about
Swan Lake
, which is my all-time favourite ballet, even though we were just doing boring exercises in class.

“Maybe you can dance something from
Swan Lake
, then?” Mother said. “If you’d like. I’m sure your father will just love it.”

“OK. I’ll do something from
Swan Lake
. I have to go now.”

She pointed to her cheek, and I walked over and kissed her, then I went outside and found Bennett in front of the garage, waiting, already in his uniform, the engine of the Rolls purring.

Ballet class was boring, as I’d expected, just doing the same movements over and over again. I have to admit that I spent most of the time daydreaming of the coming evening’s performance from
Swan Lake
. It would have to be a short and fairly easy piece, I knew – nothing complicated, like the dying swan – because I’m not
that
good. But I knew that I could do such a fragment justice. I pictured myself dancing really well, hearing the music, imagining Father’s pleasure. Sometimes, when I do this, it helps me when the time comes for the real thing.

I could hardly wait to get home, but I hung around for a soda with Veronica and Lisa for half an hour, as usual, then I remembered the present and got Bennett to go into Father’s favourite cigar shop and buy a box of Coronas and have them wrapped. All the way home, I was almost jumping up and down in the seat with excitement.

Even though it was still only late afternoon, the house was starting to fill up. I knew most of the people and said hello as I went up to my room to change. There were marquees on the grounds and people already swimming in the pool. There must have been a hundred barbecues grilling hamburgers, steaks, chicken, and hot dogs. It was going to be a great party.

When I had put on my party dress and was heading out to get something to eat at one of the barbecue stands, Mother pulled me into her room and asked me about ballet class. I told her it was fine.

“I suppose you’re excited about tonight?” she said.

“Yes.”

She turned her eyes away from me. “Look, Sal, do you think you could do your mother a favour? A big favour?”

“Of course!” I said, anxious to please her after I’d seen her upset with Uncle John that morning.

“You know when you dance well and your father promises you anything you want?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when that happens, will you ask him for Uncle John’s head?”

“Uncle John’s head?”

“Yes.”

“Yuk.”

“For me.”

“Is it a game? Like in
Alice
? ‘Off with his head!’”

“Yes, that’s right,” said Mother. “A game. Like the Red Queen. Will you ask him?”

“Uncle John’s head! Uncle John’s head! Yes, I’ll ask him. I can’t wait to hear what he says.”

“He probably won’t say very much,” said Mother very quietly, “but he’s a man of his word, your father.”

And with that, she let me skip down the stairs to join the party. My cousins Janet and Maria were both there, and their creepy brother Marlon, so we found some earwigs in the garden and put them in his hot dog. That was fun, but all the time I was excited about dancing. I looked around for Uncle John, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. When the time came, I went upstairs and changed quickly while Father gathered with his closest family and business colleagues in his den. Uncle John wasn’t with them, but Godfather was there, an old man with dry, wrinkled skin and a voice like a rasp file on stone. He made me a bit nervous, but he had a kind smile.

And how well did I dance?

It’s hard for me to judge my own performance, but I did feel that my movements seemed to go with the music. There was no hesitation, the dance flowed from me, and there were no wrong moves or trips. I didn’t stumble or fall once. On the whole, I think I danced
rather well, if I say so myself. Father certainly enjoyed it, for he started clapping the moment I finished, and it took the others a couple of seconds to join in with him. Mother sat on the other side of the room with the womenfolk, smiling and clapping along.

When I’d finished, I curtsied for Father and he beckoned me to come closer. I stood in front of him and he gave me a little kiss on my cheek.

“Bravo!” he said. “That was marvellous. What a talented girl you are. And because you’ve made me so happy, you can have anything you want in the world. All you have to do is ask.”

I paused for a moment and looked over at Mother. Father saw me do this, and he also looked her way. She didn’t turn to face him or say anything, but I could see by her eyes that she was telling me to go ahead and ask him. Then I said, “I want Uncle John’s head.”

Father’s face changed, and he suddenly seemed older and sadder. Everyone else was completely silent. You could have heard a pin drop.

“Are you sure that’s what you want, sweetheart?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes. Off with his head!”

Father looked at me in silence for a long time before answering, then he looked over at Mother, who kept her eyes on me. Finally, he looked at Godfather, who gave him such a brief, tiny nod, it could have been a twitch.

“Very well,” Father said sternly. “You shall have what you want.” Then he clapped his hands. “Now, away with you, before I change my mind.”

But I knew Father never changed his mind, and Mother said he was a man of his word.

The party was still going on, so I changed into jeans and a T-shirt and rejoined my cousins and friends, who were now playing hide-and-seek in the shrubbery. There were lots of bushes shaped like animals, and sometimes you could even work your way inside
them and find a clear space to hide. As I hid in the peacock, holding my breath for fear that Janet would find me first, I thought about the dance and the strange request Mother had asked me to make.

I know that Father still liked Uncle John, despite the problems he was causing, but Uncle John was getting more difficult to keep in line. I had actually heard Father saying this to some of his colleagues not long ago, the same time I overheard him telling Bruno, whom I don’t like at all – he’s got no neck and has shoulders like a bull – to “clip” someone, which sounds like something they do at the hairdresser’s, and to “take care of” Mr. Delasanto. I never saw Mr. Delasanto again, and I guessed he must have been taken to hospital. But they didn’t want to clip or take care of Uncle John, and now I had asked for his head. I began to feel just a little uneasy and nervous about what would happen. They had all seemed very serious about it, for a game.

At that moment, Janet peered through the branches, shouted my name and ran back to the tree where she had counted to a hundred. By the time I got through the branches, I hadn’t a hope of beating her.

The party wound down later in the evening – at least, for me it did. Janet and Maria went home, taking with them the horrible Marlon, who hadn’t said much since he bit into his hot dog earlier in the day. I was still too excited to go to bed, and there were plenty of adults around. Nobody paid any attention to me. The pool lights were on and some people were even swimming, others sipping drinks and talking at the poolside. There was music coming out of a pair of big speakers outside the pool house, but it was grown-up music, all violins and smoochy singing. Frank Sinatra, probably. Father loves Frank Sinatra.