Sisteria Read online

  By now Natalie had clacked off towards the door, only to collide with her father, who was on his way into the kitchen fully dressed apart from one bare foot. He was carrying a handful of socks.

  Without saying a word, she barged past him.

  ‘Morning, sweetness,’ he said with good-natured sarcasm. He turned towards Beverley. ‘Blimey, what’s got into her?’

  ‘Don’t make fun, Melvin. It’s serious,’ Beverley explained, putting the foil parcels in the fridge. ‘She’s got a slight spot on the side of her nose. Honestly, her mood swings are getting intolerable. You’re a pharmacist. Couldn’t you bribe some bent doctor to take her ovaries out one night while she’s asleep?’

  ‘You wish,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Listen,’ Beverley said, ‘did you give Benny a shout?’

  At some stage, which she found impossible to pinpoint precisely, their son had turned from a boisterous, eager little boy who was always up and ready for school each morning by seven thirty, to a lolloping, grunting nearly-sixteen-year-old who could sleep through the after-effects of a six-mile-wide meteorite landing next door.

  ‘No, I didn’t. For the simple reason that I’ve been too busy trying to sort this lot out.’ He sounded fraught now as he brandished the socks at Beverley. ‘Do you mind telling me why I have just found nine odd socks in my drawer? I mean, what happens in this house? Is there some sock pervert who gets a thrill from going round separating them from their partners? I tell you, Beverley, if you are incapable of managing the laundry, I’ll have to take it over.’

  ‘Melvin, I know I’m not a pretty sight in the morning, but has something Kafkaesque happened to me since we made love ten minutes ago? Have I turned into a punch bag?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bev, but it’s just that this bloody fucking sock thing drives me insane. I mean, where do they go? I would just love to have the time to write a thesis on this disappearing sock conundrum.’

  ‘Try the tumble dryer,’ she said, smiling to let him know his apology had been accepted.

  While Melvin pulled the entire tumble dryer contents out on to the floor and began rummaging irritably through the pile, Beverley went over to the breakfast bar and took the letter from under the pepper pot.

  ‘By the way, this came in the post,’ she said, holding the folded paper towards him.

  Melvin, who was by now lining up socks along the kitchen worktop while muttering to himself about having discovered a warp in the space-time continuum into which all the world’s single socks were disappearing and being teleported to the constellation Ursa Major, suddenly looked at her and turned white.

  ‘For Chrissake, Beverley,’ he pleaded irritably, ‘don’t ever this me. I don’t need to be tortured with thises. Be specific. Who’s it from? The bank? The building society? Barclaycard? Don’t just stand there... I need to know. How much do they want?’

  ‘Melvin, it’s not a bill. Here, read it.’

  Melvin was just about to snatch the letter from her when the mobile phone in his jacket pocket started ringing.

  ‘For crying out loud. What now?’ Furious, he pulled up the aerial and stabbed one of the buttons. Almost at once he raised his eyes heavenwards. It was several seconds before he got the chance to contribute more than half a sentence to the one-sided conversation.

  ‘Alma, I know... Alma, please... please will you listen to me? I know it was very good of you to come into the shop at six o’clock this morning and start the stock-taking... Of course I understand how shocked a woman of your age must have been... No, I would not like to feel a rat brush past my ankles. It must have been horrible.’ Putting the phone between his chin and shoulder, Melvin triumphantly picked up a navy ribbed sock which more or less matched the one he was wearing, and lifted his right foot. ‘OK, Alma, so now you know it was only one of the toupees which had fallen off the stockroom shelf, go and make yourself a nice cup of sweet tea...’

  Melvin was beginning to sway as he stood on one leg trying to pull on his sock. In order to stop himself falling over, he started hopping on the spot. ‘OK, OK, Alma, listen. If you really think you’re having angina pains, dial 999. But remember the last three times you went to casualty with a suspected heart attack, they told you it was your crumpets lying a bit heavy.’

  Melvin pushed down the aerial and shoved the phone into his jacket pocket. Then, leaning against one of the kitchen cupboards, he finished putting on his sock.

  Realising there were now more important matters to address than the letter, Beverley put it back under the pepper grinder and stared at her husband in disbelief.

  ‘Toupees? You are flogging toupees now? Since when did a chemist’s shop sell toupees? I don’t get it, Melvin. There must be something I’m missing. What’s wrong with toothpaste and panty liners?’

  ‘Look, I was going to tell you,’ he said, absentmindedly putting a maroon sock over a navy one so that he was now wearing two socks on one foot. ‘I was reading in The Sunday Times Style section a few weeks ago that toupees have really taken off in New York. I just know it will only be a matter of time before they start to catch on here too. I think by getting in on the ground floor of a trend, we could be sitting on a gold mine. I mean it, this could be the end of all our money worries. I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to convince old McGillicuddy at the bank to extend the overdraft on the business account by a few grand. Said I could keep it going for six months if I wanted. So now I’ve got ten gross best-quality micro-fibre Korean toupees in the stockroom waiting to go. I thought I’d start by seeing how they do in the shop, and if - I mean when - they take off, I’ll start flogging them by mail order. They’re the future, Beverley. I just know it.’

  ‘OK, so when you say a few grand,’ she said, trying to sound casual, ‘what are we talking? Two? Three?’

  ‘Five,’ he blurted.

  ‘Five,’ she gasped. ‘But Mel, you already owe nearly fifteen. I hope to God you know what you’re doing. Sweetheart, please don’t take this the wrong way, but your track record isn’t exactly...’

  ‘Shh,’ he said, gently placing a finger over her lips and smiling. ‘Trust me. It’s in the bag. A few months from now everything’s gonna be peachy, Bev. Absolutely peachy.’

  With that he gave a decidedly doubtful Beverley a peck on the cheek and was gone. Seconds later she heard the front door slam. A few seconds after that, she heard it open again.

  ‘Forgot my shoes,’ Melvin called from the hall. She heard him charge upstairs, charge down again and leave the house for the second time.

  As Beverley sat herself back down at the breakfast bar, she listened to the car pulling off the drive and shook her head. ‘Toupees,’ she said out loud. ‘So now it’s toupees.’ On the other hand, what did she know? Maybe for once in his life Melvin had hit on something - found not so much a gap in the market as a bald patch. Certainly Mr McGillicuddy thought so.

  ***

  ‘These were on the mat. More of the usual, I see.’ Beverley looked up to see her mother coming into the kitchen. Queenie Gold was an inch or two shorter than she’d been in her prime and limped slightly as a result of an only partially successful hip replacement operation. But people meeting her for the first time were never in any doubt that looks-wise she’d most definitely had a prime. Even in her mid seventies she possessed a smooth, milky complexion, and her pretty almond-shaped eyes, which Beverley and Natalie had inherited, were, despite their fleshy hoods, still a brilliant blue.

  Queenie took the hate mail from the pocket of her long sleeveless cardigan and handed it to her daughter. Beverley said nothing. Clearly Melvin had either failed to notice them on his way out or had taken fright and ignored them on purpose. She’d open them later when her mother wasn’t looking over her shoulder.

  ‘So,’ Beverley said in an effort to deflect the lecture she knew was coming, ‘how’s your hip this morning?’

  ‘Fine. It’s not my hip I’m worried about. It’s you and Melvin.’ Queenie heaved herself on to the stool next to B
everley.

  ‘Oh, God. Here we go again,’ Beverley said under her breath. She reached across the worktop for last night’s Evening Standard and pretended to read it.

  ‘Of course, even twenty years ago I knew Melvin would never amount to anything,’ Queenie continued, while Beverley mouthed her mother’s words from inside the newspaper. ‘I’ll never forget the day the pair of you got married. When I saw Melvin turn up at the synagogue in jeans and that tie-dyed granddad vest covered in CND badges, I wept from the humiliation of it all. Then there was the honeymoon. You couldn’t go to the Canaries like all the other young marrieds - no, my son-in-law the hippy decides you have to go on a tour of all the Cruise missile bases in Europe. I tell you, Beverley, that night you ended up in prison in Germany, I turned to your father and said, “Lionel, that boy will never amount to anything.” A year later poor Daddy was dead. I tell you, Beverley, he died of a broken heart.’

  ‘Mum,’ Beverley said from behind the newspaper, ‘he died because he was run over in Cranbrook Road by a 144 bus.’

  ‘Only because you were giving him so much aggravation that it had started to interfere with his concentration... I don’t know, Beverley, why couldn’t you have married a rich doctor? Donatella Greenberg - you remember, the one in your class at school with the gums - she married a rich doctor.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Donatella Greenberg went to Sierra Leone fifteen years ago and married a witchdoctor.’

  ‘Believe me, even from witchdoctoring he’s making a better living than Melvin.’

  At that moment Natalie came charging back into the kitchen, her school bag slung over one shoulder. Beverley put down the newspaper.

  ‘Mum, I’m dead, dead late,’ she said, ignoring her grandmother and hopping agitatedly from one platformed foot to the other like a three-year-old desperate for a wee. ‘Please tell me this looks OK. Do you think anyone’ll notice the zit?’

  Beverley looked at Natalie’s face. It was covered in a thick layer of pinky-orange concealer.

  ‘It’s fine. You can’t see a thing. Promise... By the way, Nat, you did GCSE geography. Which is further west, Bristol or Liverpool?’

  ‘Mum, what are you going on about? I mean, like I care. Will you stop changing the subject? Now tell me honestly. Does my nose look gross? Yes or no?’

  ‘How many more times? I’ve told you, it’s absolutely fine. The only thing about you which looks gross is that bloody stud you’ve got in your tongue. Believe me, nobody will notice the zit.’

  ‘Liverpool’s further west,’ Queenie broke in. Beverley turned to look at her mother.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. I heard it on the radio yesterday on the way back from the day centre. The minibus driver was listening to some quiz show or other.’

  ‘Ah, so it is a trick question, then?’

  ‘Seems like it,’ Queenie said. ‘All went way over my head, I’m afraid, but apparently the entire country tilts or something.’

  ‘I knew it. I remember reading somewhere about...’

  ‘OK, fine,’ Natalie said, smiling with faux jauntiness. ‘Don’t mind me. My emotional needs clearly come second to your interest in cartography.’

  With that, Natalie flounced out.

  ‘Listen to me, Bev,’ Queenie said. ‘You have to do something about that child. She’s too thin. What does she look like? A nose on a string.’

  ‘Good God, Mum, don’t you ever tell her that.’

  ‘As if I’d do such a thing,’ Queenie said, her voice full of indignation. ‘You know me, I’m the epitome of tact...’

  ‘Yeah,’ Beverley chuckled, gently patting the top of her mother’s hand, ‘the absolute epitome.’ She pronounced it epi-tome as her mother just had.

  ‘Right,’ Queenie said, ‘I suppose I’d better go upstairs and put a face on before the minibus gets here. What time is it?’

  ‘Just after half eight.’

  As the words left Beverley’s lips, she suddenly remembered Benny.

  ‘Good God, that boy must still be asleep.’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Queenie said. ‘I’ll give him a shout.’

  Beverley smiled gratefully at her mother and helped her off the stool.

  ‘You know,’ Queenie said, ‘about the money thing - I’ve told you before, if things get really bad there’s the money from when I sold the house just sitting in the building society doing nothing. I can always lend you a couple of thousand to tide you over.’

  ‘That’s really kind of you,’ Beverley said gently, ‘and don’t think I’m not grateful for the offer, but we need more than just a couple of thousand, and even if I could persuade Melvin to swallow his daft pride and accept a loan from his elderly mother-in-law, I just don’t know when we’d be able to pay it back... if we’d ever be able to pay it back.’

  ‘Well, it’s there if you need it...’

  ‘OK. And Mum... thanks.’

  Queenie nodded.

  ***

  Once her mother had gone, Beverley straightened her back and began rubbing her neck. As she dug her fingers into her sore, knotted muscles, she turned her head slowly from side to side. Feeling the tension beginning to ease, she took the folded letter from under the pepper grinder and stared at it.

  Naomi, her younger and only sister whom she hadn’t seen or spoken to since their huge bust-up five years ago, was suddenly full of apologies and begging to see her. It seemed almost inconceivable to Beverley that Naomi, who as far as she knew had never apologised for anything - even as a child - could have changed so much. But five years was a long time. Naomi was now in her late thirties. Perhaps she’d started to mellow, decided that life was too short for feuds and genuinely wanted to patch things up. If, on the other hand, Naomi being Naomi had some selfish ulterior motive for getting in touch, she’d discover it soon enough. In the mean time, what possible harm could there be in a phone call?

  Chapter 2

  Naomi Gold winced as she felt the involuntary tightening of her rectal muscles round the plastic tubing. A few moments later came the not unpleasant sensation of warm water coursing through her large intestine. As the water level rose up to her navel, the pressure inside her gut increased to something close to pain. She speculated as ever whether the stainless-steel contraption beside the couch looked more like a piece of kidney dialysis apparatus or a knitting machine.

  As she lay watching the first dozen or so golden nuggets of her colonic irrigate float through a clear, corrugated pipe, Summer, her San Franciscan colonic irrigator, began massaging Naomi’s abdomen through the blue cotton surgical gown.

  ‘That’s real good, Naomi, just relax... excellent.’ Summer’s voice was calm and soothing. She pressed the heel of her palm down harder on Naomi’s stomach and began rubbing in a circular motion.

  ‘Ow, that fucking hurts,’ Naomi said, sucking in a sharp breath through pursed lips.

  ‘I know. Just hold on in there for a few more moments. You have no idea how much putrefaction and stagnant build-up I can feel.’

  As Summer continued her pressing and rubbing, Naomi heard the tinkle of her silver bangles. After a few moments, Summer looked up and turned her thicket of henna-ed corkscrew curls so that she was facing the corrugated pipe.

  ‘I tell you, Naomi,’ she said, her finger following the progress of one particular piece of irrigate, ‘unless you start laying off caffeine and all the processed crap you put into your body, and start replacing it with whole grains and organic produce, you are going to see this stuff really build up inside you. One autopsy report I read recently talked about a colon that was so loaded with mucoid faecal matter that it weighed forty pounds. Forty pounds, I ask you. Can you believe that?’

  ‘That is amazing. Truly amazing,’ Naomi gasped, feigning astonishment purely for the sake of politeness. In fact, Naomi had about as much interest in bowels, healthy or otherwise, as she did in anchovy futures and only ever came for a colonic when, like today, she needed to drop a few pounds fast. This evening she
was due at a telly-showbiz charity do at the Lanesborough and at eight o’clock this morning her black silk size eight Rifat Ozbek had refused to do up round the middle.

  ‘So tell me, Naomi,’ Summer continued, ‘how long would you say it takes you to complete a bowel movement? And how would you describe the smell? Would you say it’s pretty much odourless, or more putrefied cooked meat with a kind a lemony top note?’

  ‘No,’ Naomi shot back, ‘I’d say it’s more blackcurrant and gooseberry with an understated yet well-rounded woody edge.’

  Summer nodded seriously, picked up Naomi’s notes, which were attached to a clipboard, and began writing.

  Naomi watched Summer’s earnest scribbling and couldn’t help smiling as she wondered why it was that all Americans seemed to lack the gene which made human beings capable of appreciating sarcasm.

  Her deliberations lasted no more than a few seconds. They were disturbed, first, by the sensation of much cooler water suddenly entering her bowel, and then by the muffled ringing of her mobile.

  ‘Summer, be an angel, darling,’ she said, ‘and pass me the phone from my briefcase. I don’t think I’m in quite the right position to reach down.’

  Summer made no effort to pick up the phone. She simply stared at Naomi. The look on her face stopped short of a fully fledged glare. It was more of a wishy-washy, peace-loving, alternative-lifestyle, tofu version of a glare.

  ‘Naomi, maybe you’ve forgotten, but we have addressed this issue before...’ Summer’s voice was as calm as ever, but it had taken on a faintly miffed quality which was the perfect accessory to her facial expression. ‘I really don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be taking calls during a cleanse. This should be a time of tranquility and relaxation. Your constant refusal to hear what I say is causing me to develop some quite negative feelings toward you.’

  At this point the phone stopped ringing.

  The nation’s most beloved talk-show host and consumer champion, steadfast devotee of the underdog and eight times winner of the Pritchard and Jarvis (Debt Collection and Bailiff Service) Award for Compassionate Journalism, raised herself on to her elbows and glowered at Summer in a way that said: Lynching follows. Start trembling.