Sisteria (14 page)

‘Look, Mel, I know you're finding this thing hard to deal with, but we have to keep talking. Please don't shut me out. You seem to be hurting so much and it just makes me feel more and more guilty.'

‘I'll be fine. Honest,' he said without turning over. ‘I just need time to come to terms with it, that's all. There's nothing going on. Honest.'

‘Turn over and say that.'

He turned to face her.

‘I promise I'm not planning anything,' he said, knowing full well that the advertisements for the Russian snoring devices - part two of his grand strategy to scupper the surrogacy deal - would start appearing in newspapers and magazines from next week.

‘Now go to sleep.'

He kissed her briefly on the lips.

As they lay side by side in the dark, Melvin's thoughts turned to Rebecca Fludd,
shikseh
goddess and bagel mogul. These days he found himself fantasising even more than usual about what might have been. The moment he fell asleep he began to dream. He was standing on the deck of a cruise liner. At the same time this was also the Nottingham University students' union bar. He was surrounded by a large group of male students, wearing shirts with long pointy collars and Kevin Keegan haircuts. They were all drinking pints of Shipstone's bitter. Through the crowd, he could see Rebecca. She was playing deck quoits with bagels. Suddenly she turned towards him and smiled. The people disappeared as if by magic. Rebecca dropped her bagels and they began running towards each other in slow motion. They were laughing. Their arms were outstretched. She was wearing a dress made of flowing sheer cotton. He could see her breasts bobbing up and down as she ran barefoot along the wooden deck. Finally he reached her. His heart pounding fit to burst, he put his arms round her, pulled her towards him and kissed her slowly and passionately on the mouth. It was a few seconds later, as they pulled apart, that he realized to his horror that Rebecca had sprouted a droopy moustache and tinted glasses. He had been tonguing Vlad the Impala.

Beverley, still in worry mode, was thinking about Natalie's new boyfriend. Melvin had decided it was wonderful news that Natalie was seeing a Christian boy - the more religious the better in his opinion (Melvin never lost an opportunity to stick two fingers up at his dead father, who had been orthodox as well as autocratic). Beverley, on the other hand, was continuing to have serious doubts about the relationship.

As she drifted off to sleep, she could see the boy standing in front of her. In her mind's eye he wasn't merely Christian, but a wild-eyed, wiry-haired zealot and missionary who looked like he belonged to some eccentric American Christian sect. He would force Natalie to convert, marry her and then drag her off to live among his people in the wilds of Pennsylvania.

A minute later she was dreaming properly. It was ten years from now and she was walking down Golders Green Road with a dozen Amish grandchildren in tow.

Chapter 12

‘Queen of Shadows, Queen of Light,' Fallopia chanted loudly, her voice taking on a theatrical tremble, ‘Isis, Brighid, lady bright, Hathor of the darksome night, swell my magic power tonight.'

Fallopia had broken off from her task of sweeping away evil spirits from the magic circle and was standing stock still in the November darkness, her arms and her broomstick raised heavenwards.

‘Do you mind telling me what this woman is on?' Beverley whispered to Naomi.

‘God knows, but isn't it magical?' Naomi enthused, still unable to believe her luck at having poached Fallopia from the
EastEnders
tart.

‘If you like,' Beverley replied.

‘If you ask me,' she continued, pulling up her coat collar and adjusting the chaplet of cow horns perched uncomfortably on her head, ‘the woman's a newt's eye short of a curse.'

Despite her military gait and ramrod posture, Fallopia had clearly shrunk since her days in the RAF. She couldn't have been more than five foot three. She was also fat, with enormous breasts. As she moved, these swung back and forth, apparently untethered, beneath her white robe, which was tied with dressing gown cord at what passed for her waist.

After consecrating the ground by sprinkling it with salt water taken from her cauldron, she knelt down and, with some difficulty because the breeze kept blowing out her matches, began lighting the white candles which formed the perimeter of the magic circle. She then announced that she was ready to proceed with the ceremony.

‘But what about Tom?' Naomi asked anxiously. ‘It's only just gone half five. He's probably stuck in traffic. Can't we just hang on for a bit?'

‘Sorry, no can do,' Fallopia barked. ‘I'm due at Highgrove at nine. HRH has got another bull with brewer's droop. If Mr Jago chooses to be late on parade I'm afraid that's his problem. But worry not, Beverley's fertility is our main concern and it is her we must concentrate upon. Now then, let us be silent while I call up the cone of magic.'

‘I can't imagine where he's got to,' Naomi whispered while Fallopia began making a sign of a pentagram in the air. ‘He promised me faithfully he would leave the office at four. I tell you, if he's playing silly buggers and is about to let me down, I'll bloody kill him.'

Beverley had to confess she felt relieved at the thought of Tom not turning up. It wasn't that she didn't want the insemination to go ahead. She did, but she found the idea of meeting Tom for the first time under these bizarre circumstances embarrassing in the extreme.

They returned their attention to Fallopia. She was now prancing and gambolling, Isadora Duncan-style, round the magic circle, a tree branch wand in one hand, a couple of smoking joss sticks in the other. Furthermore, she was doing it completely naked.

Backlit by the candles, Fallopia, with her bubble perm and dimpled, cellulite-filled limbs, looked like an outsize wood nymph, Beverley thought. But what struck predominantly was the sight of her breasts swaying back and forth across the enormous belly like two animated, fleshy ciabattas.

‘Oh my God,' Beverley giggled, ‘I wondered what she meant when she said she performed these seeding ceremonies “sky clad”.'

She turned to Naomi for affirmation, only to find her sister gazing, apparently enchanted by the ludicrous spectacle.

‘I think the whole thing's absolutely beautiful,' Naomi gushed. ‘It's all so… so feminine.'

As Beverley looked at Naomi with a blinking, head-shaking cartoon expression of total disbelief, Fallopia came to a stop and stood a few feet from them, panting heavily. Her breath was white in the bitter night air. She picked up a silver chalice from the melamine camping table which served as an altar and asked Beverley to drink from it. She took a small sip of the cheap, vinegary red wine and winced.

Finally Fallopia asked her to lie down on the grass.

Giving Naomi a plaintive don't-let-this-be-happening-to-me look, Beverley supported the cow horn chaplet with one hand and lay down on the freezing ground.

Looking up, she had an excellent view of Fallopia's massive pubic area, almost an entire neighbourhood, with its sparse, tundra-like bush.

‘Mother Goddess,' Fallopia boomed as she and Naomi knelt down and rubbed their hands in a clockwise motion of Beverley's lower abdomen, ‘be here with me as I bless this woman's creative womb. May the seed which shall be planted here grow and flourish so that...'

A male voice suddenly broke in. ‘Sorry, tried ringing the bell,' it said, ‘but there was no answer. Thought I'd come round the back. Mr Jago told me to get this over to you urgently.'

The three women looked up to see a young man in a helmet and biker's leathers. He was holding a Jiffy bag.

‘Fuck me sideways,' he said slowly as he took in Beverley's chaplet of cow horns and Fallopia's ciabattas. Clearly deciding he had walked in on a scene of crazed Satanic debauchery, he virtually threw the bag at Naomi and then legged it back across the lawn, shouting over his shoulder, ‘No need to sign for it, girls.'

Naomi immediately tore into the bag. It contained a Waitrose sundried tomato jar, minus the tomatoes and with a small amount of white fluid at the bottom. A note was Sellotaped to the lid.

Dear Naomi and Beverley
, it said.
Sorry, got cold feet about performing with people around. Went home instead. Hope this reaches you in time. Good luck. Tom.

Chapter 13

While Beverley stood in the bathroom under the lukewarm drizzle which passed for a shower, Melvin padded downstairs letting out his traditional salvo of early-morning farts as he went. This ended, as usual, at the precise moment he reached the hall. He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Standing in front of it with the door wide open he began scratching his balls through his pyjamas while he decided what to have for breakfast. While he thought, he began shoving bits of cold roast potato into his mouth.

Most days Melvin didn't bother with breakfast. The thought of incoming hate mail did little for his appetite. But this morning he didn't give a flying fuck. This morning he was starving. Ravenous even. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this hungry. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this happy.

The joy Melvin was feeling as he took a carton of orange juice and two eggs from the fridge was the same joy he'd been feeling for the last few weeks. It bordered on the ecstatic. Even the knowledge that Beverley, who had undergone her first insemination just over a month ago, could be pregnant had done nothing to quell his jubilation. A practically menopausal woman and a turkey baster would take months to score a hit, he reasoned. Meanwhile Ylad the Impala's in-ear electronic Russian anti-snoring devices were selling like hot Minis.

Every day another twenty or thirty orders arrived at the shop. He now had Alma, his manageress, on full-time packing duties. He had no idea so many men snored, or - judging by the letters which accompanied the orders - that each of them had a despondent, sleep-deprived wife, desperate to find a cure. He'd already sold two hundred at nearly twenty quid a go, that was four grand he'd turned over in as many weeks. If the orders kept coming like this, by Christmas he would have made more than enough to pay the bank their five thousand. After that everything he made would be clear profit. Very soon he would have tens of thousands in the bank. At this rate the rest of their debts would be paid off in no time.

As he poured himself some KwikSave orange juice and knocked back half of it, he imagined the moment he would sit Beverley down, present her with their bank statement and tell her there was no need for her to carry on with this surrogacy nonsense. She would fall into his arms weeping, bless him for rescuing her from the hell of having to give up her baby, and they would go upstairs to make if not perfect, certainly halfway decent love.

He'd lost count of the times he'd rung Vlad to thank him for letting him in on the deal. His old friend was a tsar among men. How he could have doubted him, Melvin had no idea.

He cracked eggs into a cereal bowl and went in search of a frying pan.

‘What you looking for?' Beverley said, shuffling into the kitchen in her dressing gown.

‘Frying pan.'

‘In the cupboard under the oven. Melvin, you appear to be cooking. You never cook.'

He shrugged. Then he bent down, opened the cupboard and pulled out the frying pan.

‘Dunno,' he said chirpily. ‘I just woke up and fancied some eggs, that's all. Sit down and I'll do you a couple.'

Beverley grimaced.

‘Oh, I forgot, you're still on a diet,' he said, putting two slices of bread in the toaster and failing to notice that his wife was looking distinctly green around the gills this morning. She smiled a weak smile.

‘Think I'll just have some dry toast,' she said, nodding towards the toaster. ‘Couldn't face anything else... So, what's got into you, Melvin? I've noticed you've been distinctly more up recently. Do you think you've finally come to terms with this surrogacy business?'

‘Not exactly,' he said, maintaining his good humour.

‘What, then? C'mon. What is it that's made you so happy these last few weeks?'

‘Soon,' he said, grinning and tapping the side of his nose. ‘You'll find out very soon. Everything's going to be peachy, Bev. Just peachy.'

***

‘Probably nothing,' Beverley said to Rochelle on the phone as soon as Melvin had left for work. ‘Just feel a bit sick, that's all. Probably caught a tummy bug. Yeah, that'll be it. I'm sure it's nothing.'

She couldn't possibly be pregnant, she thought. After all, she was forty-two, she'd substituted a turkey baster for a penis and used sperm which had been ejaculated into a sun-dried tomato jar. What was more, when she'd taken off the lid, she'd noticed bits of dried-up tomato round the rim. There must have been a mingling of sperm and tomato cells. Even if by some miracle she was pregnant, then she would give birth not to a baby, but a giant squawking sun-dried tomato.

‘Beverley, if you're so sure it's nothing, why have you woken me at eight o'clock in the morning to have a conversation about it? Personally, I think it's
something
.'

‘You do?'

‘I do. Let me guess. It's not just the feeling queasy; you're late, aren't you?'

Beverley hesitated.

‘A bit,' she said eventually.

‘How a bit?'

‘Five days, but I reckon it's nothing more than the stomach upset slowing down my cycle.'

‘Beverley, you make it sound like one of your fallopian tubes has a puncture. Believe me, your cycle has not merely slowed down, it has reached a complete bloody standstill and the only thing causing it is sperm. I put it to you that this came, if you'll pardon the expression, from one of two people - Melvin, or the gorgeous Tom.'

‘I can't be. It's completely impossible. Melvin hasn't laid a finger on me since I told him about the surrogacy deal. Plus the sperm in that jar were probably hours old and swimming belly up by the time I got to them.' ‘You reckon,' Rochelle said flatly.

***

An hour and a half later she was standing on Beverley's doorstep brandishing a Predictor. It would have been sooner, but she'd had to wait for the shops to open.

When the result turned out to be positive, Beverley refused to believe it. She assumed the kit was faulty and sent Rochelle out to get another one. When that result was the same, she made her go to the chemist down the road and buy a different make. This too confirmed that she was pregnant, but Beverley was having none of it. Indeed, even after Rochelle had driven to half the chemists in Finchley and returned with seven more kits, which all delivered the same verdict, Beverley still scoffed. By now she had convinced herself that all the pharmacists in the neighbourhood had been doing business with one of Melvin's dodgy business contacts and had received consignments of faulty pregnancy testing kits which were giving false positives.

‘For God's sake, Bev,' Rochelle said, throwing the empty boxes at her, ‘you're pregnant.'

‘God, I am, aren't I?' she giggled. She felt overwhelming joy for Naomi as well as delight at having managed it so quickly.

‘And my mother thought I was menopausal,' she said with a grunt. ‘I'll give her bloody menopause.'

Then almost at once her jubilation turned to panic.

‘Christ,' she said, leaning back on the sofa and running her fingers through her hair, ‘until this moment I thought I could cope with letting my baby go. Suddenly I'm not so sure. My own flesh and blood. I'm planning to give up my own flesh and blood? How will I do it, Rochelle? Please, please tell me.'

***

Naomi's surprise, delight and sheer schoolgirl excitement at the news when Beverley phoned her at the office half an hour later was immediately followed by a suggestion that they meet for lunch to celebrate. Beverley suspected that the only lunch she'd fancy would be a couple of water biscuits washed down with some fizzy mineral water, but she thought it would be too mean to refuse her sister's invitation. They agreed to meet at Naomi's office.

‘Then we'll go round the corner to the River Café,' she said. ‘Funnily enough, any other day and Tom could have joined us. He's actually at home all week reading scripts, but when I tried to get him a few minutes ago to remind him to pick something up for supper, there was no answer. Then I remembered he had a meeting in Oxford with Judi Dench. He's trying to persuade her to play Lady Bracknell.'

Beverley was disappointed. The insemination had been over a month ago and she still hadn't met Tom. Several dinner dates had been set for the three of them (Melvin said he found the thought of meeting Tom too humiliating for words and wouldn't consider coming), but on each occasion, Tom had phoned Naomi at the last minute to say he had to work late and couldn't make it. Beverley knew Naomi was desperate for her to meet Tom. She was always saying how she couldn't wait to show him off. She'd also sounded genuinely disappointed each time she'd phoned to cancel dinner. Beverley wasn't prone to feelings of paranoia, but it looked very much as if Tom Jago was trying to avoid her.

***

Dressed once again in Rochelle's funeral suit, Beverley stood next to Plum's vacant desk and dithered. Should she wait for him to get back from the loo, or wherever, so that he could show her into Naomi's office? Or should she go straight in and risk interrupting Naomi, who was probably in the middle of some important meeting or other? She waited a few more seconds to give Plum a chance to return and come to her rescue. When he didn't, she tiptoed over to Naomi's door and listened. Nothing. It was odds on that her sister was alone. But she couldn't be sure. Beverley decided to take a peek and began to inch open the door.

‘Bloody sodding cunting fuck.'

Startled by the booming, enraged male voice, Beverley stood stock still. Poor Naomi. Somebody was clearly tearing her off a strip and the poor soul was too cowed to defend herself. Any residual doubts Beverley had about Naomi having undergone a complete personality change vanished there and then.

‘Bollocks. Fucking fucking bollocks,' the voice roared.

Whoever was setting about Naomi, it definitely wasn't Plum. If his meek telephone manner was anything to go by, Plum's emotional repertoire didn't extend beyond mild hump.

Good manners told her to close the door. Curiosity, not to mention concern for her sister's physical wellbeing, made her carry on opening it. Finally she poked her head round the door. The room was empty.

Beverley walked towards Naomi's huge desk. From underneath it came more swearing, but gentler, whispered this time.

Beverley crouched down.

‘Hello,' she said chirpily to the man's denim behind.

‘Oh God, sorry, who's that...?'

He immediately tried to turn round. As he did so he lifted his head and cracked it on the underside of the desk.

‘Ouch. Oh, shit.'

As the man continued to turn round, rubbing his head, Beverley crawled towards him. In a second or two she had joined him under the desk.

‘You OK?' she asked.

‘Yes, yes, thanks. I'll be fine. I think my biorhythms must be up the spout today. Plum had just got me a cappuccino, and I was sitting here drinking it, waiting for Naomi to come out of her meeting, when the phone rang. I reached out to take it and the next thing I knew my lap was covered in boiling-hot coffee and the cup and saucer had smashed on to the floor. 'Course, by then the bloody phone'd stopped ringing. When you startled me I'd just started picking up the pieces.'

Beverley looked round. The patch of beechwood strip flooring under the desk was still covered in jagged bits of broken crockery. She could see that most of the coffee had soaked into the front of the man's jeans.

‘Listen, if that coffee was as hot as you say it was,' she said, ‘you could have some pretty nasty burns down there.'

Her face immediately turned bright red. What was she saying? She had known this man for precisely thirty seconds and her idea of making polite conversation was to start a discussion about his genitals.

‘Oh, God… I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…'

‘OK. I know what you meant. Don't worry, I'll be fine. By the way, I should introduce myself. I'm…'

‘Tom. Yes, I know. I worked it out. I'm Beverley, Naomi's sister.'

***

When they'd both got up and Tom had deposited the pieces of broken cup in the bin, he explained that he'd come to Naomi's office because he needed to borrow some cash. Apparently he'd left their flat earlier that morning on his way to Oxford, only to discover when he reached his car that he'd forgotten his keys and wallet. While he was telling his story, Beverley couldn't help noticing that with his tanned freckled face, greyish-blue eyes and thick, collar-length dark blond hair, he was even better-looking in the flesh than he was in the
Standard
photograph.

***

‘Come on, why don't you sit down?' he said. For the first time, she picked up a trace of a northern accent. Manchester or Liverpool, she guessed. Placing a large, firm hand on her shoulder, he led her to Naomi's chair. There were a few spots of coffee on the leather seat, which he wiped away with a clean folded handkerchief.

She sat down and watched him walk round and take the chair on the other side of the desk. Over his coffee-stained jeans, he was wearing a beautifully cut navy woollen jacket and a pale blue open-necked shirt with a button-down collar.

Having sat down, he began dabbing at the stains with his handkerchief.

‘Bloody hell,' he said, turning his head towards his watch, ‘I am going to be so late for this meeting in Oxford. Christ knows where Naomi has got to.'

As she watched him continue to dab irritably at his jeans, it hit her.

‘Oh my God, Naomi hasn't told you about the baby yet, has she?' Beverley said.

Holding the handkerchief in mid air, he sat staring at her. His face was etched with disbelief.

‘I found out this morning,' she continued. ‘I still need to see a doctor, but I don't think there's any doubt.'

‘You have to be kidding,' he said with a nervous laugh. ‘What, you mean that jar actually contained... you know… healthy... ?'