Sisteria (30 page)

She looked up. The waitress was standing in front of them, ogling Melvin. She'd been staring at him from the moment they walked in an hour ago.

‘Two more cappuccinos, please,' Beverley said. The girl carried on gawping. Her eyes were fixed on Melvin's bosom.

Beverley tugged at the girl's apron.

‘Two more cappuccinos, please,' she repeated.

‘Oh, right,' the girl said, still staring at Melvin. It was a full ten seconds before she turned back to the counter.

‘Your left tit's disappeared,' Beverley said with a giggle when the waitress had gone.

He felt under the navy jacket, located the bundle of socks, which had somehow ended up in the small of his back, and turning in his seat, so that he had his back to the counter, manoeuvred it into his bra. Beverley sat watching him, and try as she might, she couldn't stop herself giggling.

‘And you forgot to shave your legs,' she said. ‘Blokes find that a big turn-off.' She popped the last piece of éclair into her mouth.

‘So,' she went on, ‘does Rebecca feel the same way about you?'

He shrugged.

‘Maybe. When I phoned her, I got the feeling she was genuinely pleased to hear from me. She also said that not a day had gone by when she didn't think about me or wonder how I was doing. Apparently when Brad finally walked out on her a few months ago - he'd been screwing around for years - she said she had this desperate urge to phone me, but she didn't because she didn't want you to find out and get suspicious.'

Beverley nodded.

‘So what made you decide to escape from the Friary?'

‘Simple. She invited me to come and stay. She also said she'd spent the last twenty years feeling guilty that I'd never seen a penny from Tower of Bagel - after all, it was my idea.'

‘So, what - she's gonna start offering you money?'

‘Maybe, we'll see. But anyway, as far as I knew, Wim had no plans to release me, so I phoned Vladimir.'

‘Vladimir?' she said incredulously. ‘What, the bloke who did you out of the five grand?'

‘Yeah. In the end he came up trumps. Having dropped out of sight for ages, he finally contacted me at the Friary. Alma told him I was there. Said he was terribly sorry about the anti-snoring devices, that there had been some production difficulties at the plant in Irkutsk and that he'd refunded the five grand directly into my bank account.'

‘Blimey. There's a turn-up. So he helped you get out of the hospital?'

‘Yeah, I told him the whole Rebecca story. Turns out he's a bit of a romantic on the quiet... got dead excited, in fact. He said if I could get out of the building he'd wait for me on the main road. We drove around for a bit, trying to work out where would be safe to go, and then we heard about the day centre on the GLR news...'

The waitress arrived with the cappuccinos. As she set them on the table, she was almost doubled up with giggles. They ignored her.

‘I need to see her, Bev. I have to find out if there's even a remote possibility of us recapturing what we once had.'

‘So when are you off?' she asked, picking up a spoonful of cappuccino froth and putting it in her mouth.

He looked at her for a few moments before answering.

‘Tonight. Ten o'clock.'

She put down her spoon and nodded slowly.

‘Tonight? But what about the kids? We've got so much explaining to do.'

‘They'll be here in ten minutes. I sent Vlad to pick them up from school. It's OK. Don't panic. I know they don't know him. I phoned the school first to explain.'

‘God knows what I'm going to tell the police.'

‘You don't have to say a word,' he said. ‘I'll phone Wim in a few days.'

‘What about the business?'

‘I thought you had enough on your plate, so I phoned Mitchell and asked him if he'd mind handling the sale. He agreed. Plus he's lent me some money to tide me over. I'm skint since I paid off the overdraft. I hope you don't mind, but I felt more comfortable asking him than you.'

‘No, that's OK.'

Suddenly there was a desperate sadness in her eyes.

‘Wassup?' he said gently.

‘Oh, I don't know,' she sighed. ‘I'm worried about how the kids are going to cope with all this. Don't forget Benny's got his exams in a few weeks.'

‘And Natalie's got her baptism,' he chuckled.

‘Oh, God, don't remind me.' She took a mouthful of coffee. ‘Plus I suppose I'm just sad about us,' she said.

‘What? That we didn't make it?'

‘Yeah... that we didn't make it.' She gave a half smile.

He stood up and walked round to where she was sitting. Then he pulled her up out of her seat and held her to him.

‘I'll always care about you, you know,' he said.

‘Yeah, me too,' she said, tears tumbling down her face. ‘Me too.'

He took a ten-pound note out of his wallet and placed it under the stainless-steel sugar bowl. His arm round Beverley's shoulders, they walked to the door. Neither noticed his right tit falling out from underneath his blouse, leaving a trail of socks across the coffee shop floor. Odd socks.

***

They walked back to the day centre car park. It was obvious even from a distance that Vlad was there because the Impala was. As they got closer, they could see Vladimir standing smoking a cigarette next to the ancient white monster with its years-out-of-date New York plates.

‘Ah, Myel-vin, my friend, and this must be Beverley. You must not worry. You will soon find new husband. You are very beautiful woman. Here, let me show you. I have photograph of my unmarried brother in Tomsk.' He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and started searching through it. ‘His name is Ivan. Back in Russia he was concert pianist. To tell the truth, he wasn't that good. In fact he was pretty bad... so bad the newspapers called him Ivan the Terrible. Good joke, no, Myel-vin? Now he is television repair man. When he began he wasn't so great at that either, but he's getting better. Last year he only blew up three TVs...'

Beverley smiled politely.

‘Another time, eh, Vlad,' Melvin said. ‘We really need to talk to the children now.'

‘Sure, Myel-vin. Sure. They're in Impala. I stay outside while you have big family chest-to-chest.'

***

Beverley and Melvin climbed into the front of the Impala.

‘Oh my God,' the children cried as one when they saw Melvin.

‘Dad? Is that you?' Natalie gasped, bursting into fits of giggles.

The explaining seemed to go on forever. First came the story of Melvin's escape in drag. Then Melvin decided to go right back to the beginning and tell the saga of his student relationship with Rebecca and the setting-up of Tower of Bagel. Finally he explained how he thought he was still in love with Rebecca and Beverley told them about her relationship with Tom.

‘Oh my God,' Natalie said. ‘So you're splitting up?'

Beverley and Melvin exchanged anxious glances and then nodded.

Natalie immediately burst into noisy sobs and Benny started biting his bottom lip to stop the tears.

‘Dad is going to New York,' Beverley said gently, ‘to see if he and Rebecca can make a go of it, and I need to find out if Tom will still have me.'

‘But that means he'll come to live with us,' Benny said. ‘Fuck that. I'm not having some strange bloke barging in thinking he can order me about...'

‘Benny, calm down and listen,' Melvin said, reaching into the back seat of the Impala to hug him. ‘I'll always be your dad. Tom will never take my place in that sense. He's a kind, intelligent man, Benny. He wouldn't want to. And I'll phone every day. Promise. And as soon as I'm settled, the pair of you can come to New York and stay.'

Two hours later they were still sitting in the steamed-up Impala while Vladimir carried on smoking and - Melvin couldn't help noticing out of the corner of his eye - intently studying a London A-Z as he waited patiently outside. So his friend really was doing the taxi driver's Knowledge.

Finally, after more tears, hugs and the anticipated adolescent recriminations, the family climbed out of the car and said their final and emotion-charged goodbyes to Melvin. The plan was that Beverley would drive the children home in the Passat and Vladimir would follow in the Impala with Melvin, who was still sectioned and technically a fugitive, hidden under blankets on the back seat. There, Vladimir would collect Melvin's passport and some proper clothes and take him on to Heathrow.

***

Beverley and the children walked across the car park. Still sobbing quietly, Natalie went on ahead. Benny took his mother's arm.

‘If Tom doesn't want to be with you, Mum, me and Nat'll look after you. You know that, don't you?'

‘'Course I do, sweetheart,' she said, reaching up to plant a kiss on her son's cheek. They'd walked no more than a couple of paces when Beverley heard the soft tinkling of small metallic objects landing on asphalt. Benny stopped dead in his tracks and went instantly red.

‘What are they?' Beverley said casually, spotting three of the five fishing weights which had, unknown to her, extracted themselves from the thirty-two-millimetre washer round Benny's penis and fallen down his trouser leg.

‘Don't ask me,' he blustered, at the same time gathering up the fishing weights. ‘Look like ball bearings. Never seen 'em before.'

‘But Benny,' she said, looking puzzled, ‘maybe it's my imagination, but it looked to me like they fell down your trouser leg.'

‘Did they?' His red cheeks were now almost purple. He said nothing for a few seconds while he tried to work out what to do next.

‘Oh yeah,' he said finally, ‘I remember now. I picked them up the other day while we were doing metalwork at school. Must be a hole in my pocket.'

‘Oh, right,' she said as she took his arm again and they carried on walking.

It was several days later, when her mind was clearer, that Beverley finally remembered that Benny hadn't done metalwork at school since the third year.

***

When they got home, it was Benny, still smarting with humiliation, who checked the answer machine in the hall while his mother and Natalie searched the house for Melvin's passport. Thirty seconds later, he came away from the phone. ‘Blimey,' he whispered, sitting down with a thump on the bottom stair.

Lettice Allard's message had been a rambling one. She was phoning to inform him of an article which had appeared in that day's
Guardian
Women on male circumcision. It explained, as she gushingly précised it, that far from being seen as a primitive mutilation, male circumcision was now regarded as a major aid to women's health, cervical cancer-wise. Therefore a circumcised knob was becoming an exceedingly cool thing for a man to possess - which was why several of the more politically OK film stars and rock musicians were queuing up for the chop.

‘So, anyway,' she had concluded, ‘I've kept it for you, so give me a call, and we can, like, share our thoughts on the whole thing, yeah?'

It was all Benny could do to stop himself calling Lettice there and then, but he didn't want to appear too desperate to speak to her. Was he in with a chance after all he had been through, culminating in today's cosmic embarrassment in front of his mother? Or was he reading too much into Lettice's words and seemingly suggestive tone? Whichever way he looked at it, there was one central fact: Lettice Allard, who had never phoned him in her life, had rung up to discuss not merely knobs in general, but his in particular.

He dashed upstairs and proceeded to empty his collection of Homebase washers and spare fishing weights from their hiding place in his ancient piggy bank. Then he opened his window, threw the lot into the bushes below and stuck a single finger up at them in a symbolic gesture of victory.

***

Beverley kept trying Tom's number until well after eleven, but only got the answer machine.

‘Tom, it's me,' she said desperately, every time it clicked on. ‘If you're there, please pick up. I must speak to you.'

When he didn't come to the phone, she decided he'd either stopped loving her and never wanted to see her again as long as he lived, or he was genuinely out or away. She hoped and prayed it was the latter.

In the end, just after midnight, she could fight her exhaustion no longer and fell into a deep sleep in which she dreamt about giving birth to triplets fathered by Ivan the Terrible.

She woke just after ten. Even if Tom had come home last night, she reasoned, he would have left by now. She rang his production company in Soho. Bronte, his PA, who Beverley had spoken to several times, said he was filming in London all week. Apparently
The French Lieutenant's Woman
was finished and he was working on a BT commercial. For the next couple of days he was shooting outdoors, in the piazza in front of St Paul's Cathedral.

She spotted the bright lights and white umbrellas from hundreds of yards away. When Beverley arrived on the set, feeling sick with nerves and certain Tom was about to send her packing, he was nowhere to be seen. One of the young runners told her they were taking a break and that Tom had said he was going for a walk.

‘How does he seem?' Beverley asked the lad anxiously.

‘Tom? Christ... Been in a stress all morning. You only have to look at him in the wrong tone of voice and he loses it. Some tart giving him a hard time, I reckon.'

‘Probably,' she said, nodding. ‘You've no idea where he went, have you?'

‘Nah... but last time I saw him he was walking towards the cathedral.'

He was inside, she knew he was. He would have remembered the afternoon they sat in the Whispering Gallery, her on one side, him on the other, sending daft messages to each ether. He'd gone there to get maudlin. She could feel it.

By now it had started to drizzle. In a few seconds this turned to great sheets of pelting rain. By the time she reached the cathedral steps her freshly blow-dried hair was plastered to her head and dripping water on to her PVC trenchcoat.