Sisteria (7 page)

By 1990, the Ilford bagel was sweeping across the US. There was hardly a strip or mall in the country which didn't boast a Tower of Bagel. Tower of Bagel trucks plied the interstates day and night, the corporate logo of a toppling pile of cartoon bagels becoming as familiar as Walmart's. Soon, reports began to appear on the British financial pages of bankrupt, desperate American bagel bakers committing suicide because of the competition. First the owner of New York's famous Bagel Schmegel drowned himself in a hundred-gallon vat of dough. Then the Boogy Woogy Bagel Boys in San Francisco ended it all by taking sleeping pills crushed in Kahlua.

The Clintons adored Rebecca and Brad, as did Tony and Cherie. Both first ladies always insisted that their garden parties be catered by Tower of Bagel. The only dissenting voices on the planet came from Saddam Hussein, for obvious reasons, and from the Reverend Ian Paisley. Having discovered that the Pope had started to enjoy a couple of chopped herring bagels for breakfast, he declared them to be the Devil's Doughnuts and refused to cross the threshold of the newly opened five-lane drive-thru Tower of Bagel in Belfast.

The night Mme Yeltsin was shown on the nine o'clock news opening the first Tower of Bagel in Moscow, Melvin stood in front of the screen weeping tears of fury. For Christ's sake, it had been his fucking, bastard idea. He could have been a multi-millionaire by now, instead of a serial failure in a rusty VW. If only he hadn't been such an arrogant arsehole when Rebecca had asked him to become her partner. If only he'd seen the utter balls-aching uselessness of Marxism sooner. If only he hadn't been such a fool... If only he hadn't let her go.

***

As he pulled slowly on to the drive, his mind was engulfed by that final thought, by what might have been, by what he might have been had he stayed with Rebecca. Moreover, no matter how hard he tried, he had never forgotten or stopped aching for the molten passion he had felt for her. He had lost count of the times he had lain awake in bed next to Beverley, guilt surging through him as he remembered the night he and Rebecca had made love eleven times on the trot, and how the next day his balls ached so much he had to see the doctor at the university health centre. And how the pain had caused him to have to mosey, John Wayne style, into the surgery. And how he had never felt so happy in his life, before or since.

Chapter 5

The Morgue was filling up fast. By now the body count had risen to well over a hundred. Taut, harassed-looking attendants, unused to accommodating such large numbers, careered round the harshly lit tiled room in their long green surgical gowns, thick rubber gloves and white Wellington boots. A couple of them swabbed down recently vacated marble slabs. Some wheeled hospital trolleys. Others, laden with large porcelain kidney dishes, charged in and out of the plastic swing doors at the back.

Despite the attendants' best efforts at emergency stops, two trolleys, one with a pile of kidney dishes on board, had collided a few moments ago. The dishes had fallen to the floor and smashed, adding to the chaos and din. A large area of previously spotless white tiles was consequently now covered in kangaroo tail with garlic polenta, and green shell mussels with mooli, hijiki, chilli and rocket.

The Grim Reaper, who was stationed by the front door, greeted new arrivals.

‘Hi, my name's Phil,' he boomed from the far reaches of his black hood while at the same time extending his scythe in welcome, ‘and I'll be your Angel of Death this lunchtime. Would you prefer post-mortem or non-postmortem?'

***

When the Grim Reaper asked Beverley, who by now had begun to feel decidedly queasy, whether she had a reservation, she'd been tempted to say, ‘Yes, at least a dozen,' and then make a dash for it before somebody in a surgical gown tried to whip out her spleen and weigh it. But instead of being rude, she simply gave him Naomi's name.

Having been told by the Grim Reaper that her sister had phoned to say she was stuck in traffic and would be a few minutes late, Beverley was shown to a marble slab in the window by an Aussie Morgue attendant called Lance. Their route took them past slabs full of intimidatingly trendy men and women, all of whom seemed to be wearing narrow oblong spectacles with thin black frames. It was only as she sat down that Beverley noticed the large badge pinned to Lance's Surgical gown advertising the restaurant's Valet of the Shadow of Death parking service.

‘Can I offer you a stiff drink while you're waiting?' Lance had asked chirpily as he handed her the black-edged menu. ‘We do some absolutely harrowing cocktails. What about a Hemlock Wallbanger? That's similar to a Harvey Wallbanger except we add a couple of drops of squid ink. Then there's our special Black Death Die-quiri? That's Guinness garnished with floating oozing boils made from advocaat and grenadine. Or what about a Gravesend Surprise, that's...'

‘Don't tell me... one shot of embalming fluid, two shots of Formalin, a swizzle stick and a black umbrella.'

Lance gave her a hurt look.

‘No thanks,' she shouted firmly over the general hubbub. ‘A glass of Perrier will be fine.'

‘C'mon, how's about a Lethal Injection? People say it has an instant calming effect.'

‘I'm sure it has, but I'd prefer fizzy water - unless of course you have a problem with that. Perhaps all the bubbles have gone flat on account of them being in mourning.'

‘No, we can do fizzy water. Regular, or with lemon and lime coffins?'

Beverley took a deep calming breath.

‘Regular.'

‘In an urn or a glass?'

‘Honestly,' she said, doing her best to hold on to her patience. ‘All I want is a glass of water - no squid ink, no black grapes, no hearse-shaped ice cubes... just water.'

Lance finally seemed to get the message. He nodded, smiled and headed off towards the bar.

‘One Watery Grave,' she heard him shout to the bartender. ‘Hold the Klamati olive crucifix.'

***

Beverley knew precisely why Naomi had phoned her and insisted they had lunch at the Morgue. Having discovered that lower-middle-class suburbanites like Beverley and Melvin were now going to the Ivy, she would have been desperate to find somewhere even more fashionable. And she most certainly had. The Morgue wasn't just another tacky themed restaurant designed to attract tourists and the occasional cast member from
Brookside
or
Emmerdale
. The Morgue was stellar. According to B.B. Finn's restaurant report in last week's
Sunday Tribune
, not only was its post-Pacific Rim cooking ‘so pulsating and animated that it defies description', but the place also had a ‘momentous' mission statement. New Zealander Terry McSweeny, the Morgue's creator, whom gossip columnists always described as ‘flamboyant' (and whom the
Standard
diary recently referred to waspishly as ‘London's favourite Kiwi fruit'), was quoted as saying: ‘Death is just so out there right now. It's Linda. It's Gianni and Diana. Inside the Morgue, taboos surrounding death disappear. I like to think we greet death here in a fun way and make it our friend, an intimate - a playmate, if you will.'

For some reason, the chattering classes had reacted to Terry McSweeny's mission statement as if it were a Socratic treatise. In the two weeks following the Tribune article, cabals and cliques of London's leading pseuds, poseurs and prats had flocked to the Morgue to discuss mortality over plates of gently sautéed lamb's brains. Hot on their silly heels came the girl bands and footballers.

***

Beverley buttered another piece of sweet, nutty bread and began looking at the menu, praying it wasn't all scallops and pork bellies and that she would find something which once had scales or a cloven foot, or chewed the cud, and was therefore kosher. From time to time she looked out of the window to see if there was any sign of Naomi. There wasn't. According to Beverley's watch she was now fifteen minutes late. For an uncharitable moment she couldn't help thinking that this had less to do with the traffic and more to do with her sister playing the kind of egotistical power games favoured by divas and Hollywood starlets. She immediately felt guilty for thinking it, but she couldn't help it. She blamed Melvin. Somehow, she was allowing his refusal to accept that there was even the remotest possibility Naomi could have changed to rub off on her. The moment she'd told him about the letter and their phone call he said, ‘Believe me, Bev, women like Naomi don't change. Ever. For as long as I can remember, she's always put you down about something. What about when we were at your cousin Rita's wedding a few months after Benny was born? First she swans round the place like Lady Muck, looking like she wants to spray breath freshener in everybody's mouth. Then she comes up to you and what was it she said? Some remark about your hair.'

‘Oh, I don't know, Mel. It was a long time ago.'

‘No, come on, you remember. Women never forget stuff like that. What was it?'

‘OK,' she said reluctantly. ‘It was, “I love what you've done with your hair, Bev. You should wash it more often.”'ca

‘See? She's evil, Bev. Let her back into your life and I'm telling you it'll end in tears.'

If he'd said this once over the last few days, he'd said it a hundred times. In fact he'd trailed her round the house saying it.

‘Melvin,' she'd said in exasperation when he finally followed her upstairs and into the bathroom, ‘I think you've made your point. Now, I'd quite like to wax my pubes in private if that's all right with you.'

‘Oh, right. Sorry,' he said, turning to go. She tugged gently on his shirt sleeve.

‘Mel, I just don't understand why you're getting yourself so worked up about this. I'm the one who got hurt. If I can forgive and forget, I think you should be able to do the same. Look, is there something else bothering you? Something I should know about? How are the toupees doing?'

‘Fine. Absolutely fine,' he snapped back. ‘Why shouldn't they be?'

‘No reason,' she said, desperate not to offend him and ruin his confidence. ‘No, that's brilliant. I couldn't be more pleased.'

***

Beverley glanced out of the window yet again. Still no Naomi. She reached into her bag and took out her compact. As she looked into the mirror and dabbed her chin with powder, she couldn't help thinking that despite the strain of being permanently broke, not to mention living with her mother and two adolescent children, she was probably looking the best she'd looked in ages. She'd blown the last seventy-five quid of her rainy-day money on a haircut - the first she'd had in months. Russell at Beyond the Fringe had persuaded her to let him put some auburn lowlights in her hair.

High on cash and four cups of Russell's complimentary cappuccino, she'd then let him go all the way with her lank shoulder-length shambles and cut it into a geometric Mary Quant bob.

Her new hairstyle, combined with the black Kenzo suit Rochelle had let her borrow, was making her feel decidedly sexy. Rochelle Softness (breast implants, four-wheel drive, interchangeable soft tops) was Beverley's best friend. She lived a few streets away. Natalie had teamed up with Allegra Softness during their first term at primary school, and the two mothers got to know each other through the girls. Although Natalie and Allegra were now at separate schools - Allegra at a private school in Hampstead - the girls remained friends.

As well as the 4x4 which her husband Mitchell always joked she needed to negotiate the treacherous terrain of Sainsbury's car park, Rochelle also owned an entire spare bedroom full of Versace and Lacroix. The suit she'd lent Beverley was the only garment she owned which didn't have gold buttons, some kind of embroidered insignia or sparkly bits on the lapels. This was because it was her funeral suit.

‘Look, Beverley, I don't give a toss about this less-is-more thing they always go on about in magazines,' Rochelle had declared one afternoon over cappuccino at the Café Rouge in Hampstead, when Beverley had tentatively suggested that having her manicurist glue tiny silver dolphins on to apple-green fingernails might be going a bit too far.

‘As far as I'm concerned, more is more. That's me. Terence Conran can go and drown himself in a coulis of his own urine if he doesn't like it.'

Beverley loved Rochelle; not simply because she possessed that rare ability to understand and accept herself and not give a toss what anybody else thought, but because she was, despite the flashy clothes, the house full of hideous murals and wallpaper borders illustrated with lines of pale pink bows, the most generous and least snobby person she knew. She also made no secret of having been brought up in a Peabody building in Bethnal Green.

‘The only difference between us,' Rochelle had said on one occasion a couple of years ago as they sat drinking coffee in Rochelle's kitchen, ‘is that this Cinderella finally got to go to the ball and you are still waiting.'

‘So, does that make Mitchell Prince Charming?' Beverley asked.

‘I guess so... if your idea of Prince Charming is a short, balding Jewish man who can never find a parking space and for whom sex has never extended beyond elementary humping because every time he attempts anything slightly imaginative he can hear the voice of his dead mother yelling, “Take that out of your mouth, Mitchell dolly, you don't know where it's been!”'

Beverley laughed so hard she sprayed Rochelle with half-chewed biscotti.

‘So, come on,' Rochelle said. ‘Your turn. What's Melvin like in the sack, then?'

‘Oh, you know...' Beverley sighed.

‘What do you expect after nearly twenty years? You have to work at these things. Take me and Mitchell. We always have at least two nights out a week. A romantic dinner - a little dancing. He goes Tuesdays. I go Thursdays.'

Beverley hooted.

‘No, it's not that,' she said when she'd stopped laughing. ‘It's always been the same.'

Rochelle was the first person she'd ever told about having married Melvin not because she fancied him, but because she was desperate to be looked after.

‘The point is, I've come to love him almost like a sister loves a brother - except that we have sex once a month. He always seems to enjoy it, and he does his best to turn me on, he really does, but...'

‘He doesn't quite baste your brisket.'

Beverley gave a weak chuckle and nodded.

***

Just as Beverley's thoughts were about to become truly maudlin, she looked up. Through the restaurant window, she saw a taxi pull up and Naomi get out. She was wearing a beautifully cut scarlet suit with a pencil skirt. She watched her sister pay the driver. ‘Oh, God,' Beverley sighed, feeling Rochelle's size twelve skirt straining over her size fourteen hips. ‘She's thinner than ever.'

Beverley suddenly felt about as sexy as Flipper. What she had failed to notice, however, was Naomi's distinct tummy bulge. This had come about first because she'd spent the last three nights pigging out on giant tubs of Ben and Jerry's, and second because Summer, her colonic irrigator, was on holiday.

***

A few moments later, Naomi was striding out towards the table, beaming. Beverley scraped back her chair, stood up, and gave a nervous wave of her fingers. ‘Bev-er-leee,' Naomi trilled, throwing her arms round her sister and hugging her. This almost knocked Beverley off balance because she'd been expecting nothing more by way of affectionate greeting than one of Naomi's customary double air kisses. ‘So sorry I'm late. Traffic was murder along the Bayswater Road. Plus I couldn't get away because I had Loyd Grossman and an entire film crew at the flat doing a
Through the Keyhole
. They promised they'd be gone by twelve. At one o'clock they were still rearranging furniture. In the end I just left them to it. Bloody media intrusion.'

Beverley, inwardly chortling over the fact that it was clearly Naomi who had been intruding on the media by inviting them in the first place, hugged her back and said not to worry. As they pulled away and sat down, Naomi was quite obviously eyeing her sister's new hairstyle and the Kenzo suit.

‘No more calf-length florals, then, Bev?' she said, eyebrows raised. ‘One of the things I always admired about you was the way you never seemed to give a monkey's about how you looked. Such a strength. It'd be a real shame to lose it.'