Forget Me Knot (29 page)

“Jordan Farmar,” Sam exclaimed, walking back into the room.

“Dad, what are you on about?”

“The name I couldn’t read. The black Jewish basketball player—his name is Jordan Farmar. Born November thirtieth, 1986. He plays for the Los Angeles Lakers—”

Suddenly Faye bustled in. “Right, why don’t we all sit down?” With that she placed a large oval serving plate in the middle of the table and began directing people to their places.

“Chopped liver OK for everybody?” she asked once everybody had sat down.

“Omigod,” Soph cried. She had noticed, as had everybody else, that the chopped liver was fashioned into the
shape of a man. Sticking out of one hand was a tiny black, green and yellow ANC flag. “Mum, what have you done?”

“What do you mean what have I done? It’s Nelson Mandela.”

“You have carved the chopped liver into the shape of Nelson Mandela?”

“Yes, your father and I thought it would make Lamar feel at home.”

“But how could you possibly think something like this—” Soph spluttered.

Before she had a chance to finish, Lamar took her hand and gently shushed her. “Faye, I think it’s a wonderful touch,” he said, biting his lip to stifle his laughter. He reached across, picked up the plate and helped himself to a portion of Nelson Mandela’s livery head. He passed the plate to Martin, who had turned as pale as veal. “Actually, I’m not very keen on offal. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll wait for the soup.”

Faye told him not to worry and that she appreciated that liver was an acquired taste. “To make up for it, I’ll make sure you get the boiled chicken foot in your soup. You’ll like that.”

Martin looked like he might pass out.

“So, Mrs. Weintraub,” Dan said, relieving Martin of the plate of liver, “how long have you and Mr. Weintraub been married?”

“Oh, only since 1485.”

Sam opened his mouth to offer a caustic response, but Soph glared at him as if to say, “Don’t even try.”

“Wow, this chopped liver is gorgeous,” Dan persevered. “Tell me, Mrs. Weintraub, do you make it with fried onions or raw?”

“Oh, fried. You don’t get the same flavor with raw. The secret is to fry them very slowly, so that they caramelize. Then you add the liver. If you like I can give you my recipe.”

Dan said he would love to have the recipe.

“So,” she said, “why don’t you tell us about this film you’re making.”

“Well, it’s a romantic comedy—”

“Of course, it was my wife’s idea to get married on April twentieth,” Sam said, apparently unaware that Dan was in mid-sentence. “Turns out it was Hitler’s birthday.”

Nobody seemed to know whether to laugh or offer condolences.

“Sam got me a mood ring,” Faye said. “When I’m in a bad mood it leaves a big red mark on his head.” She let out a loud cackle. “So, Martin, Sophie tells me you’re gay. Mazel tov.”

“Omigod! Mum! Please.”

“What? I shouldn’t congratulate the man on his sexuality?”

“No. Would you sit eating chopped liver and congratulate a person for being straight?”

“But being straight is nothing to be proud of. Martin will have struggled to come out. He will have fought hostility and prejudice. The fact that he has survived is something to be celebrated.”

“I agree,” Sam said.

“See, for once in his life, even your father agrees with me. That’s something else we should be celebrating.”

“But you’ve embarrassed Martin,” Soph said. “Can’t you see that?”

“Of course she hasn’t,” Martin broke in. “Your mum was trying to be kind, and you’ve no idea how much I appreciate that…. Thanks, Mrs. W.”

“My pleasure, darling.”

And to show her precisely how much he appreciated her gesture, Martin chewed and sucked on his boiled chicken foot without so much as a murmur.

By the time everyone had a couple of glasses of wine in them, the atmosphere lightened considerably. So much so that nobody was remotely embarrassed when Sam asked if anyone could explain why blacks had rhythm and Jews didn’t. And everybody hooted with laughter when Lamar suggested that during the war black Jews would have been in hiding and picking cotton.

Eventually, Sam stood up and made a speech in which he welcomed Lamar into the family and said how delighted he and Faye were that their little Sophie Sunshine, whose face hadn’t changed since she was five, was marrying a Jewish doctor.

While they drank coffee and ate apple strudel, Sam asked if anybody would mind if he put on the nine o’clock news. There were rumors of an imminent cabinet reshuffle, and he was anxious to find out who had been fired. Nobody raised any objections. After five minutes spent looking for the remote and blaming Faye for tidying it away, Sam finally found it under a cushion.

“… And our top story this evening. Two hundred British passengers aboard the Irish cruise liner the
Bantry,
which docked in Buenos Aires a week ago, are refusing to disembark.”

Sam wasn’t concentrating, as this wasn’t the item he was interested in. Everybody else was chatting—apart from
Soph, who was on her way to the kitchen to refill the cafetière. “Hey, Abby. Aren’t your parents on the
Bantry?
They seem to be staging some kind of protest.”

“Omigod,” Abby cried. “It’s actually happened.”

“What has?” Dan said.

Abby quickly explained about her parents’ “Antarctic expedition” that had turned into disease-ridden chaos. Soph grabbed the remote and turned up the volume on the TV. By now everybody was glued to the screen. “They’ve been in Buenos Aires a week?” Abby said. “How come Mum hasn’t been in touch?”

“The vacationers, who insisted their three-week Antarctic cruise be cut short, are said to be suffering from severe gastroenteritis. They claim this has been caused by appalling hygiene standards on board and are calling for compensation. The ship’s owners, McGinty Maritime, are refusing to accept liability and say there will be no payouts. A short while ago I spoke to the company’s lawyer in Dublin…”

An interview followed, in which a haughty woman lawyer claimed that the passengers had been infected by a fellow traveler and the outbreak had nothing to do with poor hygiene standards on the ship.

“What a load of old crap,” Abby snapped. “My mum was cleaning sewage out of her sink from day one. It’s a wonder they haven’t all got typhoid.”

“Oooh, look,” Soph said. “There’s your mum.”

“Where? Where?”

There must have been over a hundred people gathered on the deck, most of them waving banners with
PEOPLE POWER
or
SHITTERS BUT NOT QUITTERS
written across them in thick, wobbly felt tip.

“What do we want?” Jean was shouting into a megaphone.
God knew where she’d gotten it from, Abby wondered—maybe one of the lifeboats.

“Justice,” the protesters roared back.

“When do we want it?”

“Now! Now! Now!”

Abby could see her dad standing just behind Jean. His hand was resting on her shoulder in an almost paternal gesture. He looked tired and like he’d lost a bit of weight, but his face was beaming with pride.

“Gimme a J.” Jean was punching the air, rousing her troops like some kind of Marxist revolutionary. Abby wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to hear her calling for workers of the world to unite and join the armed struggle.

“J!!!”

“Gimme a U.”

“U!!!”

“Gimme an S…”

“Blimey,” Abby mumbled, “My mum’s turned into Che Guevara.”

“Aren’t you proud of her?” Soph said.

Abby sat down on the sofa. By now her mother was leading the protesters in “We Will Overcome.” “I have to say, I am rather,” she said, grinning.

At that moment Abby’s mobile rang.

“Abby it’s me, Mum.”

“Mum! Why haven’t you been in touch? We’ve just been watching you on the news. You were brilliant. I’m at Soph’s. There’s a crowd of us here and we all watched it.”

“Tell your mum,” Faye broke in, “that Sam and Faye Weintraub say good luck and power to the people.” She raised her arm and made a fist.

Abby relayed the message. “So, Mum, are you sure you’re all right?”

“Darling, do stop fussing. Dad and I have been a bit poorly. That’s why we’ve been out of touch. A few people who were really ill have been taken to the hospital, but the rest of us are on the mend. We’ve all still got the trots, but it’s nothing like it was.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. And fresh food and water have been smuggled on board by some of the locals who saw us on the TV. To tell you the truth, your father and I are really rather enjoying ourselves. Having a cause at our age is so invigorating. I’d go so far as to say we’re having the time of our lives.”

SOPH EVENTUALLY
made it to the kitchen, where she made a fresh pot of coffee and cut up more strudel. By the time she returned to the living room, the TV had been switched off and everybody was wondering how long the protest would be allowed to go on before the police got involved. Abby said she had visions of armed Argentinian police raiding the ship, dragging off all the passengers and throwing them into some hellhole of a prison to await trial.

“For what?” Soph said, pouring coffee. “All they’ve done is refuse to get off the ship. If you ask me, the worst that can happen is that they get thrown out of the country.”

Everybody else agreed. Abby calmed down, but at the back of her mind she still had images of poor Jean and Hugh rotting in an Argentinian jail for the next twenty years.

By ten o’clock Sam and Faye were beginning to flag. Despite the coffee, Sam had fallen asleep—mouth open—
in one of the armchairs, and Faye was making noises about having to be up early for her aqua aerobics class.

“You know what,” Abby said to Dan, “it’s getting late. I think it’s time we let these people get to bed.” She turned to Faye and thanked her for a wonderful evening.

Sam stirred himself to say his good-byes—helped along by a sharp dig in the ribs from Faye. After her parents had taken their leave, Soph hugged Abby and Martin and told them how grateful she was that they had come and how she couldn’t have gotten through the evening without them. “And, Dan, it’s been great meeting you. Sorry if my mum and dad were a bit much.”

Dan reassured her that Faye and Sam were delightful and that he had a great evening.

“Gorgeous and a diplomat,” Soph giggled to Abby.

As Abby and Dan stood on the pavement waiting for Martin, who’d run back up to the flat to get his scarf, Dan suggested that, since it wasn’t late, she come back to his place to watch a movie. Abby said she would love to but couldn’t since she had to give Martin a lift home.

“Why not let Martin take the van?”

“Then how would I get home?”

“I’ll give you a lift.”

“But I can’t expect you to come out again late at night when you’ve just driven all the way from Devon.”

“I wasn’t thinking of driving out again—at least not tonight.”

“Right. I suppose I could always get a cab.”

“Abby, I don’t want you to get a cab, a bus, a train, a tram or even a rickshaw.”

She felt herself blush. “You don’t?”

He was shaking his head and smiling.

“So, you’re saying that I could… I mean, you’re suggesting that I… stay over?”

“Yes. But I’m aware that we agreed no pressure, so it’s entirely up to you.”

She thought about it for all of half a second. “I’d love to,” she said.

“
YOU’RE QUIET ALL OF
a sudden,” Dan said to Abby as he started the car engine. “Look, I really understand if coming back to my place feels like too much, too soon.”

She smiled. “It’s not that.”

“What, then?”

“I keep thinking about my parents—Mum in particular. This
Bantry
thing is just so out of character. The nearest my mother ever got to making a public protest was when the local Women’s Institute held a home-baking competition and Mum pointed out to the judges that somebody had entered a bought cake. She was rather proud of herself, until my aunty Gwen convinced her that whistle-blowers always come to a sticky end. For the next six months she was sure that Bought-Cake Woman was out to get her. She couldn’t walk down the high street without looking over her shoulder every five minutes.”

“What are you saying? That she’s never been much of a role model?”

“No. She’s been a great role model. All the time I was growing up, she was there. She was kind, loving, patient, a
great listener. As a child I felt so safe and loved. I think the problem is that she feels she’s been a poor role model because she stayed at home to raise me instead of having a career. I just hope a bit of her isn’t waging this war on the
Bantry
to impress me.”

“Well, maybe that’s part of it, but I’d say this incident on the ship has stirred up an energy and passion in your mum that may have lain dormant for years.”

“You’re right. It was my first thought when this whole thing started. And in many ways, seeing this other side of her is brilliant, but at the same time the whole thing feels weird. It’s like I hardly know her—or my dad, come to that.” She opened the window a crack to let in some air. “I wish they weren’t so far away.”

Dan rested a reassuring hand on her knee. “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he said.