Perfect Blend: A Novel (14 page)

It didn’t help that on Friday morning, Zelma had arrived waving an article she’d clipped from
The Daily Mail
health pages. “Here, Brian. Stop staring into that blinkin’ coffee cup and read this. It’s all about moobs.” That grabbed his attention. He looked up and took the article from Zelma.

“Wassit say?” Amy said when he’d finished reading.

“Seems like there’s been a surge in men developing moobs.” He explained that in Britain and the United States, doctors were reporting several new cases a week. They were particularly confused because the enlargement didn’t seem to be linked to weight. The men going to their doctors tended to be diet-conscious, slim, and fit. Even more perplexing, they were all high earners. “That’s hardly a mystery,” Brian said. “Everybody knows that the middle classes consult their doctors more often. They’re better informed about health issues, and that makes them worry more.”

Amy scanned the piece. “Yes, but don’t you think it’s odd that out of several hundred patients, both sides of the Atlantic, not one is working class? Not a single one. I mean, you’d expect a few. You have to ask yourself why this condition is only affecting middle-class men like …” She hesitated.

“You were going to say ‘like you.’”

“Yeah, but that’s no reason to panic.”

Brian downed the last of his Crema Crema Crema and asked if they could manage without him for a few minutes. Then he disappeared into the kitchen.

“Now I’ve put the cat among the pigeons,” Zelma said. “Look how worried he is. I bet he’s gone to look it up on the Internet. I only brought the article in because I thought it would interest him. I’m so stupid.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I should have kept my big mouth shut, too.”

When Amy went into the kitchen a few minutes later to get some serving platters, she found Brian sitting at the counter, staring into his laptop. “I’ve been Googling ‘middle-class men, moobs,’” he said without looking up. “There’s masses on it. There are chat rooms, scientific forums, dozens of blogs from blokes with these absolutely massive malumbas. You can even click on the images. Look …”

Amy winced. “Well, you look nothing like any of them.”

“The piece in the
Mail
was right,” he said. “None of the doctors or scientists have got the remotest idea what’s causing it.”

That day’s newspapers had just been delivered and were lying on the counter. Amy started going through them and found almost identical articles in
The Times, The Independent
, and
The Guardian
.

Brian glanced at them when she’d finished. “This could be really serious,” he said.

“It could, but nobody has actually gotten ill.”

“Yet.”

“Look, Brian, unlike these men, you are a few pounds overweight. Maybe in your case the doctor was right and there is a simple explanation.”

“I’d say with the way my luck’s been going recently, the chances of that are practically zero.” He closed his laptop and got up. “I need another cup of coffee.”

WITH BRIAN’S
mind only half on the job, it wasn’t the easiest of days. By the time it was over, even Zelma, who wasn’t one to admit she was feeling the strain, started making noises about how she “wouldn’t need any rocking tonight.”

On her way home, Amy popped into the Italian deli and picked up three portions of ready-made lasagne. She and Charlie were going to her dad’s tonight. Phil had just treated himself to a sixty-inch plasma screen TV, and Arsenal was playing Real Madrid in the European Cup semifinal. Phil had agreed to pick them up at the flat and take them home after the game. Amy said she would bring her dad’s favorite dinner: lasagne, green salad, and profiteroles.

A few months ago, Phil had taken Charlie to his first match—Arsenal versus Chelsea. He had invited Arthur, too, but Victoria disapproved of soccer on the grounds that its supporters belonged to the lower orders. Phil was quick to make the point that at thirty quid a ticket, very few of the lower orders could afford to go these days, but Victoria was adamant. Arthur’s school played rugby and golf, and she considered those sports to be far more suitable.

Phil had supported Arsenal since he was a boy, and the idea of at least one of his grandsons keeping up the tradition rather appealed to him. After that first game Charlie had become a bit of an enthusiast, and Phil had started inviting his daughter and grandson over to watch the big games on TV. Amy loved nothing more than seeing her dad and Charlie bouncing up and down on the sofa, cheering and yelling, with Charlie wearing the Arsenal strip his grandfather had bought him. Sometimes Phil would forget himself and start shouting: “Come on, you arse.” Then Charlie would giggle and remind his granddad that “arse” was a rude word.

Amy was always telling Phil how much she appreciated his taking such an interest in Charlie. Phil would tell her that it was his pleasure. “Don’t get me wrong, I always adored you two girls, but there were times when I did miss having a lad to take to the football on a Saturday afternoon.”

To say that football bored Amy was an understatement. For Charlie’s sake, she did her best to show an interest. Nevertheless, she was aware that she had a tendency to keep asking how much longer the game had to go. She could just about control her ennui for ninety minutes. If the game went into extra time or, God forbid, a penalty shoot-out, she became filled with an overwhelming desire to eat her own head.

WHILE SHE
waited at the bus stop with her carrier bags of food, she called Bel.

“Hey, you know that guy Sam I told you about? The one I said I didn’t think I fancied? Well, he just asked me out and I said yes.”

“Brilliant. That’s great news. I had a feeling he fancied you. And from what you said about how he handled Charlie and Arthur, he sounds like a nice guy. You never know … maybe he’ll be the one.”

Amy told her not to hold her breath.

“By the way,” Bel said, “I dumped Mark.”

“You did? Well done.”

“Yeah. This afternoon. I’ve just gotten back from his place. God, I hope I don’t live to regret it. There were two things that man was generous with: his tongue and his wallet.”

They both started laughing.

“So how did you end it?” Amy said.

“You’d have been proud of me. I pulled myself up to my full five foot eleven and told him precisely what I thought of him.”

“No! God, I bet he loved that.”

“Actually, he did. He said seeing me angry gave him a hard-on. The next minute he’s telling me to take off my clothes.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you think I did? I got naked.”

“You didn’t.”

“No, but I was very tempted, particularly when he produced the feather and handcuffs. It was the sexual equivalent of walking away from the Vivienne Westwood sample sale.”

“Well, I think you’ve done brilliantly. So how are things with Ulf?”

“Fabulous. When we got back to his place, he read to me from Strindberg’s
Röda Rummet
. It’s a nineteenth-century satirical novel that relentlessly attacks the political, academic, religious, and philosophical worlds.”

“Wow, sounds like you had a stimulating evening.”

“Oh, we did. Ulf is a real thinker. He’s into literature and music and theater. He’s also a gentleman. He drove me home, and do you know what he did? He helped me out of the car and then kissed my hand. Can you believe that? No man has ever kissed my hand.”

“So when are you seeing him again?”

“Saturday night. He’s taking me to a reading of Nordic sagas. Okay, I know what you’re thinking. I know it sounds monumentally dreary, but the audience dresses up in horns, and whenever the baddies’ names are mentioned, you all shout Norse curses. Apparently, one of the worst ones means ‘Your mother wears Roman soldiers’ shoes.’ Sounds like it could be a real hoot, don’t you think?”

“Yes, absolutely. Total blast,” Amy said.

“
DON’T GET
me wrong,” Amy said to her dad as they sat finishing the profiteroles and waiting for the football to start. “I suppose this relationship with Ulf could work out, but you know Bel. She’s always been more
Story of O
than Strindberg.”

That made Phil laugh. “Poor Bel. After the upbringing she had with that deadbeat father of hers, she deserves to find a decent chap. Can’t you help her find somebody suitable?”

“I’ve tried,” Amy said as she sat rearranging bread crumbs on the dining room table. “Actually, I think she and Brian would be perfect for each other, but neither of them wants to know.”

Phil and Val both had a soft spot for Bel. They always said how much they adored her humor and arty eccentricity. Looking back now, Amy realized that although her parents gave every impression of being committed suburbanites, they’d always had a penchant for quirky, unconventional types.

The Christmas parties they used to throw for their charity-tin-rattling crowd were a perfect example. They always contained a smattering of oddballs. Amy remembered a couple of ecowarriors in dreadlocks and hemp shoes, an outrageously camp Buckingham Palace butler, and a woman with a six o’clock shadow who was apparently the lead singer in a band called Birds with Big Hands. Everybody was welcome, and Amy loved her parents for that, unlike Victoria, whose teenage rebellion took the form of eschewing the unconventional. As a consequence, she would retreat to her bedroom, put on some Vivaldi, and play air violin.

“You know,” Amy said, “I sometimes think about Bel getting married and that maybe you could give her away. She’s got nobody else.”

Phil said that if and when the time came and if he was asked, he would be more than happy to oblige. “But given the choice, I’d rather give you away.”

Amy was still busying herself with the crumbs. “I know you would.”

“You know your mother and I would like nothing better than to see you happy and settled.”

“I am happy and settled.”

“You know what I mean. And that boy of yours needs a dad.”

Amy shushed him. Charlie, who was on the sofa, eating his profiteroles and watching Nickelodeon, was well within earshot. “He’s got you and Brian,” she whispered.

“It’s not the same—you know that. And I, for one, am not getting any younger.”

“Oh, stoppit.” She put another profiterole on his plate.

“Or thinner,” Phil said. “So is there anybody on the scene?”

“Dunno. There might be, but we haven’t even been on a date yet.”

“What does he do?”

“Architect.”

Phil’s eyes widened with approval, as if to say “You could do a lot worse.”

The next moment he was looking at his watch. “Hey, Charlie, time to change channels. It’s a minute to kickoff.”

“Yay.” Charlie scrambled for the remote, which was at the other end of the sofa.

Phil came and sat next to Charlie and put his arm around his grandson’s shoulders, and the pair of them launched into “Arsenal till I die/I’m Arsenal till I die/I know I am/I’m sure I am/I’m Arsenal till I die.” Amy smiled to herself and started gathering up the plates from dinner. At one point she stopped to finish the half profiterole Charlie had left. As she chewed, she found herself looking round the room and thinking, not for the first time, how badly it needed decorating and updating.

The Laura Ashley floral wallpaper was faded and looked so old-fashioned. She had vague memories of it going up sometime in the eighties and how excited Val had been. A few weeks before, her mother had been looking through a copy of
House and Home
and discovered something called a dado rail. This was a three- or four-inch-wide strip of wood—usually pine—that was nailed all the way around a room, approximately three feet off the floor. The dado rail was a Victorian invention that had no particular place in a 1930s semi, but in the mid-1980s it was the height of interior design chic, and Val was determined to have one installed. The idea was to put wallpapers with different patterns above and below the rail. It didn’t matter if they clashed designwise so long as the colors matched. Val had mint green stripes below the rail and florals in the same color above it.

The darker green Dralon sofas had to be twenty-five years old. They had kept their color pretty well but were dotted with bald patches. In the eighties, everybody bought Dralon: synthetic velvet that you could scrub with detergent. No matter how it was treated, it refused to wear out. Well, it finally had. Ditto for the carpet. Not only was it badly worn, unlike the sofa it hadn’t kept its color. Decades in the light had turned it from gold to pale yellow. If Amy remembered rightly, the carpet was also made of what back then had been some fancy new man-made fabric. Enkalon. She even remembered the song from the TV ad: “Squash it and it just springs back/Wash it and the color stays fast/Give it the treatment, the family treatment—Enkalon is made to last for years and years and years and …”

She carried the plates into the kitchen. The dark mahogany units, never really the epitome of style, were chipped and warped. Upstairs the avocado bathroom suite was clean but dull and covered in lime scale.

When had Val given up on the house and let it go? Amy couldn’t come up with a date, but she knew from things her mother had said about the marriage that it coincided with Phil losing interest in everything except the business. “There seemed no point in doing up the house,” she’d confided to Amy. “It wasn’t a home to him. Just somewhere to eat, sleep, and watch TV.”

Just then Phil appeared carrying the salad bowl, with just a few oily green dregs left at the bottom.

“Hasn’t the football started?” Amy said.

“Flooding on the pitch has stopped play, at least for the moment. It was already pretty wet from a few days ago. They might have to call it off.” He flicked the switch on the electric kettle. “Tea?”

“Lovely … So, Dad. How you doing? You seem to have really cheered up.”

Phil took two mugs off the pine mug tree and grinned. “I suppose your mother’s told you about my floozy.”

“She did say something. So did Victoria.”

He dropped a tea bag into each mug.

“Your mother’s fine about it, but poor old Victoria has totally got hold of the wrong end of the stick.”