Simply Heaven (7 page)

‘We’d better get her drink, or she’ll be in wanting to know what’s happened. Go on, darl. You go out and keep her company. I’ll get them.’

‘You sure?’

‘Too right, mate. She’s
your
mother.’

‘Well … OK,’ he says. ‘Go on.’

And he kisses me again.

‘Go on yourself,’ I say.

‘In a minute.’

‘
Now
.’ I take hold of his shoulder, spin him on his heel. ‘Get out of here. Go, you dill.’

‘OK. Thank you, darling.’ He walks away from me, raises his voice so he can be heard from outside, and something about the tone of his voice suggests indulgence of my whim to play house rather than gratitude for a chore taken over. ‘That would be kind. Can I have a G and T as well?’

I do a small ironical forelock tug. ‘Your wish is my command, oh lord and master,’ I say. And, lower, ‘Watch it, buster.’

He vanishes into the light, and I set about making drinks while I listen to the sound of the two of them settling down at the table. They are the kinds of voices that would be hard to avoid eavesdropping on. I should think that half of Xewkija is listening in right at this moment.

‘So tell me everything, you wicked boy,’ she says. ‘Where did you meet this blissy creature? Where did she sweep you off your feet?’

Blissy creature? I’m not a fucking Pekinese. I feel my shoulders tense. Rufus’s voice, less distinct, begins to tell her whatever the suitable story is. I hear the words ‘salt pans’ and ‘drowning’ and ‘kiss of life’, but precious little else. I don’t suppose he’ll be telling her about how we spent the first twenty minutes in this house screwing on the outer stairs because we lacked the self-control to get any further.

The limestone that makes up these islands soaks up and retains heat as though warmed by a million little underfoot furnaces. And though the nights have cooled enough now that you can turn the fan off between two and seven, the days are still blazingly hot. Not the tropical hot I’m used to, but a dusty, paper-dry hot that sucks the moisture off your skin. But nerves have made me break out into a sweat despite this and I take a moment, when I open the freezer to get out some ice, to stick my head inside and try to cool down. This isn’t the way I had imagined spending the first day of my honeymoon. And I’m mortified about the sort of impression I must have made at first glance.

‘But how
thrilling
!’ Mary, I notice, has a very slight speech impediment, pronouncing her Rs as Ws in the middle of words. I have no idea how much this is going to put my teeth on edge in the future. I guess it’ll depend how our relationship progresses.

I manage to find three vaguely similar highballs in the cupboard, sling half a dozen lumps of ice into each, slice a lemon, pour over the gin and polish off the tonic bottle in filling the glasses to the brim. A good thing I only wanted water. Then I take the tray out from under the coffee maker and carry all three out through the French doors to the sitting room.

‘No, no, darling. You’re completely wrong. I couldn’t
be
more thrilled! I mean, obviously, we can’t help feeling a little
excluded
, but …’

Oh, well. I suppose it’s inevitable that this is going to be a theme for a while.

‘That wasn’t what we meant to do. I just … I couldn’t wait, you know? Maybe you don’t. I don’t know, I just … It’s hard to explain.’

Lady Mary looks up. She has put on a pair of dark glasses while I’ve been gone: the type that are darker at the top than at the bottom because they’re supposed to be more flattering.

‘Well. We’ll just have to have a party when you get home. Introduce her to the county. Ah! There she is!’

I put the tray down, hand the drinks around. The mother-in-law takes her glass and lays it down on the table, looks at it for a moment and then turns her full-beam smile on me.

‘So tell me something about yourself,’ she says. ‘What brought you to Gozo in the first place?’

I shrug. ‘Oh, you know. Just travelling. It was going to be part of a bigger trip. I’ve already been to Cyprus, where my dad comes from, and I was going to catch the ferry to Sicily and do Europe when Rufus got in the way. I didn’t,’ I say, and laugh ruefully, ‘exactly come here with a plan to snare myself a husband.’

I anticipate a laugh in response to the attempt at levity, receive instead a slight flicker of the eyebrows. ‘I never understand,’ she says, ‘with you young people. This “just travelling” thing.
Finding
yourselves. We didn’t really have time for
finding
ourselves in my day.’

I shrug again. ‘Well, I think, you know, it’s something a lot of Australians and Kiwis have to do. I mean, there we are, a Western culture stuck out on the tippy-tip of the other side of the world from everyone else like us, and most of us have at least one parent, often two, who’ve come from a background that’s so completely alien to the one they’ve raised us in …’

‘Yeee-sss,’ she says. ‘Is that so with you?’

‘Uh-huh. I mean, my dad’s a Greek Cypriot, and my mum’s folks came from Scotland, originally, though via South Africa, but I don’t really have the first idea about where I come from, as it were. I think a lot of us are like that. Plus, I think a lot of the children of emigrants have a stronger sense of
choosing
where they end up, even if where they end up is the one-pub beach town they grew up in.’

‘Yes,’ she says, and I’m surprised to detect what I think is a slightly sharp edge to the comment, ‘but aren’t you a little
old
for this sort of gallivanting?’

I can’t tell if Rufus has picked up on the bitchiness in this remark.

‘Not really,’ I tell her. ‘I’d got to one of those crossroads and it felt like a smart thing to do before I got committed to something else and never did it.’

‘Yes, but. This hippy thing is the sort of thing that most people do before their first year at university.’

‘I never went to university.’

I’m surprised to see a little twitch. You’d have thought she’d like this in a girl. I’d be willing to bet a few thousand dollars that Lady Mary Callington-Warbeck-Wattestone never graduated anything more than finishing school. Oh, and riding school.

‘Oh,’ she says faintly. ‘So what do you do with your time?’

‘I’m a reflexologist.’

The debutante staccato begins again. ‘A reflex
olo
gist? How
fas
cinating!’

I waggle my head, take another mouthful of water. ‘Yeah, it can be pretty good. You get to meet some pretty interesting people, and it’s a portable skill, you know? I can take it pretty much anywhere in the world and it won’t take all that long to build up a client base. I spent a couple of summers working the beaches in Bali and Thailand, and it was pretty cool.’

‘I’d have thought it was jolly hot,’ she says. D’oh. ‘So tell me, what
is
a reflexologist?’

‘It’s sort of like – you know acupressure?’

‘Well, we don’t get much of that sort of thing in deepest Gloucestershire.’

Oh, really? I’d heard the British countryside was awash with yuppies gone feral. ‘Oh, well OK: There’s a theory that there’s a point on each part of your outer covering – your pulse points, mostly – that corresponds with your internal organs, your bloodstream, your moods, the state of your health and so forth. Acupuncturists put needles into those points to treat people. Acupressure works on a similar theory, but with massagey sort of stuff.’

‘So far so good,’ she says.

I decide to make it as simple as possible. ‘Reflexology is sort of like acupressure. I understand which parts of your feet and hands correspond to your kidneys, your liver, your lungs, your back and so forth, and I’m trained in diagnosing which parts of your body need treatment and stimulus.’

‘
Stimulus
?’ (She says this in the manner of Lady Bracknell saying ‘a
hand
bag?’.)

‘Uh-huh.’

Rufus jumps in. ‘It’s wonderful,’ he tells her. ‘She’s done it for me a couple of times and it’s extraordinary. I had a headache one time, and—’

‘Well,’ she interrupts, ‘I’ve always enjoyed a good pedicure.’

‘It’s a bit more …’ I begin to protest, then think: whoa! Melody girl! Humourless proselytiser alert!

She picks up her glass. Takes a sip, pulls a face and puts it down on the table.

‘Oh dear,’ she starts fishing about with her fingers to extract the ice cubes, ‘I’m afraid this is completely drowned. I should have said. I’d forgotten how obsessed you Antipodeans are with ice. I’m frightfully sorry.’

Rufus is on his feet. ‘I’ll get you another one.’

‘We’re out of tonic,’ I tell him. I’m a tad surprised, to be honest. Way I was raised, you say thank you if someone gives you food or a drink, and if it’s not done precisely the way you like it, you shut your bunghole and take it anyway. ‘There’s some juice, or Kinnie, or Coke, but I’m afraid we’re out of tonic. Maybe he can get you something else.’

‘Oh.’ Then, in a little don’t-mind-me-I’ll-be-noble voice, she says: ‘No, no, it’s fine.’

‘I’ll go and get some more,’ offers Rufus. ‘It’ll only take a few mins.’

‘It’s the middle of the arvo,’ I remind him. ‘The shop’ll be shut.’

‘The supermarket in Victoria will still be open,’ he replies.

‘No, no,
darling
, don’t be silly! I’m not having you driving up to Rabat just because I’m a silly fusspot! I won’t
hear
of it!’ she says in a do-it-or-I’ll-be-sighing-all-afternoon voice.

‘Don’t be silly,’ he says. ‘I was going to have to go and get some anyway, wasn’t I?’

‘Well, if you really … well, thank you, darling. You
are
kind.’

‘Bollocks,’ says Rufus.

I would never dare say ‘bollocks’ to my mother. ‘It’ll take ten minutes at the most.’

‘I’ll go,’ I offer. I’m still not sure if I’ve got the conversation in me yet to be left alone with Mary.

Rufus shakes his head. ‘It’ll be far quicker if I go.’

‘I
know
where the supermarket is!’

‘Yes, but you’re hardly decent.’

‘But it won’t take a minute …’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ He fails to grasp my meaning. And there was me thinking we were such soulmates we could finish each other’s sentences.

Another little tinkle of laughter. ‘Melody, dear, let him
go
! You have to let the men be useful for
something
! Heaven knows, they’re not use for much!’ she says in that giggly confidential tone that antifeminists always use with younger women. ‘And besides,’ she continues, ‘I’m dying to have a little girlie chat with my new daughter-in-law. Go on, Rufus! Off you go, darling! Make yourself useful!’

He heads dutifully into the kitchen and I subside into my chair. And Mary sits back in hers, leans her elbows on the arms and steeples her fingers at me. ‘Yes,’ she repeats, ‘I can’t wait to have a proper chat.’

He reappears in the doorway, shirt on and car keys bouncing in his right hand. ‘Do we need anything else while I’m there?’

Temazepam, I think. I just might need some before the evening’s out. I smile, and shake my head.

‘Some lovely olives,’ says Mary, ‘and perhaps some snacky bits. I couldn’t face the Air Malta food, and Caviar House wasn’t open when I went through Gatwick. I’ll take you both out to a celebration dinner at the Ta’Cenc tonight, but I’ll need
something
to keep me going.’

‘Thanks, Ma,’ says Rufus, ‘that would be lovely.’

‘Good-oh,’ she says. ‘So it’s a date. Unless I’m interrupting your plans? Sorry! Sorry, Melody! I should have checked.’

‘Naah, naah, she’ll be right,’ I say, and they both look puzzled for a moment, like I’ve just come out with a slew of Swahili. ‘It’s fine,’ I correct myself. ‘I’m cool.’

‘Now, off you go! Woman talk!’

‘Bye, then,’ says Rufus, and goes into the house once more. Mary waits as the slop slop slop of his deck shoes crosses the outer courtyard and the big wooden door bangs shut.

And then she turns, and runs her eyes from the top of my head, down the length of my body and all the way back up again.

It’s a full thirty seconds before she speaks, and by the time she’s finished with her caustic inspection, I feel as though I’ve been given a going-over with a wire brush. There’s no more silly coquettishness about her. And her expression, now that he’s gone, is an interesting mixture of contempt and curiosity. Eventually, she unsteeples her fingers, aligns her forearms with the arms of her chair, hands dangling loosely by her thighs, and speaks.

‘So. You’ve landed on your feet, haven’t you?’ she says, in a tone that allows me to harbour no doubts that I might have got the wrong end of the stick. Lady Mary Callington-Warbeck-Wattestone means business, and an upstart like me is not a foe who alarms her.

I take a long, slow drink of water to give myself some thinking time. It’s always useful to have a prop or two to hand for these sorts of contingencies. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons so many people still smoke. Then I put my glass back on the table, very carefully and deliberately, lining it up so that the edge is up against the flourish of the cast-iron vine that runs around its surface. And then I smile and say: ‘Yip. I reckon I have.’

I don’t say any more. Purposefully, I cross my hands on the table and sit in silence, waiting to see what comes next.

Lady Mary shows off her own black belt in prop usage. She reaches sideways and plucks from the ground by her left ankle the small, plain black clutch bag she was carrying when she entered my world. Opens it and produces a lipstick that is encased in one of those tampon-shaped compacts people give each other as stocking-fillers and then usually store in backs of drawers to pass on to someone else. Quietly and deliberately, she twists the base, producing an inch-long, immaculate stick of going-on-apricot pink greasepaint, which has been worn, I notice, on both sides. Holding up the tiny mirror built into the inside of the compact lid, she sweeps the stick once across her lower lip, twice across her upper, crushes the lips together to set the colour, then retracts the stick, replaces the lid, slips the whole into the compact, pops the popper, returns it to the clutch bag, closes the catch on the bag, leans sideways and replaces it upon the ground. ‘Take that, whippersnapper!’ each movement says. ‘Did you think you could outmanoeuvre me with a water glass? Just wait till you see what I can do with a teaspoon!’