Sisteria
Authors: Sue Margolis
For my children, who have brought me untold joy.
Particularly since they started leaving home.
Contents
Chapter 1
Artex, Beverley Littlestone had to admit, was a bugger. If a time came when they could afford to redecorate the bedroom, then those short, spiky stalactites hanging from the ceiling would definitely need going over with an electric sander. Or maybe it was possible to plaster over it. Alternatively they could leave the Artex alone and get a quote for a false ceiling, which could hang a few inches below the original. Might be cheaper and less messy in the long run.
Usually as Beverley lay on her back, gazing heavenwards while Melvin was humping and grinding on top of her, the Artex question would keep her occupied for the full two or three minutes it took him to come. Their sexual encounter this month was, however, taking him a minute or two longer than usual. As a result Beverley, having exhausted all the options bedroom-ceiling-wise, found herself contemplating in her mind's eye a map of the British Isles in an attempt to work out which was further west, Liverpool or Bristol. It was a quiz show question she'd heard on the radio the previous afternoon. She'd missed hearing the answer because the phone rang just as the contestant was about to reply.
Bound to be a trick question, Beverley thought, thrusting her pelvis and offering Melvin a perfunctory, but she hoped encouraging, moan. Bristol was in the West Country, virtually Devon. Most people would be bound to think it was further west than Liverpool. In which case the answer had to be Liverpool. Hadn't she read somewhere that the whole of the country tilted slightly to the left, so many places in the north were actually west of the West Country? She dug her nails into Melvin's back and thrashed her head from side to side. Unless of course it was a double bluff and the answer really was Bristol. There was nothing for it. Once she was up and dressed she'd go out to the car and check the answer in the road atlas. She was vaguely aware that Melvin's breathing had become faster and his grinding more urgent. A few more seconds and he'd be done.
It was only as he lay hot and breathless on top of her, his head buried in her breasts, that a thought, by no means unconnected with the Bristol/Liverpool conundrum, struck her.
âOh my God.' The words left her lips before she had a chance to stop them.
âWhat?' Melvin asked groggily, lifting his face towards her.
âNo, no. It's nothing. Really.' She was biting her bottom lip to stop herself laughing. This was one joke she daren't share with him. It would be far too hurtful. It would destroy his confidence utterly.
No, she just couldn't. It was inconceivable that she should tell her husband that, while he had been engaged in what he liked to think of as lovemaking, she had, quite literally, been lying back and thinking of England.
âIt's not me then?' Melvin asked, looking distinctly as if he didn't want to know the answer. âLook, I know you haven't had your turn. But you know how long you take and I've got to get to work.'
âIt's OK, Mel,' she said, âI'm not angry. Honest.' Beverley had come to terms with their indifferent shagging years ago. She simply accepted that sex with Melvin was a bit like shopping at Kwiksave. Not much to get excited about, but better than nothing.
âNo,' she went on, still desperately searching for something to say which would explain the Oh my God. âIt wasn't that. It's just that... I... Melvin, do you think I'm fat?'
âChrist. Not this one again,' he said, groaning and rolling off her. âHaven't I got enough on my mind without having to cope with you constantly going on about your weight?'
âI know. I'm sorry. I just get a bit insecure, that's all.'
âLook,' he said, gently now, âI've told you before. You're not fat. You're just...'
âI know. I'm just short for my weight. By rights I should measure eight foot three. Ha blinkin' ha.' She sat up, pulled a pillow from behind her back and whacked him not altogether playfully on the side of his arm.
âC'mon, Bev,' he said, ignoring the pillow and swinging his feet on to the carpet. âYou're forty-two. So, you're carrying a couple of extra pounds... Aren't we all?' He prodded one of his own fleshy breasts. âLook, I haven't got time for this now. I've got to get in the shower. Go on a diet if it bothers you that much.'
âBut I do diet. I diet all the time. You know I do. Then my willpower flags and I start eating again. I've lost the same half-stone so many times my cellulite's got déjà vu. I tell you, Mel, I don't need a diet. What I need is a tape worm.'
***
As Beverley plodded down the stairs in her dressing gown, she couldn't help wishing that instead of belittling her anxiety about her weight, Melvin had, just for once, taken her in his arms and told her she was still as beautiful as the day they met and shouldn't even think of going on a diet. Naturally it wouldn't have made any difference to the way she felt about herself. In her mind she didn't see a pretty, exceedingly well-preserved forty-two-year-old who had simply put on a few pounds since having children. She saw a blubbery lump who one day not long from now would step on the scales and they would read: âTo be continued.'
As she walked down the hall towards the kitchen, she decided to weigh herself. It had been a couple of days since she'd got on the scales. Then she'd been ten stone one. There was always the possibility that the two Danish pastries she'd eaten the night before had hoodwinked her digestive system by slipping through disguised as a pair of broccoli florets and that she'd dropped a couple of pounds.
âYeah, right,' she said with a self-mocking half-laugh.
She found the bathroom scales in their usual place in the bottom right-hand corner of the chest freezer, hidden under a jumbo bag of Iceland mini pizzas and a box of vol-au-vent cases dating back to 1995.
She kept them hidden because she was determined that her skinny, permanently-on-a-diet seventeen-year-old daughter shouldn't develop a full-blown eating disorder by discovering she had a mother who was equally obsessed by her weight.
She placed the scales on the floor and took off her dressing gown and slippers. Standing naked in the middle of her kitchen, she put one foot on the scales and winced as she registered the cold on her skin. Gingerly, she placed the other foot next to its partner. Anything under ten stone would be acceptable. An ounce over would have her seeking solace in doorstep slices of white bread and jam.
She dared to look down. Ten stone three. Ten bloody three. Panic surged through her. She was quite clearly turning into her elderly Aunty Dolly from Bournemouth, who had great fleshy underarms and a knee-length stomach. Beverley was putting on her dressing gown and imagining going into M&S and one of the nice lady assistants saying, âAnd what size knickers does madam usually take? Large, extra large or Suffolk?' when she heard the sound of letters dropping on to the mat. Resolving to start a new diet that very day, she put the scales back in the deep freeze, under the pizzas and vol-au-vent cases, and flip-flopped into the hall.
It was the hand-written address on one of them, as well as the envelope being of good quality and white, not bill-brown, which caught her eye. Beverley was convinced that while the rest of Jewish north-west London received nothing but a daily trickle of dinner party thank-you notes, invitations and the occasional presentation of polite, embossed compliments from Harley Street consultants, she and Melvin were the only couple whose post was made up almost entirely of final demands, warnings and threats of imminent distraint.
Due to Melvin's lack of anything approaching business sense, the Littlestones had been hard up throughout their twenty-year marriage. The only time they made ends meet was once a month when they had sex. Unlike her husband, who lived in perpetual and abject fear of what he always referred to as the âhate mail', Beverley was able to open bills, even red ones, without descending into a full-scale panic. She'd learned over the years that the receipt of a final demand meant they had several weeks' grace before the electricity people or whoever would âterminate' their supply. Letters from the water company she even managed to ignore completely. What would they do if they carried out one of their six-monthly threats to sue them and cut them off from water and sewerage? Would they send the Littlestones' waste products back up round the U-bend in final settlement? Even the final final demands - for which the creditor always abandoned red print and went back to the cold fury of black - had stopped causing her the anxiety they once did. This was largely because she knew from experience that no matter how close to financial ruin they had come over the last two decades, there had never been a time when Melvin hadn't managed to deliver them from the brink at the last moment by pulling off some heroic act of robbing Visa to pay Mastercard.
Beverley had no desire to be hugely rich. Like most people, she knew money didn't bring happiness. It was just that given the choice she would rather have been miserable and owned a dishwasher that worked, not to mention a few new bras. Most of hers had lost their underwires years ago and were offering her about as much support as Andrea Dworkin at the Miss World contest. Not that she allowed herself to get miserable. As she wandered round the supermarket, rummaging through the cut-price bins full of unwanted tins of water chestnuts and pilchards, she would always remind herself that she had her health and two beautiful, intelligent children, and that life could be so much worse. She'd even managed to save a couple of quid every month out of her housekeeping and put it in a building society. It was her rainy-day fund. Even now it didn't amount to very much. A slight drizzle would have wiped it out.
***
Beverley couldn't remember the last time she'd received a real letter. Her delight was almost childlike. Ignoring the bills for once and deciding to leave them on the mat for Melvin, she bent down and picked up the white envelope. She instantly recognized the handwriting.
âGood Lord,' she gasped, her excitement turning to mild shock. As she stood staring at the upward-slanting loops and swirls, she could feel her heart starting to pound with delight - but simultaneously with the unpleasant memories of five years ago. For a second, she even thought about binning the letter there and then. But curiosity soon got the better of her. After a moment's hesitation, she ripped into the envelope and unfolded the smooth, expensive paper.
***
Perched on one of the high kitchen stools, Beverley took a mouthful of tea and began reading the short letter for the third time. She was so engrossed that she failed to hear the quick, angry thud from the front hall of platforms on stair carpet. The thuds grew louder and finally turned into a hard, clacking sound as Natalie Littlestone's leopardskin suede boots, new from Shelly's the previous weekend, and paid for with her babysitting money, made contact with the ceramic kitchen tiles. The clacking was accompanied by a short burst of the hysterical shrieking Beverley had now come to accept as her daughter's sole means of communication.
âOmigod, my life is so fucking pants.' Natalie, for whom the letters PMT stood for Permanent Menstrual Tension, stomped over to the fridge, yanked open the door and then let go of the handle so that the door swung back violently on its hinges.
Beverley didn't look up from the letter.
âYou break that fridge door, Natalie,' she said with studied calmness, âand you pay for it.'
âSee, you don't care about me,' Natalie wailed at full volume. âYour daughter's life is fucking pants and you don't give a toss. You can't even be arsed to look at me.' She took the two-litre plastic bottle of milk from the fridge and slammed the door shut. âI could have cancer and you still wouldn't care.'
Beverley tugged her dressing gown, which had started to gape slightly, across her knees and then drained her mug of tea.
âAt least if you got cancer,' she said, putting down the mug and turning towards her daughter, âyou wouldn't have the strength to break the fridge.'
âThat's it, you hate me, don't you?' Natalie howled as she opened the bottle and brought it crashing down on to the worktop so that milk came shooting out of the top. âBloody hell, what kind of mother wishes cancer on her daughter?'
âNatalie, why is it that every other word which comes out of your and your brother's mouth is a swear word?'
It was a rhetorical question. Beverley knew only too well that her children's school was to blame for the constant bad language. She and Melvin couldn't begin to afford private school fees, and Melvin had refused to let them go to the Jewish Free School because although he liked the Free bit, he always felt the Jewish bit was somehow too, well, Jewish. So Natalie and Benny had ended up travelling from Finchley to Muswell Hill each day to a comprehensive which prided itself on a third of the kids coming from middle-class backgrounds, while conveniently glossing over the fact that two thirds didn't.
âStop trying to change the subject,' Natalie said. âC'mon, tell me... What kind of a mother wishes cancer on her daughter?'
Beverley let out a long sigh. âFor heaven's sake, Natalie,' she said, watching her daughter sploshing milk over a minute portion of Coco Pops, âI do not hate you, and nor do I wish you to get cancer. I don't know how you could even suggest such a thing. Come on, sweetheart, I'll scramble you a couple of eggs. What you've got there won't keep you going till lunchtime.' As she spoke, she folded the single sheet of notepaper into four and slipped it underneath the wooden pepper grinder.
âIt's OK, Mum. Just leave it, will you,' Natalie snapped. âCereal's fine.'
Beverley looked at her daughter and shrugged.
âOK,' she said, âturn into an anorexic. See if I care.' She paused before changing emotional tack.
âCome on, Nat,' she said warmly, âtalk to me. What's happened now? When is your life not “pants”?'
Natalie didn't reply. Instead, she rammed a single spoonful of Coco Pops into her mouth, so that Beverley caught a glimpse of her shiny silver tongue stud, and grimaced.