by Beth Morrey
“Sylvie did explain? We need a cake. A, um, robot cake.”
He made a little moue of distaste. “Yes, she explain. It is not what we usually do, but she is very great friend.”
“What do you usually do?”
He indicated the table. “People sit there. And I bring them . . . les gateaux. If you wait ’ere, I will bring you yours.”
He disappeared through another door at the far end of the room and I waited, checking my watch and tapping my foot. We had twenty minutes. Forty foot taps later, he emerged, carrying a huge box.
“You don’t know what I ’ad to do to make this ’appen,” he said, resting it carefully on the table. I stepped forward and reached out to open the box. He slapped my hand away.
“Do not open until you get to your party.” I shrank back, chastened. He was very forbidding. I’d always imagined cake shop owners were jolly.
I paused. “But . . . I just wanted to check that it’s . . . a robot.”
He snorted. “It is robot. It is best robot you ever see. Trust me.” He handed me a separate paper bag. “This is a little flourish I add, make sure you don’t forget.”
“What do I owe you?” I asked, feeling faintly sick, sure Angela’s roll of notes couldn’t possibly cover this. But he brushed away the question as he’d brushed away my hand.
“There is no money required. This is favor for my friend Sylvie.” I felt dizzy with relief and embarrassment.
“You ’ave car outside?” he asked, interrupting my halting expression of thanks. I nodded, and he picked up the box again, ordering me to open the door for him. Together we maneuvered it into the back of the taxi. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes. We could do it, but we’d have to drive slowly. As the engine rumbled, Monsieur Durand’s face loomed at the window. He tapped at the glass and I opened it.
He leaned forward menacingly. “You tell Sylvie we’re even now, yes? No more favors?” He smiled and his teeth gleamed in the gloom of the cab. They were slightly pointed.
“Definitely. I’ll tell her,” I gasped, and the head retreated. He smacked the side of the car and we were on our way. “Drive carefully,” I said to the driver and saw him nod, his eyes on the road.
My heart leaped at every speed bump on the way back, but the box remained upright. We pulled up at the church hall at 4:56 P.M. Angela was hovering outside. As I got out of the cab I saw she was holding an unlit cigarette.
“Just holding it for comfort,” she said. “How did you get on?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, turning back to the driver. “Derek, how much is that?” But once again, my roll of notes was pushed away. “No charge,” he said cheerily. “I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I picked up a bloke dressed as Batman and he pointed in front and said, ‘Follow that car.’”
“Oooh,” said Angela. “Was he chasing a baddie?”
“Sort of,” said Derek. “He was on his way to a bachelor party.” He got out of the taxi and picked up the cake box. “Now, where do you want this?”
I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you so much.”
“Come round the back,” said Angela.
Together we carried the cake round the back of the building and through to the kitchen. The empty silver cakeboard was still next to the sink.
“Any sign of the original?”
Angela shook her head grimly. “It’s that little fucker Horatio, I know it. He’s got silver paint in his hair.”
Derek put the box on the table, Angela took the lid off and we all looked inside.
“Holy shit,” she said.
Nestled in the box was the most glorious robot cake I had ever seen. Well, I had never actually seen a robot cake before. But none could live up to the splendid beauty of this one. It was a vivid blue, sitting up with its legs out, with bright red buttons, and a TV screen across its chest that read OTIS. Its licorice and icing grill mouth was smiling at us.
“That’s some robot cake,” said Derek, stepping back to admire it.
“Fuck, I haven’t got any candles,” said Angela, scrabbling around in drawers.
I remembered the “flourish” and looked in the bag I was holding. Inside there were five candles and two sparklers.
“Here you go.” I stuck the candles on the robot’s outstretched legs and arranged the sparklers either side of his head, as antennae. Looking at my watch, I saw that it was 5:02 P.M. “Time to go.”
“You should take it in,” urged Angela. “You did it all.”
“No, I want to watch.” I shook hands with Derek, telling him I hoped his grandchildren came soon, and he left via the back door, while I slipped back into the hall and went in search of the light switch.
As I’d watched my own children decades before, I kept my eyes on Otis’s little face in the darkness, alight with excitement and anticipation, tiny body shivering with the joy of it all, gremlin-friends surrounding him as he waited. Even the parents stopped gassing about loft renovations long enough to appreciate Angela’s entrance. Her face was illuminated by the sparklers, grinning at the “ooohs” and “aaahs” of the assembled party, her eyes softening and blinking rapidly as she saw his reaction, his gasp of astonishment and wonder as everyone began to sing. He blew out the candles, his eyes screwed up with the effort of huffing and wishing at once, everyone cheering as the flames were extinguished, the smoke carrying our prayers to the heavens. I thought about what Derek had said. That was what it was about, them doing their thing, and you just enjoying it. Why had I waited so long to be able to do it? I clapped and cheered along with everyone else, and then, as the lights came on again, there was a piercing scream from one of the mothers.
“Horatio Lysander Swinton!” she bellowed. “What on earth is this?”
We all surged toward her as she held out her bag, her tan buckled leather bag that looked like it had cost several bonuses, and was now filled with the crushed remains of one homemade robot cake with Satellite Wafer antennae. As the other mothers crowded round her patting and sympathizing, I could hear Angela’s cackles from the kitchen.
The parents began their good-byes, and the children clamored for party bags, so Angela hastily reemerged, buckling under a tray of them, eyes rolling as she totted up children versus bags. She moved through the throng pawed by eager mites, little claws snatching, each retreating to inspect and compare their hauls. A wilting Otis was curling around his mother like a kitten while she riffled through her tray, patting cheeks and tweaking pigtails as she distributed her largesse, a lollipop stick jutting out of her mouth. She still hadn’t smoked.
“Wonderful cake,” said one of the mothers as she left.
“I made it myself,” said Angela, poker-faced.
Later, while Otis opened his presents on the floor, we sat in the kitchen polishing off the last of each prosecco bottle and bitching about the other mothers.
“Some terrible parenting going on there,” drawled Angela, watching Otis crowing as he ripped the wrapping off a Star Wars sticker book. “One of them—Tybalt or Gawain or whatever—bit another so hard he drew blood. And his mum looked at the bite mark and said, ‘The trouble with gifted children is they have such energy.’”
I giggled and then checked my watch. “I must be going, it’s nearly six and Bobby will be wanting a walk. Shall I help you clear up some more?” The robot cake’s remains were lodged next to the sink, ruthlessly denuded to bulk out the goody bags.
“No, don’t worry, there’s not much more to do, and besides, you saved the day today.”
“Not really. It was Sylvie.”
“I’ve saved her a slice. It’s bloody good cake.”
“I made it myself,” I mimicked.
She winked. “Got to get some credit since mine ended up in Mama Swinton’s Hermès.”
I said good-bye to Otis and wandered home, relishing the brighter nights
now that we were edging farther into spring. As I unlocked the front door, I steeled myself for the usual ecstatic greeting from Bobby, Bruce Bunny hanging out one side of her mouth.
We set off on our walk together, and since it was such a lovely evening I treated her to a quick turn around the park, where she could have a more leisurely sniff, soaking up the new smells of the season. As usual I wished Leo were here to enjoy it with me, and thought how much he would have loved Bobby, grown to adore her as much as I did, her quirks and idiocies, her headlong tilt at life.
As the sun set over the thickening greenery, I chewed over the events of the day, chuckling to myself at the thought of Horatio stashing the cake, and my flight into the shady world of French pâtissiers. Then the laughter died in my throat as we turned out of the park and with a sudden, bloodcurdling howl Bobby launched herself forward. Across the road I saw a cat, her deadliest enemy, tail flickering as it gazed at us impassively from its vantage point. With another strangled growl, Bobby wrenched back and, just as she had at Mel’s wedding, slipped her collar and dived out into the road in search of her foe.
It all happened very quickly. The car came out of nowhere, Bobby a blur of brown and amber as she hurtled across the road, snapped up by the flash of scarlet and silver metal as it smashed into her. I stood on the pavement, rooted in shock as I struggled to process what was happening, then gave up, sinking to the ground, gravel grinding into my knees as the car screeched to a halt and the driver got out, circling his vehicle in growing horror to find Bobby’s poor crumpled body. I thought of the robot cake, pristine in its box, then in pieces by the sink. One minute something was intact; the next, shattered. Untied, released, destroyed.
Someone screamed on the other side of the street, and a figure darted forward to bend over my Bobby. Then I was able to move; no one should touch her but me. I rushed into the road, crouched at her side and cradled her bloody and broken form in my arms, rocking her to sleep like a child, crooning over the silken ears and burying my face in the lustrous mane for one last time. Her eyes were open; those lovely chocolate eyes that melted me, begging for her treats. She was still warm, the warmest thing in my life. My Bobby, the dog I didn’t want, didn’t own, but who was truly mine in a way that no one else ever had been.
“I love you, I love you, I love you. Please come back.”
I sobbed into her soft neck, but there was no answer, and I could feel the very essence of her gone, a vapor-thread that swirled and faded into the spring breeze.
We stayed like that for a while, the driver stuttering his apologies over our heads while we rocked together, cherry blossom drifting around us like snow. Eventually someone—was it Phillip? Or maybe Simon—appeared and helped me up, promising that he would bring Bobby home to rest. As they led me away, I saw the cat, still sitting there, looking at us, its tail flapping like the stingray under the sand.
Chapter 43
A week after Leo’s diagnosis, we decided to go and watch a fireworks display.
We’d spent days stagnating in the house, Leo in his study and me in the living room, occasionally loitering in the hallway, my hand hovering above the handle of his door, wanting to go in but unsure of what to say when I did. I could hear him moving around in there, shifting papers and books, playing Bach, and sometimes—horrifyingly—weeping. I should have gone in then, but I had no words to comfort him when the void overwhelmed me too. What could I say to my husband of over fifty years who was being ruthlessly shredded by this terrible disease? So I cleaned the kitchen and made hearty stews whose scents pervaded the house, but didn’t tempt him out.
So much unsaid between us. As I ferociously scrubbed and stirred, the words echoed in my head, fighting to get out. But I knew they wouldn’t come out right, so swallowed them down, as I always had. Hearing the tinny twitch of the letter slot, I marched out to clear up the post, stuff it all away, get rid of it. The local Gazette lay on the doormat and I swept it up, ready to decant into the recycling, but instead found myself sinking into a chair at the kitchen table, idly leafing through it. The bustling, mundane concerns of the community soothed me for a second—someone, somewhere was worrying about schoolchildren loitering outside a public swimming pool; someone else was campaigning for extra lighting on an apartment block; an article about the lack of dog waste bins. Life went on, even if in our world everything had stalled.
A local residents’ association had organized a fireworks display in a nearby square. When we lived in Cambridge, we’d gone to the Midsummer Common event, and I remembered leaning against Leo’s reassuring bulk in the spicy cold, both our breaths mingling as we gazed up. It felt like a heartening image to hold on to, and maybe even one to resurrect. So I took the paper in to him and found him sitting at his desk, his head in his hands. When he looked up, his expression was as desolate as I’d ever seen it. I wanted to take him in my arms, smooth away the lines of despair and rebuild his shattered self with nuts and bolts to make it secure. Instead I waved the paper in his face and said, “We should go to this.”
“Upwards and onwards,” he said, like he always did. Except he’d got it the wrong way round. I tried not to wince.
On the night of the display, we walked slowly toward the square, taking care not to slip on the pavement’s carpet of mulched leaves. Eventually Leo took my arm, and I didn’t know whether it was to stop me falling, or to stop himself. “Nice night,” he said.
I looked at the sliver of crescent moon glowing against the black. Like Leo, slowly disappearing until there was only a tiny crack of light left. Soon it would be too late. All the unsaid things between us.
We arrived to find that the whole neighborhood appeared to have descended, bustling about the square clutching plastic cups of punch. Some had sparklers, bright batons bristling in the darkness as they gesticulated, like a series of mad conductors. I could smell hot dogs and smoke and bonfire toffee and was grateful for the assault on my senses. The same smells, same traditions, same expectations, year after year. Something to cling to, when everything else was falling from my grasp.
As we had for so many years—as newly married sweethearts, as harassed young parents surrounded by shrieking children, and now, as an elderly couple sheltering from the storm of diagnosis—we leaned against each other and looked up when the sky began to snap and crackle above us. As always, my mouth fell open and I allowed myself to sink into the primal delight of those bright particular stars that sparked and showered and faded, the accompanying fizz billowing round the square as the crowd oohed and aahed.
And as my heart began to throb in synchrony with the detonations, I felt a demon take root. The fire and immediacy of the moment. So much left unsaid. I found I couldn’t bear not to say the most important thing, the thing I’d carried all these years—suddenly it was imperative that the unshareable should be shared, before it was too late. My mouth was already open—all that was left was to say it. Say it. Bertie.
His name bubbled in my throat as I contemplated the act. My legs felt weak. I could feel Leo behind me, looming above, and half-turned to look at him, to see if it was in fact the moment. His head was thrown back, his eyes fixed on the flickering sky, and he looked so much like the Leo of his youth, the one who walked away, oblivious to the wreckage, that once again I pulled back from the precipice.
It was over in twenty minutes. The fireworks, and my moment of madness. The show ended in a volley of cracks, bangs and whistles, a chorus of “aaahs” from the crowd and a final barrage of dazzling shots. Leo took my arm again and without a word we began to walk back as fireworks elsewhere boomed and snapped around us. The lingering terror of the almost-confession and the noise of the rockets made me think of those nights in the cellar with Fa-Fa, thrill and horror, darkness and light, shelter and peril, fiction and reality all merging and swirling together until you didn’t know which was which.
Back home, we stopped at our front gate, savoring the icy stillness of the
air and the anticipation of a warm house, but as Leo put out a hand to push our way in, I blurted: “I need to tell you something.”
The hand paused in mid-air and in that split second before he turned, I suddenly felt that he knew what was coming. His question hovered unspoken between us but I’d gone over now, so I carried on: “There was a baby. Or at least, the start of one.”
His expression in the darkness had the shuttered quality of a house boarded up for the holidays. I stumbled on: “In 1956. You left. And I . . . didn’t realize.”
He took his hand away from the gate but still didn’t say anything. “I was terrified. You know what it was like back then. And I thought I’d never see you again. So I never said. And then you came back . . .”
His eyes were slits in the dark, slivers of crescent moons. “What happened to it?”
I’d gone over the edge but now we were teetering at a deeper abyss. I swallowed. “I . . . we . . . got rid of it. Mama and I. That summer after we first . . . I thought you were gone from me forever.”
He pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, trying to process the information.
“Why are you telling me this now?” he said, his shoulders lifting in a defeated kind of shrug.
“I’m sorry,” I faltered. “I had to tell you. Before . . . before it’s too late.” Crying now, my hands twisting round my scarf. “I called him Bertie,” I whispered. “I won’t ever forget. Or forgive myself. But I felt you had to know.”
“Before I go?” he returned harshly. “Some send-off.” He passed his hand across his face, as if erasing the memory.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “But it tore me apart. Doing it. And then not telling you. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us now. I’m sorry. I . . . I love you.”