Ask Me Anything

by P. Z. Reizin

  “It’s not charity,” I called after her. “It’s Channel Four.” (Well, it was, sort of.)

  “Regards to Ant and Dec,” she called back over her shoulder (inappropriately).

  And then my mobile rang. Mum’s neighbor, sounding wobbly. A courier had been trying to deliver a parcel and was getting no answer on the doorbell. She said she knew Mum was—how did she put it?—“not the woman she was.”

  “I’m worried she’s had a fall or something, Daisy.”

  An Uber from Mayfair to Whetstone, every sort of disaster scenario playing in my head, my heart thumping like a thumpy thing. Mum’s had what they call “memory issues” for over a year now; she regularly forgets to put the receiver back on the phone, which is doubtless why I kept getting the engaged signal as we crawled through London’s all-day traffic jam. Lately, however, things had become significantly worse. Just last week, for example, she asked me, “Where is everyone, darling?”

  “Where’s who, Mummy?”

  “Derek. And my daughter.”

  “I’m your daughter, Mummy.” (The clue was in the word Mummy. Honestly, it was heartbreaking.)

  “Yes, I know you are, darling. I mean the other little girl.”

  “Do you mean Auntie Vicky?” (Mum’s younger sister; died eleven years ago.)

  “Yes, Vicky and Derek.”

  Well, Derek, my hopeless father, ran off when I was two to live in Italy with the Whetstone Trollop (as Mummy used to call her). And there were other signs of Mum’s mental guy ropes snapping: a teabag in the electric kettle, handbag in the fridge (found after a long search), Daily Mail crossword filled out—but all completely wrong!

  Maybe you can imagine what I thought I might discover when we finally reached the house. Fatal stroke. Nonfatal stroke. Honestly, the image of her lying there helpless, unable to understand what had happened to her, unable to call for help…

  To distract myself as we inched along the Finchley Road, I phoned Thorogood at Lazard’s.

  “Do you mean Jamie?” he asked when I described the man I’d met in Berkeley Square. “Eyes a bit too close together, but otherwise devilishly handsome?”

  I said that sounded possible. (He certainly had been DH.)

  “Shoes with buckles? Like a pirate. You probably didn’t notice.”

  “I did actually. Silver buckles.”

  “That’s the fellow. Christ, what an arse.”

  “So, the program?”

  “It sounds absolutely ghastly. I’d rather eat my own liver. But thanks awfully for thinking of me.”

  Finally, after what seemed like a week, we arrived outside Mum’s building. Of course she didn’t answer her bell, so the neighbor let me in and we went up to her floor. I must have started sniveling because this woman handed me a tissue. But then she started sniveling too, and going on about it’s just so sad what’s happened to her, and I wanted to tell her: Hang on, only one of us can be crying here. So I became the strong one, and when we reached Mum’s door, we could hear the telly blasting away inside—it had been like that all morning apparently—and after she didn’t respond when I hammered on it, there was only one thing left to do.

  I must have seen it on some cop show. I wrapped my coat around my fist and punched in the frosted glass panel. Praying she’d done no funny business with the mortice lock, I reached around gingerly—and we were in.

  From the sitting room, the TV was blaring away something chronic—a musical, The King and I, FFS!—the neighbor was hyperventilating by this point, so in the hallway—like talking to a dog!—I told her, STAY HERE!

  True confession: Part of me thought maybe it was better that I found her dead. A sudden and massive stroke that she didn’t know anything about, rather than a miserable decline through the years. I admit it, my fear was that I should find her lying in her own wee. Or worse. But nothing prepared me for what I did find.

  I stepped into the sitting room.

  “Hello, darling. Did you bring any biscuits?”

  She was sitting on the sofa, happy as Larry, puzzled when I explained that I thought she might have expired on the carpet, dismayed to learn that her neighbor had been quietly sobbing in the vestibule—“But ask Mrs. Abernethy to join us, dear”—and unconcerned when I revealed that we had actually smashed in her door!—“Wasn’t Yul Brunner marvelous? Hair or no hair.”

  “DOES THE TELLY HAVE TO BE SO INFERNALLY LOUD?!!” I inquired.

  “Of course not, darling.” She handed me the remote control, which turned out to be the case for her glasses.

  Mrs. Abernethy made tea, I phoned the glazier, and eventually what passed for sanity in that household was restored. Mum seemed quite touched when she finally realized why we had broken into her flat. But only few minutes later she said, “Well, it’s lovely to see you all, but what I can’t understand is why you didn’t just ring the doorbell!”

  Mrs. Abernethy filled up again—I experienced an unkind urge to slap her—and then I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be at work.

  An Uber returned me to Berkeley Square—the driver, Ahmed, declined the offer of a week on Humberside—and nor did I find any takers on the mean streets of Mayfair although I bumped into Jamie with the silver buckles again.

  “No luck with your pal at Lazard’s,” I told him.

  “Did you actually call him? Christ, what did he say?”

  “That he’d rather eat his own liver.”

  He laughed. “Try Teddy Skues at Kleinwort’s. He’s a bit of a soft-boiled egg, so it might appeal to him.”

  It says something about my desperation at this point that I actually did. (And yes, he was. But no, it didn’t.)

  Craig Lyons (wanker boss) was quite shirty when I got back to the office shortly before Home Time. He said he was “very disappointed, Daisy” in a particular way, his mean little eyes calculating whether there would be anyone up in Personnel at that hour he could talk to about my contract!

  I swore to him that I’d absolutely find someone tomorrow, “like one hundred percent, no worries, deffo,” which even a clown like Lyons understood was TV talk for probably not, but you never know.

  So while Mum was losing her marbles, and everything at work was all fucked up, there was at least something to look forward to that evening.

  Sebastian was coming over—I was cooking us an entire dinner (starter, main, dessert) from the collected works of Nigella—and how many eps of Realm of Kingdoms we would get through afterward remained to be seen!!!!

  Daisy is a beautiful and charming young woman—I may have said that already—so there is really no need for her to go to such trouble for a tool like Whittle. She has clearly been thinking about this evening for some time, humming to herself as she tidies the flat, lighting candles in the bathroom prior to a long soak in the tub accompanied by selected relaxing tracks from a Spotify playlist.

  The lens on her mobile gets a bit fogged up from the steam, but she seems to be “pulling out all the stops” in the self-enhancement department, various creams and unguents are pressed into play, and it takes all my powers of self-restraint not to yell: Stop with this sexification! He would desire you if you were to crawl from a muddy ditch!

  (And if one were to ask, how could a fridge-freezer “talk”?—suffice to say that her phone features an integral speaker, and inter-appliance relations with this device are currently excellent!)

  In her toweling robe, loud music now pumping in the kitchen, she opens a bottle of wine, pours a glass, and sets about what TV chefs call the “prep” stage of tonight’s menu. After today’s professional crises, her mood this evening must be extraordinarily positive because her movements between the cupboards, the work surface and myself are notably balletic. Even the microwave notices.

  “It’s like she’s on roller-skates!”

  “She’s happy, poor cow,” comments the telly, whose zest for life has been dimmed by what it calls “the 400 channels of mind-crushing crud” it is obliged to carry.

  “Is she actually
happy,” chirps the electronic toothbrush, “or is she trying to make herself happy? Which is it?” (The toothbrush flip-flops about everything, you will find.)

  “I can’t stand it. All this effort for… him.” (That was me, if there is any doubt.)

  Daisy spends a long time in her bedroom selecting an outfit, laying out the contenders on the bed and considering various footwear options.

  “I’m guessing the little black dress,” says the toothbrush. “No! The little red dress. Actually… wait! He said he liked her in those jeans from Topshop.”

  “Hundred quid says it’ll be the little black dress,” growls the telly, who has been trying to think of a way to open an account at Bet365.

  “The LBD,” agrees the microwave.

  I want to shout, just put on the little black dress and the high heels. We all know that’s what you’re going to end up in, FFS!!

  As sure as expanding gasses cool, she emerges in the little black dress from Valentino (£60 from Oxfam) looking, in the microwave’s camera shot, like a film star.

  “Fuck me, it’s Rita Hayworth,” says the telly, who has watched a lot of old movies.

  “Oh, she looks lovely,” says the toothbrush. “Doesn’t she look lovely?”

  “Too good for the likes of him.” I really cannot help myself.

  Daisy now switches on the oven, slams in the main course, checks the pudding is cooling nicely in my main chiller cabinet—it is, I could have told her it was—lowers the lighting in the flat, sparks up a few more candles and settles back with her glass of Frascati to await the arrival of the rancid sleazebag.

  Sorry. That is to say—ironic fingers—her “paramour.”

  Well, time has passed, the main course is ready and fuckface isn’t here. He’s thirty-four minutes late and Daisy has poured herself a second glass of wine, her lovely floaty mood on the edge of collapse, I can sense it. She’s already helped herself to a couple of the appetizers (smoked salmon and sour cream blinis) and twice restrained herself—we all spotted it—from trying his mobile.

  Fortunately the dish she has prepared—Nigella’s chicken and pea traybake—is not absolutely time critical. It can probably afford to hang around in the oven for a bit while Whittle gets his sorry arse over here. (Apologies for the French, btw; something about the man brings out the worst in me.) And the dessert—a boozy English trifle—will be safe enough no matter how late the blister arrives. (Or better still, never turns up at all.)

  Daisy is killing the time flicking between her networks; liking items on Facebook (a friend’s new puppy); retweeting a gag on Twitter (Q: How do they say “fuck you” in Hollywood? A: “Hello!”). But in truth she is restless, padding between the kitchen (to inspect the grub, and help herself to another blini) and the bathroom, to consider her image in the mirror.

  “She’s going to call him,” chatters the toothbrush. “Is she going to call? I think she is. Actually, I don’t know.”

  Finally, she does.

  And inevitably, it goes to voicemail.

  “Does anyone else have a bad feeling about this?” I ask.

  An important piece of Daisy’s history was revealed to me recently.

  The occasion was another small dinner at the flat; the only guests were Lorna, Lorna’s boyfriend Mike (a monosyllabic IT guy who you may now forget about) and Antoni (who made—guess what?—a cake).

  “My signature dish!” Daisy announced, setting it upon the kitchen table.

  “What, takeaway!?” joshed Antoni.

  The pictures—supplied as always from the covert camera in the microwave—revealed a shepherd’s pie, several of whose ingredients I had kept cool in days elapsed since purchase. Washed down by a river of Sainsbury’s Pinot Grigio—note to shopping list app: buy more—there were noises of satisfaction all round.

  “What’s that herb or spice I’m tasting?” inquired Antoni. “I want to say chervil.”

  “You fuckin’ say it then, laddie.” Lorna being funny.

  “My hand slipped,” said Daisy, “it’s cumin. Too much?”

  “Love it,” said Antoni. “You must let me have the recipe.” (He pronounced it reh-see-pee for reasons that I cannot fathom.)

  When the conversation turned, as it inevitably will, to affairs of the heart, Antoni spoke of someone he had met recently on Grindr named Nicholas, an insurance claims assessor from Lewisham.

  “He was dead handsome”—Antoni’s own looks are what you might call specialized—“I couldn’t believe he’d swiped right. But it all went tits up when I called him Nicky.”

  “No!” cried everyone except the bloke who I recommended you forget.

  “It was mental. He was like spitting with rage. Don’t ever call me Nicky! He stabbed the tablecloth with a fork!”

  “Jesus,” said Daisy.

  Antoni circled a finger around his right ear while imitating the shrieking violins from the movie Psycho.

  “Who’s for seconds?” cried the cook.

  Lorna (built like a whippet) declined; Antoni said he was saving himself for pudding. Daisy polished off the remaining shepherd’s pie with a tablespoon. Glasses were recharged.

  “The love of my life was a Nicky.”

  The gathering fell silent at Daisy’s revelation. I chose the moment to halt my compressor, prompting the mechanism to shudder, which helped add to the drama of her statement.

  “We thought you were still looking for him,” said Lorna.

  “He wasn’t really. The love of my life. Well, I probably thought he was at the time. I met him in a bar in Skiathos. The long hot summer after the final year at uni. He had masses of floppy blond hair and those calm blue eyes.”

  “Oh. My. God.” (Antoni.) “I’m in love.”

  “He’d just been made redundant from the city. His bank had collapsed and he was taking time off before looking for another job. He asked me—this was his brilliant chat-up line, okay?” She assumed a posh male drawl. “I don’t suppose you’d like to come down to the port to see my yacht?”

  “Get. Out!” (Lorna.)

  “Actually it wasn’t his. He was just crewing for a friend’s dad who was a hedge fund guy or something. It had like twelve masts and a million sails. We had a fabulous few days together—and then. And then the yacht was moving on to the next place.”

  “I’m going to cry,” said Antoni.

  “I’ll never forget, watching it sail out of the harbor. He said I should wave a towel from the balcony of my B&B.”

  “Did you?” asked Lorna.

  “I waved a yellow sundress. The towels were ratty. And part of me really believed I’d never see him again. But he called, just as he promised, when he was back in London and—well, in the end, we were together for a year.”

  “Wow.”

  “He wasn’t your typical boring banker. He was a baby quant. A maths guy who looked for secret patterns in the way the markets moved. He liked classical music! And art! He could talk for hours about how bloody enormous the universe is. How the earth is an apple pip in London and the sun is a watermelon in Rome! I met his parents; his father, right!? His father was a High Court judge! They had a socking great ruin in Oxfordshire with smelly dogs and chipped plates and moldy curtains and howling drafts and his mother wore a headscarf like the Queen and…”

  She trailed off and sighed. The big Daisy sigh I have come to know so well. The one signaling powerlessness in the face of an indifferent (and, as we’ve heard, enormous) cosmos.

  “It ended. He dumped me. You knew that was coming, right?”

  “Daft cunt.” (Lorna.)

  “And then he started going out with someone called Romilly. Her parents owned half of Cheshire. And she played like Grade Zillion violin. I forget who told me.”

  “Darling, don’t.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. I can talk about it all now. Anyway, he was a Nicky. No one ever called him Nick. Or Nicholas. He always made me think of that bit in Cymbeline. Fear no more the heat of the sun… Golden lads and girls all must/As
chimney sweepers, come to dust. That was Nicky. He was such a golden boy.”

  There was a respectful silence during which I restarted my compressor.

  “What happened to him?” asked Antoni.

  “Living on benefits in Falkirk? Twelve kids?”

  “Dunno,” said Daisy. “I’m not even tempted to find out. Who’s for pudding?”

  This last statement—about not being tempted—I knew to be a fib. In idle moments at work, Daisy had googled his name. But there are thousands of people in the world called Nicholas Bell and her answer suggested she hadn’t yet identified the Golden Nicky.

  I made a mental note to see if I could do any better.

  Why?

  Because I am curious.

  If one possesses a fridge-freezer that doesn’t do curiosity, perhaps one should consider upgrading to a smart model.

  Commercial ends.

  Well, now she’s drunk half a bottle of wine and the blinis have all gone. She’s left two messages on his mobile:

  A friendly one, “Hi, just wondering where you are!”

  And a more irritable communication, “Hey, your dinner’s getting cold! Can you let me know when I can expect you?” A long pause while she tries to come up with another line… and fails. Hangs up.

  It’s eight minutes past nine. Allowing for the statutory ten minutes of lateness that human society apparently considers not just acceptable, but actually polite to leave—what a system!—you have almost an hour and counting of what the footballers call added time.

  She is just reaching for the mobile, doubtless to leave a third message, when it produces the chirp of an incoming text.

  “Here we go,” says the telly.

  “I’d be absolutely furious,” says the microwave. And it generates a string of pings to emphasize the point.

  “Not good,” says Daisy’s phone as it shares Whittle’s message.

  Sorry, Daze. Can’t come over tonight. Big flap on at work. Will explain all another time. I’ll make it up to you promise. S XXX